The first thing Marla noticed was the heat—thick as syrup, pressing on her lungs with every breath. The second was the colour of the sky: a bruised, smouldering red streaked with drifting ash. She blinked against the brightness, her ears still ringing from the tearing sound that had swallowed them.“Andrew…?” she whispered.
He was beside her, kneeling in a patch of ferns as tall as his shoulders, gasping like he’d run a mile uphill. His face was streaked with mud. His hands shook.
“Where… where are we?”
Marla didn’t answer at first. She scanned the landscape with slow disbelief. Trees towered overhead, but not like any trees she knew. Their trunks were thick and scaly, branching into massive fronds that cast sharp-edged shadows. Strange, bulbous plants dotted the ground, pulsing faintly as though breathing.
And then came the sound.
A low, distant stomp. Then another. A rhythmic tremor that made the earth quiver beneath their knees.
“Andrew,” she whispered, “I think we went through it.”
He swallowed hard. “Through what?”
“That tear. That… portal.”
Andrew let out a shaky laugh, but the sound held no mirth. “A portal to where? This looks like—”
A shadow passed overhead. Both of them froze. Marla held her breath, heart hammering in her ears.
Something huge soared between the crimson sun and the treetops. Its wings stretched wider than a house roof, leathery and veined. Its crest glowed bright crimson. It let out a high, piercing cry that rattled their teeth.
Marla clamped a hand over her mouth. “Oh my god,” she whispered. “A pterosaur.”
Andrew shook his head. “Impossible. They’re… extinct.”
She met his eyes. “So is whatever forest we used to live next to.”
The shock held them still for a long moment—until the tremors grew stronger.
Branches snapped in the distance. Something massive pushed through the undergrowth. The ferns shook violently. Birds—if they were birds—burst from the canopy, shrieking in alarm.
Andrew grabbed Marla’s wrist and pulled her into the ferns. They crouched low, barely daring to breathe.
A roar shattered the thick air.
Not the distant echo they’d heard before… but close. Too close.
Marla felt the vibration in her ribs. She clutched Andrew’s arm, digging her nails into him. The ground trembled with each of its steps. A tree cracked, splitting down the middle as something enormous brushed past it.
Through the gaps in the ferns, Marla saw a flash of mottled green hide. A tail thick as a car trunk whipped through the brush, sending smaller plants flying. A massive foot slammed into the ground—three claws digging deep into the soil.
Andrew mouthed the word she didn’t dare say out loud:
Tyrannosaur.
The beast paused. Sniffed. Its massive head swung back and forth, nostrils flaring. Its eye—amber and slit-pupilled—swept across the clearing like a spotlight searching for prey.
For a terrible second, it stopped right where they hid.
Marla’s lungs burned. Sweat dripped down her back. Andrew tightened his grip on her hand.
The tyrannosaur exhaled, a blast of hot, fetid air whipping the ferns.
Then—
A distant cry echoed from deeper in the forest. The tyrannosaur jerked its head toward it, interest piqued, and thundered away.
Only when its steps faded did Andrew finally whisper, “We have to move.”
But as they stood, Marla’s eyes fell on something half-buried in the dirt.
A human boot print.
Fresh.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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