Welcome To Jurassic Hell

Ch. 31: Salvation

The first man was young, maybe in his thirties at most. His shirt was tucked into a pair of long khaki pants, three buttons untucked to reveal part of his chest and a small necklace that hung there, and he wore a tan jungle hat to match. He gave me Dr. Alan Grant vibes, almost, and I would've been convinced he was his son if I didn't know that Grant had never married.

The second man was older, and definitely terrifying. He gave me marine vibes, a large gun (rifle? What are those called?) held threateningly in his hands, the very gun that had just killed the dinosaur.

Not only that, but he wore a thick vest with pockets that were no doubt filled with amo for his weapon.

Yep, definitely didn't want to get on his bad side...

Finally, there was a woman. She appeared a bit older, though I was sure she was around the same age as the first man. She wore similar clothing to him, with vague differences such as a pink bandana wrapped around her neck, and a large camera hanging over her neck and resting on her chest.

I stared in disbelief.

For the first time in over a month, I was seeing adults, actual grown ups!

I couldn't believe it...our signal had actually gone through!

"Who are you?" Darius was the first of us to speak.

The woman who'd been the first to say a word that wasn't "look out" smiled amiably and said, "Well, after that, maybe you should call us your salvation."

We all gape at the trio.

The young man smiles before offering us all a hand.

"Come on, now. You kids don't look very comfortable sitting there in the mud."

————

"I can't believe you guys are actually here!"

Since being helped up, the couple started leading us back to their camp. They had a camp!

Without needing permission, Darius ecstatically agreed, and since then, as we followed the creepy mercenary-looking-man through the jungle, Darius has been talking faster than I thought possible, even for Sammy.

"Did you get left behind too?"

Kon snorted from behind me.

"Not looking like that, they didn't."

"Are you, like, some super stylish rescue squad?"

For the first time in almost a week, I feel a genuine smile cross my face. Everyone's so happy, so excited to finally be getting off the island. I would be too myself if...if there weren't things to worry about...

"Guys, take a breath." I finally say to quiet everyone. "We don't even know their names, yet!"

"I'm Mitch." The young man introduces. "And my better half here is Tiff. We're eco-tourists."

The woman, Tiff, laughs.

"That's a fancy way of saying we travel to exotic places and photograph rare animals." She explained.

"I know Simon Masrani." Kon piped up, then stopped. "Or...knew."

The couple didn't seem at all phased by this, and I was starting to wonder if they weren't actually the people who'd gotten our distress transmition. They seemed rather enthusiastic...too enthusiastic.

It was weird.

"When we heard what happened here, we were like, zoop! Gotta get down there!"

"I was fine with taking snaps of tigers and bears, but pics of dinosaurs? You don't pass that up, do you, Babe?"