The Chaos Theory || Camp Cretaceous ||

1. Inhuman(e)

"You're telling me," Owen began, watching Claire closely to make sure she was listening to him. "That you put a six-year-old child inside a Dinosaur paddock?"

He almost couldn't believe it when she'd told him the story firsthand. Claire hadn't experienced the experiment, but she had been there to read about the results and tell Owen about them. Claire wiped some hair out of her face and took a sip of her cocktail, the bar around them buzzing with laughter and conversation.

"Yes," she said. "It happened before I worked there, so I had no control over it. The mother decided upon it for some unfathomable reason. So they put the child in with the three Baryonyxes."

"You can't be serious?" Owen asked, grip on his beer bottle almost white-knuckled.

Claire pulled a face, showing she was very serious. Owen rolled his eyes and wanted to slam his head into the table from stupidity. How were these people such complete morons? Who would ever, in their right mind, place a child with a wild animal?

Then again, the world had seen weirder things. Such as people raised among wolves and children found in the wild, completely unreasonable. He wasn't that surprised, but he wasn't happy about it either. There wasn't much he could do now, though.

"What happened?" he asked curiously.

On the one hand, he really wanted to know what had been the result of the experiment, on the other hand, he really didn't, and he found it to be very inhumane. He had no idea what to expect from this story, and it could have a very bad ending to it. Owen wasn't sure if he wanted to know it.

"She bonded with them," Claire said quietly. "It was a little like how you had a bond with Blue and the others. But this girl – she had a true, deep bond with them. They were raised together, and since the girl had already been raised pretty wild, she fit right in. She didn't care that her mother left her behind or that she had no human contact besides the handlers. She thrived, along with the three Baryonyxes. It was truly amazing," she explained.

"And you saw her?" Owen asked, astounded.

"Yes, I did," Claire admitted. "I was pretty upset about it, but I could see that they wouldn't be the same if we separated them. The girl was too wild to even be reasoned with, so there was no point. And those three protected her like she was their actual sibling."

"What was she like?" Owen asked as he waved over a waitress for a new drink.

Claire bit her lip for a moment, thinking about her answer. Owen could see she was uncertain about what she wanted to say, and he knew that whatever she said was important. This was new, and they needed to know all of these things if they ever encountered her or the Dinosaurs again. Owen knew it was very unlikely that he would go back, but who knew, maybe something weird would happen.

There was always a chance.

Finally, Claire seemed to know what to say and she took another sip of her drink, pushing around the straw and the umbrella in the pink liquid. She frowned for a moment and then sighed.

"She was... interesting. Her hair is white – probably due to some genetic defect – and extremely long. She never cut it, not even once. Her eyes are blue and the reports said she could see a great distance, further than any normal human. She's extremely nimble and can climb a tree in under ten seconds. I saw her fight over food, growling and snarling in their language. She can communicate with them. It was extraordinary."

Owen was silent for a moment. He thought about what Claire had said and realized it all sounded so surreal. He barely believed it. But since it came from her, he did. It was just... unbelievable. He couldn't fathom leaving a child with dangerous wild animals like this. He wondered what the girl's mother had been thinking.