Dead End

It was warm. Not unseasonably so, but compared to the relatively stable temperatures in the Alpha lab, it was warm. Almost hot, though not unbearable in the shade of the tall trees in the forest just beyond the decayed, sprawling expanse of an old, abandoned city. Gloam was relatively comfortable, resting her head on the smooth nest of quills that ran along Rime’s back. A hazardous pillow, if Rime suddenly bristled about something, but Gloam was quite certain of her safety.

She opened an eye lazily when Rime gave a particularly long and heavy sigh. Rime was still staring into the city. She had been focused on the city since they had scared the life out of that oviraptor and it mentioned an underground gateway that it had come from, convinced  that there might be more of their kin locked away in a vault that they couldn’t escape from.

And it wasn’t… an unfair assumption. Gloam did doubt its validity, since the oviraptor hadn’t mentioned seeing an acrocanthosaurus before, and seemed wary but not fearful of them. Had it learned to be cautious of large carnivores before starting to plant its wretched, tangling seeds, or only since it had come to the islands?

It was difficult to say, and they weren’t likely to get answers since they had let it go. It had run off, probably to spread more seeds as well as word about the horrible, violent acros that had threatened to eat it. The memory still amused Gloam.

She shifted her head on Rime’s spines, using the sharp tips to scratch an itch under her jaw. “What are you thinking about?” she asked, knowing full well what Rime was thinking about.

“We’re sitting idly while our kin could be rotting in concrete chambers beneath the earth,” Rime murmured.

The change in Rime’s attitude towards living outside of the Alpha lab had happened quickly, once she had grown accustomed to it. While she still visited the Grave of the Ancients from time to time, checking on the hall of bones they had left behind, Rime no longer called the dark and restrictive hallways home. It had never been a place of safety, they both knew that, but now they could look upon it and resolutely call it a prison. The whole facility was a grave that they were born in and would have died in, if not for the door’s miraculous opening.

And now… The oviraptors also came from a door. A gateway. Underground, like what they had come from.

Rime glanced towards Gloam, her pale eyes unusually gentle and full of concern. “Would you come with me to the city, help me look?”

Gloam hummed quietly, as though considering her answer. She already had planned on joining Rime, she’d just been waiting for Rime to ask. She stretched her neck forwards to nuzzle Rime’s nose with her own. “Yes. If there is a door to be found, we’ll find it.”

They would free their kin, if they were there to be freed.

Of course… this did assume they would be finding living acros, and not corpses. The oviraptors looked spry and healthy and seemed interested in meat - and vegetation. They might have been as fortunate as the dacen, and the facility they came from might be lush with plantlife for them to feed on when corpses were scarce.

They wait until the sun starts to set a bit lower in the sky, when the concrete is warm under their feet but not scorching hot and the shadows cast by the crumbling remains of the old city are long.

The pair of roaming teeth are far from the only ones visiting the city, but their presence is often avoided. Utahraptors prowl the buildings just out of view, ready to start a hunt as the city turns to night. They seem to be the most at home here, out of many of the dinosaurs that roam the islands. They aren’t a concern.

Gloam and Rime have prowled through this particular city more than once in search of food and shelter. The greatest challenge with finding the oviraptor’s “gateway” will be whether or not it’s in a location that they can actually fit into. The Alpha lab’s door was large enough for even several acros to walk through shoulder to shoulder - not that any were particularly fond of walking quite so close to one another.

The buildings here were made for humanity, not dinosaurs as large as Gloam or Rime. There are some structures, such as the strip mall of the shopping district and the warehouses closer to the shoreline, that are large and spacious, if a bit cluttered with decaying and abandoned human junk. It’s easy enough for both Gloam and Rime to push aside with a nudge from their heads.

Some structures, especially those at the mercy of all the wind, waves, and weather from the ocean, have experienced such weathering that there is no need of finding a large doorway to step into. The walls have simply fallen away, creating a natural opening wide enough to poke an inquisitive snout into.

Or a disappointed snout, as it turned out. Rime huffed. Investigating the interior of this place was just as fruitless as all the other searches had turned out to be. There was nothing in here but a counter with something old and rotten behind display glass, shelves and odd items that had gathered copious amounts of dust and sea salt buildup, and a skeleton huddled in the corner.

“Anything?” Gloam asked from further down the street. Abandoned cars sat strewn about the street, though most were rusting along the curb, where they had been parked since humanity was wiped from the islands.

“Nothing,” Rime grumbled. Every empty building was making her attitude worse. They were wasting time. They needed to find where the oviraptors had come from. If they could hunt one down, if they could coerce it like they did the first raptor that they had tricked, then perhaps they could get the location of their mythical “gateway.”

“They have to have come from somewhere,” Rime snapped. Gloam tilted her head. There was no need for that tone, they’re doing everything they can. There’s still not even a guarantee that there are acros at the end of this wild goose chase.

Rime inhaled, then sighed an apology, and Gloam stepped forwards to rub her muzzle along Rime’s neck. Rime turned her head, seeking comfort from her dearest companion. Night had fallen by this point in their search, and still it felt like they were no closer to finding where the oviraptors had come from. Rime felt an ache in her heart, a deep pain that she didn’t fully understand.

They had spent countless days and nights in the Alpha lab. Lost, trapped beneath the ground in a world that they hadn’t asked to be hatched into. They had grown up fearful, hungry and in pain. They watched their kin rise and fall to age, disease, starvation. They fed off of one another when they couldn’t get enough prey from the floors above. They were terrorised by the twisted beast that prowled the floor below. Life in the Alpha lab was… torturous. It left gaping wounds that would never fully heal.

Imagining that there were more of them locked away, that others could be experiencing the same cycle of such a violent, vicious existence - because though they were alive, they weren’t truly living - was agonising. They needed help. They needed freedom. Rime didn’t even know if she could give that to them, if they were truly there, but she needed to try.

Gloam was quiet, thoughtful as she comforted Rime. Something… caught her eye, as the moon slowly rose over the horizon. Moonlight, glinting off of something set within the ground. A manhole cover, partially buried under sand, leaf litter, and leftover human debris that had yet to rot away.

Gloam hummed gently, and pulled back just to bump her snout on the side of Rime’s head. “What if the entrance isn’t in a building?”

Rime glanced at Gloam, confused and not quite following what Gloam meant. “The oviraptor said it was in a building - “

“A building underground,” Gloam murmured. She nosed Rime again. “Look. The sewer is underground.”

And somewhere that they’d never fit. Rime heaved another sigh. If the entrance to the gateway was in the sewers, then they would never find it. They were simply too large.

“The subway system is also underground,” Gloam mused.

Rime looked thoughtful. It might… be a tight fit, particularly for her, but they could try it. It was as likely to lead them in the right direction as everything else they had tried so far.

Rime rumbled quiet thanks and brushed her muzzle alongside Gloam’s, appreciative of her support. Rime knows that this… means a lot more to her than it does to Gloam. That Gloam doesn’t believe there are others trapped as they were. But still, she’s here beside her, helping her search for something that is likely to not be real.

As anticipated, the subway tunnels are tight and cramped, but no more than some of the more enclosed spaces inside the Alpha lab where the ceilings were low and the hallways narrow. Rime has to lay her quills down flat along her spine and crouch down even further to crawl through the tunnel. Her tremendous size worked wonders for taking down large prey, but it was working against her here. Gloam walked behind her, crouched but not quite as severely as Rime.

Traversing through the tunnels was a slow process. There were no functioning lights here as there were in even the darkest corners of the Alpha lab, no bioluminescence that either of them bore to light the way. In the night, the shadows were dark as pitch and impossible to see through. They were guided by scent and touch, navigating slowly and carefully around gentle curves and over piles of debris where the tunnel had started to collapse. It made the tight squeeze even tighter, and more than once, Rime feared she would be stuck. Quills snapped off and littered the ground when her back brushed against a rough part of the ceiling, but if they found other acros, it would be worth it.

Gloam didn’t bring up that there were no fresh scents down here, in the darkest depths of the earth. They were underground, yes, and inside a human structure, also yes, but there were few oviraptor scents. There was no light for their wretched seeds to grow under, no familiar paths that they would have had to trace over and over as they ran back and forth, to and from wherever it was they came from. They would find no entrance here, no gateway.

Rime knew. She knew as soon as they started down this path that it would be unlikely, but still she wanted to try. Perhaps the wind stole the scents of the oviraptors from the tunnel, perhaps the old scents of human decay covered them up. But even in the heart of the city, the scent of the oviraptor had been clear and fresh, not something that was covered up by the other scents of asphalt, concrete, earth, and metal.

She pressed forwards, squeezing through an even tighter space which scratched at her hide and broke more quills. Some of the broken tips even stabbed at her hide, which made her growl. It felt like an insult more than an injury, and it was made worse when she ran into something solid ahead of her.

It smelled of metal and rust, of old human machinery. There were other scents as well - an almost overwhelming, significant amount of damp and decaying cloth, hundreds of bones hidden away inside the metal box and just out of reach. It felt smooth and flat under her muzzle as she nosed it, exploring its surface. A subway car, most likely. The end of their time in the tunnel, and still they had found nothing. As they both knew would be the case. Rime pressed her head against the metal and heaved a sigh, staring towards the ground that she couldn’t see, swallowed by the darkness. This felt impossible, suddenly.

How long had they been crawling through the subway tunnel, forcing their way past obstacles? How long had she been leading Gloam through this wasteland of dank darkness? All for nothing. And they would have to turn around and walk that same path of disappointment, all the way back to the surface.

Gloam rumbled quietly, nosing Rime’s thigh with a gentle touch. She knew what she was getting into when she followed Rime down. She knew it was a fruitless endeavour, but still she came with Rime. They were still a team, no matter how futile the venture might seem.

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” Gloam offered quietly. For now, they could return to the surface, and then they both needed to get some sleep.