[Gift] Seasonal | Skeletons | Facinations

It was dry air down in the corridors of the lab, it tasted old and recused. Many dinosaurs before them must have breathed this air. The Dacent moved carefully as the spiked tail swung behind him. He didn’t really think too hard about how unhealthy this air must be at this moment. Having passed through so many lungs. It would only cause him a panic if he thought too closely on it. 

Behind him were two female Carnos. They too walked carefully through the halls. They all had a similar problem and that was the fact that they could easily destroy walls if they weren’t careful. The walls were old and not well kept and they were quite big. It wouldn’t take much to crumple the walls. 

“We have to make a right over here.” Root said with confidence. It was not the first time he had walked down to this specific part of the lab. He wasn’t really sure why he kept doing it, taking strangers down these corridors to help them find a room with things a lot of them thought was the weirdest they had ever seen. Root knew what was waiting for them in those rooms. Dinosaurs they couldn’t save. The green liquid that was strangely still. “Then it is straight ahead.”

Occasionally they would stop along the way as the Carnos thought they saw something interesting in one of the rooms. Root just let them indulge themselves in exploring the rooms. There was nothing in most of them anyway.

“Look at this thing.” The darker of the Carnos, Shaaba said to the other, Talia. “Do you know what this was for?”

“I have absolutely no clue.” Talia shook her head as they both looked over an old, broken tv-remote. “It is so small.” They would repeat these words many times during their explorations down the labs. Anything they didn’t understand they would look closely at.

Root didn’t mind. He didn’t think they had a specific time to pass. If they wanted to spend time looking through these boring rooms then that was fine by him. But as they were amazed by even trinkets he was unsure on how they would react if they actually saw what was in the rooms down the halls. 

Eventually they all made it down the halls. Shaaba and Talia weren't the most distracting people he had helped down these hallways. There was one who wanted to stop at every single room in case there was anything he would call treasures in them. There wasn’t. So by comparison Talia and Shaaba were actually quite fast.

“We have arrived.” Root said as he pushed open the doors he had closed just a few days earlier. There were tracks he didn’t recognise on the floor so there had been other dinosaurs here since then but as of now it was empty.

“So where are the things?” Talia entered the room first out of the two Carnos.

“Everyone was talking about- Ah.” Shaaba didn’t finish her sentence and instead walked forward towards the big green tanks that stood in the middle of the room against the back wall. “These tanks. Everyone has been talking about the big green tanks.”

Talia walked up to one of the tanks beside the tank Shaaba was looking into. Root didn’t need to look into any of the tanks. He had seen the dinosaurs that laid behind the dusty old glass many times by now. There was no curiosity left inside of him regarding them. That didn’t stop him from looking at the tanks though. 

“I don’t see anything.” Talia sighed.

“Maybe yours is empty.” Shaaba added.

“Sometimes it takes time.” Root told them both. He watched the tanks. He couldn’t actually see the liquid move from this distance but he could imagine it after seeing it so many times. It was slow and some of the tanks carried small dinosaurs inside of them. 

“I see one.” Shaaba practically yelled as Root grimaced at the sudden loud movie. “Come over here.” She beckoned Talia.

Root couldn’t judge them. The first time he had been in these rooms the dinosaurs suspended in that green liquid had enthralled him as well. It was a sight you never thought you would actually ever see in your life. He had been disgusted the first time, yet hadn’t been able to keep his curiosity from dragging him back. And now he escorted others. He couldn’t judge their willingness to see something so macabre.

“Wow. It is just as they said. It’s a dinosaur suspended in time.” Shaaba said with awe as she looked at the dinosaur in the tank. “It’s as if they’ve only been here for a day at most. But it must have been so much longer.” She turned her head back to Root and he just nodded as a response.

“Amazing, to think someone managed to stop time quite like this.” Talia's voice was filled with an equal amount of awe as Shaaba. “I never thought I would ever see something quite like this.” 

They stayed in the room for a long time. Talia and Shaaba took their time exploring the room, the tanks and all the different types of jars and bottles that were placed on tables and on the floor. Eventually however they felt they were both ready to escape the closed in air and head back up to the surface. Root was more than happy to bring them back up.

“I hope you don’t think us weird.” Shaaba said as they exited the facility.

“But we will most likely return.” Talia finished the other Carnos Sentence.

“I don’t. You are welcome back anytime.” He saw as they left into the forest. He didn’t feel like entering the facility again at that time. He felt as if the fresh air was just what he needed. Staying above the surface for a night would probably do him good, even if his mind never truly left that room down in the basement. That room with the tanks.