The loud voice grabs everyone’s attention as all eyes, human and dinosaur, turn in the same direction. Although there’s a sea of rabid dinosaurs blocking my line of sight, I knew just from that voice alone who it was. “Oh shit, it’s about to get real.” I thought internally, as the tidal wave of dinosaurs shifted around, trying to get closer to Mr. Carlesiidewski. Thankfully, he seems to have drawn their attention away from me, so in the meantime I try coming up with a plan of escape… yeah, I got nothing. I knew I should have bought Primal Carnage back when I was in 8th grade. Though… my eyes were brought back to Mr. Carlesiidewski… or where it sounded like he was. Hopefully he’s alright. POV SHIFT – MR. CARLESIIDEWSKI In all my frickin’ years, I haven’t seen a frickin’ cloud come out from a frickin’ air vent! While all the frickin’ students ran outside to clear their heads, I stood my ground until I could breathe again. It is strange that while I recovered, the frickin’ kids still didn’t. I watched them from outside the classroom’s window until abruptly the frickin’ coughing stopped. So I got a little curious and wanted to investigate… then I noticed the students movin’ around like they were at frickin’ prom in the fog. This got frickin’ stranger and stranger so I had to intervene, stepping out of the frickin’ classroom, conveniently when the frickin’ fog disappeared. What I saw in front of me was out of a frickin’ horror movie. All the frickin’ kids looked like they regressed in some way, growin’ frickin’ sharper teeth, longer frickin’ tails, you name it. They looked more and more dinosaur than they already did! They looked like they’d rip each other’s throats out any frickin’ second. Even though I was scared, only a little bit, this is a frickin’ institution damnit, not a dinosaur fight club! I stepped forward and crossed my arms, mustering all my frickin’ courage and yelling to get their attention. “What the frickin’ hell is goin’ on here?!” Get their attention it frickin’ did. All eyes in the halls fell on me as they all began shifting to get closer, as if to get a better look. I felt sweat dripping down my face as I took a few steps back, but that only spurred them to frickin’ follow me. One of them in the front, a frickin’ pink raptor I’ve seen hangin’ out with that triceratops girl, Leed or somethin’, kept his slit-pupiled purple eyes on me as he got closer. He looked curious, as if he was trying to salvage some sense of frickin’ recognition. We were close enough for me to just frickin’ reach out and touch him, though the idea alone scared me, he didn’t seem like he’d do anything. I steeled my frickin’ nerves and reached out, as his head came closer, the sides of his mouth parting… were his teeth always that sharp? POV SHIFT – ANON Y. MOUS “HOLY FUCKING SHIT, WHAT THE HELL WERE THOSE SCREAMS?!” I screamed internally as I tried to get a better look from where I was. Just through a big enough space in the crowd, I could see… was that Reed?! Reed was ripping Mr. Carlesiidewski apart with the help of two other raptors, his dying screams as he was dismembered and mutilated ringing loud and clear in my ears. His body was mangled, blood flowing like and pooling around him like a lake, one of his legs firmly clamped in one of the raptors’ mouth, one of his arms in another’s while Reed himself was ripping away at his torso. Every noise he let out was a grim echo of my fate to come, visions of my possible death playing out in my head. Eventually, the screams cut off, only the sounds of bones snapping and chewing audible. I looked away, unable to keep my eyes on the scene anymore as I felt bile rising to my throat, swallowing it down. I’m sorry Mr. Carlesiidewski, you didn’t deserve what happened to you. With the momentary distraction gone, all eyes turned back to me, with complete silence aside from the noises of the raptors enjoying their meal. I began sweating as a tyrannosaurus rex approached me, his lumbering footsteps sounding like explosions to my ears. He leaned down, looking me eye to eye as I could smell his hot breath, saliva dripping onto the floor as his mouth slowly opened, like a pitch black cave with jagged stalagmites and stalactites. He seemed to be taking in my scent, then opened his jaws as I closed my eyes, accepting my fate. Just as they were about to close on me… Instead, an alarm blared, rattling my eyes open as the tyrannosaurus stepped back in confusion. I turned to see what was happening, noticing the windows, entrance and exit doors being shuttered off with metal. I rushed to one of the windows and started banging on it, but to no avail. They were firmly shut, trapping me in here with these monsters. The alarms stopped once the lockdown was complete and I didnt even dare turn around. The earth-shattering footsteps approached again, every step making me jump. I felt the tyrannosaurus’ hot breath on my back as he made a low growling noise. I closed my eyes once more, thinking of everyone I knew and would never see again. Reed, Trish, Naser, Naomi… Fang… I kept my eyes closed, but nothing happened. Was he having second thoughts? Does my bald plate make me look unappealing? I cracked one eye open and gasped in shock, both of my eyes opening wide. The tyrannosaurus was stumbling around as a pteranodon was pecking away at him, their movement too agile for him to follow. I focused on them to see who they were and if my eyes could have opened wider, they’d be as big as saucers. It was… Fang?! They were attacking a tyrannosaurus rex?! His tail lashed around uselessly, hitting some dinos who weren’t involved in the conflict, while Fang remained untouched. Though they weren’t doing much damage, the rex couldn’t even land a hit on them. Eventually they stopped, backing up in front of me and spreading their… much longer wings as if to cover me, letting out an ear piercing screech of challenge. The tyrannosaurus shook his head in anger, his thunderous roar in return accepting their challenge. I took the brief down time to examine their new features, noting they had a much sharper crest, an obviously longer wingspan and longer tail. They also visibly had more feathers across their body and some on their tail. Just as the two were about to butt heads again, a roar equal to the rex’s, but oddly familiar, shook the halls. As we all turned to the direction the roar came from, a behemoth of a man came into view, a suit with a loosely hanging lapel of a spear just barely hanging onto his frame. A messy mop of black hair and broken glasses which he promptly threw away all but confirmed his identity. Principal Spears, if you could still call him that, emerged from the hall and as if by instinct, the sea of dinosaurs parted to give him way, as if he was Moses… a caveman Moses. He stood right in the middle of the crowd, eyeing Fang, the tyrannosaurus and I. I noticed Fang visibly deflate, as if they had already accepted his unspoken declaration. The tyrannosaurus, either because he was too brave or too foolish, roared again, as if to challenge Spears’ visible authority. Spears snorted in response, stepping forward to stare the tyrannosaurus down. He spread his arms, giving the rex the first move as he charged at Spears, tilted his head and opened his jaws wide to bite Spears in half. I closed my eyes, expecting Spears to suffer the same fate as Mr. Carlesiidewski, only to hear... grunts and whimpers? I opened my eyes again to see what was happening and my jaw dropped to the ground. Spears was… holding the tyrannosaurus’ jaws open with JUST HIS HANDS, slowly prying them further and further as the rex whimpered in pain, which was a noise I didn’t even know they could make. Spears thankfully stopped just short of breaking his jaws, instead crossing his arms, holding on tight and throwing the rex entirely using his own body weight as he slammed into the lockers. The tyrannosaurus didn’t make any move to get back up and stayed down, his eyes closed shut as he passed out cold. Spears huffed again and beat his chest several times, the drumming declaring his victory as all the dinos conceded to his authority. Then his eyes fell on Fang and I. Fang teetered nervously, folding her wings back inwards as her eyes darted nervously. I then noticed another pteranodon leap from the crowd to stand with us. His dark skin colour and orange crest was a dead giveaway as Naser spread his wings as much as he could to support Fang, although one of them was crippled. Fang didn’t seem to accept the gesture. It seems she still retained her feelings against him. Our attention was drawn back to Spears, who beat his chest once to silence the halls. He stared intently at Fang and Naser, beating his chest once, huffing and pointing off to the side where the staircase was. The two looked indignant, though I couldn’t decipher what was happening, it’s clear Spears doesn’t want us here for some reason he hasn’t divulged. The two turn to look at me, their amber eyes scanning me. They look at each other, then back to me as Naser reaches to pick me up by the collar with his beak. I scramble back, not wanting to get turned into beef jerky by a pteranodon in fuckugly clothes, but a peck from Fang and forces him back with a yelp as she picks me up instead. Naser gives her an unhappy look as she makes chirping noises that suspiciously sound like amusement, walking to the stairs and beginning to climb as a downtrodden Naser follows us. The scene, as strange as it is with everything that’s happened so far, does serve to make me feel a little better about my predicament as I smile… then I remembered I’m with two man-eating dinosaurs. Alone. In a secluded area. Raptor Jesus on a cross of rock, why me?