Ark - A Love Story

Life on Ark

Rey was surviving on Ark. No. He was thriving. He had a whole arsenal of dinosaurs and other terrifying creatures that listened to his every command. He had a two-story base built out of stone and was in the process of turning it into metal. He had tall stone walls that surrounded his base, preventing anyone from just barging in and destroying everything he had built. In the few times something came close he had a tek parasaur's radar enabled to tell him. Life on Ark was going great. Until one day.

He was hanging out on the porch of his house cooking some meat when his tek parasaur's started to go nuts, warning him something was near. He left his meat and hopped onto the back of his favorite mount. Aria the Pteranodon. He flew into the sky and looked over the walls of his base and noticed three things charging toward the back gate. He flew closer and noticed one of those things was another human and the other two were raptors.

He had spent a lot of time with the Union and joined up with them. He helped out a few people that came knocking on his doors and led them on their way to survive in the dangerous world of Ark. His first instinct when he noticed this human was to help, and that's what he did. He moved hid Pteranodon desperate to reach the human before they were grabbed by the claws on the raptors.

This other human was terrified for their life. They had washed up on the shore of a random island, naked and alone. They started to walk around when they stumbled upon two raptors feeding on some dead creature. They failed at walking away unnoticed and was desperately trying to reach these large gates she saw in the distance, begging that whoever lived behind them would help them. 

When they reached the gates they began banging on them, screaming for help. They heard a screech and turned around to see the two raptors staring hungrily at them. Right before one raptor jumped out at her, they heard a different animal cry accompanied by the cry of a man. Then from over the walls, a large flying creature flew in and knocked the raptor back. The other raptor screeched and jumped at the creature but was stopped when a spear impaled its neck. They looked up to find a man wearing metal armor sitting on the back of the creature. They turned to look at them and pulled the mask off their face. He looked at them with a confused look.

"You're a woman," he said.

"Uh, yeah?" she said back to him, kind of offended.

"Sorry. I've just never seen a woman out here that wasn't wearing heavy metal armor. Are you alright?"

"I'm probably traumatized for life but other than that I'm fine. Who are you?"

"I'm Rey. You?"

"Katherine. "

"Nice to meet you. Do you want to come inside? I can probably find some clothes for you and some food."

"That would be nice," Katherine replied and pulled herself off of the gates.

"Alright." The man flew back over the gates and disappeared. A moment later the gate opened and she was met with an unbelievable sight. Dinosaurs were everywhere. Flying back to what she assumed was its post was the flying creature Rey flew in on. The man held out his hand and she took it. He pulled her inside the walls and closed the gate behind her. He led her through to the only building inside the walls. A two-story stone building. He left her on the porch, hurried inside and pulled out a chair. He sat her down and put something on the fire pit. He went back into the building, leaving her to observe the scene before her.

There were just so many dinosaurs! Further down was a group of brontosauruses. There were two adults ones with a much smaller one and instantly she fell in love with the bronto family. She also noticed closer to the building was a small group of raptors accompanied by a t-rex. Fear rose up into he chest and she found herself pushing up against the back of the chair, wanting to get as far away as possible but too scared to get up out of the chair. 

That's when Rey came back out and a look of confusion and concern appeared on his face.

"Is something wrong?"

"Raptors!" Katherine blurted out.

Rey looked to where she was staring to find his small pack of raptors minding their business communicating and enjoying their breakfast he had left out for them. He chuckled a little bit and made his way to Katherine.

"They're not going to hurt you."

"How do you know that?!"

"Because I trained them. You're also sitting on my porch and I usually don't tell my creatures to kill people unless they're an enemy."

"Am I an enemy?"

"No. I'm only enemies with people who attack me first. I only kill to defend myself. You don't have to worry."

Katherine eased down in her chair but she kept the raptors in her sight the whole time while Rey tried to find clothes that would fit her. Eventually he found a set of hide armor that he had lying around and handed them to her. He turned around and went to the fire and pulled something out of a pouch and placed it on the fire. Katherine took a look at the clothes and decided she'd rather wear something other than nothing. She managed to put the clothes on and while keeping her eyes on the raptors and other dangerous creatures in the distance, walked over to Rey to see what he was up to. Joy filled her chest when she noticed he was cooking something.

"Does it smell good?" Rey asked.

"Yeah. What is it from?" she asked.

"I don't remember. I've had this one sitting in my bin and it's going to go bad soon if I don't cook it up." He pulled the meat off of the fire, placed it on a makeshift plate and handed it to her with a makeshift fork and knife. "Eat up. You need it."

"Oh uh, thank you," Katherine said and took the plate of meat. Rey left the porch and began tending to his creatures, leaving Katherine with her thoughts and a very tasty looking piece of meat. She began to eat and started watching Rey as he tended to the creatures.

He would walk up to each creature, pet them a little bit, and do what she assumed was a quick check-up to make sure they were okay or something. By the time he was done, the sun was starting to set. He took Katherine's plate and motioned her to follow him as he walked inside his house. She did so and watched him as he placed the dirty plate in a pile of other dirty dishes and throw his helmet onto a workbench. He opened a chest and pulled out a bunch of materials. He carried them to the workbench and moved his helmet. He grabbed a few tools that were sitting on the table and began building something. Katherine, interested in what he was doing, hurried outside to grab her chair and sat down next to the table to watch Rey work.

She hadn't realized how much time had passed until Rey looked out a window and made a sour face. She turned to see that it was already night. Rey but the final touches on his project and carried it upstairs. Katherine followed him and watched as he placed a bed in the corner of the room, on the opposite end of another bed.

"You can sleep here tonight. Let me know if you need anything," he said and walked over a wardrobe and pulled out some hide clothing. He turned around, noticed her watching him, and hurried downstairs. Katherine walked over to her bed and sat down. It didn't look comfortable but it was probably the most comfortable thing she had sat on all day. That's when Rey came back up dressed in his hide clothing and crashed into his bed with a torch in his hand. He placed it in a sconce and walked around blowing out all the other lights in the room. The only that remained was the torch he brought up. He crashed into his bed and laid still, falling asleep.

Katherine laid down on her bed and fell asleep to the noises of the night. It took her a while to do so, but she eventually fell asleep.