continued from here; { pteranodonic }
While the emergency phone in Gray’s dork pouch was
actually a great idea, it was proving to be fucking useless
out in the middle of... wherever he’d managed to end up.
No signal, barely any battery - what was the point of it?
Other than to remind Zach that his own was smashed and
forgotten back at the demolished Gyrosphere. So now he
was stuck in the middle of nowhere, god he didn’t even
know where Gray had disappeared to now. He’d told him
to stay put and he’d find a way back up the craggy, too
steep to climb, cliff. But that had been easily an hour ago,
and he was no closer to finding his baby brother. What the
fuck was he supposed to do now?
An irritatingly bright flicker out the corner of his eye had
him looking down at the series of numbers slashed across
his forearm... steadily nearing triple zeros. Panicked surprise
had him freezing, phone no longer important in his hands. All
the way out here, in the middle of a freaking jungle full of things
prepared to eat him alive - and now’s when his soulmate
decided to show up? What kind of fate was this? He didn’t have
time to worry about another important person, not alongside his
anxiety that Gray was being eaten somewhere right there and
then. The slow countdown - shit, 00:01:03 so soon - raised
complications he really didn’t need right now.
The words were sudden and loud in the strange sort of silence
that had settled in the clearing since he’d stopped a few minutes
before. It hadn’t startled him... much. Attention dragged painfully
away from the near zero-ed out counter on his arm (this was it,
this was them it had to be), Zach’s gaze settled on the girl at the
edge of the clearing. She looked older - not by much perhaps, but
definitely older - and she looked pissed. Dirtied and clothes
disheveled, the girl looked much like he guessed he did, minus
the cuts and bruises from the brush with the I-Rex. She didn’t
appear entirely pleased to see him, even from here he could pick
up the faint harsh words under her breath and yeah - he was totally
not happy with the situation. He wanted to call her out, but something
about the way she’d spoken those two words made him rethink.
He didn’t move as got closer, her steps cautious and yeah this
was really gonna be bad wasn’t it - there must be something there.
Something he hadn’t noticed as he stormed into the clearing and
was now deeply regretting throwing caution to the wind in his
desperation to find his brother. She was kinda small, the nearer
she got - but had an air about her that made him think she was more
than capable of handling herself. A twitch, a rustle of branch above
and slightly to the side had his muscles locking. Zach struggled to
stop himself from looking, keeping his eyes on the girl as she drew
level and turned him, slowly, carefully. He swallowed thickly, mild
panic rising at the words she loud-whispered (he still didn’t let his
eyes waver too far from her, who knew what would set the things off...
though maybe that wasn’t entirely why he refused to let his gaze
wander from her own).
He wanted to ask questions, wanted to fucking take a pause
from the weird ass situation and danger they were in and address
the glowing zeros between them - but he didn’t. Her voice, now
she was close enough for him to really listen to, was a little husky
and full of self-confidence and authority. Not one to take shit from
anyone. Perfect. He knew it’d be stupid to argue - they’d probably
both die a horrible death if he did ‘cause Pteranodons were vicious
creatures from what he could remember from the videos online and
things Gray had spouted to him over the years. So he kept his mouth
shut, just gave a small nod of the head to show he understood. He
really didn’t want to die just mere minutes after finding his soulmate,
‘cause that’d just suck.
So he turned, body twisted towards the massive creatures he could
just feel in the trees above them, and started walking. Steps faltering
only once or twice in the careful path across the clearing, it took all
of his self control not to run or look up and actually get a view of the
giant man-eating monsters. He didn’t even glance to the side to check
the girl had followed, could hear the soft pads of her own footfalls
slightly behind him. He could feel, and hear his heartbeat in his chest -
loud and hard and fluttering with anxiety. He really didn’t wanna die
‘cause of some overgrown turkey. The second he breached the treeline,
he half-jogged a tiny bit further in and spun on the girl expression torn
between a grimace, annoyance and wondered surprise,
“... okay, what the fuck.”