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Atlas (16 days after)

I felt myself getting dragged when consciousness came back into my soul. Sharp teeth were piercing my back as I felt my body rub against the muddy soil nearby. I felt limp and utterly useless at this point. I should've died. I know I should've. I thought I broke my vertebrae just by encountering a mega tsunami in between a wall. And the fact that I was underwater unconscious supported my doubts. So how did I survive? Ask Thunder.

I let out a choke, a cough, then a splutter as saltwater flushed from my chest into the earth, mixed with my own saliva. My body was drenched all over, and drips of mud came from my underbelly, pubis bone, and tail bone at my rear. Thunder sounded as though he was out of breath as he stood over, a towering powerful adult with the strength of something strong. A rock perhaps? I coughed again, then lifted my head upwards to make the horizon finally become flat and straight, instead of vertical and downwards.

"You're lucky," Thunder growled, spatting out mud, "I saved your hide. You could've drowned."

"I thought I already did," I looked up at the Tyrannosaur, coughing hard as the water vomited from my stomach and out my toothed jaws. Thunder shook his head hard, letting the salt drain from his bony face so that he could see. My limbs were aching all over when I tried to stand up on my own trembling feet.

"Where are we?" I asked first.

"On the other side. The tsunami must've swept us here," Thunder muttered.

"Where's...." I stumbled, then almost fell, until Thunder came to my rescue, moving his point of balance sideways to help me back up, to my own center of gravity.

"Easy," He calmly stated.

"Where's everyone else?" I asked, "Is Baja okay? If you escaped, she's probably okay too with Apen."

"Baja?" Thunder's face went white, "Who's that?"

"I thought you guys would eventually know each other," I grumbled, blinking twice, "Isn't she here?" Then I glanced around. There were a few carnivores left. Only three actually besides me, Thunder, and Queen, who was still alive (along with her baby and egg). There was a Lythronax and a Sinraptor, and one of my species too, an Indosuchus, who I haven't met before. But where was Apen? And Baja?

"Baja?!" I called out. Where were the other dinosaurs?! "Apen?!"

"Kid, stop!" I broke away from Thunder's aiding grasp, and thundered over with quaking stomps to look over the hill. My eyes widened with deep horror. That's where we were moments before. The canyon. It was no longer a canyon anymore. We were on the other side of it. Not like the back, but other side. Other land. Waves splashed onto the sand nearby, pulling and pushing in sediments from the outside world, sediments that once belonged on the surface. There was no mountains. There was no rivers or grass or plants. There was just an open...ocean. I remember when I last saw Baja. What I did to protect her. But was she....she couldn't have...

I raced my legs into the cool waters, dragging myself with each step. She's out there! I cried to myself, she's gotta be-

I felt a yank of Thunder's jaws drag me backwards by my scaled scruff onto dry land, and overwhelming anger surged to my throat.

"Stop! There's no need-"

"Why didn't you save her?!" I screeched, trying to pull away from his teeth, "Why did you save me?!"

"Kid!"

"SHE WAS RIGHT THERE!" I screamed, pulling hard enough to rip my flesh from his grip, "RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU! AND YOU SAVED YOURSELF!!" I pulled hard again, sinking my foot claws into the soil, then struck Thunder in the gut with my tail, releasing his grip on me. I fell with a earth-shaking thud onto the ground near the water, but threw my head up, glaring right at the T-Rex with red eyes.

"You could've saved them!!" I was calming down a bit, but bared my teeth at the old carnivore as I weakly stood back up, "I saw you in that canyon. You just abandoned everyone to save you and Queen. I thought you were leader. But you don't know how it feels, do you?! You don't know how it feels when you're family burns right in front of your eyes!! And all you could ever do is watch in tears, because there was nothing you could do! You drag your sorry tail endlessly with someone important besides you, only to lead them to a dead end! Only to let them die in vain! You don't know how it feels because you've never experienced real pain in your life!"

"Shut-up!" Thunder snarled, slamming his foot into the earth.

"Thunder!" Queen growled behind him.

"Well I have!" I continued in tears, bending my knees low from his towering shadow, "And it hurts..."

"I've felt pain before," Thunder growled, stepping towards me with a hot breath, boiling up a roar, "I've felt it everywhere in my body! From the moment I lost my wife to the moment I lost my younglings! Everyone but Shadow is gone! Hence, I don't even know if he's alive! But I have to keep pushing on past my pain to get somewhere. We need to get somewhere! We need to move on."

"Pushing past pain is like forgetting your memories!" I called as he turned around, "And you.....you keep forgetting who you really are! The more you forget your past, the more you deny, the more it come back at you like a haunting ghost! I didn't just lose Baja, you lost her! She was right there! You even saw where she was! I know you heard her cries, I know you rejected them. Because you wanted to ensure the safety of your pack, not the lives still struggling out there!"

"She's none of my....our concern anymore! She was your responsibility if you cared so much. We need to survive, and you're-"

"I what. What did I do?!" I stomped up to him with tearful eyes, "None of your concern? You're the herd leader, isn't it your responsibility to keep us alive?" I heard Thunder hiss under his breath, though I continued without seeing the warning, "I did what I could to keep her alive! To keep those who weren't even supposed to die alive!! But you just buried her and Apen into the ground like the rest of them."

"Shut up!"

I didn't see his tail coming from the right side after I finished my insult. It struck me clean across the jaw, and for a second, I thought I lost a tooth from his act. The force made me stumble back for a second, unaware of his other attack. I felt razor sharp knives dig into the back of my neck like fire, then a hard pull that threw me to the ground. I hit the loosely soiled earth hard with a tremendous thud, before Thunder thundered over to me with a bellowing roar, pinning me down with his right foot, which did too pierce my underbelly. Queen was the one to stop the pain and madness after she bumped the Tyrannosaurus over with her strength.

"Enough!" She snapped, "We're here to survive, not destroy each other!" Thunder inhaled hard, then stared at me with a threatening hiss. I felt blood motion its way to my mouth, and allowed it to drip out with my saliva to the ground.

"Fine," He huffed, spinning away from me. I flipped myself lazily over to my chest to stand upright, still angered, and also frightened. T-Rex's were larger than me, I was sure of that. But I wasn't so sure of the power of their own intelligence. Especially now. I was questioning his own loyalty to our survival, even when he settled the remaining into a group. But no matter what we did, my heart still sank deeper and deeper each time we began to move away, farther from the land we originally laid in. Baja drowned. Apen drowned. I was alone this time. I didn't know who to, or where to look for comfort. I was isolated in a herd, which in turn didn't make sense either, but it urged me endlessly, more than the pain in my shoulders, in my joints and aching legs. But I knew blaming Thunder made me feel better. He turned away against everyone, and I proved it out loud. And I know he knew that it was the truth. If he could still believe it anyways. Even now, I felt that he was leading us somewhere else. Either he was going to help us find food and shelter, or he was still being selfish into finding his lost son.