The Claws of Friendship: PROLOGUE.

 by Amber Velociraptor

The little girl, whose name was Jenny, lay beside her mother. She could not sleep. From the darkness around came strange noises, frightening noises. Not the whoops of monkeys, not the roars of lions, but strange, high pitched whistles, odd clicks, and once, the roar of some animal much bigger than a lion.

            She and her mother had arrived to this land, helped by some friendly dolphins, who, with much clicking and sque-ee-ing, had borne them close to the land, then nosed them into the shallows.

            Her mother had been injured, the girl knew, although her mother insisted she was fine. But Jenny had seen the blood her mother had tried to hide. She was only five, nearly six, but not stupid! In the water, there had been a nasty moment when a shark had smelt the blood. Fortunately, it was a small one, and the dolphins attacked it, keeping it from them. Others arrived not long after, bigger sharks, but by then Jenny and her mother were out of the water.    

            Since arriving, they had seen dinosaurs, lots of them. At first the mother could not believe it, but had to believe the huge Stegosaur that went past ahead of them. Only plant-eaters had been seen so far, but her mother said they should be careful. She did not explain why.

            A little later, in spite of her fear, and the noises around, sleep overtook Jenny.

            She awoke suddenly, due to some other noise, too near for her liking. She knew her mother had a flashlight in her backpack, as well as the three bars of chocolate, which had been wrapped in a raincoat, so had only got slightly moist from the sea-water. Fumbling with the straps, she pulled out the bundled raincoat, finding the flashlight beneath it. Switching it on, she saw swift, bipedal figures around her. They moved as quick as she moved the flashlight. They were coming closer. She rolled open the raincoat, and pulled out a bar of chocolate.

            She hesitated-her mother had said they might rely on them for survival-but only for a moment, before tearing open the silver foil. The foil had saved the chocolate from being spoiled by salt-water. She broke off a chunk, and ate it. The shadowy figures nearby stopped moving so fast, and heads turned, nostrils quivering. Jenny noticed, broke off another rich brown chunk and nervously stretched it out to the nearest figure. It stopped moving. It came a little closer, and she was able to discern a long head, and the light shone off large eyes. Sharp teeth flashed, and suddenly the chocolate was gone. Other heads pressed around, and soon the first bar was gone. Without looking, she put her hand out to get another bar. Her questing hand found her mother’s face. It was cold. Too cold.

            The chocolate and the closing circle of dinosaurs forgotten, Jenny tried to wake her mother. After a few minutes, she realized her mother was not going to wake. The light of dawn began to tinge the sky, and the girl carefully repacked the rucksack, and put it on her back. The dinosaurs were still circling nearby. She turned back to her mother and began to cry.

            Clawed hands seized her, two pairs, and bore her away. The girl screamed, but there was no-one to hear her cries. She began to struggle, and the dinosaurs tightened their grips in response. The claws were beginning to dig in, and she whimpered in pain.

            After some time of being carried under trees and through bushes, she was set down in a depression which, now the sun was up, she could see contained two smaller versions of her captors. She recoiled as she saw them tearing meat from the severed leg of an unknown dinosaur. The bigger dinosaurs squealed and growled at the two younger ones, and one of the bigger ones reached down, tearing a lump of meat from the leg. It advanced towards her, then dropped the gory lump by her. It looked at her, cocked it’s head, and nudged the meat closer.

            The girl wasn’t sure if she wanted to eat the meat it was offering-for that was obviously what it was doing. It gave a growl, of puzzlement, which Jenny took as a threat. Nervously, with her eyes shut, she began to chew.

            It wasn’t as bad as she’d thought, once you got over the wet chewiness. It still wasn’t her preferred food, but she was hungry, and didn’t want to offend by refusing.

            As she lay down by the young raptors, she wondered about how they were treating her. They seemed friendly, but why?

Then she wondered if it had anything to do with the chocolate...

[Top] [Next]