So the reason I've been a little absent was due to a scholarship I was doing for a bunch of camps and loads of painful school work! And guess what, I got $2,000 for one! I'm so proud of me...
Had to be science-y on this chapter! Based on some research I found, after lots of volcanic activity elsewhere, places bound to have an eruption get loads of tremors, experience toxic gases that turn lakes into deadly/silent killers (hydrogen sulfide), and could tear the area apart before an eruption could even take down the region! From here on out, the story will get more and more suspenseful, as the only dinosaurs left to survive lie in Yellowstone. And Time is truly running out...
"5 lives just went away."
"What?"
"Five lives," Amberclaw repeated. I glanced up at the golden figure, staring at the red numbers that now illuminated a 45.
"There's not even a plentiful amount of us," I whispered, "It's literally the amount of one triceratops herd." Surely enough, now there was 8 of us still here living in this region, now perhaps 7 now after one of Stella's clanmates passed away from hunger. Stella looked worse everyday, slump and dull, skinnier than a deinonychus, she wandered around wearily, sometimes even falling to her belly exhausted. Despite all the greens I try to find and give to her, she wasn't getting any better.
Neither was me or my friends. And Dad's clan too.
No herbivores have shown up since yesterday, after eating the rest of the herbivore-filled herd my father found.
We were dying.
All of us. Suffering and acting like nothing bad's going to happen.
But haven't they seen the signs yet?
The water, or what's left, turned to ice, as well as the silent waterfall and pond we were so into before.
Whiteclaw's been silent and still for days, and I felt that he was truly dead. Though his brother's own presence made me believe that perhaps he was still filled with life, but it was trapped inside a shell. His eyelids were closed shut, eyes staring up when I opened them, and his face flushed a new tone of white, despite his albino complexion.
Snow began to fill the valley world as time progressed, but the cold wasn't as severe as we might've imagine. Its white glow blanketed the dry earth and turned the mountains grey and dull. Since it was a desert, the frost happened from time to time, spreading a sinister chill through our skeletons.
The hole below the Countdown clock's suddenly closed one day, and has been this way for weeks, and I knew for sure that even trying to find the opening wouldn't matter. It was too deeply buried by boulders.
Dad and his herd often came up to where our cave stood and searched around for food, if not, spent the time with us. But overall, nothing was really working for us.
"Shadow," Amberclaw muttered, rubbing his flat head, "What do we do?" I glanced down at the dark yellow Deinonychus and sighed. There was nothing to do.
"I just don't know Amberclaw," I sighed, "There's nothing to do."
"But time's running out," He responded, "There's gotta be another way out." I looked around at the clock, then grumbled to myself. There was no other way. Amberclaw looked lost, and from his bowed head, I felt doomed and qualm towards his current ego. Two of his brothers were pretty much gone, and he was next. I couldn't feel what he felt since I had my father with me. I couldn't break into his feet entirely; I couldn't fit anyhow.
"Hey, Amberclaw," I grinned, nudging him, "Let's go do something for once. You've been cramped up in here since who knows when, and you've never really enjoyed the outdoors yet."
"It's not outdoors, it's cold as hell," He rolled his eyes.
"At least it's not a burning inferno," I insisted, nudging him again, "C'mon, I thought Whiteclaw said you were fun!" Amberclaw turned his head around away from me, but the more I bumped him with my huge snout, the more a slight grin slithered through his snout. A 5th bump made him turn around with laughter.
"Okay fine! Fine...stop!" He half-laughed, half-growled, "I'll come along. But just this one time. I like this cave."
"C'mon, you can't stay in this cave forever!"
"Nothing's going to kick me out of here for more than an hour Shadow."
"Really-" I snorted nearby, when out of nowhere a huge roar jump started deep in the earth. I didn't have time to prepare myself to the incoming earthquake, but Amberclaw was, sprinting around to the nearest cover up. My stomach lurched as the earth strangely began to shake, wobbling everything all over the place. I stood unsteadily, and quickly leaned on the nearest wall with a painful crash as the earthquake commenced, shaking hard for a few seconds, before being drowned into silence. The cave ceiling bounced around, then shuddered to a silence in a thick fog of dust. When I came to my original self after the quaking stopped, I found my legs still quaking themselves, still and perhaps evermore trapped in this fetil action. My heartbeat was racing my legs in my chest, but at least my breathing was normal. My legs were bent and mid-way through a slide toward the center of the pathway, but my claws caught me before I could fall. The dust itself slowly began to clear when Amberclaw popped out of his hiding place, noticing that the cave itself changed shape.
Or mainly, it almost fell apart.
Holes and deep cuts in the alkaline earth broke through to the surface of the world, spewing dampened light into the cave. The ceiling was littered with cracks that opened away from the Clock towards its entrance, and of course, snow found it's way into the cavern.
"That was bad," Amberclaw shuddered, looking around, "That was actually really bad..." I could tell from his face, he's never experienced an earthquake so powerful. I shifted my body upwards, using my huge skull, then stomped back to normal position, shaking the earth a bit more.
"You okay?" He questioned next. I nodded.
"Yeah....I-I-I'm good," I stammered.
"On that note, I'll come along outside," He finally sighed. I grinned, then with a heaving breath, slowly walked outside. But the feeling of the recent earthquake got me worried sick. What was going on? Why were there so many?
What's happening?
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"Why haven't you talked to your dad yet?" Amberclaw spoke aloud though the blackened and fallen trees. I stepped up upon a dead birch tree, and cautiously balanced myself on the pathway through the woods.
"No reason," I lied through my teeth, "He's tired. I felt the need to give him some rest for a while."
"He is resting though," Amberclaw pointed out. I swallowed.
"I mean for a bit longer. 'Till the time comes." Amberclaw looked down, flexed his jaws, then fixed his eyes upon the forest horizon in the u-shaped valley. Many trees were now down and buried in thick earth from the quake, and rocks were uprooted along with them. Some rotten trees covered in fungus now were shattered on the white frosted soil, cool to the touch. As I marched quietly in the snow, a cold feeling submerged in my legs, which I guess was a light type of frostbite nibbling on my scales. The air was chilly, and my insides were frozen themselves, making me shiver. Perhaps it wasn't a good idea to go wandering off into the blue. Me and Amberclaw walked silent, speechless to our own silence as if our mouths were screwed shut, but eventually things floated into my snout that made the silence shatter.
"You smell that?" I called back to him, since he started trailing behind. A strange aroma filled the air, sort of like a mixture of honey and rotten flesh. Amberclaw sniffed the air, then frowned.
"Heck yeah I smell it," He gagged at first, before the smell finally resorted back to a honey scent in my mind, "It's an actually weird bad-like scent." I sniffed again, then began following my sniffer a bit farther. My legs dragged in the snow, piling the white flakes into small mounds where my clawed feet stopped.
"We're following it now?" Amberclaw groaned behind me with twitching claws, "We don't even know what it is!"
"You never know unless we find out for ourselves," I growled back with a playful hiss. The Deinonychus twirled his tail anxiously, flared his nostrils, then shifted his feet and toe-claw a bit wide in preparation to follow, but something held him back.
Was it fear?
"I'mma.....I'm going to catch up, be right back."
"Where?-" I began to call, but his body quickly vanished into the dead bushes. I lifted my leg and turned around to face where Amberclaw originally was, then sighed, shaking my head. The silence was impending in my ears, and before a ring could scream in my noggin, I shook my head again with a growl.
"It's just me, myself, and I then."
I turned my head and continued to follow the eerie stench that could my mind minutes ago, and crunched my tiny arms in joyful anxiety. The wind breathed on my back irritatingly, bending some still-standing trees all around me. The Mountains whispered to my right and left as I strolled along, trampling on some skeletons and bones nearby. At first, I felt as if I was on a nature walk through an incredible sight-seeing adventure. Then, the day became evermore stranger.
A black shadow flashed past my eyes in the trees, which I mistook for a mammal, but as it sprinted right before my face, my heart skipped a beat.
"Holy...." I jerked up from the ground, stopping hard in the snow. I flared my nostrils, still locked on the scent, but tried to find some other scent that could picture out what that black figure was.
But there wasn't any scent.
Was I day-dreaming? I thought at first, shaking my skull hard.
Nope.
Another swish took my attention away as it zipped straight into the darker portion of the forest. My heart froze quick, and for seconds, I held my breath, awaiting a new presence to appear from the shadows.
At that moment, a memory of my previous horror nightmare flushed in my eyes, and I pulled away from following the inconspicuous creature.
"No...no..." I trembled, my eyes widening as the forest got bigger and bigger.
And then a silent whisper began to thunder in my brain like burning hail...
"Not again....It's just a dream....a stupid vision....wake up Shadow!" I bit my tail and squeezed, screeching at the pain, "Wake up!" A sharp jolt of pain shattered through my torso and hind, and even a speckled drop of blood sprouted from the bite. I pulled away from my large tail, blinked once, and everything spun back to normal, with just a regular forest glowing with snow. My heart was pounding as I stood there for a few minutes, taking in the colors of the world.
"Just a dream...." I repeated with a painful nod, "Just a dream."
I must've been losing my mind.
I trailed away from the maleovent sightings and reset myself, focusing my mind on the scent of my previous track, and followed onwards, stomping downhill and back up again. I slipped a few times in the cool frozen undergrowth and my claws didn't really provide enough traction to carry me safely uphill.
And eventually hitting my destination.
My eyes widened even more as I gazed upon what had wrenched of the aroma. And at first, I thought I was still dreaming.
A huge lake of water, clear as daylight, sat still and silent, surrounded by a wave-like rock formation, a crescent is the name. The water bubbled a bit, and felt warm from afar, but never mind the scent or its look, it was water!
Without thinking twice, I began thundering towards the strange smelling water with open jaws and a smile on my face. Was it a hot spring then if steam uprose from its deep roots?
Perhaps the better question was, how did nobody see this?
"I can't believe I found water!" I grinned to myself, proud beyond belief. A fresh new scent of a pure atmosphere and a cleansing feeling filled my lungs, making my grin expand wider on my scales. I heard a shuffle of feet above me, and slowly, I turned my T-Rex self towards the rocks, where the old Amberclaw stood, perched like a hawk with beady eyes of yellow.
"Amberclaw look! I found WATER!" But the response from Amberclaw was just darkened and widened eyes.
Not of relief and excitement.
Eyes of horror.
"Amberclaw?" I called with a frown, "What is it?" My voice was going hoarse for some reason, but I ignored the sign to spy upon Amberclaw's terrified body. I couldn't make out his exact facial features, but they posed something deadly in the whispering wind.
"Shadow...." He trembled, "That's not water."
"What?" I narrowed my eyes, "Look, it's clearly..." I kept talking through my sentence, but my voice suddenly vanished into thin air. Then, out of nowhere, a strange new sound erupted in my ear.
Ticking.
The Ticking of a clock.
My heart skipped a beat as I recognized the noise, the noise you hear when death approaches. The noise that stays with you after you touch the golden charms work.
"It tricked me," I gasped, "It got into my head."
It let me see what I wanted to see.
The blue crisp lake smudged into a dark green and sandy color, with bursting hot bubbles rocketing to the surface. A horrible aroma dug deep into my lungs, and choked me quick.
I tried to scream, but nothing came out of my mouth.
I tried to breathe, but my lungs felt as if they were on fire.
And the muscles inside my plump belly suddenly went stiff and limp.
I was being paralyzed.