Hybrids: An Indoraptor Story ✓

The Quiet Dream

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...

'Mrr... my head...'

Pain was what greeted me first in the wisps of that good night. Like a bruise to the flesh, it drummed into my skull until I dared whimper, or fed it attention. I winced beneath my breath, gradually drawing a talon toward the back of my skull to feel for it. 

But there was nothing there. Just a patch of untouched scales and a dull, endless throb was all that remained. It seemed to follow the rest of my body, too; no spikes, no cuts, no bruises -- nothing marked me as I remembered it. But I still felt it all the while, forcing me to writhe uncomfortably.

"Nrrr..."

I couldn't do much else to silence the pain, so I returned my claw back to my underbelly, and breathed out a shaky sigh. 'This is temporary,' I thought to myself. 'I hope.'

I didn't seem injured. But I didn't feel like myself. Most of my senses were muffled, as if underwater, and my thoughts were soft and echoed. I felt out of place. Out of time.

What happened to me?

Upon opening my eyes, I was greeted by a long strip of asphalt stretching into the fog. Tall pine trees rose up from each side of the dark road into infinity; their points cut out by the thickness of the strange fog. A quick look back to the road sparked a memory into my head from a nightmare not too long ago.

'I'm back here?' I thought.

My nostrils flared to taste the wind; all I caught was a burnt-metal aroma that came from behind me. That, and a flickering orange glow that cast my disproportionate shadow downwind. There was something else here, there had to be.

I growled softly, rolling over to my stomach and lifting my head. Just down the street in the other direction was just what I feared to see; an overturned truck aflame in the distance. The blackened chassis succumbed to the whispers of the bloom, crackling quietly like a fireplace would to bark. Golden spurts of red and yellow morphed up into the sky, licking the fog and filling it with smoke and death.

Then my eyes noticed something else; a silhouette was sitting there amidst the flame, watching it churn in what I supposed was utter fascination. I casually stumbled to my feet and began to walk, letting my curiosity drive me on a hunt to know the unknown. Stronger wafts of smoke continued to flood my nostrils, further ruining my chance to seek the creature. And the heat of the flames were starting to prick at my scales, that is, in a comforting way. So I walked closer.

Not long after did the shape turn into a form I could distinguish from the shadows. Thin hair laced the human-like scalp and over the shoulders, and an oversized shirt limply hung from its underarms. The lower region, its pants, were torn and bloodied, but that didn't seem to faze the creature. Nor did it flinch once my presence was known; a little click of my toe-claws did nothing to gather its eyes. So I edged closer, enough that my snout could clip a fragment of hair if I wished it. My claws idly coiled around the figure to the front, until my eyes finally faced the human's hidden eyes.

Those blue, crystal eyes. I recognize those eyes...

The girl blinked from her stare, turning to me with no fear in her eyes. And then she began to smile.

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Click dribbled his fingers along the tiled grounds, hoping that something out of line would pop out to him. For about thirty minutes he had been struggling to find a way out of this dinosaur cell, searching nubs and little crevices here and there. And every so often his hopes would drop, for each second wasted was another opportunity for something terrible to unfold.