Author: Joshua Strittmatter
Late October; 2027
Lamar Valley, Yellowstone National Park
Four tires raced along the otherwise quiet roads from Silver Gate, past the signature sign that marked the beginning of Yellowstone National Park. The destination was the great Lamar Valley, the peak of the park’s ancient majesty—and home to just about all of its charismatic megafauna. Small snowflakes were beginning to patter the window of the car from the overcast sky, hinting at the ethereal day that was ahead.
Hazel eyes gazed out with controlled excitement while simultaneously keeping careful watch on the road, desperate to see any of the park’s other animal residents on the way to the driver’s point of arrival.
A bison kill had been made.
When the thick walls of trees finally began to give way to the first sight of grassland, that elation which coursed through Claudia’s veins only heightened. It was one thing to read about a wolf pack making a bison kill in a book, or watching it on a documentary on television. It was quite another to see the aftermath of such a hunt with one’s own eyes, right before you with no screen to separate you from it across the veil of time.
She would’ve preferred to witness such a hunt, for what a glorious and powerful sight to behold it must be; nevertheless, Claudia was always one to settle for second best. Nature was Nature no matter how one sliced it. Wildlife was wildlife, and wildlife alone in all its forms was enough to satisfy her—particularly if wolves of all things were involved. Merely seeing a single wolf was something unrivalingly special, let alone an entire pack…
…to say nothing of a pack feeding on the rewards of a successful hunt.
The first sight of wildlife to greet her was a small herd of the very aforementioned bovines, grazing as usual on the outskirts of where the valley began. Whether they were calmed and settled after the hunt, or were a completely different herd altogether, Claudia knew not. While it was no question she loved the bison as much as all other inhabitants of the park…it was also no contest that she had her favorites.
And right now, in the wee hours of the morning, said favorites awaited her.
Past the grazing herd she drove, dead-set on finding the sight of the kill.
Before long she was past Soda Butte, and the true expanses of the Lamar Valley began. Still Claudia kept her eyes peeled for any creatures that may have been out in the distance, or at the side of the road; little bonuses to add to the encounter she currently sought. She knew from experience that out here, in this valley, there was no guarantee that something wouldn’t pop up in the most unexpected places. She had seen grizzlies right next to the right side of the road foraging for vegetation; she had seen coyotes hunting on either side, and not always far away. Let alone the red foxes that she saw in this area all the time.
Out here, in this park where hunting was not allowed and human contact limited, anything could happen.
And at any time, no less.
Today in particular, it was a few lone bison and some pronghorn that greeted her eyes on the drive to her destination. And while they were the most common sight in the valley, they were a pleasant one nonetheless.
Perfect to keep her elated mind occupied before she eventually spotted a gathering of people, standing on the side of the road; overlooking where the Soda Butte and Chalcedony Creeks merged. All bore cameras, binoculars, or telescopes, and stood out of their vehicles despite the frigid temperatures and incoming snow.
It told Claudia of all she needed to know.
She had arrived at her objective.
Swift with excitement yet with care marked by years of experience, she slowed down and drove into a suitable parking space. With a crackle of tires against partially-snowed gravel, her car came to a halt on the side of the road, bringing her journey to an end. Her winter coat, hat and gloves already donned, Claudia hardly wasted a second in seizing her binoculars and unbuckling her seatbelt, exiting her vehicle before even ten seconds had passed.
It did not take her long to find what she so ecstatically sought.
Across the water, just a good thirty meters from the base of where the creek began, the carcass lay. It was even fresher than Claudia thought it would be, having likely been brought down when there was morning light over the mountains surrounding the valley. And upon it, digging into the hard-earned meal in a frenzy, were eleven gorgeous gray wolves.
They looked ruffed and no worse for wear, a testament to the effort they must have expended to bring down this particular kill. Bison kills, while far from impossible, were not the most common of events to happen; bison were large and powerful prey animals, and even the sick or injured amongst them presented a fearsome adversary to even a pack of wolves. A single good kick from just an elk—wolves’ most common prey—could be fatal to the strongest wolf, let alone a subadult bison. Even if this was an individual that had been in less-than-optimal condition, it was clear just looking at the feasting canids that the bovine had made them work for this prize.
Claudia took only a second to mentally sigh that she had missed such an incredible hunt, then let the joy of watching the aftermath wash it all away.
There was barely any chatter amongst the other tourists, and it suited Claudia just fine. And while the bitter morning cold bit at her face, it was but a minor inconvenience as she watched the wolves feed on their meal. It was never not the most fascinating sight to watch these animals interact with one another. Wolf social dynamics were not what pop culture so often made them out to be; there was no ‘alpha’ or ‘beta’, and no ‘omegas’ to respond to or follow their whims. Like the social insect ‘hive mind’ or sharks being vicious maneaters, the ‘Alpha Wolf’ was amongst the biggest animal myths humankind had ever perpetuated, and it never failed to make Claudia roll her eyes.
Much like social insects, wolves were family-driven animals. The so-called ‘alpha’ and ‘beta’ wolves were actually just the mother and father, and the rest of the pack were their offspring. The entire family worked together to hunt, to defend one another from threats, and pitched in to raise the next litter of pups when they came around. Some older siblings would stick around in the pack and watch over their new, infant brothers and sisters while mother and father were out hunting. Every in-fight broken up by the ‘alpha wolf’ was in fact just mom or dad breaking up a sibling squabble between two of their children.
It astounded Claudia that such a fascinating and complex animal had garnered such a centuries-long reputation as a dark, vile man-eating demon that haunted the woods at night with the intent of seizing anyone who strayed; or in more modern times, as the animal equivalent of a street gang looking for trouble.
Neither of which were to be seen here.
It didn’t take long for Claudia to figure out which ones were mom and dad as she watched them through her binoculars; based both on their difference in size, and behavior from the other wolves present. She could even recognize them from the information sheets she had read detailing the many packs in the park, and the number of park rangers she had talked with just the same. Sure enough, at one point two subadults snapped at one another in a clear scuffle—which was quickly cut short when the mother wolf stepped in, lightly barking and snapping at her bickering children, ending the squabble as quickly as it began.
A full forty-five minutes passed as Claudia watched them; during which the first hints of true snow started to make themselves known, but the woman would not budge. A little frozen sky water was no deterrent to her. If anything, the gradually-growing number of snowflakes only served to make the scene look even more magical.
More ethereal.
More perfect.
Making what was already a rather rare and unique sight amidst one of the most beautiful backdrops the eye could ever see, look like something out of a painting by an artist of the most professional sort. Something deep and spiritual, borderline mythical, even; as if the very world itself was demonstrating the interconnection of all that existed.
It was amongst the most soulful sights on the planet, and Claudia was lucky enough to bear witness to it…
In the distance, where the grasslands ended and the tree-decorated mountains began, Claudia spied movement. Something was emerging from the depths of the forest, and was mere seconds away from stepping out into full view—but something was off. Even currently obscured from detail, whatever it was looked to be huge, far larger than any animal in Yellowstone should be…
Even with the hint present, Claudia was still completely unprepared for what she saw next.
Murmurs turned to shocked gasps from the tourists around her as the shape emerged from the treeline—and left Claudia herself speechless. Of all the creatures she expected to see in the park, the one that had just crossed into her line of sight was anything but.
It was a dinosaur.
A gigantic theropod dinosaur, at least twelve meters long; bearing a massive, heavy body with a low skull and a quite prominent chin. Light blue scales coated most of its giant frame, with a series of much darker gray-blue stripes lining its top. A reddish-orange stripe ran from its snout to the end of its neck, its chest bearing small arms tipped with three-fingered claws. Its closed mouth exposed no teeth, instead covered by reptilian lips like a snake or lizard.
Thanks to her son who was absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs, she recognized the silhouette of the animal, and thus couldn’t think of it as anything other than a Giganotosaurus.
The wolves didn’t seem to notice it at first, continuing to feed upon the carcass as normal—but despite the great distance and the dinosaur’s walking gait, the giant reptile was ominously closing the gap.
Headed right in the direction of the feeding canids.
With the exception of birds, Yellowstone hadn’t seen the presence of dinosaurs in years. Claudia thought they were all either dead or dying, supposedly because they were unsuited to the modern climate; different weather, different oxygen levels, different plants, different animals. From what she was aware, the few species that still remained were said to be making a living around the tropical landmasses and islands near the equator, while the rest of InGen’s creations had since succumbed to the differences of the modern world.
Yet, already Claudia was starting to second-guess that notion as she watched the animal in her sights.
The theropod before her was not starving, seeming to be nice and healthy, and was clearly not affected by the cold in any way. He just lumbered smoothly and unhindered through the growing snowfall, as if the cold was but a minor irritation to him at worst.
But that was not the only difference which struck her.
The animal before her looked almost nothing like the dinosaurs that had been released on the mainland in 2018, or created at the BioSyn Sanctuary in Italy. The creatures engineered at Jurassic World looked so much more…monstrous. Draconic. Crocodilian, even. Slim and borderline emaciated ‘shrinkwrapped’ bodies, pronated wrists, uneven snaggle teeth, bland shades of near-colorless gray; some even bearing crocodilian scutes and spikes which she had heard many a dinosaur enthusiast point out was severely incorrect.
Not the animal before her.
The Giganotosaurus that currently strode across the grasslands of the Lamar Valley, looked nothing like the spiky, T. rex-killing, dragon-like beast promoted in the 2021 BioSyn propaganda videos.
The saurian she observed was thick and heavy, its wrists inverted sideways instead of pronated forwards. No simple coat of gray donned this majestic beast, instead brimming with a far more natural and distinctive branch of color. There were no crocodilian scutes or draconic back spikes; just pebbly scales and—Claudia realized as she looked closer—the barest hint of a slight feathery fuzz to go with it.
Now that she actually saw this creature, Claudia realized just how stark the difference actually was. The beast she saw in the BioSyn videos always felt strangely off (even before her son went into a frenzy of just how much he claimed was wrong with it)…but this theropod. This magnificent giant lumbering before her eyes, was no crocodilian dragon.
This creature actually looked and felt like a real animal.
…and with it, questions began to pop like prairie dogs into Claudia’s mind.
Where had this animal come from? Who engineered it? Had they engineered it to complete genetic perfection, and that was why it looked the way it did…?
…or had it been engineered to begin with?
Her thoughts were temporarily put in the waiting room as, after a good four or so minutes, the Giganotosaurus began to near the feasting wolves. It was then when the wild dogs finally caught wind that something was off, and looked in his direction. Ears went back defensively, tails began to drift towards the legs, and powerful furry bodies tensed with dreaded anticipation.
Wolf packs had been known to drive off grizzly bears when strong and motivated enough, and such a task was far from easy even then—but this was different. From the moment the newcomer had started heading towards the pack, Claudia knew full and well what the outcome was going to be. A large bear was one thing, but wolves had never seen a dinosaur before; let alone one that was also, according to her son, one of the biggest land carnivores the world had ever seen.
They were not going to win this carcass. They had better hoped they had eaten enough, because now this much larger megapredator had his eyes on their meal—and there was no hope of driving him off.
Before long, the Giganotosaurus was only a good thirty or so meters away from the pack, and Claudia could see him more clearly than ever through her binoculars. If anything, he was drawing so close that she didn’t necessarily have to use her binoculars to begin with. Small, but focused light blue eyes gazed an intimidating stare at the motionless pack, like a giant hawk sizing up a potential obstacle…
…and just kept trudging in a slightly separate direction, walking right past the carcass while the wolves remained perfectly still.
And over to the water’s edge, much closer to the observing humans than ever.
Claudia felt a chill not born of the weather wash through her veins at what she was seeing, at the realization of how close the dinosaur was to where she stood. Dangerous wildlife was the name of the game in Yellowstone, but this was stretching it to a whole different level. An eight-plus ton, twelve meter-long megapredator was standing at the river’s edge. Kneeling down to take a drink from the frigid water, at a distance small enough that she now didn’t need a scope of any kind to see him clearly.
An animal that could decide the hairless apes watching him were worth the effort chasing at any given moment. An animal that was large and strong enough to flip even the largest truck like a toy if he wanted to.
Perhaps had he been one of the products of Jurassic World, or amongst the creations of BioSyn Genetics, he would have. Many of the carnivores from either side had been rather unnaturally hyperaggressive, with few if any exceptions.
Yet he didn’t.
The Giganotosaurus simply bent low and opened his great maw, scooping his lower jaw into the cold water and bending back to gulp it down. As if the humans and canines watching him hardly mattered, the carcharodonotosaurid took great drink after drink at complete leisure; residual water pouring down his huge jaws with every rise of his head from the river.
If anything, it made Claudia feel even more strangely nervous. That knowledge that for all she knew, the only reason she and the people around her were even still standing, was because this giant predator simply didn’t consider them worth the time or effort. Like mice staring at a drinking tiger, little morsels who were only alive because this far larger, grander animal allowed it.
It was terrifying, exhilarating, and humbling all at the same time…
Abruptly, the Giganotosaurus stopped.
A chill went down Claudia’s spine at the sudden change. The giant predator had suddenly frozen still, water dripping down his scaly chin while he stared up—but not at the humans on the road. His gigantic body had gone stiff, with his head postured upwards in a stance of visible alert. Looking not at, but past the observing humans.
Something else had seized this animal’s attention—
Someone in the crowd cried out in palpable horror, followed in rapid succession with frightened gasps much like it. Claudia, nearly forgetting the danger the Giganotosaurus presented, whirled around. And her eyes nearly bulged from their sockets at what greeted them, unable to be concealed even by the snowfall.
Another dinosaur was trudging down the hill, on the other side of the road.
And Claudia knew what it was without even needing an expert to tell her.
Strong legs carried a bulky, robust body clad in muted yellow scales and dark gray stripes. Two fingers twitched at the end of small, but iconic arms. Small, yet visible flecks of meat dotted the dried blood that stained his teeth and snout, implying he had eaten somewhat recently. Golden eyes like an eagle’s peered from its huge, deep skull; switching between the crowd of fur-less primates on the road…and the giant predator across the river.
It was a Tyrannosaurus rex.
As carefully as she possibly could, Claudia moved straight back into her car. As if in accommodation, the crowd around her scattered as the tyrant neared the road; some to the dubious safety of their respective vehicles, while others merely to get as far away from him as possible—with no knowledge of how quickly he could walk them down and snatch them if he was hungry enough.
But he did no such thing.
Aside from a few glances and a warning hiss or two, the King of Cretaceous Montana passed them by without a second thought.
Giving Claudia the perfect opportunity to pull out her phone, switch to camera, set to the highest quality, and begin to record the scene before her.
The resemblance to the tyrannosaurs InGen had bred was more than close—yet still, Claudia noticed that there were subtle differences, ones that only made her wonder more. This rex’s wrists were somewhere in-between pronated and inverted; his teeth not quite protruding as visibly as the original Tyrannosaur created at Jurassic Park, half-covered by a lipped layer of jaw scales. The flesh of his neck and tail was considerably thicker than those of his Nublar and Sorna relatives. And by far the most visible difference of all: he was much, much bulkier and chunkier than his InGen cousins.
And despite his gigantically robust stature, he hardly even made the ground more than vibrate as he walked.
Yet again, the same questions from earlier were rearing their heads in Claudia’s mind. Where this animal had come from, why it looked the way it did…but she had no time to ponder over any of them.
The Tyrannosaurus was headed straight for the Giganotosaurus, and his gait indicated anything but friendly intent.
Down the hill, right up to the edge and straight into the water, the tyrant lumbered. Raising to his full height, the carcharodontosaurid boomed a low, thunderous rumble, causing the tyrannosaur to cease in his tracks. At the sound, the wolf pack finally decided the risk wasn’t worth it and fled, quickly headed deeper into the valley.
The allosauroid held rigid, uttering yet another growling rumble which the tyrannosaur responded with one of his own. One that was even louder, deeper.
It was then that Claudia really saw the size difference between the two animals—and it caught her by surprise. BioSyn had always promoted Giganotosaurus carolinii as larger, more ferocious than Tyrannosaurus; the “biggest carnivore the world had ever seen” as the advertisements used to say. Yet, the more she looked at the animals before her, the more Claudia got confused. These dinosaurs were noticeably bulkier, heavier and more ‘natural’-looking than their InGen or BioSyn counterparts…but unlike what BioSyn had promoted so heavily in their product placements, the difference in size was the exact opposite.
In a most awe-inspiring twist, the Tyrannosaurus rex was noticeably the larger, more massive animal.
And the difference only became more apparent when he resumed trotting through the rather-shallow water, and stepped up onto the other side of the river; much to the loud hissing fit of the giant southern lizard.
The tension that settled upon the valley was twice as cold as the temperature of the air. It felt like a knot that had suddenly spun within Claudia’s spine, and it only grew slowly tighter as the two prehistoric predators sized each other up. When the tyrannosaur nosed too close, the Giganotosaurus spat thunderously, earning a defensive snarl in reply. Even from a considerable distance, both sounds were loud; both nearly making Claudia jump right out of her skin. Quite possibly the loudest sounds Wyoming itself had ever heard in 66 million years—and it wasn’t going to get any quieter.
Both animals continued to gape their jaws at one another, now only standing mere feet apart. Hissing cacophonously at one another, again and again, growing louder each time. The onlookers could feel the dreadful sounds vibrating through their bodies, inducing a fear that was even worse than the sheer volume that menaced their eardrums.
It reminded Claudia of how modern large carnivores faced off, such as tigers, crocodiles or bears; how the two combatants involved would spend a large majority of time standing in one another’s faces, jaws agape, growling or hissing repeatedly until one of them finally either backed off or engaged directly. Rarely did even the mightiest predators simply charge into a battle, like was so often portrayed in pop culture; a reckless behavior that many of Jurassic World’s dinosaurs had been strangely known for.
But what Claudia looked upon right now, was far more terrifying.
It was not the notion of primordial viciousness that scared her so. Rather, it was the suspense of the moment; the gradual, bloodcurdling buildup to the explosive leap into combat. The deep breath before the plunge, the calm beginning to roil and churn to burst into the furious storm. The unpredictability of how long it would take before one of the two giants finally struck—and further still, which one.
The dinosaurs’ booming hisses grew ever louder, and with it the boiling suspense climbed for the stratosphere. Every little twitch, every jaw movement, every slight jerk of one reptilian head or the other could be it.
The moment.
The moment one false snap or head twitch was too close for the recipient’s liking, and the tension exploded as one of the titans finally lost it…
Even trying her best to stay firm, to detect the very second when it all went downhill, Claudia could’ve never hoped to stay in her skin when the moment arrived:
The Giganotosaurus snapped his head to the side and smacked his snout into the tyrannosaur’s jaw.
The taut atmosphere detonated.
Hisses exploding into a chorus of angry roars, the two giants clashed. Multi-ton bodies crashed into one another, wide-open jaws collided and Claudia’s soul all but leaped from her body as a battle erupted on the spot. Two saurian skulls jerked and thrashed as the two megatheropods tried with all their ferocity to get the first good bite in, temporarily stuck biting uncoordinatedly at one another’s jaws. Slamming their upper bodies together, the dueling titans reared up like the retro-dinosaurs of old and pushed and shoved for supremacy; their uproarious bellows and snarls echoing for miles on end across the expanses of Lamar Valley. Dirt and rock flew from their frantic footsteps, the ground thudding from their sheer weight impacting the earth.
Claudia had seen very few animal conflicts with her own two eyes, but the few she had seen in of themselves were mighty sights to behold. She had seen wolves get into mild disagreements. She had seen two tiger brothers go at it in a zoo once. She had even seen two male Kodiak bears clash over a dead whale in Alaska. Each and every one was a humbling reminder of how much more powerful animals physically were than even the biggest, strongest human being; a reminder of what they could do to a person, and how easily as such.
But even the grandest of those clashes compared little to this.
What Claudia watched right now was a true clash of the titans. A leftover, primordial echo of a bygone age. A resurrected ghost of a time when reptilian giants stalked the earth. Ruled it with a powerful, iron fist. In a land where large mammals had reigned for thousands of years, all bearers of fur and hair now held back at fearful standby as the Age of Reptiles echoed back from the tunnels of the past.
The two titans thrust down amidst their frenzied jaw-fencing, slamming their upper halves against the ground with a loud CRACKLE of rocks. After a full minute of their furious deadlock, the Tyrannosaurus finally broke off when he reared and smacked his upper body atop that of his opponent. The Giganotosaurus snapped and bellowed angrily before pushing up, briefly shoving the bulkier theropod off—only for the titans to crash back together and enter yet another violent shoving contest.
Twin towers of reptilian flesh and muscle, they swung and shoved with gargantuan might, like giant komodo dragons with the grace of great eagles. It was during this shoving contest, however, that one of the huge archosaurs finally landed a true blow: seizing an opening, the Tyrannosaurus clamped his powerful jaws upon his rival’s snout.
Thick, banana-sized teeth like railroad spikes pierced skin and thin muscle. Holes were bored in the very bone with an audible CRACK that physically hurt Claudia to listen to, and the carcharodontosaurid boomed a thunderous hiss of pain. Blood ran in thin rivers down his upper jaw, his hisses heightening in volume as the tyrant king bit a second time and shook his head with a vicious intensity. Bloody grooves began to rip through the skin and muscle of the allosauroid’s upper jaw, and he hissed and thrashed frantically in a valiant effort to break free.
Despite suffering no bodily harm herself, Claudia felt genuine pain as she watched the brutal spectacle; the very sight of the defending theropod being bitten in the face so violently sending tides of hurt coursing through her body.
It only got worse when, with one hard yank and a particularly loud bellow, the Giganotosaurus finally tore himself free.
Skin ripped further. Blood squirted into the frigid snow-filled air. Scars were carved all the way into the bone. A gaping, bloody groove was torn into a notch between two of his teeth as the allosauroid at last broke away from his attacker’s toothy grip. What happened next, took many of the other tourists aback, but Claudia was hardly surprised at all.
Turning swiftly about face, the Giganotosaurus wasted none of the precious seconds before him and walked away as fast as his legs could carry him.
The risk of far more serious injury just wasn’t worth it.
It was only expected for any predator—or any animal, for that matter—that ever existed on Earth. Fights to the finish weren’t completely rare, per se—but they didn’t happen anywhere near as often as people often made them out to. Even the mightiest predators did their best to avoid injury, and when a battle broke out, often it ended when one combatant simply decided it wasn’t worth the risk and backed off. Whether it was intraspecific or interspecific combat, it was more common for the chances of a fight ending with one animal backing down to be higher.
As it was before her, when the Giganotosaurus stampeded quickly back the way he came. And behind him, with his small arms spread as comically wide as he could, the Tyrannosaurus roared.
It was the loudest, mightiest sound that had ever fed Claudia’s ears; an awesome, terrifying, primordial cry from another world that tore through the air and shook the hills of Lamar with a lordly vigor, befitting the aptly-called ‘King of the Dinosaurs.’ From multiple directions in different distances, several flocks of birds took flight in terror as the sound reverberated through the valley, even as far out as the forests on the other side.
Flapping his little arms and shaking his head with a low rumble, the tyrannosaur fell silent, pacified as he watched his enemy beat his hasty retreat. Taking a moment to stare after his fleeing rival, the triumphant tyrant wasted little time marking his turf for all to smell—and see—when he urinated on the ground he stood upon; a sight that made the other onlookers blanch, but Claudia just watched with astonished silence. Just more normal animal behavior, nothing more.
Something most people weren’t ready to see.
Quietly, the Tyrannosaurus turned about face and lumbered back to the edge of the water, taking his opponent’s earlier place as he began to drink. Still paying mercifully no mind to the human beings that observed him on the other side, letting them continue gazing upon his mighty form only because he allowed it.
Much as a great part of her wanted to stay, however, to keep watching the once-in-a-lifetime spectacle…Claudia felt that perhaps it was time to get back on the road.
To take her leave, before that merciful sentiment changed…
*****
Five hours later…
If silence could be loud.
That was the level of quiet that blanketed the normally cozy interior of Claudia’s rented cabin, nestled in the forested outskirts of Silver Gate. Even though there was no sound other than her own footsteps when she moved about, the ambient silence almost seemed to roar into her ears louder than the tyrannosaur ever did. Even though she was back in the relative safety of her rental, even though she had locked all doors and windows in the house, still the shock of what she had seen refused to leave her.
The internet had already gone berserk over the incident.
Claudia was far from the only one to record footage of the battle; other videos taken by her fellow tourists were now dominating the internet and the news alike.
To put it simply, the event was everywhere. In the blink of an eye, it almost felt as if time had turned back to the days of the San Diego Incident; something Claudia had not witnessed herself, but had definitely seen on the news and experienced the public aftermath it left in its wake. She still remembered in vivid detail the media shockwaves the attack had inflicted, sometimes to the point it still felt like only yesterday.
Only now, it felt like she was there again. Article after article, news station after news station, everything was now focused on what she had witnessed in the autumn cold of Lamar Valley. Internet forums were now flooded with anxious discussions, or just basic expressions of shock and excitement at the unexpected clash.
For the first time in a long while, dinosaurs made up the number-one news story of the world.
It made Claudia question if no one really cared about these animals anymore, if public interest in them had actually waned.
One moment they were supposedly falling back into extinction minus around the tropics of the Equator…and the next, they were suddenly sighted doing relatively fine in a place least expected, and right back to being all the news as if nothing had changed.
It almost seemed like all the past craze that used to surround the animals was returning…
…not unlike the animals themselves.
Claudia had never stopped dwelling on the elephant in the room since she had left the scene. Contemplating why those dinosaurs looked so different from their InGen counterparts, and why they appeared somewhere allegedly unsuited for them. And she couldn’t help but ponder a train of thought that, surprisingly, others on the internet were already sharing.
What if dinosaurs weren’t dying off like the public believed?
What if the animals she saw were newer clones, engineered with few to no genetic defects? No DNA of other animals, no filling in any gaps of the sequence; just the animals’ entire DNA strands as their species had been in life.
Dinosaurs as they had really been, millions of years ago.
But amidst her dwelling upon this theory, Claudia had arrived at the foothills of another—one that unnerved her even more.
What if only the dinosaurs from Nublar or BioSyn were truly perishing…while others were slowly taking their place?
What if dinosaurs on the mainland weren’t toppling into extinction…but gradually returning in force?
Perhaps the animals from Jurassic World had been engineered too specifically to be theme-park attractions, confined to the lifestyle that had been provided to them on the island during its heyday; the animals from BioSyn Sanctuary having been engineered in a similar fashion. Spread out into far more diverse and unfamiliar territory, a majority of them had been unable to adapt to climates they hadn’t been created to withstand, and as such were falling away…
…but those individuals or populations that had made a living in unfamiliar lands, were reproducing offspring with naturally selected traits more suited for survival. Traits far more akin to their original ancestors from the Mesozoic. Gradually working the amphibian DNA and other genetic alterations out of their systems, generation by generation.
Slowly devolving back into their species’ original forms.
Perhaps some of those populations had already been genetically different from the dinosaurs of Jurassic World; possibly, even, originating as far back as the original Jurassic Park. Perhaps that was what had allowed them to adapt and survive while the newer Nublar clones failed.
There was even the possibility that both theories were true. That the most adaptable older clones were propagating and “devolving” in a sense…while at the same time, some newer dinosaurs had been cloned more recently by persons unknown; either to complete perfection, or close enough that it was only a matter of time before they too established populations that walked down the same successful road.
In the paleontological field, dinosaurs weren’t known for being restricted to one type of biome or climate. The tropics were not the only habitat known to house their mighty clade. On the contrary, dinosaurs were famously known for being the most successful clade of animals the earth had ever seen. They had adapted to and thrived in every climate, every habitat, on every continent for more than one hundred sixty million years. Even as the climates and continents had changed, they had just kept adapting. Kept surviving. Kept ruling unchallenged as the planet’s dominant terrestrial vertebrates.
And now, it seemed…they were beginning to reclaim that adaptability which had carried them forward for so long.
Claudia couldn’t help but shake her head. All these years later, and still the words of a particular chaotician were proving right as always. Through the narrowest of advantages, through the newest of territories, the same phenomenon was repeating itself once more. Expanding new territories and crashing barriers with no hope of containment.
Nearly three and a half decades later, and still life was finding a way.
*****
Late afternoon…
The sight of movement flickered through the patio window, just enough in the corner of Claudia’s eye to seize her attention.
With the swiftness of a frightened pronghorn leaping to avoid danger, Claudia bolted from the dinner table. Straight to the window she flew, blood that was relaxed but a second ago now already running like a river in its prime. It had been but a faint blur, mostly obscured by the outside patio itself; yet it had been great enough to spur her into action. As she moved, a part of her snapped at herself for what she was about to do. It could be dangerous, opening the door and stepping outside. True, it could’ve been a passing fox or coyote, or even a bear or wolf just crossing by; but at the same time, after what she had seen today…it easily might not’ve been.
It also could’ve been something much less tolerant of a person like her. Something that, for all she knew, could far more easily clear a patio than a wolf or bear…
Still, the need to know, the need to see whatever it was, overwhelmed that little side of her in the end.
Before a person could finish a breath, open the glass door flew and Claudia stepped right onto the patio—and stopped cold as ice even quicker.
At the very edge of where the trees started, there it was. It was between four and five feet tall, its sleek body a cedar brown with lighter hindquarters and darker stripes running down the top of its body and tail. Orange scales painted its snout, while a bright vivid blue hued behind its eyes, and a rosy crimson crowned its pointed brows. Fiery, avian eyes gazed right back at her from a head adorned with pointed quills.
No thanks to her son—and the knowledge of animals housed at both Jurassic Park and World—she knew exactly what animal it was. And yet in the brief, fleeting moment she saw it, she noticed there was something different about it. Something she heard had been found before in the fossil record, but herself had never seen in its kind.
It was covered in feathers.
One second it was there, staring right at her, inverted wrists tucked tense and anxious at its sides.
And the next it had whipped from the yard, carried so fast on its sickle-clawed feet it was hard to see. Darted away like a blur of motion, just like that, without even so much as a single sound.
And vanished into the woods like a ghost, as if it had never been there to begin with.
