Jurassic World- Camp Cretaceous: Retold

It Wasn't Just Dinosaurs

Hours had gone past. Darius had let the tears fall until sleep overcame him, and, if he had to guess, the same could be said for most of the others. The fire had been put out by the cold air. Ben was the reason he and everyone else was awake far before sunrise.

"There's something out there," he whispered. "I heard a noise."

The others looked forward. There was a cactus patch, and the smallest of flames.

"Are you sure, Ben?" Darius asked after a moment.

"I'm sure. At least... I think?" Ben replied. There was a moment of silence before rustling startled the group. It was coming from the very direction Ben had been looking. They waited with bated breaths, expecting confontration with a coyote or something.

"Can't be worse than what we've dealt with. Right?" Kenji asked nervously. They all still had the same response, despite now being off of Isla Nublar. So many months of dealing with prehistoric animals brought back to life had caused it to be their instinctive reaction to noises. But they weren't on Nublar. Dinosaurs weren't a concern. And, if they could deal with dinosaurs, they could deal with whatever modern animals tried them.

What leaped out in front of them was no dinosaur, and it was a mammal. But it was far from the kind of mammal he'd expected. He couldn't believe what he was seeing in front of him. How did...

"What is that?" Brooklynn asked. The two elongated teeth that went beyond the lower jaw, the powerful limbs...

"A Smilodon..." Darius said, his voice barely even a whisper. The saber-toothed cat roared at the campers.

"I told you we time traveled," Kenji made one of his stupid jokes for awkward/life threatening situations.

"Shut up, Kenji," Yasmina snapped at him.

The tiger began to circle, and they mirrored its movement. The ancient feline growled and snarled threateningly, not intimidated by the torch Ben held out in front of him.

"What do we do, what do we do, what do we do?" Sammy panicked. Ben looked to the side for a moment. Then, he looked back at the Smilodon.

"Hey, Toothy! This way!" Ben yelled out before running to the side with the stick in hand. He needed this. He'd felt a fear and uncertainty reenter him again. Something he thought he'd left behind at the log which he slept up against those first few nights after falling from the Monorail. But it was back, and it would undo all his progress.

He heard the protests from his friends, but he didn't pay attention. He kept running, hearing the sabertooth cat's footsteps close in. He sprinted to the edge of the cliff, and then leaped onto a pillar above the ravine from earlier. Then another. And then another. The feline stayed with him the whole way. At some point, he misread a jump, and dangled off the edge of one of the sandstone pillars. The sabertooth cat leaped at him, but he used his torch to fend it off. The prehistoric mammal fell to the ravine below. But Ben soon followed the Smilodon now. When he picked himself up, he was face to face with the huge cat. As it leaped, he again used his torch to fend it off before sprinting away.

No matter what turns he took, the Smilodon was hot on his tail. He could use the torch to really fight off the animal. But he couldn't find the bravery to do it. He couldn't find the strength to. His confidence, his strength and bravery on Nublar, were all reliant on Bumpy. Without her, he was no different from the Ben of old.

Dinosaurs may have been more deadly. Larger, stronger. But the sabertooth cat was a lot more agile, and just as quick as a Velociraptor. After squeezing through a small gap which his pursuer could not get through, Ben found himself more relaxed. That was short lived, though. The Smilodon leaped down from above, narrowly missing Ben. He ignored the growing pain in his legs, speeding up.