Postmortem Ch12 || Food for Ghosts

“Me.” Prototype almost seemed to smile. There was unfriendly laughter in her voice and eyes as she glared back at Sunflower and Hazard, who had returned to the foyer with ample amounts of bedding.

Despite having been quite friendly up until this point, Sunflower looked angry to see Prototype, particularly that she was standing there with herbs that she had undoubtedly taken from his stores. Not that he hadn’t intended on going back to Zone B to pick them up, anyway - Click needed more help than he’d been able to scrape together in the short time that they’d spent in Zone B - but it was the fact that she had them that angered him.

“You’re stealing from me? Again? Can you not see that this- this, this-” Sunflower blustered, so angered by the thief’s presence that he couldn’t remember what Click had been called. Suchomimus was the word that he was grasping for.

“He needs help, and you’re-”

“Helping,” Prototype offered with a shrug. She seemed more than unimpressed by Sunflower, her voice as nonchalant as the slight shrug of her shoulders. He looked ridiculous, sheets and pillows tossed up between the spikes and plates that ran along his back.

“You were going back down to get it anyway. Don’t pretend you weren’t.”
Sunflower would never turn away from someone that needed his help, even a carnivore. He was a strange dacen.

Hazard dropped the bunch of pillows and blankets that he’d brought from the living quarters. There was a hard edge to his voice that hadn’t been there before. “If you’re helping, then hand over the bag.”

Tobias tilted his head, flat-coloured eyes always watching. Prototype wasn’t as calm as she wanted them to think. Though Sunflower had never chased her with intent to hurt her, she had been hunted by dacen before, and albertos. Being so close to them and on even ground made her wary. That was why she hadn’t relinquished the bag. It was as much a hostage as it was a gesture of good will.

The scene in the foyer was one that had been played out time and time again in the Alpha lab. A silent standoff as they judged one another - whether the risk was worth the reward. Prototype was fast. She’d killed dozens of young acros, dacen, and albertos to sustain herself. Sunflower didn’t want to fight, but he had a patient to protect. Hazard had killed just as many, if not more than Prototype in order to survive and keep himself and those he cared about safe. He was just good at hiding it.

Callahan’s feathers were raised, the tension almost palpable. Her eyes darted between the giants and the strange raptor. If a fight broke out, Petrichor wouldn’t be able to move fast enough to get out of the way. She could be crushed, or caught in the crossfire by that massive, spiked tail that Sunflower had.

But there wasn’t going to be a fight. Not here, not tonight, at least. Prototype grabbed the bag with her mouth and tossed it over towards Dr. Sunflower with a flick of her head.

Sunflower exclaimed, a sound of surprise and concern. For being such a big creature, he moved with surprising speed to catch the bag and its precious contents.

Callahan hissed quietly when Prototype, too, moved suddenly - racing away towards the safety of the far end of the foyer, towards the cramped stairway that descended into the depths of the facility. Good riddance. There were too many others here for Callahan to be comfortable, anyway.

She settled down a bit when Petrichor nibbled at her feathers. It was touching, the way Callahan was so ready to spring to her defence like that. A bit silly, because there was really not much that she could do against such colossal beasts, but sweet all the same.

The raptor pair calmed down more as an uncertain air of peace settled over the foyer. Prototype’s sudden appearance and just as sudden disappearance had been a bit of a disruption, but she had made it easier for Dr. Sunflower to tend to Click. The time that it would’ve taken him to go all the way back down to Zone B, to collect his herbs - Prototype had stolen from him enough times that she had even brought the right ones - and make it back up to the foyer would’ve been precious time lost. Click was still in a rough state.

Tobias helped Hazard gently remove the remaining bedding from between Sunflower’s spikes while the dacen began his work on the still unconscious suchomimus. They’d gathered enough to make all of them more comfortable. Tobias laid near Click - though out of the way enough to not impede Sunflower’s work. Hazard… sat nearby. He appeared to intend to stick around for at least a little while longer.

In truth, Hazard felt guilty. He had guided Click to the stairwell in the first place. If he hadn’t… Click might not have sustained these injuries.

As though he could read Hazard’s mind, Tobias spoke up. To Hazard, Tobias’s voice was quiet and soft. He sounded far older than he looked. “Another would have lead him into the depths, even if you hadn’t.”

Hazard sighed, unconvinced, and watched Dr. Sunflower work. The dacen was so focused on his patient, he hardly seemed to notice the world around him anymore.

Quiet settled over the foyer again, interrupted only by quiet sounds of the rustling of herbs, bloodied fabric, and chewing as herbs were made into pastes that could be more easily spread over Click’s wounds. Some of them would be better used if Click could eat them, but he didn’t want to try to feed them to the unconscious suchomimus and risk choking him. Doctors who killed their patients tended to get a bad rap.

Petrichor, unperturbed by their odd company, tucked her muzzle into Callahan’s feathers. Rather than sleeping, Callahan was determined to keep a sharp eye on the others. Hazard seemed friendly, but there was something in his eyes. Hunger. They were all a potential meal, and the albertos had been poorly fed for a very long time.

Tobias turned his head slightly, his pale gaze piercing through the dark. Callahan could sleep. She wasn’t the only one keeping an eye on everyone - their shadow had returned to watch over them while they slept.

Even with the light of the moon and stars gently lit the foyer as it spilled in from the entrance, the shadows thickened further into the foyer. It was still bright enough to see by. While the others slept, Tobias watched the slow rise and fall of Click’s ribs. The poor creature. It was curiosity that had brought him to the facility, and the kindness of a heart that had known only loneliness that made him stay.

Click had siblings once. Two of them. Unremarkable little things, the colour of bleached bone. They had never made it beyond their eggshells. He had never known his parents. Abandoned.
He was alone. He just wanted to help.

He was going to die down here. The air with its invisible poisons choking him and making his head and eyes ache. Every breath painful. He could barely move his legs. If he survived, somehow, would he walk again? Was it a mistake to come here? Had he helped at all? Or was he going to simply fade away, alone and forgotten as he had been when he first hatched into the world? A ragged cry escaped his throat, cut short when that, too, pained him.

Tobias blinked and drew his claws back from the suchomimus’s snout. A quiet sound had caught his attention, and he noticed that it wasn’t starlight that lit the foyer anymore, but sunlight. The barest hints of morning as the sun crept over the horizon. He turned towards the source of the sound, only to see that it was the raptors conversing quietly amongst themselves as they preened one another. A gentle ritual, strengthening their bond.

“You need to eat, Petrichor,” Callahan said under her breath. “I heard your hunger. And you need your strength for your ankle to heal.” Then maybe they could leave this place, put it behind them and never come back. “I just… don’t want to leave you here by yourself.”

There was quiet laughter in Petrichor’s voice. “I think if they wanted to eat us, they would have done so already.” Besides, they had an easier meal from the suchomimus if they were truly starved.

Callahan cast her gaze over the sleeping forms of the others in the foyer. Mostly sleeping. Tobias’ deathly, flat-coloured eyes rested on them, and it made her feathers lift. She’d never wanted to run away from another dinosaur so badly.

Petrichor nosed Callahan again. “Go find us something to eat. Maybe something for our hosts, as well. I’ll be fine.”

Callahan snorted and got to her feet, shaking out her feathers to hide just how unsettled Tobias made her feel. “I’m not hunting for them,” she grumbled under her breath. Maybe. Then again, it might make them less of a tempting meal to the other, larger carnivores if they had something in their bellies as well.

“Fine,” she snorted again. She bumped her muzzle to the top of Petrichor’s head. “I’ll be back soon.”

Petrichor hummed quietly. She’d be here, more or less where Callahan left her.

With a hard look at Tobias, as much of a glare as she could muster, Callahan headed towards… not the door. She paused. She’d been hunting outside the facility when she could, since there was more prey and it was easier for her to stalk where the ground didn’t give away her every footstep. But that was before she and Petrichor had moved into the foyer with the others, when they were still hidden away and safely inside a barricaded room. Now, Petrichor was exposed.

There was food in the building. They’d both heard the sounds of little footsteps scurrying around during the quiet moments. Hunting inside the facility wasn’t ideal, but at least it wouldn’t take her as far from Petrichor. And she’d be able to hear if there was trouble.

Decision made, Callahan turned down a hallway, while Petrichor watched her go with no small amount of fond amusement. What to do in the meantime?

This hunt was going to be tricky. Callahan had to find enough food for the two of them, and for Hazard and… maybe Tobias. He looked healthier than Hazard, so he probably wouldn’t decide to eat them if he started to feel peckish. And the most that the facility seemed to have to offer was… rats. Mice and a few bats, maybe, but they were so small that they were hardly worth the effort.

Her claws clicked on the tile as she walked. A quiet, repetitive sound that gave her away to anything that might potentially be prey. It was grating. She was beyond ready to return to the forest where she could freely run, jump, stalk, and climb to her heart’s content.

“You’re not going to catch much in this hallway.”

Prototype’s voice from behind her made Callahan jump. A hiss forced itself between her teeth as Callahan whipped around to glare at the other raptor.

“Didn’t you leave?” Callahan snapped.

Prototype looked just as unimpressed as she had when Sunflower had been angry with her. “Yeah, and then I came back.”

She continued before Callahan could say anything else. “You want help? That’s a lot of mouths to feed for one raptor.” She tilted her head, deliberately pointing out Callahan’s noisy claws. The smaller raptor could refuse - and she did.

Callahan shook out her feathers, trying to get them to lay flat again. “I don’t need your help.”

Prototype stared as Callahan continued on her way. “Uh… Yeah, you do.” She hurried to catch up with the feathered raptor. “You’re going to scare everything into a hole that it won’t come out of if you try hunting in here.” Callahan’s footsteps echoed quietly through the halls, punctuating Prototype’s point.

Until Callahan stopped again, glaring at the ceiling in an effort to contain her temper. She was here to find food, not to get in a fight. Fighting would only make it harder for them to leave, because she’d undoubtedly get hurt.

“And how is it that you’re walking so quietly?” Callahan growled, turning towards Prototype once again. Prototype took this as an invitation to join her on her hunt, and walked beside her, once again demonstrating how quietly she could walk on the tiled floor.

“I pick my claws up when I walk,” Prototype mused.

Callahan’s feathers fluffed once again, and she scowled. Was Prototype insinuating that she, what - dragged her feet when she walked?

Prototype shrugged, walking ahead of Callahan. “If you walk more on the back of your foot touching the ground first, your claws won’t tap the floor as much.”

“And it helps-” Prototype turned a corner. She had this entire place mapped out in her head. She knew exactly where she wanted to go. “- if we hunt somewhere that’s a bit more spacious.”

The hallway opened up into a cavernous room, full of oddly shaped human things. Small planes and helicopters, barrels, little machines that humans could have driven around to service and tow the planes.

“No close walls for your footsteps to echo off of. If you’re any good, you can hunt in here just fine.”

Callahan continued to scowl. She was a great hunter. She was curse-touched. It was a blessing that helped her hunt in the darkest shadows, and it was dark in here. She’d be able to catch things just fine.

“Why are you trying to help me?” Callahan asked, suspicious. Prototype looked at least a little better fed than the other inhabitants of the Alpha lab, so she probably wasn’t luring Callahan to her untimely demise. Probably.

“You’re not doing so great at the hunting thing,” Prototype sneered.

Callahan wrinkled her muzzle, and Prototype barked a quiet laugh. “I like being not dead. That’s all.”

Okay, so, a non-answer. So helpful.

While Callahan preferred to hunt with a partner, she was not going to be hunting with Prototype, and Prototype seemed to prefer to hunt by herself anyway. They weren’t going after anything large enough that Callahan would need help, and there was less chance that Callahan would scare away whatever Prototype was going after with her clicky-clacky claws. Both utahraptors were happy-ish.

Callahan did try to walk as Prototype had indicated, with only some success. Trying to be conscious of how she placed her feet was awkward and far from intuitive, and ended up making her even more noisy at times when she stumbled and hit something. She longed to return to nice, normal dirt, sand, and ash. It was hard to even smell things in here to properly hunt. Everything stank of oil, metal, and mildew. The scents of prey animals were fleeting, stirred up by a distant breeze than any real trails. The openness of the space made it harder for things to hear her, sure, but it also made it more difficult to pinpoint where her prey was moving around, too.

With stalking not going to plan, Callahan resorted to something more familiar, and far more preferable. There were more levels in the hangar, made by shelves or perching on top of planes or inside of helicopters whose doors had been left open. She could settle in one spot, hidden by shadows, and wait and watch.

Prototype had a more active approach. She effortlessly stalked through the hangar, laying her feet down carefully with every step - and sometimes sliding her feet over the smooth concrete. If she was spotted or heard by her prey, it was often too late. Her prey didn’t have a chance to fight, flee, or even make a sound before she’d snapped its vertebrae or crushed its skull with a powerful, skillfully-aimed bite.

Callahan leapt from her hiding spot as soon as movement indicated that a rat was coming out of hiding. She ended its life just as quickly, but when Prototype came over to investigate the sounds of Callahan’s hunt, she tilted her head.

“Is that it? One rat? How do you feed yourself out there if this is all you can catch in that time?”

Callahan bristled. “I’m usually going after something a lot bigger than a rat in somewhere a lot nicer than this!” she spat. Besides, Prototype had only managed to catch two, and Callahan’s was bigger than both of hers combined.

Prototype snorted. Sure. They wouldn’t be catching much more, though. The scuffling to hunt down what they had found would’ve sent everything into hiding, if the scent of blood didn’t already.

“C’mon, I found something better than some scrawny rats to feed your friends anyway.”

Callahan grumbled under her breath as she stowed the rats inside a helicopter. They weren’t her friends, she didn’t know any of them other than Petrichor. And Petrichor was… more than a friend. Not that Prototype needed to know.

She followed in the direction that the green-coloured raptor had gone, only to stop in her tracks at the sight that lay before her. A nest, some of the eggs cracked and empty, with an old, scarred albertosaurus that lay near it.

“What are we doing here?” Callahan whispered, wearing a look of uncertainty.

“Getting an easy meal. You don’t have to whisper, it’s dead.” And not for long, thankfully. The eggs that were still intact reeked of rot, but the meat still smelled good.

“Wh-” Callahan took a step back, her feathers standing up again. “We can’t eat that, that’s…” Another carnivore. She didn’t even like to hunt herbivores if she could help it, but to eat another carnivore seemed even more wrong.

She grimaced as Prototype bit at the corpse’s hide and started to rip into the flesh. If she could just get into it, she could start tearing pieces off that they could bring back.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Prototype snorted. “This was an old bull that was left behind because he was too weak to leave. They were hoping- “ she took another mouthful and ripped. “- that he’d watch the nest and be food for the young ones when they hatched. But it looks like he didn’t do a good job of incubating it, because they went bad days ago.”

Callahan looked at Prototype with a mix of disbelief, disgust, and a small amount of horror. “You didn’t show me here to hunt some rats.” Prototype knew that the alberto was here. She knew why he was left, and knew that he had died only recently. She’d lead her here to help her bring back… chunks of whoever this was.

Prototype made another grunt of exertion. At least the body was stiff, that made tearing pieces off a little easier. “No. And now we have enough for everyone. Except Sunflower, but I’m pretty sure he won’t want any.”

Callahan shook her head and took another step back. No way. She was not helping Prototype bring back pieces of whoever this was for the others to eat. Especially not to Petrichor. None of them were that hungry.

Except, they had been. Prototype knew that. Hazard was probably hanging around the lab still because he was hoping that this old bull would kick the bucket, so he could get one more good meal before he left the facility to whatever brave new world waited for them. He acted so nice, but he was just as desperate as the rest of them when it came down to it.

Prototype rolled her eyes and turned back to the carcass. She wanted to get more off of it before it spoiled, or someone else came and found it. A fresh carcass like this was a beacon, and it was no small miracle that they’d gotten here first. Probably thanks to the fact that most of the facility had left to see what lay beyond the doors. “Fine, suit yourself. Take the rats, you can share them with your friend.”

Wordlessly, Callahan did exactly that. She returned to where she’d left the rats, reeling over what she’d seen, and took them back to Petrichor.

Petrichor had been chatting quietly with Hazard and Dr. Sunflower, and when she saw Callahan approaching with a small meal, she greeted her with a soft, musical trill. She quieted when she saw the look on Callahan’s face. Something… wasn’t quite right.

And it was something that Callahan wasn’t quite ready to talk about yet. She set the rats before Petrichor, who thanked her quietly. Callahan settled down beside Petrichor, fluffing her feathers to warm her up a bit. Callahan had, for some reason, lost her appetite. She glanced at Hazard, who looked back at her with warm eyes. Did he have any idea that one of his kin had died, and was being harvested for what little meat clung to his bones?

She felt even more ill to realise that yes, he probably did. Prototype returned not long after Callahan had with several long, fatless strips of meat hanging from her jaws and in her claws, and Hazard didn’t even ask where she’d found such a bounty. There was another silent standoff as Prototype wordlessly offered the meal to Hazard and Tobias. She had brought food and given up the herbs - would she be allowed to visit peacefully?

The answer was, ultimately, yes. Prototype shared what she’d brought back, and then went back to the hangar for more. Dr. Sunflower excused himself while the carnivores ate, and focused instead on his patient. They’d need to get water soon, so he could better clean the wounds and try to get Click to drink something. Dehydration could kill him very quickly, even if he continued to survive his injuries.

Prototype knew how to get that, too. She could get a bucket and Callahan would surely help her find some fresh water outside, right?

Prototype’s light orange eyes burned through Callahan as she glanced towards the pair of raptors for confirmation.

Callahan nodded after a moment, with light prompting from Petrichor. She couldn’t wait to leave this place.