Come in, Team Prehistoria!

Chapter Seven ~ A Rollercoaster of Panic, Worry, and Humour

 The concept of disappearing into thin air was not new to the creepypastas.

Many of them could teleport, so it wasn't uncommon for someone to vanish in front of their eyes. And this disappearance was no different.

Perhaps it was simply media portrayal. The idea that someone's so-called aura or essence would vanish upon a supernatural disappearance. That the air would change, or something to that effect. That you would know, deep in your heart, that they were gone.

To put it bluntly, it was all melodramatic nonsense. Auras being lifted? A joke. A surprisingly anticlimactic joke. Everything that occured after Team Prehistoria was sent away was shockingly uninteresting. Too normal. Perhaps it was, again, this idea of the influence of the media, but nothing grandiose occured.

But only for Team Present.

Team Prehistoria quite literally clung to one another in their desperation not to collapse. Yes, the sudden change of scenery was breathtaking. But that wasn't necessarily a good thing, as the slap of dizziness caused most of them to almost topple over. Some couldn't hold themselves up and their knees hit the ground. Stripes even keeled over in submission to her stomach emptying its contents onto the dense and leafy forest floor.

Though the split second of silence was pleasant. Like driving under a bridge during heavy rain.

Then again, it was only for a brief moment. Sounding like the walkie-talkies children play with, the sharp 'BREEP! BREEP!' sound breached some unseen barrier, and broke the silence.

"Team Prehistoria? This is Ben calling from Team Present. Testing the connection. Repeat: This is Ben calling from Team Present. Testing the connection."

Forget the time travel or the 'creepy' in 'Creepypasta'. The scariest thing the pastas witnessed was the way the communication worked. Ben's voice — surprisingly free of static — was obvious being emitted by his snowy-haired brother, but Dark Link did not stir.

"Team Present? This is Dark Link from Team Prehistoria, we can hear you loud and clear! Come in, Team Present! Repeat: This is Dark Link from Team Prehistoria, we can hear you loud and clear! Come in, Team Present!"

Well, at least it didn't look like the red-eyed elf was talking to himself.

"Oh, thank Zalgo! Everything's coming through clear! Repeat: Everything's coming through clear!"

"No kidding, Sherlock. Repeat: No. Freaking. Kidding."

A pause. An unnerving, off-putting pause that left both teams on the edge of their seats.

"So... what are we supposed to do now?"

It was a fair question.

"Technically? Set up one rune per pasta. But setting up some sort of shelter, procuring food, and ensuring nobody gets eaten by a T-Rex seems like a priority. Repeat: Ensure minimal death before messing with magic."

The connection was broken, but the point was made clear.

At this point, Team Prehistoria turned to sit in an inwards-facing circle, as if they were having a group campfire.

"Anybody know anything about wilderness survival?"

"I think the better question is: who knows anything about the Cretaceous period apart from 'T-Rex bad'?"

Laughing Jack and Jeff shot brief glares at each other, but spoke no more about it.

"Umm... I know that exposure to the elements will kill us quicker than dehydration or starvation?" the Zalgoid with the dyed hair responded, "Actually, scratch that! The first thing to kill us will be each other. Then the heat and the rain and whatever else we're dealing with."

They were at a standstill. Prolonging one's lifespan in a Survivor-Man-esque situation was already a skill all the team had rolled a 'zero' on, but doing so sixty-five million years before any of them were born, in a time period full of bipedal lizards, undiscovered vegetation, and shifting continents, was not something any of them could have studied for.

And they knew it.

"Alrighty then..." Shadowlurker seemed surprisingly calm. Sure, the others were trying their hardest to appear calm, but the uncontrollable shaking and nervous sweating was inevitable, "Elle's got a good point. We don't know what kind of weather we're dealing with, or even our location on the planet. We need to build some form of shelter."

"You mean like, a tree fort?" as per usual, Toby was taking the role of ignorant child. However, it goes without saying that his foolish remark held the faintest whiff of a strong idea which, — like any good cliché — would prove helpful for most, if not all, of the story.

"Y'know, Tobster's onto something. If we throw together some kind of shelter, but do it in the trees, we'd have some protection against smaller carnivores," Masky's vocalizations were everyone else's rationalizations.

"We're also less likely to get stepped on."

"Or s*** on."

"I hate you."

Eyes were rolled, but punches pulled. The bickering was cut short, as it was only a matter of time before chaos came crashing in like an out-of-control car. Pointless arguing would only build cheap tension and change the group dynamic from an unstoppable team to a powder keg on the brink of exploding.

The same, however, could not be said for Team Present.

Mission control was hanging by the wick of a bomb, the sparks sliding down effortlessly. Less than half an hour into the assignment, and the air was heavily with worry. The dripping tap flooded the sealed room, with no escape. Already half-full. Already swimming. Already in hysterics.

"That still doesn't explain how we get it done!" Clockwork's nasally voice shouted exasperatedly, on the verge of screaming. On the verge of tears.

"What part of 'set up a few basic runes' do you imbeciles not understand?"

"ANY OF IT!"

It is the demonic overlord of chaos versus half a dozen creepypastas drawn out of a hat. Yet somehow, the ragtag group of adolescents are winning. At least, they were, before an awkward and painfully long silence fell upon the screaming group of killers and demons.

"This is ridiculous! The Ravioli Relics should be the ones panicking around like headless chickens, not us!"

The blonde elf's remark was echoed with uproarious laughter.

"Ravioli Relics? So what does that make us? The Modern Macaroni?"

Amazingly, a pair of pasta puns were enough to turn down the temperature, and the rising heat melted into a jest that was, quite frankly, not particularly funny. But as long as spirits were kept high, that was all that mattered, right?

Right?