What World We Came From

Small, annoying creatures had been sighted across the island. Islands, apparently, if rumours were to be believed - it wasn't just a problem on Isla Pera, where Gloam and Rime had carved out their home. And it wasn't a problem until they had started spreading seeds. The sprouts which sprang forth from the earth, wherever they were dropped, were consuming everything. Even the grazers couldn’t keep up with the new growth, and it was thick. Densely packed vegetation that was near impossible to traverse when it got tall enough, unless you wanted to risk tangling a foot in the vines and wounding yourself on the fall.

It was getting harder to hunt, and that was a problem for dinosaurs as large as an acro. Even more for acros that had known the skeletal touch of starvation. Gloam and Rime had gotten used to the abundance of prey that the islands offered, even if it had been a substantial learning curve to figure out how to stalk amongst the trees of the island’s jungles and forests.

With more space and freedom to move, Gloam was turning out to be an excellent sprinter. Terrifying, for any prey she had in her sights. A wonder to behold for Rime, who was slower, but stronger. For hunts with larger targets, Gloam caught up to their prey and kept it occupied, Rime did the remaining heavy lifting and ended its life. They feasted together.

Which was exactly what they were doing when a vibrantly coloured, black-and-gold oviraptor peeked out from behind the ruined wall of a brick building from the time humans still owned the islands.

Rime’s lip peeled back, revealing bloodstained teeth. Rotten creatures. May their bones be consumed by the very plants they seed across Pera and Kela.

Gloam’s eyes glittered as she observed the oviraptor, a strip of meat caught in her teeth and hanging over the edge of her jaw. Her eyes were fresh spring leaves in dappled sunlight, which painted her hide. She was aptly named.

For a moment, there was silence between the three of them. A low, dangerous sound rattled in Rime’s throat in time with the quiet, dull rustling of the spines that ran along her back. The oviraptor flinched, and made to run, but Gloam spoke up, and it paused.

“Do you want some?” she asked. Her voice was unusually soft and sweet. Rime glanced towards her partner in mild disbelief. She was inviting it to feast with them?

Gloam glanced towards Rime as well, giving her a look that Rime immediately recognised. This wasn’t just a gesture of goodwill. Gloam found the oviraptors as wretched as Rime did - but this was the first one that they had seen. It might be the last one that they see, as well. 

The oviraptors had to be coming from somewhere. They had shown up almost seemingly overnight, and there certainly hadn’t been any in the Alpha labs. They both knew Zone C by heart, and Rime had a pretty good idea that there hadn’t been any hiding in Zone D, either. Their bones would have come up, or their carcasses would have been locked away in tubes of ice. They would have joined the Grave. But they never had, and never would. Rime, at least, would never add their bones to such a sacred place. They would be left to bleach in the sun and crumble away into dust, if an herbivore didn’t consume their bones first. It would be a fitting end to such pesky creatures, Rime thought with a faint smile.

The oviraptor regarded them warily, tilting its head. Gloam nudged a chunk of meat towards the oviraptor, which let out a quiet sound of concern and danced back a few paces. It had… an unusual purple marking on its leg. Only one. Unnatural shapes to be found on a dinosaur - yet completely natural at the same time. Marked by the very same plants that it spread across the islands, perhaps?

“Your companion,” Supernova finally managed to find her voice, if somewhat reluctantly, “doesn’t seem particularly enthused by my approach.”

“You can join us,” Rime replied, a growl still in her voice.

Gloam dipped her head slightly, which was still a substantial movement, given her size compared to the oviraptor. So small they could likely bite it in half. Rime savoured the thought.

The oviraptor eyed the pair a moment longer before taking a few cautious steps forwards and picking at the scrap of meat Gloam had pushed towards it. “You’re very kind,” she said between bites. Small and delicate. Birdlike. Easy to break.

Supernova sighed, looking deeply saddened. “In truth, I only came this way because I expected to find you dining on one of my own companions. Our arrival here has not… been received well.”

Rime couldn’t contain another low growl, to which the oviraptor startled slightly. The impudence.

Gloam gave Rime a look. Patience. Rime turned back to their meal, and ripped off another considerable chunk. It was almost as large as the oviraptor - which she swallowed down in one gulp.

“We’re sorry to hear that,” Gloam offered, her voice sympathetic. “Our ‘arrival’ here was poorly received as well.”

“...How so?” Supernova seemed as curious as she was cautious, like she hadn’t been expecting to hear of other newcomers to the islands. Did she expect them to have always been there?

“We came from a place in the earth. Caves, built by the same creatures that built these structures.”

Rime glanced towards Gloam, then to the oviraptor. A glimmer of recognition, and even more curiously, understanding shone in Supernova’s eyes. Rime decided she was done eating, for now. Maybe she would have something else to chew on soon. Something small and full of fragile little bones.

Supernova had been getting more comfortable with them, the longer they spoke. She was almost within reach, now. “You came from a - ah, a big cave?” she corrected herself. The oviraptor was pretending to know less about human structures than she really did.

Rime heaved herself to her feet, her massive form all but blocking out the sun from the oviraptor’s view. Supernova balked slightly.

“We did,” Rime rumbled. This was a tactic they used less, but Supernova would be difficult to capture in a dead sprint. She looked speedy.

 “The cold depths where no light shines but what the humans left behind, flickering and dim until the angry heat from below changed us and we grew our own suns and were shaped into twisted forms.”

If Rime could distract Supernova, draw enough of her attention, Gloam could act. They could get their answers. This might be their only chance to do so.

“Our prey above was too dangerous except for the most desperate to attempt to hunt. We were met below by the mangled, hungry jaws of one of our own that had gone mad in their isolation. There was no one we were closer to than our own kin - and death.”

Gloam rolled her eyes faintly. Dramatic. But, true. And it had Supernova’s attention. The oviraptor looked horrified, yet captivated. Let her learn just a bit of their history, let her know how dangerous the world that they came from is. What they would do to survive.

“We had no room to breathe or hunt, and when we hungered,” Rime’s voice was a growl, “we consumed the bodies of our fallen.”

“You ate each other?” came Supernova’s shocked gasp. All of what Rime described was alarming, but cannibalism? That was simply barbaric.

“We rent flesh from bone until there was nothing left of their body but bloodstained remains.” And their bones were given to the Grave, but that was not for this invader to know. What wretched things would they do to the resting place of her kin, if they knew about it? Flood the halls with greenery, using the bones of their fallen kin and the ones who came before as fertiliser? She would not allow it. “And then we did it again-”

“And again.” Gloam’s voice came from right beside Supernova. The oviraptor squawked, unaware that Gloam had gotten quite so close. Before she had a chance to run, Gloam rolled the much smaller dinosaur with a push of her snout. Supernova all but skid over the cracked concrete, her hide scraping against it. The smell of fresh blood followed.

Gloam pinned the oviraptor simply by stepping on its tail, and when Supernova flailed and shrieked, she silenced the oviraptor with a flash of teeth and a bellow that shook the remaining intact windows that lined the streets.

“Where do you come from?” Rime snarled. At first, the answer only consisted of frantic, incoherent babbling and desperate pleas.

“If you won’t answer, you’ll become the body we feast upon-” Rime’s massive jaws parted, teeth and mouth still stained red by the meal they had abandoned.

“Wait! Stop!” Supernova shrieked, eyes shut tight as she thrashed to get away. Rime paused mere inches from the oviraptor’s body, her warm breath reeking of her most recent meal as she exhaled. The oviraptor’s tiny claws smacking uselessly against teeth nearly half as thick as its spindly arms.

“There’s a gateway! Underneath the ground, a cave like you described! A tunnel! That’s where we came from that’s how we got here I swear! A structure that the humans built and left behind for us to discover!” The words came out in a tumble, a tangled mess between pleas for her life, but coherent enough for the acros to understand.

Gloam and Rime shared a look. Another tunnel? Gloam let Supernova up, who immediately scrambled to her feet and took off into the ruined remains of the city. Gloam watched the oviraptor scurry away with a look of amusement. It was, indeed, a fast little thing.

Rime looked less amused. “What?” Gloam laughed lightly. “Do you really think she was lying? She thought she was going to end up like that parasaur.”

Her partner sighed as she turned back to the remains of their meal, but it was a fond sound.

A gateway. Not a door, like theirs, but a gateway. That’s what the oviraptor had described it as while begging for her life. A gateway to what, though? Another facility? Were more of their kin trapped beneath the earth, dying to feel the sun on their hides before they withered away into nothing? It seemed unlikely if the oviraptors were wandering the islands, but perhaps if they had gotten through a very small opening…

“You want to look for it.” It’s a statement from Gloam, not a question. She can see it on her partner’s face that Rime wants to follow this further.

“I do,” Rime agreed with a low rumble. “If there are more of us… they deserve to see the sun. The real sun. As you’ve shown me,” she teased, and bumped Gloam’s jaw with a bloody snout.

Gloam chuffed and nudged Rime back in kind, and settled back down to share a meal with her partner.