Marla stared at the boot print as if it were alive—something that could leap out of the soil and speak. Andrew crouched beside it, brushing away loose dirt with trembling fingers. The imprint was crisp, still sharp at the edges. Recent. Very recent.“This means someone else is here,” he whispered.
Marla swallowed. “Or was.”
The print pointed toward a slope that dropped into darker forest. The ferns were trampled in a straight line, as if someone had been sprinting. Running from something. Running for their life.
A gust of wind blew through the towering fronds, carrying distant cries—not human but unnervingly close in shape. Long, rising wails that echoed like suffering.
Andrew stood. “We need to find whoever made this. They might know how to get back.”
Marla nodded, though doubt gnawed at her. Anyone leaving prints in a place like this might be dead. Or worse. But staying still meant waiting for the tyrannosaur to return.
They began following the trail.
The forest thickened quickly, the foliage darkening with each step. Strange insects clung to the underside of leaves, their shells reflecting an oily rainbow sheen. Some skittered away as the couple passed. Others didn’t move at all, their many eyes tracking Marla and Andrew with silent vigilance.
The heat pressed harder. Sweat dripped into Marla’s eyes. She wiped it away, pushing forward.
Then… they smelled it.
Smoke.
Not the burning-forest smoke that drifted occasionally across the ancient world—they’d already caught hints of volcanic ash on the wind. This was sharper. Harsher. Manufactured.
“A campfire,” Andrew whispered.
They moved faster.
The trail led them into a ravine shaded by towering cycads. A trickle of muddy water wound through it, and on its banks were more boot prints—many more. Not just one person.
Andrew crouched again. “Two, maybe three sets.”
Marla pointed. “And drag marks.”
Something heavy had been pulled across the ground. A body? Supplies? The thought tightened her throat.
As they rounded a bend, they heard voices.
Human voices.
Andrew grabbed Marla’s hand and pulled her behind a cluster of low shrubs. They crouched silently, peering through the leaves.
Three people stood around a smouldering fire pit: two men and a woman, all wearing battered field gear stained with mud and dark streaks that might have been blood. Their clothes were torn. One man had makeshift bandages wrapped around his leg. The woman clutched a long metal pole like a spear, watching the treeline nervously.
“Do you hear that?” one of the men asked. “Something’s moving.”
“Everything here is always moving,” the woman snapped. “Keep your voice down unless you want to be eaten.”
Andrew and Marla exchanged a look.
Survivors.
But before either could step forward, a shrill, spine-tingling call echoed overhead. The three strangers jerked their heads up in unison.
The woman’s eyes widened. “They found us.”
She dropped the metal pole.
Something enormous slammed into the ravine from above, scattering stones and debris. A winged shadow unfolded, blotting out the red sky.
Marla gasped.
It wasn’t a pterosaur.
It was bigger—far bigger—its talons as long as swords, its beak curved like a scythe. Its eyes glowed with a cold animal malice.
The strangers screamed.
The creature shrieked.
And Andrew whispered, “We need to run. Now.”
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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