'Huh?' I think as I open my eyes to the view of a familiar forest floor.
'How am I alive?'
'What the hell?!' I scream both out loud and in my head as an ambiguous voice announces five things one after another in my head. My yelp acquires the attention of my mother and siblings who all rush over to check that I'm okay.
'Yes yes, I'm fine… Somehow?' I suddenly remember that I really should be dead right now- I certainly had a fatal wound! My femoral artery was severed, there's no surviving that kind of wound without serious medical professionals.
Was it a miracle?
'God?'
Come to think of it, I really hadn't given any consideration to how the hell I wound up here. I find it hard to imagine that me ending up reborn as a T-rex was just pure coincidence, not to mention 65+ Million years in the past.
I mean, I'm sure there's some kind of logical explanation, right? We know matter can't go to the past, but perhaps souls can? Maybe there's some kind of rule placed on matter that souls don't have to abide by.
'Probably God. I can't honestly think of any other explanation. I certainly died, there's no coming back from a gunshot wound to the heart, not without immediate, and I mean immediate medical attention, and even then there's only a small chance of survival. And my lab was way out in the boonies, with no medical professionals for miles.'
Yup, I got reincarnated by God. Or whatever Deity is in charge of reincarnation.
As I'm debating to myself what had happened, my family is currently feasting off of the meager remains of that Dakoraptor who made an attempt on my life. It's basically bones at this point, but I'm starving like never before, so no being picky.
As I'm eating, I pick up on the distinct walking pattern of Ciaran, my father, and notice his walking speed up slightly as he comes into view. Once he arrives at my side, he playfully shoves me on my side, and I swear it looks like he is smiling.
Can rexes really show this much emotion? They were always thought to me unintelligent lizards, what evolutionary need would they have for intelligence bordering on familial love?
He's literally stomping his feet in joy now, even walking over to Gaia and pressing up against her in what I can only describe as a loving embrace.
They're happy? This kind turns everything I knew about Rexes on its head.
-
Several weeks have passed since that day I woke up, and I've begun to notice something interesting. Whereas before I would play with my siblings and get exhausted after a while, by muscles aching in that familiar way that entails muscle tears lasting severely hours or even days- Now my muscles recover in record time. And not just me, even my siblings are the same- we now play harder, faster, and more frequently than ever before. Even the scratches I get from Dionel's roughhousing heal in record time.
The downside of this is that we now need food much more often. Although that isn't really an issue for our parent's, considering how little food we actually need given our size.
Also, speaking of size, we have all been getting bigger at a normal pace, though fairly fast in comparison to mammals. I now come up to my Mother's first knee, about a 200 percent increase in body size over the course of about 2 or so months. If before I only weighed roughly 20-25kgs, I now weigh probably close to 50.
This has also resulted in the ability to hunt our own prey, and working as a team has netted me and my siblings some good kills. Honestly, it's at the point where our parents don't even let us feed off of them anymore. Never knew I could feel annoyed (as opposed to terrified) from getting growled at by a Ginormous Tyrannasaur, but that's my life I guess.
-
Today, Mom and dad decided to take us away from the creek where we usually reside, asking us to follow them. I've learned that the chirps and bellows Tyrannasaurs use are a communication system, but not to the level of dolphins. There's bellows and chirps for names, which we give ourselves; one for distress, for saying you're hurt, for gloating, for direction, for warning, for submission, and a very very low one for being silent. There's a bunch more, but they're very simple, and much more intuitive than I imagine Dolphin clicks and whistles are to learn. It helps that I'm learning the language as a member of the species, so I have an instinctive knowledge of the sounds, but still.
Anyways, after roughly 6 hours of trotting, scattered lightly with stops for catching bugs or a small gerbil looking mammal that was easily captured with a little teamwork, we arrived at the sea.
And across the sea, I spotted an island.
But suddenly I got very scared… Because I know what's in the ocean in the late Cretaceous.
Sea monsters of various sizes and shapes- anything from massive crocodilians to Mosasaurs or even sharks… and we can't swim very fast. Sure, probably faster than your average human, but that isn't a very high bar. We can maybe go 10 kmph in the water at max speed, but swimming at long distances is a stamina game, not a speed game, so conserving our energy means maybe 5-7 kmph.
My worries are quickly squashed when Ciaran picks me up and throws me into the water after my mother begins wading in and gives the call for 'all clear'.
And so begins the 'fun' journey across the small channel to the non-descript island.
-
Not even 5 minutes in and Ciaran lifts his head, clearly agitated, and calls out to Gaia with a bellow I'd never heard before. That's when I poke my head in the water, and spot it, a few hundred feet from us. The water is crystal clear, allowing me easy sight of the creature.
A Mosasaur, roughly the same length as Ciaran, and patiently swimming after us. Ciaran is now frantically peeking into the water in between breaths, but even as vigilant as he is being he can't really put up a real defense if the water lizard decides to strike.
And to my fear, less than 200 yards from shore, the lizard attacks. It rushes in, coming from below, and I watch in helpless sorrow as it doesn't go for me, but one of my siblings, Trent. The runt. The slowest swimmer. But also the one closest to Ciaran.
It didn't matter though. The only thing Ciaran could do was rip a chunk of the mosasaur's tail out as it frantically made off with my sibling.
That mosasaur will live. The tail will likely be a huge hindrance, and may impact his ability to mate in the future, but he killed Trent… He killed the baby. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do.
I tried to think reasonably, to rationalize it as 'this is just the way nature works'. But… No matter what I told myself, I couldn't overcome my emotions.
I'd only known Trent a few months at most, but he was the sweetest sibling. He was honestly my favorite, and now he's gone. Swallowed whole by a monster simply because my parents wanted to go to this random island for no obvious reason.
The thought filled me with rage, but there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. Even if I wanted to bite a chunk out of Ciaran's Leg for letting Trent die, he's way too big… I can't fight him, nor do I want to. And plus, if I've learned anything about T-rexes these past months, it's that I know Ciaran is feeling this loss just as much, if not even more than I am. The only thing I could do was direct my anger at the only one who deserved it, the mosasaur.
I will kill that thing one day, I swear it.
I will remember its coloring, those cold black eyes… Scales of deep blue and white underneath, a scar the size of a chicken on its snout and many more along its back, with a distinct black speckling covering its back, making it look like a pod of fish.
I will remember you. And I will take my revenge.
-
As we arrived on the shore, Ciaran dropped the chunk of Mosasaur flesh on the ground, and basically collapsed from exhaustion, but I knew it wasn't exhaustion. It was grief. Gaia walked over to comfort him, looking just as downtrodden as him.
I however, walked towards the mosasaur flesh and ate like a maniac, anger in my soul over being so powerless as to not even do anything.
Within second I had eaten my fill, but I didn't stop there, I kept going until I had devoured the rest of the tail. And then something happened.
And all at once I felt it, my genes changed for the better- my tail lengthened slightly and flattened out vertically, I felt a membrane form over my eye that I could manually pull back, and I felt my arms lengthen slightly.
I had acquired the traits of a mosasaur through devouring its flesh…
And I wasn't alone either- I looked over at my family as they all inspected their bodies with curiosity and worry as they grew the same trait I did, only my Parents remained mostly the same. I think I saw their tails flatten out a little and grow slightly longer, but I presume because they're fully grown that means they can't change as much.
This was my power.
I could evolve my family.
-
The Island we had arrived at was actually pretty cool. Apparently this was the middle of a giant species of sea turtle's mating season, so we had come here to feast. Of course, my parents didn't let us kill all the turtles, otherwise they wouldn't keep coming back to this island, but we still ate like royalty.
Turtle meat was surprisingly delicious and exotic. It tore apart easily and had this salty flavor to it, and I could feel my tongue experiencing taste for the first time, although I had experienced it as a human being.
-
There were no other predators on this island, at least none that we could spot. It was like a paradise.
Several weeks later, after the turtles had all abandoned the island after laying their eggs and no more would come, my parents decided it was time to head back.
I had also discovered a few things about my powers. Apparently, assimilating a gene requires a specific ritual- and there are three rules. 1. I must eat past full, and the genetic material must be the only thing in my stomach. Eating even a leaf will disrupt the process. 2. Acquiring the gene requires me to think about that creature and what I want out of it. I got the mosasaur genes by thinking about killing it, which is only possible if I can swim better. 3. I can't puke the food. I must stomach it. Which is harder said than done when eating past full.
At least this means I can pick and choose what modifiers I want, rather than just randomly acquiring them.
-
After going through all the rules I had set for myself, and experimenting for weeks, I had finally managed to acquire the genes of an Archelon.
And again, all these genes applied to my family. Also, I discovered that my parents do acquire the same traits as me, but the traits simply take much longer to fully present themselves- for me and my siblings, the mosasaur genes didn't fully finish assimilation for a full 24 hours, but my parents didn't acquire full assimilation for a week and a half.
But now, my family has acquired full capability in the water. Now we can swim much faster, probably three times as fast. Moving like a monitor lizard, we use our improved tails to propel us in the water at an estimated 20-25 kmph. Over double the previous speed! And this speed is even higher for my parents, because they have much more power.
I'll admit, a trex with Mosasaur traits looks a little unnatural, but now we aren't sitting ducks in the water.
-
And so, our Adventure on Turtle Island ends, and we begin our journey back to the creek.
Back home.