The first thing he could feel when he woke up was the rock his chin was resting on. He didn't open his eyes immediately, he just lay there waiting for the rest of his body to wake up, and as it did so he could feel big grazes, bruises and small cuts all along his arms, legs and sides. His mouth was dry and belly was empty.
He opened his eyes to find someplace different before him - certainly not the forested areas of the mainland he was used to. Instead he found himself lying on a rocky outcrop at the edge of a beach, the shore just a few paces from his face, gently lapping at the sand and rocks. Beyond that was another landmass, several hundred great distances away, and by the size of it, it seemed like that was the mainland. That would mean that this was the island he saw out of the corner of his eye when his herd would walk along the shoreline.
He raised his head and craned it slowly, following how far the sands went in either direction. He could say one thing for sure: the island was much bigger than what it appeared to be on the mainland shores. But then again everything looked bigger up close than from a distance.
It wasn't just sand and boulders that lined the beach; branches, twigs, and bits of earth and leaves were scattered across the otherwise completely white shoreline. The roaring winds and stinging rain had ceased, which meant the storm had ended a long time ago, making way for a cloudy sky. He knew he would have bad memories for a long time afterwards.
Wait. If the waves washed him up here and his herd was over there...
It hurt to get up onto his feet and hands, but he pushed through the pain and stood on his two feet and looked about harder. All across the shoreline there was nothing but fallen trees and broken branches, small birds and pterosaurs too. How they had managed to hang on through the storm was not for him to know, nor was why they had returned so soon.
He rested on all fours and let out a worried sigh through his nostrils. This wasn't good. He didn't know how to swim too well so he couldn't make his way back to mainland. He'd never been more than a few paces away from any other Iguanodon for his entire life. He wanted to keep it that way.
He stared over the rest of the island - the rest of the island that he could see at any rate - and attempted to decide which direction he should take: left where it seemed there was a small river leading into the island, right towards a stony hill, or forwards into the pine forest. His eyes kept shifting between the three directions all the while a deep, hollow feeling of isolation was growing inside of him, specifically in his back.
Before that feeling grew any worse, he decided to take the path on the left.
His thighs and triceps ached to walk, and he must have hit his head pretty bad when he was washed away by those big waves because there was a throbbing at the rear of his skull. He could do nothing to quell the minor irritation, only walk through it and hope it would go away soon.
He had now been walking for a long time, and there was still no end to the island in sight. What appeared to be a river turned out to be the shallow dividing line between the island he was on and another island. More of a sand bar than an actual island - only one tree was left, the rest had gone. The evidence for this notion was the large holes in the ground with ripped roots. The winds would have caught the branches and upturned the trees and the waves would have washed them away.
Aside from that minor revelation, there really was nothing much else to note: the shoreline maintained the same state of devastation as far as he could see, although there was a new item amongst the debris. If he looked to his left and out to the surrounding ocean, there would be small lumps bobbing in the water. Bodies. Drowned bodies slowly drifting inwards and outwards with the waves. The sea masked their smell, but they still weren't a pretty sight, especially since he knew they were there and couldn't help staring. One of them was being mauled and eaten by sharks, further reassuring him that he should not cross the strait to the mainland.
The feeling of loneliness was growing. He started calling out for the hope of finding someone, anyone, who might have washed ashore too. It wasn't nice being alone. There was this unspoken need to be around others of his own kind, as well as the obvious advantage of safety in numbers.
His calls started to hurt his throat after a while. He needed water soon. But it would be best if he finished his lap around the island first; see if anyone was here or swimming towards the island. Who knew? It was the rainy season. Sometimes huge mounds of cold, white things floated on the water and made landfall. Then after a while they would melt into the sea. Maybe someone had made it onto one of those mounds and was floating around on the waves. The thought kept his mind off the current task for a while. His mind trailed off too often, maybe.
He was looking at the ground when he turned around the corner of the island. If he had been paying attention he would have realised he smelt or heard it long before he saw it. Just ahead of him was another Iguanodon. Except it was dead. It was a few paces away and it was lying there on its side, eyes devoid of life, bloody ribcage showing, the skin having been torn off, and with a predator - specifically an Allosaurus - holding the carcass steady as it ate away at the stomach.
He stood still, but not out of fear. The feeling was something different. Maybe he was frozen by the sadness of one of his blood being reduced to raw food. Maybe it was fear, but he certainly didn't feel like he was scared. He just stared and stood still and breathed slowly.
The Allosaurus lifted its head to swallow a hunk of meat, then noticed him staring at it. It stared back at him with a carnivorous gaze, the kind that instructed him to back off. He did as he was non-verbally told; bowing his head in the process of reversing to make sure it got the message. It huffed once and went back to eating.
The corpse wasn't fresh. Its skin was pale indicating it had probably been a victim of the flooding, now drowned and washed ashore, making the Allosaurus a scavenger. The body would be its primary food source for a good few days and nights, as would all the others that would wash onto the beaches, but after that he would need to watch out.
It tilted its head upward again as it swallowed another piece and halted as it took note of him a second time. Its bloody lips matched the colour of its bony eye ridges. The eyes struck him more than anything else: a gold-yellow in colour around the iris. The red of the ridges and yellow of the eyes stood out like the sun in the sky in contrast to the rest of its body, which was a raincloud grey barring the black stripes running vertically across its back. It had bruises and grazes too, like he had. That probably meant it was swept from the mainland too. It also had something so noticeable he couldn't believe he didn't see it until just now: a deep gash to its left thigh. It had stopped bleeding, but it did not look like something anyone could merely shrug off.
It stepped over the carcass and took two steps towards him with that same gaze it used before. It hissed as it breathed in and snarled as it breathed out, then barked at him to get away. He took one final look at the gash and then ran on his legs into the island's forest to his right.
His first day on the island passed by really quite quickly, as did the second and the third. The island was much larger than he could ever have anticipated from the mainland shore. It even had a small lake somewhere inside the forest of pine trees and steep rocky crevices. Most of his time was spent either eating or searching for anyone else who might have winded up on the beach - preferably another member of his herd, or what's left of it, judging by the amount of bodies he saw lining the horizon.
The migration was therefore a complete failure. All the friends he knew gone in a matter of moments.
He sighed as he opened his eyes. He had been awake for a few moments before, but only now did he open his eyes. He had hoped he would go back to dreaming about silly things. Silly things done in silly locations with silly creatures, like running contests and... he couldn't remember what else he saw in his dreams. That was the funny thing about them: he could never totally recall a dream, not that there was anyone to recall a dream to - he had no way of communicating aside from a call of distress, a call of happiness, a call of embarrassment, a call of anger, and a call for a mate. That was the reason his herd was migrating before the storm hit - if it had been successful and if he had proven himself this time, he would have been a first-time father.
Now he couldn't be with anyone again unless the sea shrank or another storm hit another herd following the exact same route. But if the latter were to happen then there would be more death, and no one except sharks and scavengers would want to see that.
He sighed again and picked himself up off the rocky outcrop - the very same he woke up on three days before. There was nothing to do aside from the same routine: eat, drink, rest, repeat until dusk, all the while keep lookout.
He did as his stomach and throat demanded, bending to their will and whim. When he grew hungry he would strip the leaves off the trees, and when his oesophagus felt dry, he would go to the little lake and drink.
But that just couldn't be all that he could do on the island. There just had to be something else he could do to occupy his time other than just resting all the time and getting up when he felt hungry or thirsty or heard or smelt something out of the ordinary.
His thighs and triceps still hadn't recovered from when he first awoke: whenever he shifted weight to either one they would hurt, but it was oddly a good hurt. Interesting there was such a thing - a hurt that felt nice.
He came up with a solution to the problem of his boredom and his aching thighs about midday when the light was brightest. Propelled by little more than his own wonder, he strode out from the forest and found himself a spot on the beach. There he looked straight ahead, breathed deeply, felt a strange sensation in his stomach, then began to run. Sprinting on his two legs, he reached the corner of the island in no time, especially since there was no time to measure, and turned, lost footing on the slippery sand for a few steps, then regained grip and sped onward. His thighs had that same good aching every time he stomped the ground and brought them back up. And every time it hurt, it felt a little better than it did the previous time. The pain was lessening.
He turned another corner to see the same Iguanodon carcass he saw three days ago now gnawed to the bone and picked clean by pterosaurs.
He kept running, slightly faster now.
The next corner in the island's shape was not so much a corner but rather a long bend leading to the same stony hill that was to his right when deciding which direction he should take on the first day. The only easy way past it he could see was to follow the sands a little distance into the water and go around, so that was what he did.
When he turned back to the above-water beach, he saw a cave dug into the hill. He wanted to stop and investigate to see if it was viable shelter, but decided it would be best on the second lap when he had less energy.
He didn't stop on the second lap: he noticed it was already occupied by the same Allosaurus he saw before. He could tell by the ugly-looking wound to its thigh. It was lying down and it was awake and well aware of his presence, but only followed him with its head. And its gaze was nothing like the one it used before to tell him to back away - no, this was something different. If it was still there on the third lap, he'd risk stopping.
It was. He halted. It didn't move, just stared. He started running again, but only to a small distance further away, back to his starting point. It stood up and moved out of the cave, looking down the direction he came. He knew why. It was searching for a reason for his running.
He had a reason, but it wasn't a very good one. It switched its focus from him to the route he took, then back to him, then back to the route, then finally snorted and shook its head at the same time and went back into its cave to rest. He went back to doing laps around the island. The third and fourth times he lapped the island it would stand up and search the direction he came from then go back to resting. After the fifth, it became annoyed rather than interested, hissing and barking and growling at him to go away. He persisted, and on the eighth lap, it gave up trying to tell him what to do.
He let himself succumb to fatigue midway through the ninth lap on the opposite side of the island to the Allosaurus: it was best it didn't see he was exhausted in case it was hungry.
It was dusk, and after letting his legs recuperate he finished off a tree's leaves and settled down for sleep.
His thighs didn't hurt anymore, nor did his triceps - holding his arms up and running long and hard did their work. If only he could share his discovery with someone else...
The next day he was feeling really invigorated; an unintended effect he could only assume came from his laps around the island. He walked with a bound in his step and a feeling of positivity and confidence in his gut. He wanted to see for how long he could really run around the island: his last attempt ended sooner than he liked due to the light giving in to dark. But before he could do anything that involved exerting his body, he would need to satisfy his thirst.
He strode into the forest he now almost knew like the nesting site his herd was heading to. Aside from a small patch near the rocky hill, he had practically mapped the entire island mentally. The forest made up the majority of the landmass, with the small lake being only a few long distances from the ocean on any side. Crevices wide enough for him to fit through scarred the area, usually filled with seawater at the deepest points. No major landmarks.
He made it to the lake without hassle as opposed to the other times where he rolled a wrist or stubbed a toe when he failed to notice a drop in the landscape or a rock just in front of him. So, indeed, today was turning out to be pretty good.
The lake gave off a sweet scent. He would have liked to know how that was so, but he couldn't and he knew he never would; it was just nice to taste something sweet so close to something as salty as the sea itself.
Before he got stuck into drinking, he heard something come from his right behind a line of bushes. It sounded like splashing. He came closer to the water's edge and peered over the natural barrier while standing on two feet to see the Allosaurus taking a drink. It would nibble at the gash on its thigh from time to time as if it was irritating. The wound seemed to be turning black.
He knew he shouldn't as it was definitely against any sane judgment, but he called out to it.
The Allosaurus jumped as it realised it was being watched. He was no expert in recognising the looks in eyes, but he could take an uneducated guess that it was scared for a moment, just one moment, to see him looking over the wall of bushes. It narrowed its eyes, barked at him, then snorted and walked away to the other side of the lake.
It amused him how maybe a predator could feel fear. He called again. It turned its head up for a moment, snarled, and then went back to drinking. To be this tolerant, it must have found another source of food. He circled around the lake and approached it once more. It stared at him through slit eyes. He drank. It moved away. He followed it once again. This time it turned its whole body towards him, put its left foot forward, and roared. He tried to look unmoved, but he had to admit the majority of his muscles and organs were wrenching for him to turn tail and run for the coast. When he didn't respond, the Allosaurus leant further with its left leg and roared again, only to be cut short. Its left thigh cramped up - the muscle visibly contracting under the skin - and the roar became a yelp. It tried to recompose itself, but it lost balance and fell into the lake.
He watched in complete amusement as the mighty beast fumbled about in the lake, found its feet, rose from the water and limped away back to its cave, giving him a hiss as it passed him.
When it was nearly gone from sight, he called again and it said nothing in reply. He could only guess, but maybe that was the first time the Allosaurus had experienced the rare feeling of embarrassment.
As a safety precaution, he spent the following nights in one of the crevices within the forest in case he had unintentionally caused a grudge. Now, as he was hiding through a second day without food or water, he was most definitely regretting his actions.
He began realising what he had done moments after he did it, and decided the best place to hide was the places that smelled like the sea, but now, two days later, his hidey-hole smelt like his excrement. It wouldn't be safe to stay in a place that reeked of himself any longer. He would need to find another hole soon, and maybe strip a few branches and get a drink from the lake if he felt like trying his luck.
He pulled himself out of the crevice. His throat really hurt, even to breathe it ached. The entrance and therefore exit was steep and he struggled to find any grip on the clay surface, but he eventually made his way out and into the forest.
Thunder boomed several great distances away, which probably meant rains would soon follow. The lake was looking quite empty the last time he checked... for once a storm could do some good.
It would be best to stay out of holes in the ground for the time being while the rain swept through; if it was anything like the storm that killed his herd, the fallen water would easily fill up the crevices in next to no time.
The Allosaurus would probably have seen the signs long before and stuck to its cave to wait out the gale, which would mean he had all the time to restock on his food stores.
Two days without and it made every leaf seem like a meal on its own. And it was even better when he caught a flower off the branch, though really the flowering bushes were quite early - the wet season was not over yet, but it was a sign that it was coming to a close. That would be for the best. He just hoped this storm was not like the hell the herd-killer was.
The sky began to spit, quickly followed by a steady downpour. It felt so soothing to have something on his back other than the sun. The droplets dulled the pain of two days of sunburnt skin. He stood up onto his legs and looked straight up to the sky. Rain hit his eyes. He closed them and opened his mouth. Water streamed in, trickled down his tongue and streamed through his throat. Time felt like it had frozen - he had never felt so relaxed in all his life. So relaxed that he had to shift his feet as he lost his balance at times, but all the time he kept his eyes closed and mouth open, and lost himself in peacefulness.
His legs grew tired and he brought his arms to the ground and settled on all fours, eyes still closed trying to hold to that feeling of bliss. But he knew it was time to move, he opened his eyes and took two steps before he halted.
Just ahead of him, no more than one Iguanodon length away, stood yellow eyes.
They didn't do anything or say anything, just stared into his eyes. The Allosaurus gave nothing away about its mood for that was already clear as day: head low and eyelids near closing point. Rain dripped down its eye ridges, teeth, lips and chin. It growled once. He stepped back. Lightning flashed. It roared with a rage he hadn't heard in any creature ever. Thunder clapped its giant hands. It stepped forward. He turned and ran. Over the thunder and the howling wind and stinging rain he could hear the Allosaurus huffing through its nostrils and making contact with the ground with its massive feet as it gave chase through the pines. He couldn't look back at his pursuer, not with all these trees he had to watch out for, no matter how bad he wanted to see how far its jaws were from reaching his tail, or stomach, or neck. He couldn't go to the beach: it'd catch up to him if there were no obstacles in the way, no doubt about that. The only oth- Crevice! He jumped over successfully, but lost a lot of speed by stopping to make the perfect leap. Now looking back, he couldn't say the same for his attacker: it stopped for a second, jumped, and then yelped as it landed on its left foot. He pressed on.
Maybe if he tried the unexplored side he'd have a chance. Being chased, he wasn't exactly inclined to disagree with himself. To the unexplored area it was.
He turned his head back to see the Allosaurus still hunting him down at the fastest limp possible. He thread himself through a large gap in a rock wall. He just hoped that it wasn't...
It was.
On all sides there were walls. Too steep and high and slippery for him to climb and there was barely enough room for him to move. He stared down the only passage in and out.
Maybe if he made a stand the Allosaurus would figure he was too difficult to be prey and back down. His breathing intensified.
He could hear it coming through now; feet struggling to find comfortable positions. It huffed in frustration. Another step quickly followed by another yelp. He stopped breathing entirely. He heard a scuffle, filled with wailing and yelping and growls of frustration and heavy footsteps and thunder and rain. Until silence, with exception to the thunder and rain. He breathed again and took slow, cautious steps towards the passage. He followed the contours that had been carved in the stone. His eyes shifted from side to front to side. Then he was back at the main forest, with no sign of the Allosaurus in sight. Left, right, no sign.
Wait. Yes there was. On the wall on his right there was a patch of... he sniffed. Blood. It was blood - probably from the gash rubbing against the stone. He backed away at the smell and scanned the area again. He tried the ground. Footprints pressed into the mud. They led away from the area in the direction of the cave. It was best not to follow.
The next few nights he found refuge in the same crevice, but over the next few days there were no signs that his pursuer had entered the forest since it had exited. The storm passed with no repercussions and the light shone without a cloud in the sky. It was perfect, but there was something imperfect. The Allosaurus hadn't shown anywhere. Not hunting for him, nor at the lake, or on the coast. The only place he hadn't checked was the cave, but even so, he was scared to go near that place, completely in contrast to how he had behaved before the minor storm.
It wasn't good to have a predator on an island where he was the only real prey. So why should he care for the well-being of a threat? Even so, something was still tugging at him to go see the creature's fate.
For some reason, the forest felt empty without it.
He walked along the beach to reach the cave. The wind was blowing towards him and he could smell the faint scent of rotting flesh. It wasn't a nice smell; it probably wouldn't even smell nice to carnivores either, but even his nose couldn't confirm what his eyes could not see. He walked ever so slowly forward.
The cave was in sight, but no Allosaurus. Still he kept his pace: he had to be sure.
There was a small corner dug into the earth just by the cave, held up by limestone. He could hear laboured huffing. It had to be it.
Sure enough as his line of sight increased into the corner, he could see a tail, a snout, two legs, a whole head, and a body. It looked in bad shape. He knew it could smell him, and see him too: its nostrils were flaring and its eyes were wide open. He took a step forward and it snarled at him. He took another step and its snarling turned into a growl. He took another and it sat itself into a ready-to-stand pose, then it yelped and fell back onto its right side, head rested on a rock.
Its gash had turned totally black. He'd seen it happen with many of his herd before: sometimes they would be attacked by predators and would survive with deep cuts. Most times the wounds would heal and leave scars, but other times the wounds went black and, if left unmonitored and untreated, the victim would die. The great Allosaurus struck down by an infection it caught from a cut it received while being swept away in a storm. It could do nothing to him, and he could do anything he wanted with it, even put it out of its misery with his thumb spike if he wanted. But instead he walked away back to the rocky outcrop and peered into a dry rockpool and found something.
She closed her eyes as it went away to the rocky outcrop. She couldn't do anything anymore. She couldn't strike fear into anyone else, couldn't run, couldn't jump. Couldn't survive. Outlived by the last dinosaur she probably would ever have seen.
Then she heard a thud. She opened her eyes to find something just in front of her mouth. It was a dead turtle. The Iguanodon reverted back to walking on four legs and looked at her. She looked back. It nudged the dead turtle closer. It smelt like it had been dead for a day or two, but it was something, and that was better than nothing. She extended her neck and bit the flipper and brought it closer.
The Iguanodon stuck its thumb spike into her gash a little way, and it hurt like fire. She yelped hard and barked at it in anger. If it was going to kill her at least it could cut her neck. It walked over to the sea. She glared to make sure it got the message. Then she went back to the turtle.
It felt so nice to get a bit of something in her belly for once.
Another stinging sensation in her cut, but this one felt sort of good at the same time. The Iguanodon had taken water from the ocean, carried it in its mouth, and dropped it into the opened wound. She shuddered. It started to lick the gash with its tongue. Each lick eased the pain and the constant throbbing.
Her breathing slowed. She relaxed her muscles all over.
She drifted.
She dreamed.
She woke to find the Iguanodon resting by her the next morning. Her cut was less black and felt a whole lot better. She stared at the creature next to her. And only one thing came to her mind.
Why?
She held onto that thought and nudged it with her feet. It woke, stood up on all fours and looked at her with a look she had only ever seen from one other creature in her life. It brought its head close to hers, breathing slow, careful breaths. She raised her head slightly and her eyes held his gaze. It leaned in, drew back in hesitation, then leaned in again and lightly pressed its cheek to her neck.
Surprise swept her. It felt odd, but somewhat comforting at the same time. Instincts yelled at her to bite at its exposed throat, but it was acting completely out of what instincts would have demanded. Then she had a moment of clarity, and she knew why it did what it did. She closed her eyes and returned the nuzzle.
It wanted someone to love.
(Moral: Enemies may put aside hate for a common yearning)The first thing he could feel when he woke up was the rock his chin was resting on. He didn't open his eyes immediately, he just lay there waiting for the rest of his body to wake up, and as it did so he could feel big grazes, bruises and small cuts all along his arms, legs and sides. His mouth was dry and belly was empty.
He opened his eyes to find someplace different before him - certainly not the forested areas of the mainland he was used to. Instead he found himself lying on a rocky outcrop at the edge of a beach, the shore just a few paces from his face, gently lapping at the sand and rocks. Beyond that was another landmass, several hundred great distances away, and by the size of it, it seemed like that was the mainland. That would mean that this was the island he saw out of the corner of his eye when his herd would walk along the shoreline.
He raised his head and craned it slowly, following how far the sands went in either direction. He could say one thing for sure: the island was much bigger than what it appeared to be on the mainland shores. But then again everything looked bigger up close than from a distance.
It wasn't just sand and boulders that lined the beach; branches, twigs, and bits of earth and leaves were scattered across the otherwise completely white shoreline. The roaring winds and stinging rain had ceased, which meant the storm had ended a long time ago, making way for a cloudy sky. He knew he would have bad memories for a long time afterwards.
Wait. If the waves washed him up here and his herd was over there...
It hurt to get up onto his feet and hands, but he pushed through the pain and stood on his two feet and looked about harder. All across the shoreline there was nothing but fallen trees and broken branches, small birds and pterosaurs too. How they had managed to hang on through the storm was not for him to know, nor was why they had returned so soon.
He rested on all fours and let out a worried sigh through his nostrils. This wasn't good. He didn't know how to swim too well so he couldn't make his way back to mainland. He'd never been more than a few paces away from any other Iguanodon for his entire life. He wanted to keep it that way.
He stared over the rest of the island - the rest of the island that he could see at any rate - and attempted to decide which direction he should take: left where it seemed there was a small river leading into the island, right towards a stony hill, or forwards into the pine forest. His eyes kept shifting between the three directions all the while a deep, hollow feeling of isolation was growing inside of him, specifically in his back.
Before that feeling grew any worse, he decided to take the path on the left.
His thighs and triceps ached to walk, and he must have hit his head pretty bad when he was washed away by those big waves because there was a throbbing at the rear of his skull. He could do nothing to quell the minor irritation, only walk through it and hope it would go away soon.
He had now been walking for a long time, and there was still no end to the island in sight. What appeared to be a river turned out to be the shallow dividing line between the island he was on and another island. More of a sand bar than an actual island - only one tree was left, the rest had gone. The evidence for this notion was the large holes in the ground with ripped roots. The winds would have caught the branches and upturned the trees and the waves would have washed them away.
Aside from that minor revelation, there really was nothing much else to note: the shoreline maintained the same state of devastation as far as he could see, although there was a new item amongst the debris. If he looked to his left and out to the surrounding ocean, there would be small lumps bobbing in the water. Bodies. Drowned bodies slowly drifting inwards and outwards with the waves. The sea masked their smell, but they still weren't a pretty sight, especially since he knew they were there and couldn't help staring. One of them was being mauled and eaten by sharks, further reassuring him that he should not cross the strait to the mainland.
The feeling of loneliness was growing. He started calling out for the hope of finding someone, anyone, who might have washed ashore too. It wasn't nice being alone. There was this unspoken need to be around others of his own kind, as well as the obvious advantage of safety in numbers.
His calls started to hurt his throat after a while. He needed water soon. But it would be best if he finished his lap around the island first; see if anyone was here or swimming towards the island. Who knew? It was the rainy season. Sometimes huge mounds of cold, white things floated on the water and made landfall. Then after a while they would melt into the sea. Maybe someone had made it onto one of those mounds and was floating around on the waves. The thought kept his mind off the current task for a while. His mind trailed off too often, maybe.
He was looking at the ground when he turned around the corner of the island. If he had been paying attention he would have realised he smelt or heard it long before he saw it. Just ahead of him was another Iguanodon. Except it was dead. It was a few paces away and it was lying there on its side, eyes devoid of life, bloody ribcage showing, the skin having been torn off, and with a predator - specifically an Allosaurus - holding the carcass steady as it ate away at the stomach.
He stood still, but not out of fear. The feeling was something different. Maybe he was frozen by the sadness of one of his blood being reduced to raw food. Maybe it was fear, but he certainly didn't feel like he was scared. He just stared and stood still and breathed slowly.
The Allosaurus lifted its head to swallow a hunk of meat, then noticed him staring at it. It stared back at him with a carnivorous gaze, the kind that instructed him to back off. He did as he was non-verbally told; bowing his head in the process of reversing to make sure it got the message. It huffed once and went back to eating.
The corpse wasn't fresh. Its skin was pale indicating it had probably been a victim of the flooding, now drowned and washed ashore, making the Allosaurus a scavenger. The body would be its primary food source for a good few days and nights, as would all the others that would wash onto the beaches, but after that he would need to watch out.
It tilted its head upward again as it swallowed another piece and halted as it took note of him a second time. Its bloody lips matched the colour of its bony eye ridges. The eyes struck him more than anything else: a gold-yellow in colour around the iris. The red of the ridges and yellow of the eyes stood out like the sun in the sky in contrast to the rest of its body, which was a raincloud grey barring the black stripes running vertically across its back. It had bruises and grazes too, like he had. That probably meant it was swept from the mainland too. It also had something so noticeable he couldn't believe he didn't see it until just now: a deep gash to its left thigh. It had stopped bleeding, but it did not look like something anyone could merely shrug off.
It stepped over the carcass and took two steps towards him with that same gaze it used before. It hissed as it breathed in and snarled as it breathed out, then barked at him to get away. He took one final look at the gash and then ran on his legs into the island's forest to his right.
His first day on the island passed by really quite quickly, as did the second and the third. The island was much larger than he could ever have anticipated from the mainland shore. It even had a small lake somewhere inside the forest of pine trees and steep rocky crevices. Most of his time was spent either eating or searching for anyone else who might have winded up on the beach - preferably another member of his herd, or what's left of it, judging by the amount of bodies he saw lining the horizon.
The migration was therefore a complete failure. All the friends he knew gone in a matter of moments.
He sighed as he opened his eyes. He had been awake for a few moments before, but only now did he open his eyes. He had hoped he would go back to dreaming about silly things. Silly things done in silly locations with silly creatures, like running contests and... he couldn't remember what else he saw in his dreams. That was the funny thing about them: he could never totally recall a dream, not that there was anyone to recall a dream to - he had no way of communicating aside from a call of distress, a call of happiness, a call of embarrassment, a call of anger, and a call for a mate. That was the reason his herd was migrating before the storm hit - if it had been successful and if he had proven himself this time, he would have been a first-time father.
Now he couldn't be with anyone again unless the sea shrank or another storm hit another herd following the exact same route. But if the latter were to happen then there would be more death, and no one except sharks and scavengers would want to see that.
He sighed again and picked himself up off the rocky outcrop - the very same he woke up on three days before. There was nothing to do aside from the same routine: eat, drink, rest, repeat until dusk, all the while keep lookout.
He did as his stomach and throat demanded, bending to their will and whim. When he grew hungry he would strip the leaves off the trees, and when his oesophagus felt dry, he would go to the little lake and drink.
But that just couldn't be all that he could do on the island. There just had to be something else he could do to occupy his time other than just resting all the time and getting up when he felt hungry or thirsty or heard or smelt something out of the ordinary.
His thighs and triceps still hadn't recovered from when he first awoke: whenever he shifted weight to either one they would hurt, but it was oddly a good hurt. Interesting there was such a thing - a hurt that felt nice.
He came up with a solution to the problem of his boredom and his aching thighs about midday when the light was brightest. Propelled by little more than his own wonder, he strode out from the forest and found himself a spot on the beach. There he looked straight ahead, breathed deeply, felt a strange sensation in his stomach, then began to run. Sprinting on his two legs, he reached the corner of the island in no time, especially since there was no time to measure, and turned, lost footing on the slippery sand for a few steps, then regained grip and sped onward. His thighs had that same good aching every time he stomped the ground and brought them back up. And every time it hurt, it felt a little better than it did the previous time. The pain was lessening.
He turned another corner to see the same Iguanodon carcass he saw three days ago now gnawed to the bone and picked clean by pterosaurs.
He kept running, slightly faster now.
The next corner in the island's shape was not so much a corner but rather a long bend leading to the same stony hill that was to his right when deciding which direction he should take on the first day. The only easy way past it he could see was to follow the sands a little distance into the water and go around, so that was what he did.
When he turned back to the above-water beach, he saw a cave dug into the hill. He wanted to stop and investigate to see if it was viable shelter, but decided it would be best on the second lap when he had less energy.
He didn't stop on the second lap: he noticed it was already occupied by the same Allosaurus he saw before. He could tell by the ugly-looking wound to its thigh. It was lying down and it was awake and well aware of his presence, but only followed him with its head. And its gaze was nothing like the one it used before to tell him to back away - no, this was something different. If it was still there on the third lap, he'd risk stopping.
It was. He halted. It didn't move, just stared. He started running again, but only to a small distance further away, back to his starting point. It stood up and moved out of the cave, looking down the direction he came. He knew why. It was searching for a reason for his running.
He had a reason, but it wasn't a very good one. It switched its focus from him to the route he took, then back to him, then back to the route, then finally snorted and shook its head at the same time and went back into its cave to rest. He went back to doing laps around the island. The third and fourth times he lapped the island it would stand up and search the direction he came from then go back to resting. After the fifth, it became annoyed rather than interested, hissing and barking and growling at him to go away. He persisted, and on the eighth lap, it gave up trying to tell him what to do.
He let himself succumb to fatigue midway through the ninth lap on the opposite side of the island to the Allosaurus: it was best it didn't see he was exhausted in case it was hungry.
It was dusk, and after letting his legs recuperate he finished off a tree's leaves and settled down for sleep.
His thighs didn't hurt anymore, nor did his triceps - holding his arms up and running long and hard did their work. If only he could share his discovery with someone else...
The next day he was feeling really invigorated; an unintended effect he could only assume came from his laps around the island. He walked with a bound in his step and a feeling of positivity and confidence in his gut. He wanted to see for how long he could really run around the island: his last attempt ended sooner than he liked due to the light giving in to dark. But before he could do anything that involved exerting his body, he would need to satisfy his thirst.
He strode into the forest he now almost knew like the nesting site his herd was heading to. Aside from a small patch near the rocky hill, he had practically mapped the entire island mentally. The forest made up the majority of the landmass, with the small lake being only a few long distances from the ocean on any side. Crevices wide enough for him to fit through scarred the area, usually filled with seawater at the deepest points. No major landmarks.
He made it to the lake without hassle as opposed to the other times where he rolled a wrist or stubbed a toe when he failed to notice a drop in the landscape or a rock just in front of him. So, indeed, today was turning out to be pretty good.
The lake gave off a sweet scent. He would have liked to know how that was so, but he couldn't and he knew he never would; it was just nice to taste something sweet so close to something as salty as the sea itself.
Before he got stuck into drinking, he heard something come from his right behind a line of bushes. It sounded like splashing. He came closer to the water's edge and peered over the natural barrier while standing on two feet to see the Allosaurus taking a drink. It would nibble at the gash on its thigh from time to time as if it was irritating. The wound seemed to be turning black.
He knew he shouldn't as it was definitely against any sane judgment, but he called out to it.
The Allosaurus jumped as it realised it was being watched. He was no expert in recognising the looks in eyes, but he could take an uneducated guess that it was scared for a moment, just one moment, to see him looking over the wall of bushes. It narrowed its eyes, barked at him, then snorted and walked away to the other side of the lake.
It amused him how maybe a predator could feel fear. He called again. It turned its head up for a moment, snarled, and then went back to drinking. To be this tolerant, it must have found another source of food. He circled around the lake and approached it once more. It stared at him through slit eyes. He drank. It moved away. He followed it once again. This time it turned its whole body towards him, put its left foot forward, and roared. He tried to look unmoved, but he had to admit the majority of his muscles and organs were wrenching for him to turn tail and run for the coast. When he didn't respond, the Allosaurus leant further with its left leg and roared again, only to be cut short. Its left thigh cramped up - the muscle visibly contracting under the skin - and the roar became a yelp. It tried to recompose itself, but it lost balance and fell into the lake.
He watched in complete amusement as the mighty beast fumbled about in the lake, found its feet, rose from the water and limped away back to its cave, giving him a hiss as it passed him.
When it was nearly gone from sight, he called again and it said nothing in reply. He could only guess, but maybe that was the first time the Allosaurus had experienced the rare feeling of embarrassment.
As a safety precaution, he spent the following nights in one of the crevices within the forest in case he had unintentionally caused a grudge. Now, as he was hiding through a second day without food or water, he was most definitely regretting his actions.
He began realising what he had done moments after he did it, and decided the best place to hide was the places that smelled like the sea, but now, two days later, his hidey-hole smelt like his excrement. It wouldn't be safe to stay in a place that reeked of himself any longer. He would need to find another hole soon, and maybe strip a few branches and get a drink from the lake if he felt like trying his luck.
He pulled himself out of the crevice. His throat really hurt, even to breathe it ached. The entrance and therefore exit was steep and he struggled to find any grip on the clay surface, but he eventually made his way out and into the forest.
Thunder boomed several great distances away, which probably meant rains would soon follow. The lake was looking quite empty the last time he checked... for once a storm could do some good.
It would be best to stay out of holes in the ground for the time being while the rain swept through; if it was anything like the storm that killed his herd, the fallen water would easily fill up the crevices in next to no time.
The Allosaurus would probably have seen the signs long before and stuck to its cave to wait out the gale, which would mean he had all the time to restock on his food stores.
Two days without and it made every leaf seem like a meal on its own. And it was even better when he caught a flower off the branch, though really the flowering bushes were quite early - the wet season was not over yet, but it was a sign that it was coming to a close. That would be for the best. He just hoped this storm was not like the hell the herd-killer was.
The sky began to spit, quickly followed by a steady downpour. It felt so soothing to have something on his back other than the sun. The droplets dulled the pain of two days of sunburnt skin. He stood up onto his legs and looked straight up to the sky. Rain hit his eyes. He closed them and opened his mouth. Water streamed in, trickled down his tongue and streamed through his throat. Time felt like it had frozen - he had never felt so relaxed in all his life. So relaxed that he had to shift his feet as he lost his balance at times, but all the time he kept his eyes closed and mouth open, and lost himself in peacefulness.
His legs grew tired and he brought his arms to the ground and settled on all fours, eyes still closed trying to hold to that feeling of bliss. But he knew it was time to move, he opened his eyes and took two steps before he halted.
Just ahead of him, no more than one Iguanodon length away, stood yellow eyes.
They didn't do anything or say anything, just stared into his eyes. The Allosaurus gave nothing away about its mood for that was already clear as day: head low and eyelids near closing point. Rain dripped down its eye ridges, teeth, lips and chin. It growled once. He stepped back. Lightning flashed. It roared with a rage he hadn't heard in any creature ever. Thunder clapped its giant hands. It stepped forward. He turned and ran. Over the thunder and the howling wind and stinging rain he could hear the Allosaurus huffing through its nostrils and making contact with the ground with its massive feet as it gave chase through the pines. He couldn't look back at his pursuer, not with all these trees he had to watch out for, no matter how bad he wanted to see how far its jaws were from reaching his tail, or stomach, or neck. He couldn't go to the beach: it'd catch up to him if there were no obstacles in the way, no doubt about that. The only oth- Crevice! He jumped over successfully, but lost a lot of speed by stopping to make the perfect leap. Now looking back, he couldn't say the same for his attacker: it stopped for a second, jumped, and then yelped as it landed on its left foot. He pressed on.
Maybe if he tried the unexplored side he'd have a chance. Being chased, he wasn't exactly inclined to disagree with himself. To the unexplored area it was.
He turned his head back to see the Allosaurus still hunting him down at the fastest limp possible. He thread himself through a large gap in a rock wall. He just hoped that it wasn't...
It was.
On all sides there were walls. Too steep and high and slippery for him to climb and there was barely enough room for him to move. He stared down the only passage in and out.
Maybe if he made a stand the Allosaurus would figure he was too difficult to be prey and back down. His breathing intensified.
He could hear it coming through now; feet struggling to find comfortable positions. It huffed in frustration. Another step quickly followed by another yelp. He stopped breathing entirely. He heard a scuffle, filled with wailing and yelping and growls of frustration and heavy footsteps and thunder and rain. Until silence, with exception to the thunder and rain. He breathed again and took slow, cautious steps towards the passage. He followed the contours that had been carved in the stone. His eyes shifted from side to front to side. Then he was back at the main forest, with no sign of the Allosaurus in sight. Left, right, no sign.
Wait. Yes there was. On the wall on his right there was a patch of... he sniffed. Blood. It was blood - probably from the gash rubbing against the stone. He backed away at the smell and scanned the area again. He tried the ground. Footprints pressed into the mud. They led away from the area in the direction of the cave. It was best not to follow.
The next few nights he found refuge in the same crevice, but over the next few days there were no signs that his pursuer had entered the forest since it had exited. The storm passed with no repercussions and the light shone without a cloud in the sky. It was perfect, but there was something imperfect. The Allosaurus hadn't shown anywhere. Not hunting for him, nor at the lake, or on the coast. The only place he hadn't checked was the cave, but even so, he was scared to go near that place, completely in contrast to how he had behaved before the minor storm.
It wasn't good to have a predator on an island where he was the only real prey. So why should he care for the well-being of a threat? Even so, something was still tugging at him to go see the creature's fate.
For some reason, the forest felt empty without it.
He walked along the beach to reach the cave. The wind was blowing towards him and he could smell the faint scent of rotting flesh. It wasn't a nice smell; it probably wouldn't even smell nice to carnivores either, but even his nose couldn't confirm what his eyes could not see. He walked ever so slowly forward.
The cave was in sight, but no Allosaurus. Still he kept his pace: he had to be sure.
There was a small corner dug into the earth just by the cave, held up by limestone. He could hear laboured huffing. It had to be it.
Sure enough as his line of sight increased into the corner, he could see a tail, a snout, two legs, a whole head, and a body. It looked in bad shape. He knew it could smell him, and see him too: its nostrils were flaring and its eyes were wide open. He took a step forward and it snarled at him. He took another step and its snarling turned into a growl. He took another and it sat itself into a ready-to-stand pose, then it yelped and fell back onto its right side, head rested on a rock.
Its gash had turned totally black. He'd seen it happen with many of his herd before: sometimes they would be attacked by predators and would survive with deep cuts. Most times the wounds would heal and leave scars, but other times the wounds went black and, if left unmonitored and untreated, the victim would die. The great Allosaurus struck down by an infection it caught from a cut it received while being swept away in a storm. It could do nothing to him, and he could do anything he wanted with it, even put it out of its misery with his thumb spike if he wanted. But instead he walked away back to the rocky outcrop and peered into a dry rockpool and found something.
She closed her eyes as it went away to the rocky outcrop. She couldn't do anything anymore. She couldn't strike fear into anyone else, couldn't run, couldn't jump. Couldn't survive. Outlived by the last dinosaur she probably would ever have seen.
Then she heard a thud. She opened her eyes to find something just in front of her mouth. It was a dead turtle. The Iguanodon reverted back to walking on four legs and looked at her. She looked back. It nudged the dead turtle closer. It smelt like it had been dead for a day or two, but it was something, and that was better than nothing. She extended her neck and bit the flipper and brought it closer.
The Iguanodon stuck its thumb spike into her gash a little way, and it hurt like fire. She yelped hard and barked at it in anger. If it was going to kill her at least it could cut her neck. It walked over to the sea. She glared to make sure it got the message. Then she went back to the turtle.
It felt so nice to get a bit of something in her belly for once.
Another stinging sensation in her cut, but this one felt sort of good at the same time. The Iguanodon had taken water from the ocean, carried it in its mouth, and dropped it into the opened wound. She shuddered. It started to lick the gash with its tongue. Each lick eased the pain and the constant throbbing.
Her breathing slowed. She relaxed her muscles all over.
She drifted.
She dreamed.
She woke to find the Iguanodon resting by her the next morning. Her cut was less black and felt a whole lot better. She stared at the creature next to her. And only one thing came to her mind.
Why?
She held onto that thought and nudged it with her feet. It woke, stood up on all fours and looked at her with a look she had only ever seen from one other creature in her life. It brought its head close to hers, breathing slow, careful breaths. She raised her head slightly and her eyes held his gaze. It leaned in, drew back in hesitation, then leaned in again and lightly pressed its cheek to her neck.
Surprise swept her. It felt odd, but somewhat comforting at the same time. Instincts yelled at her to bite at its exposed throat, but it was acting completely out of what instincts would have demanded. Then she had a moment of clarity, and she knew why it did what it did. She closed her eyes and returned the nuzzle.
It wanted someone to love.
(Moral: Enemies may put aside hate for a common yearning)
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