Abstraction ➳ Owen Grady

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THERE WAS A loud thump near her ear that first brought her back into consciousness. She opened one of her eyes and saw there was a Sinoceratops, standing over Owen and drooling. That was until something frightened it off.

Ally rolled over and immediately started rubbing the side of her head, having a headache like no other. It felt like someone was actively running a jackhammer in her skull. She glanced over at Owen. He was unmoving too, but lying next to him was a tranquilizer cartridge, half empty. She cursed Wheatley and the lot of them.

But then she felt heat, like she was standing too close to a campfire. Sitting up, she saw what the heat source was and screamed.

Lava.

The sub-viscous flow was encroaching on the area they had been abandoned in. Ignoring the throbbing in her head, Ally began shaking Owen's shoulders. "Owen," she hissed. The lava flow crept closer to them with every second. Alysanne slapped his cheeks in quick succession, hoping to get some type of response but all she got was an incoherent mumbling and a nose twitch. "Owen, babe, I need you to wake up." Panic crept into her voice.

He remained lethargic.

Ally hopped over a downed tree and drug him across it, knowing the rough bark would leave his back scratched and bruised. His eyes popped open and a groan escaped his lips, but he still hadn't regained control over his body yet. "Babe," her voice cracked, fear glistened in her eyes, "I can't carry you and we can't stay here." That was enough to bring him back to his surroundings and the imminent danger.

The trees were on fire, and the smoke was thick. It burned her lungs and stung her eyes.

Owen rolled onto his hands and knees. The fallen tree was hissing and smoking. The heat was right at their backs. Ally hopped to her feet and helped him up, holding his arm over her shoulders. One step at a time they moved forward and the lava followed, indiscriminate in what it destroyed.

Ahead, the slope steepened and then the volcano quaked, belching up more lava. It threw them both off their feet. Owen pulled Ally back up and quickly ditched his backpack before gripping onto her hand and starting to run again.

Claire and Franklin were standing on top of the old control post, looking around in panic at the blazing forests, black smoke, and lava. Wheatley had left them behind too. "Run!" Dr. Sattler shouted, arms flailing about. "RUN!" Owen yelled only a few seconds later. The ground was rumbling beneath their feet once again, but this time it wasn't due to the volcano.

A Gallimimus broke through the tree-line and sprinted forward. That had just been the start of the stampede to come. From the trees emerged a plethora of dinosaurs running for their lives. The four of them raced down the slope and into one of the valleys on the northern part of the island.

Volcanic bombs and ejecta were raining down, exploding on the ground only feet away from them. Ally looked over her shoulder and found that a line of dinosaurs was catching up to them as well.

There was a fallen tree ahead. If they could make it, then at least there'd be some sort of barrier from the stampede. Alysanne raced forward and slid beneath one of the branches. Owen followed. Claire and Franklin too.

They huddled behind the tree, against an upturned Gyrosphere. The tree splintered around them as Triceratops and Apatosaurus charged forward with nowhere to go but off a seaward cliff. The tail of a passing Stegosaurus clipped the Gyrosphere and the ride rolled to reveal its open hatch.

Franklin and Claire both crawled into the abandoned Gyrosphere and buckled themselves into the seats. Claire held her arms out, motioning for both Ally and Owen to get in as well. At least then there would be something between them and the stampede.