Countdown ✓

Shadow (27 days after)

So the reason I've been a little absent was due to a scholarship I was doing for a bunch of camps and loads of painful school work! And guess what, I got $2,000 for one! I'm so proud of me...

Had to be science-y on this chapter! Based on some research I found, after lots of volcanic activity elsewhere, places bound to have an eruption get loads of tremors, experience toxic gases that turn lakes into deadly/silent killers (hydrogen sulfide), and could tear the area apart before an eruption could even take down the region! From here on out, the story will get more and more suspenseful, as the only dinosaurs left to survive lie in Yellowstone. And Time is truly running out...

"5 lives just went away."

"What?"

"Five lives," Amberclaw repeated. I glanced up at the golden figure, staring at the red numbers that now illuminated a 45.

"There's not even a plentiful amount of us," I whispered, "It's literally the amount of one triceratops herd." Surely enough, now there was 8 of us still here living in this region, now perhaps 7 now after one of Stella's clanmates passed away from hunger. Stella looked worse everyday, slump and dull, skinnier than a deinonychus, she wandered around wearily, sometimes even falling to her belly exhausted. Despite all the greens I try to find and give to her, she wasn't getting any better.

Neither was me or my friends. And Dad's clan too.

No herbivores have shown up since yesterday, after eating the rest of the herbivore-filled herd my father found.

We were dying.

All of us. Suffering and acting like nothing bad's going to happen.

But haven't they seen the signs yet?

The water, or what's left, turned to ice, as well as the silent waterfall and pond we were so into before.

Whiteclaw's been silent and still for days, and I felt that he was truly dead. Though his brother's own presence made me believe that perhaps he was still filled with life, but it was trapped inside a shell. His eyelids were closed shut, eyes staring up when I opened them, and his face flushed a new tone of white, despite his albino complexion.

Snow began to fill the valley world as time progressed, but the cold wasn't as severe as we might've imagine. Its white glow blanketed the dry earth and turned the mountains grey and dull. Since it was a desert, the frost happened from time to time, spreading a sinister chill through our skeletons.

The hole below the Countdown clock's suddenly closed one day, and has been this way for weeks, and I knew for sure that even trying to find the opening wouldn't matter. It was too deeply buried by boulders.

Dad and his herd often came up to where our cave stood and searched around for food, if not, spent the time with us. But overall, nothing was really working for us.

"Shadow," Amberclaw muttered, rubbing his flat head, "What do we do?" I glanced down at the dark yellow Deinonychus and sighed. There was nothing to do.

"I just don't know Amberclaw," I sighed, "There's nothing to do."

"But time's running out," He responded, "There's gotta be another way out." I looked around at the clock, then grumbled to myself. There was no other way. Amberclaw looked lost, and from his bowed head, I felt doomed and qualm towards his current ego. Two of his brothers were pretty much gone, and he was next. I couldn't feel what he felt since I had my father with me. I couldn't break into his feet entirely; I couldn't fit anyhow.

"Hey, Amberclaw," I grinned, nudging him, "Let's go do something for once. You've been cramped up in here since who knows when, and you've never really enjoyed the outdoors yet."