Welcome To Jurassic Hell

Ch. 68: Beneath The Surface

It's a compy, it turns out. Not a large or overtly dangerous animal.

Realizing this, we all sigh in relief. I sag against Ben and rest my head on his shoulder.

"Of course...a stowaway," Yaz huffs.

"The last thing we need is it chewing on some wires or something."

As if understanding what Darius was saying, the compy squeals and picks up a Berry on the floor, then runs off. It didn't worry me, though, because really, where did it have to go? We were trapped in the middle of the ocean! It would never escape unless it decided to off itself.

With a small smile, I shoulder Ben's arm.

"What do you say we catch on least compy? For old times' sake."

Giggling, the two of us (with Sammy and Yaz) leap over the railing and Chase after the dinosaur.

We spot it lounging at the back of the boat, finishing off its little snack. When it spots us, it hisses and leaps off onto the lowest level of the yacht, that brings the platform that we'd helped Ben up onto a few days ago. It realizes it's mistake when it sees nowhere else to go, and Ben and I quickly pair with Yaz and Sammy respectively to block the two staircases leading down to it.

Slowly, we start to descend towards it. Ben picks up a bucket out of seemingly nowhere, and moves it above his head.

But, the compy isn't as dumb as we thought. It jumps, bounces off the plastic barrel, and leaps back onto the upper deck.

"Shit!" I shout. We all race after it again, Ben and his bucket taking the lead. When we turn onto the other side of the yacht, Brooklyn is shoved to the side as Ben rushes past her.

"I got it!" Darius shouts, and I see him fumbling with the small animal before it slips through his hands and runs between his legs.

"Ben, look-"

But he trips, accidentally slipping the bucket over Darius' head.

I run past them and meet up with Yaz and Sammy, standing on the other side of the table the compy now hovers on. Darius and Ben meet me to help block it, but it still manages to get away, ending in us losing it after stumbling and tripping all over the place. We all look around, watching, scanning for any sign of it.

"How could it have just vanished?" I whisper.

"I don't know," Darius mutters. "But we need to find it; pan out, look around — Ben, Blake, guard the food, and Sammy and Yaz, you two look through the cabins while I search the rest of the boat."

Nodding, we all separate to accomplish our respective tasks.

We move to stand on either side of the table, keeping our senses tuned up. I reach down to grab a berry from the table, only for a sudden shake of the boat to rock me off my feet and onto my ass.

"What the-"

"What was that?" Ben asked me. I shrug and use the table to push back up onto my feet.

It's at this point that I'm noticing that the sun has disappeared from the sky. In fact, almost no color remains in the high ceiling above us. Dark, grey and black clouds have taken over, covering any trace of sky from view. The waves around us seem to tense up, while the sound of distant thunder strikes my ears and I flinch.

"Did you guys feel that?" Ben hollers up to Kenji and Brooklyn. Both stand at the control panel, seeming just as surprised from the quake as we were.

"Probably just a swell or something," Kenji calls back. "Captain K's got it under control!"