Falling Stars

               Glass and nutrient fluid covered the floor in front of the broken tube. The room was dark, save for a few flickering monitors and small indicator lights. A thick rotten stench permeated the whole area. Broken tubes with partially decayed corpses hanging out were present on the opposite wall, barely visible in the dim light. Their small bodies were at various points of decay, but they were still clearly baby acrocanthosaurs. Along the wall with the freshly broken tube, there were more rotting bodies. More baby acros. One or two looked “unfinished,” as if their development had been interrupted by the breaking of the tube. Nothing in the room seemed to have caused the tube to break, the air was still and quiet save for some weak coughing and small ragged breaths.

               Inside the husk of the freshly broken tube, something stirred. A small brown baby acro lifted her head and chirped softly, before coughing up more fluid. She pushed herself to her feet and wobbled forward, then tripped over the edge of the fetal tube and landed with a wet slap against the glass covered floor below her. Gravity wasn’t something she was used to, and she was suddenly very aware of the ooze dripping from her feathers. Last time she opened her eyes the tube was intact. She was surrounded by warmth and wet, and the room had been well lit. Now the ground was cold, and the air was cold. She pushed herself to her feet again, legs spread wide like a baby deer learning to walk. The baby acro waddled her way over to the bodies on the opposite wall. The stench was horrific, but she was hungry. She gnawed off a few chunks of flesh from her would-have-been-siblings and swallowed them. It didn’t taste good at all, but it filled her up. She gagged at the sour smell and backed up, turning and waddling out the open door.

               The facility was cold and quiet. The baby’s claws clicked softly on the linoleum flooring. Her breath made small clouds in the air, illuminated by the few screens that remained running. It was getting colder now. Looking around she saw bones on the floor, some smaller than hers, some much larger. Some were covered in odd cloth, fit to their bodies. They were odd spindly little things, with long limbs and small heads. In one hall she found the articulated bones of another acrocanthosaurus. Its flesh and meat were long gone, and the sour stench of death had been gone from the hall for years. She reached another doorway, a much smaller one. Beyond the doorway, the floor dropped away into a deep dark abyss. The shaft was lined with wires and a set of cables dropped down the middle into the dark. She turned her head to look up the shaft, and it too ascended until there was nothing but darkness. She pulled her head back through and shook herself, turning, she pushed through another door. This one led to another odd vertical room. The floor dropped away gradually on one side and raised in a similar way on the other. Each small landing was slightly more elevated than the last, and they terminated at larger landings before continuing up. Curious, the small acro began to climb the ascending side. Each landing was colder than the last, but there was a fair scent of something wet that pulled her further up.

               At last the ascending floors stopped, and she was left face to face with yet another door. Pushing through it, she found yet another hallway. This one was much dirtier than the one she came from. The floor was caked in dirt and footprints. The walls were full of holes, and vines dropped down from holes in the ceiling. There was a faint sound of dripping water off to her left, so she turned and began carefully in that direction. Her footsteps were much quieter on the dirt covered floor, but the feeling of the soil on the bottom of her foot made her gag a little at first. She turned a corner and found the source of the water. A large chunk of white sat on the floor under a hole in the ceiling. A cold breeze came through the opening, ruffling her feathers and nipping the baby’s nose. She took a careful step forward and nudged the cold, white pile with her snout. It crunched softly when touched and left a small patch of water on her skin. Eagerly, she bit into it. Squeaking she scrambled back and tripped on her tail. The cold felt weird in her mouth, and it didn’t feel worth it just for a little bit of water. She scrambled back to her feet and looked up through the hole. Maybe there was good water if she could get in there.

               The small brown acro turned up her snout and opened her mouth slightly, tasting the air. She swung her head around a couple times, first stepping one way, then back another, until finally she landed on a direction and dropped her head. Quietly, she made her way in the direction she had chosen. There was another cold wet smell this way, and it might lead into that room the cold white had fallen from at that last patch. With luck, there would be some warmer, drinkable water too.

               The air got colder and colder as she continued through the halls. Finally, she turned a corner and stood face to face with a door into the room. Cautiously, she stuck her head through. This room was massive, stretching out as far as she could see. She turned and looked behind her, maybe “room” was the wrong category for this new place. There was so much cold white on the ground, and the bright light of the moon glittered on its surface. She studied the moon carefully, the huge orb of light in the sky stayed fixed where it was in the sky. She then turned her attention to the smaller pinpricks of light poking through the darkness above her. As she watched, she saw some appear and streak across the sky before fading out. Looking around, she crept out of the doorway and into the cold. The white powder crunched beneath her feet and sent a chill through her tiny body, but she just turned her nose back up to the sky and kept watching as she shuffled under a bush to stay out of view. Soon more and more of the blazing pinpricks began streaking across the sky. The small acro watched, mouth agape, as the sky filled with the tiny fiery lights. Her thirst and hunger were forgotten as she nestled down to watch. The cold wasn’t so bad anymore now that her legs were tucked under her warm fluff. The lights were hypnotizing. She could feel her mind slipping to follow each cluster in turn as they blazed across the sky. Suddenly there was a quiet huff and a crunch of snow to her right. A large white head with black splotches peered out of the door, a dark eye locked with hers. With a gasp she tumbled backwards.

               “Oh, no, don’t worry I’m not here to eat you little one. I came out to watch the meteors too.” The large acro’s voice reverberated through the baby’s chest as she squirmed on her back, still gasping in shock. “Here, um-“ The large female approached her and gently nudged her to her feet before scooting back and sitting down. “See? Not going to hurt you. I’m Seki by the way.” The small acro looked up at Seki cautiously, then crept forward before nestling up against the larger dinosaur. “Oh, wow, you’re cold.” Seki wrapped a tail around the hatchling, before turning her attention back to the stars.

               “Those are stars,” Seki looked down at the small brown clump of feathers sat at her feet, “The moving ones are called meteors.” The baby watched them with wide eyes. “Once a year this meteor shower happens, and a bunch of people get together to enjoy it and to celebrate the season.” Suddenly, an even brighter meteor lit up the sky. It tore through the black sky like a talon through flesh. The baby gasped and stood up, following the arc of the meteor with her nose until it fizzled out.

               “Those ones are called bolides, they’re not too common, you’re so lucky to have seen one!” Bolide? I like that. The baby sat back down and nestled close to watch. The glittering stars reminded her somewhat of the dinosaur sitting next to her. She turned to look at the feathers of the female acro sitting above her. She had small specks of white in her fluff that matched the stars in the night sky, and a large streak on her side that looked almost like the bright bolide comet they had just seen. The baby sat and thought for a moment, squinting off into the middle distance.

              "Where from?" She motioned up to the sky, Seki looked down in suprise before shaking herself and turning her nose back up.

              "I'm not really sure, to be honest. I know they're space rocks, and sometimes some of them make it to the ground, though they're incredibly small. Maybe they're from the moon. Maybe the moon sheds some rocks every year and they end up falling to Earth and causing the shower." The baby thought for a moment, then nodded, fully accepting that theory into her world view. Her stomach grumbled and she huffed and face planted into the snow, beginning to eat it. Seki gently slid her foot towards the baby to stop her.

              "Come with me, I'll get you something." She stood up and began making her way through the snow towards a nearby river with the little baby following at her heels.