THE EPOCH CHRONICLES | ✔

twenty-one

Site One
1 AR (After Relocation)

━━━━

AMELIA AWOKE to a screeching that dug right into her skull; the scraping of chalk against a blackboard and nails being drawn down a metal side.

Her eyes snapped open in the gloomy half-darkness, a harsh green light that distorted the walls of the Pod and made everything seem far more cramped than it already was, which wasn't very reassuring. I'm awake. I'm awake. Those thoughts made her heart lurch in her chest. Does this mean I'm in the Jurassic Period?

She glanced around, seeing nothing out of place. A cylindrical wall encasing her, and all four of her limbs, with the additional five digits on each. Amelia released a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, and then undid her spider-belt, taking in a deep breath of filtered, almost mechanical, air.

If she was truly in the Jurassic Period — if all had gone well — then that would be Amelia's last ever lungful of the air of the past. Air of 2039. It took her moment for that to sink in it. Another for her to realize that she didn't feel mournful about it.

This is my new life. No going back.

Amelia stood, however hunched over, before the Pod shuddered, and a hitched yelp escaped her as she saw the walls tilt. She recalled Avery saying that the chair in itself would always remain upright and tried to ignore the fuzziness of the memory, collapsing back into the seat as the walls shuddered again. The trembles traveled through the metal chair and into her spine.

Amelia felt her knuckles flare up in pain, and she relaxed them from their unconscious iron grip on the seat's armrests. Don't jump to conclusions, she tried to reassure herself, even as she felt a bead of sweat run down her neck. The air in the Pod suddenly seemed to harden in her chest. Maybe it's just a quake. You know that the geology here was wacked. It did not seem to make her feel much better.

Another screech filled the air, and Amelia had to clap her hands over her ears in order to preserve her eardrums. "Dag!" She could barely hear herself over the din, and the world tilted crazily again — the chair remained upright, but the TimePod spun in a lazy circle that threatened to throw her off her seat.

A rumbling filled the air, something Amelia could feel rather than hear. Punctuated with short huffs, the young woman sunk deeper into the upholstery, wishing she could disappear.

A dinosaur — and a large one at that, it seemed — was investigating her Pod. "No no no." Amelia shut her eyes as she envisioned an allosaurus circling her white sphere; testing its boundaries and searching for weaknesses.

She could only hope that it would grow bored and leave her alone, but the rasping only continued. Scraping shook the interior. Sounds of gnawing twisted her insides with worry as she shut her eyes and waited for what seemed like centuries (ironic, really) before there was a bellow from the dinosaur, and a shaking of the earth as gigantic footsteps picked up speed; further and further away from her Pod.

Amelia couldn't even exhale in relief before the lid released a hiss of pressurized air, and suddenly she was blinded by sunlight unfiltered across short leaves that immediately reached into the machine. Her terrified mind tricked her into believing — just for a moment — that they were coming for her, before she realized 'duh'; leaves were not sentient beings, even in the Jurassic Period.