Isle of the Extinct

Three: Jake

Jake sprinted along the riverbank, knowing that if he tired out for even a second, the raptors would catch him. Energised by his own terror, he continued running while the Dakotaraptors were in hot pursuit of him. Then, Jake began to slow down, his leg muscles burning while the raptors were still going strong. Three of them were already just millimetres from his throat. A claw nicked the back of his neck, and flecks of blood sprayed out of the fresh wound. Jake was no dinosaur nerd, but he knew these creatures had refined their bodies through millions of years of continuous evolution to become some of the speediest creatures in the dinosaur kingdom. He was fortunate that he had noticed them before they had him, but even with his head start,

"Crap, crap, they're almost on me!" he yelled to no one.

Just then, an idea flashed through his whirling mind. Knowing that the raptors' feathers might bog them down in the water, he braced himself for the worst, before leaping into the brackish, murky waters of the delta. Paddling through the currents, he gasped dramatically for air, lungs nearly going to burst after the exhausting chase. In the corner of his eye, he saw two of the raptors beginning to slow down, their feathers drenched like the soggy fur of a wet dog, and they started to turn back towards the riverbank. Jake's hope returned-he might not end up as a carcass here after all!

The riverbank grew and grew in size as Jake approached it, and he knew the safety of the land was close. He just had to splash through the water a little more, and he would be fine.

Fingers finding their grip on the squelchy brown mud of the riverbank, the teenager used his last reserves of strength to clamber onto land. A fresh gulp of air entered his lungs as he took a moment to catch his breath.

Jake then heard the raptors' screeches of frustration, and whipped his head back to find his pursuers wading back to the opposite bank with empty stomachs. A slight grin crept up on his face as he saw them turn tail, before he noticed something...wrong.

"One, two, three, four..weren't there supposed to be five of 'em? Where's the fifth one?" Jake mumbled to himself as he counted the raptors swimming back to shore. He began to sweat.

Eyebrows crinkling and lips drawing back in a grimace, he was about to move when he heard a hiss. And after that came an alien clicking noise and the brandishing of terribly sharp claws. The sounds came from a large tree. "Oh God..." the words came out in a hushed, terrified whisper.

As Jake heard those animalistic noises, he knew what was behind him.

Too late.

Jake began to attempt to escape, but the raptor was far too quick for him, its lithe, feathered body on him  in the blink of an eye. The teen felt the sheer weight of the predatory animal on top of his spine, and his face flushed red as he coughed repeatedly while the raptor bore down on him even more. The creature had pounced on him right next to the delta, so Jake could feel its water seeping through the corner of his lips. Guess it's a good time to enjoy a last drink...he thought.

Nearby, a Sauroposeidon had uprooted and slammed a towering, immensely heavy tree to get at the topmost leaves, but the enormous plant had crashed into the water, sending creatures drinking there running helter-skelter for cover. The forty-ton sauropod stomping into the water made matters even worse.As the tree collapsed like a fallen skyscraper building, it punched into the delta, and the currents drastically changed as the weight of the tree and sauropod bore down on them, from a few mild waves to a tiny tsunami.

Jake then caught a glimpse of the powerful currents, his eyes boggled, and he pawed at the ground with the Dakotaraptor still on him, desperately trying to find the strength in him to escape. But he couldn't! His left arm began failing him.