Summary: after accidentally stumbling onto Duncan Kincaid's boat, you find yourself stuck on a terrible boat trip to a dangerous island with Zora and her team. Can you learn to trust them with your life and escape?
Word count: ≈6000
Warnings: use of Y/N, swearing, death of characters (not massively graphic, mostly sound imagery)
Reading time: ≈20 mins
Type: Oneshot
a/n - i wrote this at like 3am and i honestly think somewhere in the middle the idea that this was GN reader disappeared. i tried to change all the she/hers to they them but no promises that i got them all i tired 😞
The shore isn’t gentle.
You don’t feel sand first,your knees hit something rough, uneven, scraping through soaked fabric as Zora half-drags, half-guides you forward.
“Up, come on,” she urges, breath tight but controlled. “You’re okay. Just step up.”
Your legs don’t want to work.
They feel heavy. Slow. The water still pulling at you even as it recedes. But her hand is still locked around yours, and you follow it. Step. Drag. Step. Then solid ground. Real ground.
You stumble forward as the waves fall back behind you, your balance going again before Zora catches you—again—her grip shifting from your hand to your shoulders.
“I’ve got you,” she says, quieter now. Closer. “You’re on land.”
Your breathing is still uneven, chest tight as you try to process it. The roar of the ocean is behind you now instead of around you, but it’s still loud. Everything is still loud.
Voices scatter across the shoreline.
“Is everyone here—?”
“Where’s—?”
“I lost the case—!”
Footsteps crunch. Water sloshes. Someone coughs hard.
You don’t recognize who’s who. It all blurs together into noise and movement you can’t track. Zora doesn’t let go.
Her hand stays firm on your arm, grounding you while everything else shifts. “Stay here,” she says, but she doesn’t move away. You nod faintly anyway. Your fingers tighten slightly in her sleeve.
“…Zora?” you ask, quieter now. Smaller.
“I’m here.” Immediate.
That steadies something in your chest. For a second, it almost feels like it might be okay.
A sound. Not the ocean. Not voices. Something heavier.
A deep, dragging shift through water—too large to be just a wave. You still.
“…did you hear that?” someone asks, voice tight.
Zora’s grip tightens just slightly. “Back up,” she says, sharper now. Not to you—to everyone.
The ground vibrates. Faint at first. Then stronger. Footsteps, but not human.
Your breath catches. “Zora—”
“I’ve got you,” she says again, pulling you a step back with her.
The water behind you erupts. Not a splash. Not like before. Something breaks through it,massive, sending waves crashing hard enough that you feel the spray hit your back.
“Spino—!” The rest is lost to chaos.
Heavy movement tears through the shoreline, something enormous shifting from water to land with a force that shakes the ground under your feet.
Someone screams, a woman, too close to you for comfort. “Zora?” you ask carefully. Don't let it be her.
“I'm here. I'm here.” she says gently. “We need to move!” she calls against the wind to her team, her grip around your hand tightening.
You feel yourself being dragged before your legs catch up, starting to move with them. You hear loud footsteps, receding back into the waves. Water splashes.
Then the only sound that remains is heavy breathing and twigs snapping as the pace slows.
“What's happening?” you ask. “Where are we?”
“Nowhere safe, nowhere good.” Zora replies. “Just don't let go of me.”
The voice you believe belongs to Duncan chimes in. “Z, we've lost two of our team, the Delgado's have disappeared and we've got a blind kid. This can't be worth it.”
“We've got no way to get home until the helicopter comes at the set time. Think of the money, Duncan. Come on.” Zora replies.
“We can't stay here. The dinosaurs will come back.” Henry, you believe, says.
“They're more like mutations.” It sounds snobby and posh. Rich. Has to be Martin.
Zora interrupts. “What do you mean 'mutations'?"
“Abnormalities, deviations.”
“I know what the word means. What does it mean here, where we are?” Zora snaps back, her hand still on your back.
“What are you talking about?” Martin replies.
“This island that we're on. Mr Roarke here didn't tell us everything that we need to know.”
“Look,” Martin begins, like he's talking to a child. “Dinosaurs are dinosaurs. What difference does it make?”
You feel Zora's shoulders move upwards against you. A shrug. “Fine. Don't tell us. We could just leave you here, it's fine.”
“Fine. The island was a laboratory of sorts. They conducted experimental work here.”
“What kind of experiments?” Henry's voice. Curious.
“Crossbreeding of species.” you hear Martin's reply. Cocky, unbothered. Like all of this wasn't an issue. “The theme park owners were just responding to what the audience wanted. Tired of looking at the same old thing.”
You remember it. The "theme park." Jurassic World, Claire Dearing, the collapse. You heard about it on the news. You'd never been. It was expensive, your parents couldn't afford it. You wouldn't be able to see the dinosaurs anyway, it would have been a waste of money.
“'Engineered entertainments' they called 'em.” Martin finishes.
“Genetically altered freaks?” Zora asks.
“And you don't wanna do that in the middle of a theme park, do you?”
“Ideally,” you hear Duncan interrupt. “You don't do weird genetic shit at all.”
“Well they learned that the hard way. Any that were too malformed or just hard to look at...they left 'em here.”
“Here?” you ask. “Like...where we are, here?”
“Someone tell her the adults are talking.”
You roll your eyes slightly.
“But that's inhumane.” Henry says. He cared. You remember vaguely him talking lots about science and fossils of dinosaurs. Maybe he was a scientist. “Why not just euthanise them?”
“Average cost of a created species is $72 million. What, you gonna kill it and tell you bank or just carry it forward as R and D?”
“What would I do with mutant dinosaurs from an accounting perspective?” Henry argues back. “Is that really the question.”
Something roars nearby. You hear it clear as day. Not the usual chirps, rustling or clicking. A small roar.
“Everybody please stay cool,” Zora adds. “Our situation hasn't changed. Much.” she squeezes your shoulder.
“Two of out friends have died. That's quite a bit different.”
“Yes and that's terrible. But we're still desperate. That's no different than before, right? We were all desperate or we wouldn't have come. Right?”
Silence.
“You, you specialise in a subject nobody cares about anymore. You're about to be out of a job, you need this. I want the money. You want the money. Your company wants all the money. We still have the case. First samples in it, let's get the other two.”
You don't know who she's talking about each time. Who specialises in something noone cares about? Who's company wants all the money?
She brings you with her as she walks, then stops. You hear metal click together, then a snap of something. Wire, maybe?
“We have no weapons, Z.”
“We never did. Not really. We had a few toys that would have made us feel better. They could've worked or not. We are where we're supposed to be. Let's just get what we need and get out ”
“How do we get out?”
“Does anyone wanna hear the backup plan?” she asks as she climbs through the hole you assume she made in something. “There's a lower wire you need to step over it.” she tells you carefully.
“She has a backup plan?” you hear Henry ask quietly.
Duncan snorts barely. “She doesn't get out of bed without a backup plan.” You assume the three men are following you.
“I hired an exfil team to monitor our boats radio frequency. So if we go silent for 24 hours, they'll do a flyby at exactly sunset on the second night.” She continues, pulling you through trees and bushes and rocks you can't see. “Your plans showed a village complex on the southeast ridge with a helipad. They'll hover for two minutes. No one shows, they'll leave.”
“We gotta find high ground before the sun comes down, Z.”
Something roars again from behind the group. You whimper slightly, tucking closer to Zora.
You continue walking for a little while. There's bickering between Zora, Henry and Martin. Then, you hear someone sink down slightly in front of you. Ripples, maybe.
Zora keeps moving, but you don't. “What's there? Why—”
“Sorry,” she murmurs. “Its just a river we need to cross. Not moving. Not too deep.”
You nod slightly, then follow her in, the cold coming up to your stomach.
“How far to the next sample?” she asks.
“Well, according to satellite imagery, the Titanosaur heard stays in the central valley.” Henry replies.
“The...what?” you ask. No one answers.
“We should reach them by dawn,” he finishes.
Zora slows a little to help you, and you feel someone else on your other side. Zora's voice lowers, clearly talking in secret with whoever was there.
“Hey. You wanna tell me how the girl fell over the rail?”
“The thing hit the boat. You were there.” He replies. Martin. But who fell over the railing?
“But so were you. on the bridge, next to her. So there was...nothing you could do?”
“What are you implying?”
You feel the other figure move away after that. “Zora?” you ask, as Duncan and Henry talk about expeditions at the front. She hums.
“Who fell over?”
“One of the Delgado daughters.” She replies tightly. It's clear she doesn't believe the girl just "fell" over the railing.
You feel the water come lower around you. Must be getting back to land. Zora and Martin are going at it again.
“You've gotta drop this. She screamed, I turned and she was gone.”
“Alrght, fine. But if I find out otherwise, though, we'll leave you here and you can rejoin the food chain.”
He chuckles. “Im too smart to die.”
“You know,” Henry butts in quickly. “Intelligence is massively overrated as an adaptive trait. Dinosaurs, pretty dumb right? And yet they survived for 168 million years. And we, geniuses by comparison, only have about 200,000 year so far. But with our huge cognitive abilities already have the capacity to annihilate ourselves.”
“Don't we rule the earth? We gotta be doing something right.”
“Someone tell him the idiots aren't talking,” you mutter to Zora, still more than a little annoyed about his earlier comment towards you.
Zora chuckles slightly.
“We don't rule the earth. We just think we do.” Henry finishes. “99.9% of the species ever on earth are extinct. Survival is a longshot.”
“Sit, rest a minute.” Zora murmurs to you, helping you find a rock.
You can hear her move away slightly, her and Henry talking in whispered words.
“What would the alternative be?” She asks.
“To what?”
“To handing the samples over to ParkerGenix?”
“We open-source it. We give it to the whole world. A bunch of people create the medicine, nobody owns the patent, everyone has access. Tens of millions of lives are saved. It's all of us, not some of us.”
“I don't make any money in that scenario.” She replies.
“Oh, no, you're broke as hell.” He replies honestly.
“Yeah, I don't love that part.”
________________________________________
“We're crossing some stones near a waterfall, okay? Little slippy.” She tells you. “What are the last two species?”
Henry tells her. “Titanosaur and Quetzalcoatlus. An 11-ton sauropod and a pterosaur the size of a school bus with 30 foot wings.”
“That's big, right?” you ask, looking up at her face — maybe.
“Huge.” Henry replies.
________________________________________
“How much further?” Martin asks. You feel the air thin slightly, plants brushing just the top of your face but not towering over you like before.
“Not far,” Henry replies. “The Titanosaur herd should be right across this valley.”
“But they're herbivores, right?” Zora asks.
“Yeah.”
“Thats good at least.”
Zora gives your shoulder a squeeze, whispering that she was going to leave you with Duncan.
You felt Duncan's larger hand replace hers on your shoulder as Zora moves forwards.
You hear the grass rustle, a small chorus of "woahs" and "what's?" at something you couldn't see.
“Whats happening?” you ask Duncan.
“Dinosaur. The Titanosaur, God...it's huge.”
“Is it friendly?”
“It's not like the ones from the boat, kid,” he confirms, patting your shoulder.
“What's it look like?”
“Uh, big. Long neck. Long tail. They're rubbing heads now.” Duncan tells you.
“Is she pretty?”
“Yeah, kid. All of them are.”
“What are we doing with them? They're... not gonna hurt them, right?”
“Zora's just gonna take a blood sample. Same as at the doctor's. Just a little prick. And it's gonna help a lot of people, yeah?”
You hear a small phew as something, you assume Zora shooting the needle, flies into the air. Then a rapid beeping. and another whoosh as it ejects back.
“Stay there, kid.” Duncan says, you feel him moving back. “Caught it! We got it!” he calls to the rest of the team.
Duncan walks you back over to where the rest of the team have gathered, handing you back to Zora. “Did you get it? The...blood?”
“Yeah. All good.” She replies, brushing some hairs from your face. You hear something, maybe a briefcase, pop open. “One to go. Looks like we're climbing.”
________________________________________
Zora helps you up the hill, telling you about every little rock, every tree root. Where to hold when it got steep, where was loose.
Finally, you made it to the top. You ccan hear water rushing around you. Waterfalls, probably. Squwaks of something big, scary. Something you are almost glad you can't see.
Zora crouches, settling you down on a flat rock with her bag. You hear a bottle sloshing with water, which she takes a sip of before handing it to you. “Drink.”
She must then look over the edge. “Okay, it's a vertical slab. Looks like some overhang. Probably a 5.13, 5.15. Least we're going down.”
“Not...all of us, right?”
Zora laughs. “Me, LeClerc and Henry. You'll be safe up here with Duncan and Martin.”
“I saw the pterosaur circling a carved structure cut into a natural ledge. They were crevice nesters so it's an ideal spot.”
You can hear metal clinking and clothes rustling over the wind. Probably Zora, LeClerc and Henry preparing to go down.
“Do we have to get a sample from an egg?” Martin asks.
“I suppose we could try and get it from the parent, but they're a flying carnivore that size of an F-16.” Henry replies quickly like this was common sense. You had no idea what this thing was, but even you could recognise that an egg was safer than a massive dinosaur.
“Alright. Martin and Duncan will look after you. Back soon, kid.” Zora says, squeezing your shoulder.
It's not long til you hear a distant whizzing, Duncan yelling "rope, rope!”
You can't assume what's going on, not even slightly. You can just hope that Zora is okay.
Then, yelling. For help, this time. LeClerc. The air itself feels frantic, Duncan and Martin rushing around you, pulling ropes, shouting, all whole you sit there. Helpless.
The growl seems closer now. Right in front of you. Something crunches. “Oh shit! LeClerc!”
“Move, kid!” someone shouts over jaws snapping and screaming and wings beating.
Move where? Backwards. Backwards, right? You were facing the ledge before, so...backwards. You stand up halfway, feeling along the stone as you move away.
Then your leg catches something in the commotion, dragging along your shin as you trip. Sharp, heavy, cold. Your ankle curls uncomfortably beneath you.
“Ow, fuck!” you snap, closing your eyes briefly before a pair of hands drags you under the ground.
You're going down stairs, you realise, each step putting further weight on your already hurting leg.
You don't know how many stairs. How many times you wince putting pressure on your leg. But then the sounds of the wind and waterfalls disappear and the chirping and clicking replace them.
You must be back in the forest. You hear heavy breathing in water, and the same whizzing sound of rope moving. “Zora! Zora, please...” you whisper, one hand clutching the front of Duncan's shirt hard.
“Doc! You okay?” Duncan calls.
“Good!”
You hear someone, presumably Martin, wading across the water, then the briefcase hisses again as something snaps in. Probably that final sample they needed. The egg one.
“Lets go home.” Zora mutters to the group. You're still tucked under Duncan's arm.
“I can't— I can't, it hurts,” you whimper quietly, limping a little closer to Duncan.
“I tripped— I tripped when the big thing came up..” You could feel something running down your shin, aside from your ankle pain, warm and sticky, now dry.
Zora’s hands are on you immediately.
Not grabbing. Steadying.
“Let me see,” she says, voice dropping into that calmer tone she uses when she’s trying not to alarm you. One hand braces gently against your waist while the other carefully lifts your injured leg slightly.
You hiss through your teeth as pressure hits your ankle. “Okay,” she murmurs. “Okay, easy.”
You feel her fingers move carefully along your ankle, testing without forcing it. “Think you twisted it.”
“It’s fine,” you say automatically, because that’s what you say when adults sound stressed.
Zora goes still for half a second. Then, quieter “Kid.”
The single word carries enough disbelief that heat creeps into your face despite everything. “It hurts,” you admit reluctantly.
“Yeah,” she says gently. “I figured.”
Something wet brushes your shin. Fabric maybe. She’s wiping away blood. “There’s a cut too,” she mutters mostly to herself. “Probably what caught you.”
The forest around you feels alive in all the worst ways. Water rushes nearby from the falls, but underneath it are other sounds now. Rustling leaves. Clicking noises. Distant calls echoing through the trees that don’t sound like birds no matter how badly your brain wants them to be.
Zora’s hand tightens once around your arm before letting go carefully. “Can you stand?”
You try. Your ankle immediately protests hard enough to make your breath catch. “Ow fuck.”
“Right, no,” Duncan says instantly.
Before you can argue, he scoops you up against his chest with surprising ease. You let out a startled noise, automatically grabbing his jacket. “Sorry, kid.”
“You could’ve warned me!”
“You wanna walk on that ankle?”
You roll your eyes again. Zora exhales quietly beside you, probably relieved you’re not trying to insist you’re fine anymore. “Everybody move,” she orders. Back to business instantly. “Fast and quiet.”
________________________________________
The team is walking for what feels like hours. You're almost asleep on Duncan's shoulder. You can assume it's probably late now.
Duncan murmurs something about "passing you through" and the hands change. Probably another one of those fences. Then you're back in Duncan's arms again, Zora's hand rubbing your shoulder every so often.
“I see the helipad,” Duncan says, now you're all at higher ground. “In the middle of a reservoir. No sign of the kids though.”
“Will they even be able to find this place?” Martin asks.
“Zora they could be anything.” Martin adds. “They could be animals, it could ve—”
Zora snorts. “In Nikes?”
“Listen, I appreciate what you're doing but we are in a crunch right now.”
“Hello!” She calls again.
Then a man's voice calls back. One you don't recognise. “Hello?”
After that you're moving again, in Duncan's arms, towards the voice.
“Hey! Oh my God, you made it.”
“Thank God. you're alive,” Duncan adds.
“Yeah, where is he?” A girl asks. “No, no. Where is that son of a bitch?”
“What, who?”
“That guy! He let me fall.”
“Yeah, he tried to kill her.” A male voice adds. Younger, not the same one who was yelling.
“Hey, Krebs!” Zora snaps as Martin appears from the brush.
“I'm gonna kill him!” The girl snaps, you can hear her walking now.
Duncan places you on the floor quickly, holding her back. “Hey, he's got a gun, Teresa, no.”
Teresa. The one Martin pushed over the boat.
“I tried to catch you.”
“No, no, no! I tried to call for help! You looked right at me Nd you let me fall!” Tereasa tells everyone.
“She's lying.”
“If she's lying then why do you have a gun?” Zora asks, you can feel her moving closer to you now.
“Because she's hysterical,” he replies, like that was obvious.
“No, I'm not hysterical, I'm homicidal!” She snaps, you can hear her being held back again.
“Lets everybody just relax. Why don't I take that?” He asks. You assume he means the briefcase Zora is now holding.
You feel her move forwards, placing it on the ground. “And I'll keep it safe with me.” You hear something click. “Now were all just gonna relax, and wait here for the helicopter to arrive.”
“There's a helicopter coming?” the man asks.
“Any minute. We just gotta make sure they see us.” Duncan replies.
“Stop talking, stop talking.” Another voice, female, younger, says.
A loud sound echoes around the area. You can't identify it.
“Sounds like the generator. Must be on a timer.” Henry replies.
Another sound. Almost a deep growl. “Generator sounds angry,” you reply.
“Maybe this place is deserted in the daytime...”
“But not so deserted at night,” Zora finishes.
Then the air fills with humming around you. And strangely, the sound of music.
“What's happening? Zora— Zora what's happening?” you ask, limping towards her voice, your nails digging into her arm.
“Lights,” is all she says. A brief silence, before something is gliding towards you, half hissing half squwaking.
“Oh, not that thing,” you hear the younger boy breathe.
More of them must land, their sounds layering as Zora moves away, keeping you behind her.
“Run!” she snaps, and the group scatters. She hooks your arm over her shoulders, moving your limping form with her. “Split up!”
She holds you against a wall, you can hear the thing banging against a door. Then she's half dragging you along with her again. “Down, down. We're going under a car, get down.”
She whispers quickly, pushing you under and following until your body hits someone else. You hear gunshots as the thing runs.
Martin.
Zora and Martin fight over the gun, you stuck between them. “You're missing! Give me the gun!” she snaps. Then the body at the other side of you is gone with the rattling of a chain and a scream.
“What's happening? Are we safe? Zora?”
You hear a heavy thud and a groan.
“Unfortunately, he is...” you hear Zora mutter. Great.
You hear the car beeping above you, and engine revving. “Fucking— keep your head down.” Zora hisses, pressing your body tight against hers.
Then it's not long before you're both moving again. “Up, step up, over the fence wire, come on.”
You feel leaves brushing your skin again, brushing against the cut in your shin. You hiss, then a hand clamps over your mouth.
“Come on, shit— the kids,” she mutters, hooking you over her shoulders again. “Down, down we're going into a tunnel system, okay?”
She lowers you down carefully, then follows.
She moves forwards, you grab the back of her belt, limping along behind her. You can hear something whirring overhead. The helicopter? It had to be. You were going home!
“Zora!” someone whispers. Teresa, you think. Then she's shooting at them, quick fires, one two.
Something hisses. The same thing from above. How was it down here? Then nothing. No bullets shooting, just hollow release. “Go, go!” she hissed, ushering you away with the family.
“You okay, Zora?” Henry asks.
“Go!”
“Z?”
“Krebs took the jeep.”
“And he'll take the boat if we don't get there first.” Duncan adds, “C'mon, Z!”
Teresa holds tightly onto you, water from the tunnel floors splashing up your already hurting legs.
“Maybe we can lift it?” Someone suggests.Clearly you've approached a gate. “Panels on the other side!”
You hear grunting. “I can't get through!” the younger boy calls.
“Guys, that thing is back!” Teresa calls.
You feel a little hand in yours. Probably Teresa's sister. Probably scared. “It's gonna be okay,” you tell her. Even though you had no idea what was even happening right now.
You felt your arm being tugged. You limped along with her as the others continued grunting, trying to lift the gate. Until you felt bars pressing against the front and back of your body, and then nothing. No pressure, no tightness.
“Hey, hey!” Zora calls. “Isabella! Y/N!”
“Bella! Bella wait!” the man calls.
You're still being dragged, presumably away from the gate and towards whatever control panel Duncan had pointed out earlier.
“Come back here, cmere!” Zora calls.
“What— where are we going? Hey! What are we doing?” Your heart races in your chest, your free hand feeling out in front of you.
“The button!” She whispers, dragging you with her. “To open the gate!”
The thing hisses in the tunnel again. Someone yells to hurry.
“Left! Go left!” Duncan shouts. You turn left. Isabella pulls you right.
“Left. That's right.” She laughs at your comment, following you left now. “Do you see it? The panel?”
“I see it!”
The panel is cold under your fingers as you reach it, Isabella's hand letting go of yours.
“I dunno what to do,” she whispers, tugging your arm.
You press her behind you, her heart beating rapidly against your back. You can hear the others banging and yelling behind the gate, clearly trying to attract it's attention.
“Hey!”
“Over here!”
“Bella open the gate!”
You feel her body shift behind you as something beeps on the panel.
Silence. Then, finally, the gate creaks up as the thing roars loudly. No one moves. You're frozen against Isabella and the panel, holding her behind you like you could actually protect her if anything happened.
The air is tense enough to cut, then the sound of an alarm. A robotic voice. An engine. The jeep.
You hear the thing roar loudly as the car speeds closer towards you, then a slam and electric whirring slowing as the car stops. Glass shatters.
Zora's hands are around you before you even know what's happening, her breathing heavy against your ear.
A smaller screech, distant. “Now, Z, now!” you hear Duncan, echoey.
A beep behind you, the metal scraping of the gate closing.
Everyone's moving again. Running and moving away from the big things moving feet. You get spun around, knocked a little, until you feel hands on your upper arms.
“Zora...?” you whisper. But the hands feel rough, heavy and unfamiliar. Something metal and solid bangs against your calf. Not Zora. Martin. You try to get away, to move. “Get off! Let me go, Martin, get o—”
Your words fail to come out, a heavy breath to close to your face for comfort. Hot, wet, a stench of rotting meat. Giant. The D-rex—at least, that's what you had heard them call something big in passing.
You blink quickly, breath coming in short gasps. The breath rumbles low in its chest. Close. Too close. Every instinct in your body locks up at once.
You can hear saliva dripping onto the floor. Hear the scrape of claws against a metal grate somewhere beyond Martin’s uneven breathing. The thing exhales again, hot air washing over your face hard enough to move your hair.
“Oh my God,” Martin whispers. Not cocky now. Not smug. Terrified.
You wrench hard against his grip. “Let go of me!”
“Shut up!” he hisses back, clutching your arms tighter. The creature growls.
The sound vibrates through your ribs.
Somewhere behind you people are shouting, Zora yelling your name, Duncan yelling at Martin, Isabella crying, but it all sounds far away compared to the thing breathing inches from your face.
You hear it sniff. Once. Twice. Like it’s deciding what you are. Your heart pounds so violently you feel sick.
Then Martin shoves you. Hard. Not away from the dinosaur. Toward it.
You stumble with a broken gasp, injured ankle collapsing immediately beneath you as you hit the wet concrete floor. Pain shoots violently up your leg.
“Take them!” Martin screams.
The words don’t even process at first.
Then they do. And something cold cracks open in your chest. The D-rex roars.
You scramble backward on instinct, palms slipping in cold water as your injured ankle screams beneath you. The creature’s breath blasts over you again, wet and hot and impossibly huge.
“NO!” Zora screams.
You hear a man screaming, it almost sounds like he's in the air. Followed by the snap of sharp teeth and a sickening crunch of bones snapped like a toothpick. Something heavy and metal drops near you. Like the briefcase. The thing had eaten Martin.
“Hey,” you hear footsteps approaching as someone yells about grabbing the case. “Hey, hey, sweetheart. You're good, you're okay.” She says gently, like how you'd speak to a scared, wounded animal, but you could hear how tense her voice was. “Comeon. Come on, I know it hurts, but we have to move.”
Familiar hands are guiding you again before you're tucked safely in Duncan's arms again. “Thank you...” you whisper, face half hidden in his collar.
“The hoist controls over there, go,”
“How do we get the boat down?”
“The hoist is broken. It's jammed!” The man shouts.
Trees rustle and snap on your left, a low snarling echoing through them.
“Its attracted to light!” Henry announces as the D-rex snarls far too close to the boat dock. Shit.
“Give me the flares,” Duncan says, placing you on the floor next to Henry.
“What the hell are you doing?” Henry asks.
“I got it, I've got it. Go!” He shouts, and you can hear the sound of a flare being lit.
“No! What the hell are you doing?” Henry calls.
“Hey! Right here! You want me? Come on!”
“No.” Zora whispers next to you. “Duncan.”
“This way. Hey!”
“Get your sister, get your sister!” The man calls to Teresa.
“Get out of here! Go! Come here! This way!”
“Duncan!” Zora screams, her voice wavering slightly. You feel her leave your side, moving towards him. “Duncan!”
“Don't wait Zora! Get the kids. Go! Save them.”
You hear a splash of water, light, barely there, then louder splashes as the thing follows Duncan in.
You hear a chain rattle before the boat drops into the water.
“Go, get in the boat. Get in the boat.” Zora ushers, while Teresa and the boy help you on too.
“There's no power. Teresa, check the power.” the man urges.
“Zora!” you call.
“Duncan! Duncan!” she calls.
“Zora, come on.” Henry tells her. “We have to go. Come on.”
“Dad, hurry!” Isabella cries, you tuck her against your chest.
You can hear the water moving again, coming closer now. “Zora...Zora?”
“I'm here. I'm here.”
“I got it! Push it! Go, go!” the man calls, and the boat surges forwards. Your hand grips onto Zora's arm instinctively.
“Kincaid!” Zora yells, the D-rex having given up now. “Duncan!”
“Hey. Hey!” Isabella calls.
“Turn the boat around!” Zora calls.
“What's happening? What— Why are we going back?” you ask desperately, tugging on the clothes of whichever person is closest to you.
“Flare,” the Teresa answers. “Duncan might not...”
“There his is! I see him!” the younger boy calls.
You hear Duncan laugh in the water as the boat slows, each person working to pull him over.
________________________________________
The boat rocks hard beneath you as it cuts through the dark water, engine rattling loud enough to drown out almost everything else. Almost. You can still hear Zora breathing. Fast. Uneven.
One arm is wrapped tightly around you where you’re curled against her side, like she thinks if she loosens her grip for even a second something might take you too. Her other hand keeps moving over your hair, your shoulder, the side of your face. Rechecking. Grounding herself.
“You were so brave, kid,” she says again quietly.
You shake your head weakly against her jacket. “I wasn’t.”
“You were.” Immediate. Firm.
You swallow hard. Your ankle throbs in time with your heartbeat now, sharp every time the boat jolts over a wave. Your shin burns too where blood dried stiff against your skin.
Around you, everyone sounds exhausted. Teresa is holding Isabella somewhere nearby, whispering softly in Spanish between shaky breaths. The younger boy—Xavier, you think—keeps sniffling like he’s trying very hard not to cry.
Henry sounds winded beside the motor. Martin’s gone. Duncan’s alive. Barely, maybe, but alive. The realization settles strangely in your chest.
You hear water dripping steadily off Duncan’s clothes somewhere across from you. Then a grunt as he shifts position.
“He pushed a child into a dinosaur-infested sea…then he shoved a child at a dinosaur,” Henry says suddenly into the darkness, voice flat with disbelief. Nobody answers for a second.
Then Duncan laughs once. Not amused. Angry. “Wish it had eaten him slower.”
Zora’s arm tightens around you. Your fingers curl weakly in the fabric near her sleeve. “Did…did it hurt him?” you ask quietly before you can stop yourself.
The boat goes silent. Not fully silent. The engine still drones beneath you. Water still crashes softly against the hull. But human silence. Heavy silence.
Zora exhales slowly through her nose. “Yeah.” she answers honestly. You nod faintly against her chest.
After a second, Duncan mutters, “Definetley.”
“Duncan,” Henry says quietly.
“What? He tried feeding a kid to a mutant dinosaur.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.” Duncan’s voice sharpens slightly. “They couldn’t even see the damn thing.”
The words make your stomach twist. You hadn’t seen it. Just felt it breathing on you. Smelled it. Heard it deciding. Your breathing catches suddenly without warning.
Zora notices instantly. “Hey.” Her voice drops low, close to your ear. “Hey, stay here with me.”
You try. But all at once you can feel it again— the hot breath. The growl. Martin’s hands shoving you forward.
Take them.
Your chest tightens violently. “I thought—” Your voice breaks. You swallow hard, trying again. “I thought it was gonna eat me.”
“Oh, sweetheart.” Zora’s hand cups the back of your head immediately, pulling you closer before you can curl in on yourself completely. “I know.”
Your face presses into her shoulder hard enough to hurt. For a second you hate yourself foe shaking.
You’d done okay before. You hadn’t cried. You hadn’t panicked. But now that you’re safe—safe-ish—it all crashes into you at once. Your breaths start coming unevenly.
The words unravel something in your chest completely. Your hands fist tightly in her jacket.
“They pushed the button,” Isabella says suddenly, voice small but fierce through her own sniffles. “Y/N found the button.”
You freeze slightly. “No,” you mumble instantly. “You did.”
“You protected me.”
Your throat tightens. Zora goes very still beside you.
“They stood in front of me,” Isabella continues quietly, like she needs everyone to understand it properly. “When the dinosaur was there.”
“You were scared,” you whisper.
“So were you.”
The boat goes quiet again. Then Duncan says softly, “That was a gutsy move, kid.”
You don’t know what to do with that. Because honestly? You were terrified. Still are.
You curl smaller instinctively as the boat hits another rough patch of water. Zora adjusts immediately, keeping you tucked against her so you don’t slide.
“You should sleep,” she murmurs after a while.
You shake your head against her. “Don’t wanna.”
“Why?”
Your fingers tighten slightly in her sleeve. “…what if something comes back?”
Something painful flickers across her face that you can’t see. But you hear it in her voice. ”Nothing gets through me.”
The promise lands warm and heavy somewhere deep in your chest. Your breathing finally starts slowing. The engine drones steadily onward through the dark. Water sprays softly against the boat.
Duncan and Henry are talking quietly now about coordinates and fuel and how close sunrise might be, but their voices blur together at the edges as exhaustion drags at you harder and harder.
You feel Zora shift slightly beneath you. Then softer, almost like she thinks you’re already asleep “You scared ten years off my life back there.”
A tiny breath of laughter escapes you despite everything. “Sorry.”
Her hand smooths gently over your hair again. “Don’t apologize for surviving.”
Zora sighs a little. “Who do we give it to? The samples” She asks Henry.
“You decide.”
“We'll give it to everyone.” She smiles against your head.
Something splashed in the water, your head almost shoots up. “What's that?”
“Dolphins!” Isabella claps.
You settle back against Zora's chest, eyes closing.
Not only did Billie Eilish donate $11.5M, she also called out a room full of billionaires, including Mark Zuckerberg, directly to their faces, saying "If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but, yeah, give your money away, shorties."
The $11.5M she's donating is about 1/4 if her net worth. Imagine if a billionaire did that? If Mark Zuckerberg donated 1/4 of his net worth, it would be about $55 BILLION... and he's still have over $100 billion left.
And, yet, unsurprisingly, people are mad at Billie Eilish for what she said and not at the billionaires for hoarding all the money and resources
ReggieRizzoli @reggierizzoli - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
