Hybrids: An Indoraptor Story ✓

Run [Nominated Best Chapter]

||𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐦𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟎𝐭𝐡, 𝟐𝟎𝟐𝟎||

I woke up dying.

    A glob of blood lunged out of my throat the moment I came to, spraying the ground of a thickened crimson, much to Blink's horror. The Scorpios Rex bounded upright, quickly nibbling the back of my neck and tilting my head downward to restrict me from suffocating. I gasped and retched on, watching more fluid leave my damaged body and discolor the forest floor. And, just as it ended, a weakness fell over my head, leaving me to slump right back to the ground. Blink released his neck bite, shakily eying the newfound blood to the left of me.

The wound was killing me. It was only a matter of time before it won.

    "Seven?" he whimpered.

    I didn't offer a verbal response. Eyes closed, I tilted my head into the soil and let out a soft whine. Blink looked to my underbelly where I was cut, smelling a leakage of blood oozing from beneath. The broken flesh stretched and flexed through each breath I took, unable to mend itself as it were to relax. Blink swallowed, nuzzling my flank, and leaned in to start licking. Just a single touch sent shockwaves of anguish charging through my stomach, and a forceful shriek to leave my throat. Blink continued to lick despite my cries, though his efforts didn't do much but coat the massive gash with saliva.

Saliva was no remedy.

So his tail lowered, turning a blood-stained snout to look upon my face. The clusters of dried blood and tears had gathered upon my cheekbone, each layer replaced by a new build. Blink's reddened eyes trembled, and, just through a small peek of my own eyes, I could sense his worry.

A worry that I'd die without help.

Without protection.

Without Click.

"Seve-"

His was cut off by a sudden primal screech, a sound that made the quills on Blink's jagged tail raise up like goosebumps. That scream we witnessed, it wasn't to silence the world or done out of pain.

It was to scare us. To warn us.

We were being hunted.

Without a word to describe what was happening, or what frightened him, Blink leaned down, sinking his jagged fangs onto my spine, and lifted me from the ground. A second roar sent the hybrid into a trot, lunging south of our original spaces and deeper into the woods. I swayed to and fro in his grasp, weakly watching the ground beneath me shift about as I was carried away.

"Just hold on a little while longer..." I heard him say, his snorts and puffs of weariness soon drowned out by a closer, third roar. Blink's pace quickened, zipping through the undergrowth and the dying pines amidst a setting sun.

And, when a fourth roar suddenly sounded, Blink's dash turned into a sprint of panic, enough to make our poor hearts race.

"No, no!"

His claws pounded into the forest, and he adjusted his bite on me to move quicker. Dashing past the fallen woodlands, I could see the terror molded in Blink's eyes, just as the subtle sounds of another creature came afoot, making chase to his hunt.

It was leading off of scent. The scent of blood.

Our blood.

Blink tried his hardest to move with the weight of another in his jaws. But even a predator as strong as he was seemed unmatched to another who lacked the burden. The footsteps behind us grew closer and closer, a huffing snarl rippling from the tip of Blink's narrow tail, followed by a gleeful whistle.