The motorcycle rumbled through the forest, Anne carefully weaving her way through. She was excited, amazed that as the day was closing into sunset, she could be off the island within an hour or two.

She heard the sound of water somewhere ahead, and knew she must be nearing some sort of river connection. “If it’s shallow enough, I can cross it with this.”

Anne came out of the forest onto the banks of a small river. The forest pushed in one both sides, and the small river bent off in both directions, making the area seem enclosed. The fading sunlight dazzled the area, and it seemed peaceful, serene.

She slowed the cycle, squinting to see that the river was shallow enough.

It was.

She could see the few rocks lining the bottom so close to the surface. She drove the cycle closer, splashing up water in all directions as she crossed. It bounced, passing over the pebbles, and the tires gleamed.

She came out onto the opposite shore, looking back to see the ripples dancing across the river.

As she neared the forest, she heard a distant pounding.

It seemed like nothing, too far to be of anything to Anne.

Not in her moment of joy.

Another pound.

She slowed the cycle, realizing that the pounding was becoming more distinct.

Getting closer.

It was coming from somewhere in the forest ahead. Drawing closer.

She slowed the cycle, dropping it into the bushes next to a tree. She pushed up to a nearby tree, jumping to grasp a low branch. It started to crunch as she pulled up, but she was able to get up to the next branch before anything could happen.

She climbed up from branch to branch, wanting to go all the way up to the canopy, but stopping a little over halfway up the tree. She pushed herself against the trunk, trying to conceal herself behind the tangle of branches and leaves.

By then, the pounding was close, and she looked toward the little river. Moments later, a tyrannosaur stepped out of the forest some way down river, on her side.

It slowly followed the river, moving towards her spot, before stopping. It bent down, sniffing the water before taking several quick sniffs.

“I’ll be fine…” Anne closed her eyes, listening to the slow splash of water as the tyrannosaur lapped it up with its tongue.

It was a dark brown-green, and as it stepped sideways, shuffling along the bank as it drank, it limped on its left leg.

That’s odd, she thought, as she opened her eyes, watching the rex.

It was only a few yards upstream from where she had crossed the river. It had stopped, sniffing the water.

“What’s wrong?”

The rex snorted, backing away from the river. It started to turn around, heading back to the forest close to Anne.

Anne let out a small, silent sigh of relief.

She peered her head around the trunk to see whether or not the rex had left completely, but it had stopped. It was sniffing the air, looking in her direction.

Her heart seemed to stop, as the rex began to walk across the tree-line to the tree she was in.

As it got closer, Anne could see it was smaller than the other two she had seen, but it was still big. Only a few feet below her spot on the tree.

It sniffed the air, moving its head around the tree. Anne looked at the top of its head, and pushed herself against the tree again. The rex was sniffing the motorcycle, nudging it.

It’s never going to leave… It’s just going to stay here and sniff that until I die…

“No.”

If she could just get down to the motorcycle, she could get away.

But I need to get the rex away.

She looked around at the branches on the tree. At first, nothing seemed useful.

“Pinecones.”

There were pinecones scattered about, sticking out along the thicker branches of the tree. She reached out, doing her best to slowly tear off the pinecones as she snapped them off.

She nestled four in her arms, picking up one in her right hand. She turned toward the river, preparing to throw them as best she could. Distract the rex so she could get down to the motorcycle and go on into the forest.

She chucked the pinecone as hard as she could. It hit the ground just short of the water, bouncing and rolling into it. There was a tiny splash, and the rex perked up.

She threw another one, and this time it splashed into the water.

The rex turned its head to look at the river.

She threw a third, but it rose and dropped down into the ground a few feet from the tree, just past the rex.

The rex walked over it, toward the river, where she threw the fourth. It whizzed near the limping rex and splashed into the water. The rex swung its head down, shoving its snout into the water.

Perfect!

Anne pushed herself off the branch, reaching down for the lowest one, and pulling herself down. She climbed down, moving quickly.

When she was close to the bottom, her foot placed on the first branch she had climbed up. Forgetting that it had cracked, she placed her second foot down, holding the branch above with both hands. The branch below snapped, falling toward the ground. Her feet dangled above the ground, and she didn’t look up to see the rex turning around.

She let go of the branch above, falling to the bushes below. She hit the ground on her back, rolling over and getting up.

The rex roared, but she was quick.

She pulled up the motorcycle, running forward with it as she climbed on, starting the gas. She looked back as the rex pushed into the forest, only ten feet behind her. The motorcycle roared, the rex faltering for the slightest of moments.

Anne weaved her way through the forest, the cycle bouncing over the bushes. “It can’t be too far…”

The tyrannosaur roared behind her, and she looked back to see that it was following relentlessly, but not gaining much ground.

The cycle burst out of the forest, racing downhill. Ahead, covering the lower portion of the hill and much of the ground below was a large grouping of boulders. She looked up for a moment, seeing something that looked like a scramble of ruins somewhere to the left, at the base of the mountain trail.

The cycle was jolting, and Anne looked at the gas gauge. “Oh no…”

It was empty.

The tyrannosaur was slowly moving downhill after her, and Anne acted quickly.

She turned the handlebars left, pulling the cycle down. She jumped off, landing on the hill, as the cycle began sliding down the hill. It rolled, springing on the handlebars. It bounced up, crashing into a huge boulder.

Anne caught herself, spinning her roll around. She, like the cycle, bounced up, flying up. She landed on her back, sliding down. Her pants and shirt tugged up into her body, and she felt like all of her skin had been shoved upward.

Aching, she got up, sliding behind the boulder where the motorcycle had crashed. She looked back as the rex drew closer, gaining,

She moved downhill through the boulders, passing around them and finding herself having to move around another.

She looked back to see the rex trying to push its way through them as well, its head occasionally rising into view.

At the base of the hill, she moved out into the crop of boulders, which was now like a maze.

The rex turned right, veering off around a boulder to try and make its way around her.

She passed around a large boulder, losing sight of the rex. She came around it, nearing two more taller boulders, with an opening in the center. She started to move for it, when the rex moved out on the other side. It looked at her, roared, and then started through to her.

She turned left, trying to make her way toward the ruins.

Behind her, the rex turned after her, nearly crashing headlong into a boulder in its hurry.

Anne turned right, rounding another boulder, and then stopped. The boulders were closer together. She looked back, seeing that the rex was closing in.

She frantically looked around, trying to find a gap to get through.

“There!”

She ran toward a small gap, as the rex rounded the boulder behind her. She leaped sideways at the gap, pushing herself in-between the two boulders.

She struggled for a moment, as the rex snapped at her. She ducked, its jaws missing her. She seemed stuck.

The rex roared, and Anne sucked in a deep breath.

As the rex lunged at the boulders for the second time, Anne ducked again, pushing her way out the opposite side. She tumbled for a moment, picking herself up off the ground.

She looked back to see the rex caught in frustration and fury. It roared, looking at her, and then disappeared from view.

Anne turned around. She was on a ledge above the ruins. She scanned over them, spotting a sign facing her. She could see the InGen logo in the upper-left corner, but the words were too chipped for her to read from this distance.

The ruins were half-lost walls of brownish-yellow bricks, and there was a whole mess of them. It had been some sort of small town, but in the center she could see a small little building, half-crumbling. On the right, on the side of the mountain, she could see a road running along the length of the ruins, and up the mountain trail.

On the other side of the ruins were scattered forest-land, and she could see the ocean beyond them.

Where the trail went she couldn’t see, since it curved right, sloping up from view. The mountain face greeted her instead.

“Not much lon—“

Thunderous footsteps filled the air behind her, punctuated by a roar. Anne turned to see the rex coming out from around the boulders, quickly moving toward her with that faint limp.

Anne cursed, turning to run. “I’ll try and lose him in the ruins, and make it to the trail.”

She ran down around the ledge, making her way toward the ruins. Behind her, the rex was closing in.

Anne jumped over a small lower-portion of a wall, landing on the dirt inside. She ran around another wall, looking back to see the rex crush the first wall.

She darted around two connected walls, as the rex crashed through another behind her.

She ran down a dirt hallway, looking ahead. To the right she saw a wall being held up by two wooden support poles set at a diagonal angle. She ran up, kicking the first post away. The wall shuddered, and she stopped.

The rex was moving in, and as it got close enough, she kicked the second pole away, running past the wall before it fell.

The rex stepped in front of it, as the wall crumbled forward, crashing into the rex’s side. It roared, looking around as a cloud of yellowish-dust erupted into the air.

Anne ducked behind another wall, crouching down against it to try and hide.

The rex slowly moved away from the cloud, and Anne could hear the sound of bricks being pushed away, clacking together before they landed on the ground.

Anne heard the sound of its footsteps passing behind the wall. She looked away, spotting the half-standing building in the center of the ruins. Some sort of mini-temple.

I can hide there!

She got up, running away from the wall. The rex roared somewhere behind her, and she looked back to see its legs push through the wall she was hiding behind.

She darted right as a wall to the left began to shudder, as the rex got closer. The top half crumbled away, knocking the bottom half down.

She felt dirt and dust cloud against her legs, and she moved behind a wall, running the length of it. The building was supported by several cylindrical brick supports.

The ceiling was yellowish, and the part of the roof that remained was stacked up in an angle, like a pyramid. She ran through two of the supports, backing away into the open floor inside. Half of the room was completely covered by the ruins of the supports and the rooftop of the other half of the building, blocking out her path ahead.

Putting her back to the ruins, she looked back outside, where the rex was passing by; its legs disappearing behind the posts for a split second as it passed each one, before reappearing.

To the right the posts continued, and the same to the left.

“Well, if I go right, I’ll just be heading south. I should go left, and I’ll be going right to the trail.”

Unfortunatly, the rex was moving along the outside to the left. “I need to lure it away.”

She ran right, passing by the pillars. She ran through two of them and came back outside, right next to the crumbled end of the ruins of the other half of the building. “Hey! Hey!”

She kept yelling, trying to get the rex’s attention. It turned around, beginning to follow along the building toward her. She continued yelling.

Just a bit closer…

“Hey! Hey!”

The rex was only a few feet away from the corner of the building. Anne stopped shouting, running back through the pillars into the building.

The rex roared, and she heard a horrible crash. She fell face-first into the dirt floor, rolling over onto her back. She looked back, realizing the rex had crashed into the end of the building. The roof was caving in, crumbling down on her, and the pillars were falling apart, crumbling beneath the stress.

She picked herself up as the roof crashed down only feet from her. She started to run through the building, looking right to see the tyrannosaur’s head leaning down to look inside. It roared, before the pillar nearby snapped away and blocked it from view.

She could feel dirt clashing against her calves.

Anne wanted to shout in joy as she burst out through the two pillars on the opposite end, but still ran. The building collapsed completely behind her, the bricks rolling away at the rex who was still moving beside it.

It roared, pushing through the falling rubble to get to her.

Anne jumped over another low remaining wall, and then passed out between two more. She stumbled out of the ruins, slowing herself down. She turned around, backing up, to look back.

She could see the rex pushing its way through the rubble, stumbling and crashing through walls, confused. It roared, and Anne wiped away sweat and blood from her forehead. The injury on her head still stung as she touched it, but she had gotten used to it.

She turned back, looking down, to see that she was on the road leading up to the mountain trail. It continued on left, alongside the ruins, and then bent right toward the mountain, where it ran up into the trail.

“Almost there…”

As she walked along the road, she could see there was still drying mud left over in the dirt from the rainfall earlier.

She stepped over a small patch of it, as she turned right, following the road. The ground became more jagged on either side, and here and there were some smaller boulders lining the base of the trail.

At the end of the road, just a few short paces from the mountain trail, she could see a small, wooden fence, only two or three feet high. It had two double, wooden, swinging doors that were both attached to thick metal posts on either side of the road.

She closed in, moving to the double doors. One was slightly ajar, about an inch or so open. Just short of the fence Anne saw a dry mud puddle. It was slightly darker than the road, giving the indication, but as Anne got closer she thought she saw the faint trace of a footprint embedded in the dry mud.

“No way…”

It was too small, and it looked too unclear to be a footprint.

She shrugged, uncaring. She was about to call for help.

She was about to get off this island.

She was going to be safe.

She pushed open the double doors, which swung away easily. The hinges creaked slightly, years of rust built up on them.

As she stepped onto the mountain trail, which curved sharply up into the rocks of the hill, sloping up, the doors began squeaking close, pushed by a faint breeze.

She passed through the rocks, and began the long ascent to the radio station ahead.