Survival day 1 - 6

Day 1

They call it hunger.
That is what prey tells itself.
It needs to believe there is a reason for what happens to it.
There isn’t.
I killed because I could.
I killed because they came to me.
And when they learned what waited beneath the water…
they came anyway.

I remember the pond.Not because it was beautiful.

Because it was mine. A small body of fresh water, surrounded by miles of trees. The reeds whispered whenever the wind passed through them. Mud clung to the shoreline in thick, dark patches. Beyond the trees, an ocean, no good for a drink.

There were no rivers nearby.

No streams.

No other place to drink.

Everything that lived here would eventually need this water. And everything that needed this water would eventually have to come to me. That was the important part.

I did not have to chase them.

I did not have to waste my strength.

I only had to wait.

I learned the pond.

I learned where the mud was deepest.

I learned where the reeds were thick enough to hide me. I learned where the water became dark enough that nothing above could see what was beneath it. The first raptor arrived sometime after sunrise. It approached cautiously. I watched from below. Its feet entered the shallows. It looked left. Then right. Nothing.

It lowered its head.

I struck.

The surface erupted around us.

For one brief moment, it understood. Then my jaws closed. The water became still again. I ate. And waited.

The second came later.

Then the third.

Then the fourth.

By then, I no longer wondered whether they would come. I knew they would.

They always did.

They would approach.

They would look.

They would hesitate. And eventually, thirst would overcome their fear.

That was when I would take them.

They began leaving footprints around the pond.

Four sets of footprints that never walked away.

I began recognizing their sounds, their smells, their drowning cries. I could tell when something was coming long before it reached the water. And eventually, the creatures began recognizing something too.

They began watching the pond.

They would stand at the shore and stare into the black water.

They knew something lived beneath it.

They just did not know what.

They knew that animals came here to drink.

They knew that some of them disappeared. And they knew that sometimes, just before something vanished, the water moved.

I watched them become afraid. That was when the pond became interesting. Fear changed them. They became cautious.

Predictable.

They would wait for others to drink first. They would circle the shore. They would stare into the water for long periods of time. They thought they were studying me. They were not. I was studying them. I learned their habits. Their hesitation. Their mistakes. Their fear. And I enjoyed knowing that every creature standing at that shoreline was wondering the same thing.

Is it beneath me?

Sometimes it was.

Day 2

A white Rex arrived. I saw it long before it reached the pond. A pale shape moving between the trees.

Massive.

Heavy.

Confident.

It approached the water as though nothing in the world had any right to challenge it.

For the first time in days, I felt something different. Excitement. Not because I was hungry.

Because I wondered what would happen when something finally realized what I was.

The Rex drank.

I watched from beneath the surface. Then I saw the raptor.

I wanted it.

I lunged.

The raptor escaped.

The Rex turned.

It attacked.

I vanished beneath the surface.

I waited.

Then I tried again.

The raptor escaped again.

The Rex attacked again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

And eventually, something beautiful happened.

The Rex refused to leave. so did the raptor. So did I.

The three of us became prisoners of the same pond.

But they did not understand something.

They were waiting for me to give up.

I had no intention of doing that.

I could wait longer than either of them.

Day 5

The days passed. The Rex guarded the shoreline. The raptor stayed close to it. And I watched them. Sometimes the raptor would drink. Sometimes the Rex would drink. Sometimes they would simply stand there, staring into the water. I imagined what they must have been thinking.

Where is it?

How deep is it?

Will it attack?

Will it leave?

They were trying to solve me.

They could not.

Then the Eotriceratops arrived. For a moment, I thought the pond would finally become a battlefield. The great horned creature approached. The Rex turned toward it.

I watched.

I waited for the confrontation.

But neither attacked.

They simply stared at one another. Then both looked toward me. That was when I understood. The water had changed everything. The Rex did not care about the Eotriceratops. The Eotriceratops did not care about the Rex.

Not really.

They cared about the water.

And I was the thing between them and it.

I could almost feel their fear.

They were trapped.

So was I.

But there was one important difference.

They needed the pond.

I wanted it.

Then I saw the raptor again. It moved closer to the water. The Rex was beside it.

Watching. Protecting it.

And something inside me began to race.

Not because I was about to secure another meal.

Because I was going to do it in front of him.

I wanted the Rex to watch.

I wanted it to understand that all its size meant nothing here.

I wanted the raptor to know that the enormous creature standing beside it could not save it.

I wanted the Rex to hear the struggle.

To hear the splashing.

To hear the desperate movements against the water.

To hear the moment its protector failed.

I wanted it to remember me.

I sank lower.

The water covered my back.

Only my eyes remained above the surface.

The raptor stepped closer.

The Rex stood behind it.

Waiting.

Watching.

So was I.

My heart was beating faster. Not from fear. Anticipation. The raptor lowered its head.

I moved. The water opened. My jaws came from beneath it. The raptor screamed. The Rex reacted immediately. But I already had it.

I pulled.

The raptor disappeared beneath the surface.

The Rex roared.

It rushed toward the water.

I dragged the raptor deeper.

The world above became muffled.

The Rex could no longer reach us.

But it could hear.

That was enough. I surfaced briefly. I looked directly at it. The Rex stood at the shoreline. Frozen.

Its eyes followed mine.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then I disappeared beneath the surface again.

I wanted it to know.

I wanted it to understand.

You were not protecting it.

You were only watching it die.

The pond became quiet.

The Rex remained on the shore.

And I remained beneath it.

That was when the pond stopped being a hunting ground.

It became a crime scene. My crime scene. The blood spilled by my hands were like my autograph.

The creatures that came here knew something had happened.

They could feel it.

They approached the water differently.

They stared into it longer.

They listened.

Every ripple became suspicious.

Every shadow became a possible threat.

And somewhere beneath them, I watched.

The Rex had become my unwilling witness.

The raptor had become another name in a growing list.

And the pond had become my territory.

I no longer needed to prove that I could kill.

Everyone already knew.

Now I only needed to decide…

who would be next.

When I was finished, I surfaced.

A battle was between the rex and a group of Aliroamus' was raging.

The Rex was distracted.

For the first time in days, it was looking somewhere other than at me. That was all I needed.

I left the pond. I moved through the mud, across the dry earth, toward the distant sound of the ocean. Behind me, the Rex roared. It had seen me. It came after me. I could hear its footsteps pounding against the earth. But it was too late.

It had spent its days guarding the pond.

I had spent mine learning it.

Learning its habits.

Learning its patience.

Learning exactly how long it would take for it to realize I was gone.

The ocean was waiting. I reached the shoreline. The first wave rolled over my feet. Then another. The Rex stopped. It stood at the edge of the water, staring at me. I looked back. For a moment, neither of us moved. It had protected the pond. It had protected the raptor. It had tried to make me leave. And now it could do nothing but watch me disappear. I slipped beneath the waves.

The ocean swallowed me.

And the last thing I saw was the white Rex standing alone on the shore.

Watching.

Day 6

I should have stayed away.

That was my mistake. Or perhaps it wasn’t a mistake at all. Perhaps I simply wanted to return. The pond had become familiar. The mud. The reeds. The dark water. The smell of frightened animals approaching the shoreline. It had become mine. Killers become attached to their hunting grounds.

Not because they need them.

Because those places remember.

Every death becomes part of the landscape.

Every disappearance becomes another secret beneath the surface.

And perhaps I had begun to believe that nothing could take it from me.

That was when I stopped watching the shadows.

The Megalania came first.

I did not hear it.

That was what made it different.

Something moved behind me.

Then pain. Teeth sank into my flesh. I turned. The Megalania was already there.

And behind it…

the Amargasaurus.

For the first time in three days, I was not the one controlling the encounter.

I fought.

Of course I fought.

I bit.

I twisted.

I dragged myself through the mud.

But there were too many teeth. Too much weight. And then came the venom. The first bite hurt. The second made my limbs heavy. Then the venom began to spread.

Slowly.

Patiently.

Almost calmly.

It moved through me while I fought against it.

My vision began to blur.

The trees bent sideways.

The sky became a pale smear above me.

And beneath all of it…

I could hear the water.

My water.

So close.

Always so close.

I dragged myself toward it.

My claws tore through the mud.

One step.

Then another.

Then another.

I could feel my strength leaving me. My body had begun betraying me. I collapsed at the shoreline. The water was inches away. I could see my reflection trembling across its surface. For six days, nothing had been able to take me from this place.

And now I couldn’t even reach it.

I lay there breathing heavily. And suddenly, I understood. The Megalania had not killed me.

Not really.

The pond had.

The four raptors.

The battles.

The bodies.

The screaming.

The Rex.

The Eotriceratops.

The countless creatures that had gathered around that little patch of water. I had made myself known. I had left too many witnesses. Too many stories. Too much evidence. Every kill had announced my presence. Every body had carried my name farther. The pond had not hidden me. It had introduced me to the world.

And eventually…

someone came looking.

That is the danger of becoming famous.

Eventually, someone wants to be the one who kills the famous killer.

My breathing slowed. The venom reached deeper. The world became quiet. For the first time in three days…

there was nothing.

No hunger.

No fear.

No footsteps.

No prey.

No water.

No Rex.

No one watching.

My eyes closed.

And I died.

Then I opened them again.

Something was wrong.

The body was different.

Smaller.

Weaker.

Unfamiliar.

The world smelled different.

The ground felt different beneath my feet.

But somewhere inside me…

something remained. Not memories. Not exactly. Pieces.

A white shape moving through trees.

Four raptors.

Dark water.

A great horned beast.

The roar of a Rex.

The ocean.

Venom.

Pain.

Death.

And beneath all of it…

a feeling.

Something older than memory.

Something deeper than instinct.

A need.

I found water.

I entered it.

The surface closed over me.

Darkness surrounded my body.

And suddenly…

I felt at home.

I was living once again, i was breathing once again, and soon i'd be killing again. But first i must grow.