"What are you going to do?" I asked Brooklynn as she led us back to the gift shop.
"Record a clip for my video, duh," she said, scoffing as though it was the most obvious thing on Earth - It wasn't.
"I thought we were going to do something fun!?" Kenji said in disappointment.
Brooklynn grinned. "It will be fun! For us, anyway."
I rolled my eyes and gave her a look.
"So basically, you and I are going to record," Brooklynn began, motioning towards me. "And then Kenji, you are going to try and scare Darius! With," she paused and looked around the gift shop. "A dino toy. Just pick the first one you see."
Kenji smiled confusedly and picked out the first dinosaur mini-figure he could find. It was a tiny, green stegosaurus.
"Will this work?" he asked, looking at the small toy in his palm. Brooklynn nodded.
"Yeah. Now, come on, Kiara. You need to help me set up the camera!" she exclaimed, taking my hand and pulling me out of the store.
"You said you want me to help you with the camera?"
"Yep, and Kenji can do something with the dinosaur toy," she confirmed, Kenji perking up at the mention of his name.
"I'll hang out with Sammy and Yaz while you do that. That camera only needs one person to set it up. You can show me the recording later," I laughed.
"Sure!" Brooklynn said, grabbing Kenji's hand and dragging him over to Darius.
I walked over to Sammy and Yasmina; they were sitting outside a surprisingly almost intact cafe. I sat down on one of the seats by their table.
"Hey, guys!" I said, Sammy, breaking out into a grin.
"Hi, Kiara!" Sammy said.
"So, what are you guys doing?"
Yasmina began to smile."Sammy and I were just talking about how we don't have any group photos yet - y'know - for the memories and stuff."
"Yeah! I was saying we could use Brooklynn's camera to take cute pics! It would be so much fun!" Sammy exclaimed, Yasmina and me chuckling.
"I was going to help her record something, but she's probably finished doing that so we can take the pics now!" I said. Sammy clapped her hands in glee.
"Brooklynn!" she yelled. "Come!" She motioned for Brooklynn to come over. Brooklynn grinned and walked towards us, Kenji and Darius following behind. As Brooklynn sat down, Darius slapped the dinosaur toy out of Kenji's hand.
"Aww," Kenji murmured.
"You called?" Brooklyn said, grinning.
"Can we use the camera to take some pictures?" Sammy asked.
"Please?" I added, smiling sweetly.
Brooklynn rolled her eyes playfully. "Was that all you wanted? Sure, you can use it!"
Sammy grabbed the camera, passed it to Yasmina, and began to pose. Brooklynn and I joined in while the camera clicked shots. Yasmina took our pictures. Darius looked for the EDB, and Kenji disappeared, so all of us were in the photos.
"Slay!" Brooklynn laughed as she took photos of Yasmina and me.
"Go get it, I guess," Yaz said, rolling her eyes with a smirk as she took pics of Sammy and Brooklynn.
"Say cheese!" Sammy exclaimed, snapping some shots of Brooklynn, Yasmina and me grinning.
"You look perfect!" I smiled, taking a few more photos of the others, who all made hilarious faces for the camera.
"Ok, ok. Last one!" Brooklynn said, taking the camera and setting it up on the table. "A group photo! Come on; everyone does a signature pose!" She clicked a button and then moved back to stand beside us.
"On the count of three! One... two... three!"
The camera brightly flashed as Brooklynn made a peace sign and stuck out her tongue, Sammy made jazz hands with a goofy grin, Yaz flipped it off while smirking, and I made a heart with my fingers, smiling warmly. Snap! And that was that the picture would forever be in our memories! At that moment, Darius made his way to us after having been searching once more for the beacon.
"Any luck?" I asked as Darius sat down at our table. He shook his head.
"I can't figure it out. It has to be here, somewhere, but where!?" he replied, taking a deep breath and letting out a long sigh.
"Don't worry, Darius; we will find it and get off this island! Then, it will all be fine."
"And once we are off the island, it will be back to just Kenj and me hanging out! Oh, I do hope we can still find time to meet up with each other once we are back home. And Dad must miss us so much; we've been stuck here for ages! He's the senior executive, he should have intel on everything, so I'm sure he knows Kenji and I are still here. Maybe there are some extraction issues, or Dad can't find anyone to fly the helicopter here. Otherwise, he would have rescued us all, right? But what I said to Darius is that it will all be fine, so I need to stop worrying about this!"
Kenji then zoomed towards us from who knows where on the scooter he had found earlier. "Anybody order pizza from the world's dopest delivery boy?" he said, picking up a small bag hooked to the scooter handle. The bag was filled with a dozen small pizza boxes!
"You brought food!" I exclaimed, clapping my hand with a grin. This whole EDB thing made me forget how hungry I was.
"Finally!" Yasmina said.
"Yes!" Sammy cheered. "I'll get napkins from a rock."
She rushed off to one of the few rocks and took out paper napkins. She brought them back to us as we sat down around two tables. Kenji gave out the pizza boxes, and we all opened them to find delicious-smelling pizza. We picked them up, but they were frozen solid. We glanced at each other in uncertainty, and I nudged Kenji.
"Hey, Kenj; is this safe to eat?" I asked, holding it with two fingers. He nodded.
"Of course it is!" So he took the first bite, and everyone else copied.
I waited to see their reaction, and at their pain and shocked expressions, I knew not to taste the pizza. Kenji tapped his pizza slice against the table, and it sounded like he was hitting it with a rock - I hope the ice melts.
"I say we leave it to thaw out," Brooklynn said, observing her pizza slice.
"Agreed."
We all went to put our pizza slices back in their boxes and stacked them in the sunlight. We waited for a while, doing whatever to keep ourselves from dying of boredom. Darius read some more of the Jurassic World guidebook, Brooklynn looked through some recordings on the camera, Yaz and Sammy talked about their favourite things from camp and Kenji and I stared at the pizza.
"Has it thawed out yet?" Sammy asked, looking at Kenji.
"I'll check," he said, getting up from his seat and going over to the pile of pizza boxes in the sun. He was about to place his hand on the pizza to check when a compy leapt up, landing on the top and blocking him.
"Argh!" he yelled, taking a few steps back. More compies jumped up, jumping on the tables and scampering around, some even leaping from the cafe's top.
"Why did it have to be compies!?" I exclaimed, moving as far away from them as I could. I've learnt my lesson about being close to compies and will avoid making the same mistake again.
"Throw the pizza! Throw the pizza!" Yaz screamed, noticing how all the compies were heading towards the food.
"Aww, man; all of it?" Sammy asked, frowning disappointedly. She then yelped as another compy jumped in front of her. "Ok, fine! Throw the pizza!" Sammy placed her hands on her hips, glaring at the compies with a scowl. "I'm starting to dislike them compies," she said.
"Only just?" I asked, raising my eyebrow. Brooklynn scoffed, walking forward with her arms crossed.
"Ugh, they're like the rats of the dino world! They'll eat anything!" she exclaimed, shaking her head.
"Yeah," Yaz agreed.
"And so will Kenji!" I giggled.
"I object to that," Kenji said, picking up a slice of frozen pizza from the floor and bringing it to his mouth. Before he could take a bite, Brooklynn slapped it away.
"Ew!" she exclaimed, pushing him back playfully before laughing. Kenji smiled, and Sammy ran over. They began to slap each other's hands lightly. I grinned as I watched them but noticed Darius wasn't with us.
I looked back and saw him staring at what was left of Main Street with a gloomy frown. It wasn't fair that Darius put all the responsibility on himself. He tried hard to lead us to safety, and it didn't work, but he tried.
Darius sighed and sat down, leaning against the wooden pillar that supported the gift store. He closed his eyes and rested his head, breathing in slowly. I frowned, but Yasmina began to speak to me, so I turned to face her, and after a while, Sammy, Kenji, and Brooklynn joined our conversation.
While the rest of us talked about what we would do when we left the island, Darius slept soundly with furrowed brows. Around two hours passed and the sun had almost entirely set. The sky was a dark indigo, the warm light from the sun just out of view.
"We should probably get some rest now?" Sammy suggested, smiling as she glanced at the sky. We nodded.
"Darius has the right idea then," Brooklynn lightly giggled, looking over at a still-sleeping Darius.
"What if a dinosaur comes here when we are asleep?" Yasmina asked. "We've already had a run-in with those rats, so what if a Trex comes or something?"
"It's okay; I can stay up and keep watch! You guys get some rest," I said. They all grinned, excited to get some rest finally.
"Thanks, Kiara!" Sammy exclaimed gratefully before being silenced by Brooklynn. We all got up from the small table we were sitting at and walked to the gift store.
"Goodnight, guys," Kenji yawned.
"Night!"
I sat opposite Darius, leaning against the pillar while the others lay on the floor. They quickly fell asleep, and their light snores filled the air. I silently looked out at Main Street, scrutinising the broken-down area to see any carnivorous or annoying dinosaurs like the compies or Trex.
Luckily, nothing that could pose harm crept over to us. We were safe, temporarily, of course, but there is finally nothing to worry about!
I breathed a sigh of relief and let my muscles relax.
~
Darius looked around in surprise at Main Street. It was empty, and the other campers were nowhere in sight, the sun slowly setting. He stood up and looked around, confounded, until he spotted a figure moving by the run-down mini-museum that had Masrani installed years ago.
He walked towards it and searched for the figure he had seen, but he gasped when it revealed itself to be his late friend, Ben Pincus.
"Ben!" he yelled, running towards his friend. As he ran, the figure did, too, running past fallen umbrellas before slowing to a walk. Darius ran over, panting, "wait!"
He soon reached Ben and rested his arm on Ben's shoulder, turning him around. Darius stared into Ben's eyes, filled with more confusion, joy and shock. Ben stared at him for a moment before breaking into a small smile.
"Ben? Ben!" Darius repeated, trying to make sense of this overjoying situation. Finally, he flung himself into his friend's arms, tightly hugging him. "Oh, I can't believe it! I thought- we thought we'd lost you! But, you're alive!" he gabbled his words in a rush. Ben scowled.
"Why? Because you let me go?" Ben asked harshly, pulling away from Darius. Darius looked perplexed and hurt.
"What? No, I tried-" He was dragged to the ground, suddenly back on the monorail, Ben hanging limply in his hands.
"Let me go, Darius!" Ben yelled over the loud rush of cold air that whipped Darius' face. All colour was drained from Darius' face as the one thing that had been haunting him replayed.
"No, I won't! I let you go, Ben; I can do this!" Darius said, trying to pull Ben but feeling Ben's weight drag further out of his grip. "Not again!" Darius thought, begging his body to listen to him and have the strength to save Ben.
"I'm going to get us all home. And I'm going to save you," Darius said, willing his words to come true. But, as he looked back down, instead of Ben, Darius saw his father Frederick Bowman.. Tears rolled down Darius' cheeks as he stared into his father's eyes.
"You promise?" Frederick asked quietly. Darius felt his father slipping out of his grip.
"Dad? Dad!" Darius screamed as his father dropped, falling further and further away from him until he was out of sight. "No!" Darius cried before sharply waking up, panting hard with beads of sweat on his forehead.
~
The silence died as Darius' suddenly yelled, "no!" He looked petrified. I quickly moved toward him.
"Darius, what's wrong?" I softly asked as he whipped his head left and right, looking around. "Did you have a nightmare?" He turned his worried attention onto me. He took a deep breath.
"Yeah... I'm fine," Darius replied, rubbing the back of his neck anxiously. "Thanks, and sorry I fell asleep," he said while I gave him a small smile.
"I volunteered to take look out for everyone, so don't worry about it," I said. Then, we heard the hissing of the radio static coming from the dinosaur walkie-talkie my brother had taken a shine to earlier. He woke up momentarily, his eyes droopy, and began to talk into the walkie-talkie.
"Meh, meh, meh... Meh, meh," Kenji muttered once more as I let out a quiet laugh.
"It's been on since he fell asleep. The batteries have to run out at some point, though," I said, looking back to Darius. He was frowning guiltily, holding his knees to his chest. He closed his eyes and sighed painfully.
"I have to find that beacon... If I just try harder-"
"You've tried hard enough, Darius. Ever since Sammy mentioned it, you've been stressing. It's best if you do something to calm down and relax. I like to listen to music or read when I'm stressed," I interjected.
He smiled weakly. "I guess we do different things to calm down, huh?"
"I guess we do. But I know what may make you feel a bit better!"