TODS Preview Chapter 11

===A TALE OF DRIFTING SANDS===
Chapter 11
While I waited for Eli and the rest of the company at 7:00 PM, I looked around the whole community governed by Davis Harrison High and noticed that the map consisting their society and the regions around them were much different and so I asked an expert in drawing maps if we could make a new map that combines ours and theirs. An artist named Phil agreed to do the task and began much work on it. Meanwhile, I noticed that some of the students within the community were still working together compared to where I came from, where there was much political strife. As I watched the society progress, a Dilophosaurus from the Jurassic Period was captured and was eventually domesticated into a mount for the scouting teams. It was said that the process turned out to very difficult for them, but successful nevertheless. I watched over my pet Eohippus, Waffles, as he met one of the Dilophosaurus with a friendly expression. The beast hissed at him, but was not bothered nor threatened by the creature. Waffles, however, wasn’t scared because he somehow knew that the two-legged predator was not hostile to him, since he was tamed.
Three minutes later, my pet followed me as I was going to check over to the gym, where Davis Harrison High’s best scientists, students and teachers, along with a few experts from some corporation they used to work for before the incident. There, they were studying over a Tyrannosaurus Rex that looked much like the one Eli and I had encountered during our previous journey. It was the same size, same shape, and same height. It was massive to us, but something got into my mind over it as I tried to remember what I had known of it long ago before the incident. I remembered that when I was eleven years old, I had a book that told me that it went up to 36 feet long and 14.5 feet in height. I even knew a time when I saw the actual skeleton of the creature two years earlier. Remembering these memories, I soon compared them to the actual one before me, which was no bigger than 25 feet. Perhaps, as if for some reason, that both it and the one our company encountered were actually juveniles that tried to hunt down food by themselves, meaning that their mother must have been of matured size.
As I watched the scientists experiment on the young Tyrannosaurus, they were trying to inject a microchip on the back of it using a robotic arm in order to deliberately control it. I was horrified to see them try to enslave the juvenile as it was trying to call for its mother for help, but it was still sealed in a glass-made cage that proved unbreakable, probably like it was from a science fiction movie. I loved animals and it saddened me to see that those of my kind were planning to torture the Tyrannosaurus, even if it is a carnivore. Soon, a dark-skinned football player and friend of Joey named Davis came in, worried about me, and soon paused as he soon saw what the scientists were trying to do. The scientists noticed his presence and they were paralyzed like fugitives having nowhere left to hide from the police. He eventually became outraged of what they were attempting to accomplish when he saw the robotic arm above the crying creature.
“What the hell is going on,” he yelled in anger, “Are you trying to even break that animal’s very will?”
“What are you talking about, young man,” said a sly, middle-aged scientist, “We’re just trying to test it and see if it’s sick or not.”
“Yeah right, you goddamn liar! All I see is you trying to implant it with a microchip and make it into some puppet! Again, you’re trying to play God while separating that juvenile from its mother! This is like last time when we had an Allosaurus mother separated from its children and they end up following her causing havoc! Now it’s happening again, but in the other way around, this time!”
“But these things are not even supposed to be alive! They were supposed to remain extinct, as they had been about 65 million years, according to the date and time our world was in before the incident! They have no souls! Not like in the same way as dogs, cats, primates, and us humans do, anyway! Are you trying to let it loose and kill us?!”
“That’s not what I’m suggesting! I’m saying that you guys are repeating the same mistake as before! You should go free it immediately or the mother will find out and kill us all!”
“You’re wasting your breath, man,” said a seventeen-year female scientist, “We’re doing this to survive, not huff and puff about some environmental protection crap! The reason why we’re doing this is because they represent a threat to everyone including you!”
“That’s the same bullshit lie that justified the idea of cutting down the Amazon rainforest back in our world! If we dare try to control these majestic creatures in a way that puts them in chains, then you know what will happen once they regain control of themselves!”
I was shocked to hear Davis protesting against such cruelty upon an animal trapped in a glass cage. The scientists were plotting to control a Tyrannosaurus out of its own will and force it into submitting to the will of Davis Harrison High’s scientific community. Had the principal of this society appeared, he would demand them to release it back to the wild. Yet he was nowhere in sight and noticed that Waffles was upstairs trying to tear down the wires connected to the machine. Soon, he bit them off and then the scientists turned around and saw what he was doing. One of them pulled out his handgun, but I couldn’t allow him to shoot my pet and so I rushed to save him.
“NO,” I shouted, “Don’t hurt him!”
Once pushed down, the scientist with the gun missed his shot and the bullet went towards the button that weakened the glass cage, allowing the juvenile Tyrannosaurus to run free without eating anyone. Soon, I noticed that two captured animals were also freed into the wild, knowing that they were now able to return safely into the wild from being implanted. One of them was a Baryonyx that was captured by the scientists in an attempt to make it a mere tool for hunting fish for the community. The other was a Gastonia from the Early Cretaceous, which was found and captured while it was eating from the swamp grass within the Dread Marshes. As the three animals ran quickly back into where they came from, the students and surviving adults, both the teachers and a few surviving parents from the old world, ran for their lives as they made way for the colossal beasts. Soon, the two guards braced themselves as the beasts crashed through the south gate and headed back into the Dread Marshes while flocks of toucans, swarms of small pterosaurs, and small herds of Kentrosaurus went into a panic. Cassowaries were also seen in my sight, seeing that they were already frightened by the massive size of the Tyrannosaurus.
Once the society came back into a state of peace, the students started rebuilding the gate and a few security personal we sent into the gym, where they were shocked to see what the scientists were attempted to do. They noticed the robotic arm now broken and the microchips that were designed to enslave the animals they had captured. The scientists were caught red handed and were arrested for their crimes. Davis and I shook hands with the police sergeant and calmly made our way out of the building. The situation was clear for us, seeing that there was also corruption within Davis Harrison’s science community, seeing that an unauthorized experiment was executed and was eventually fouled by me, Davis, and Waffles. I could not believe that things in this settlement were just as worst as where I came from, although there were differences. While the community under Travis Jefferson High was at the middle of political turmoil and corruption within the ruling government, Davis Harrison was suffering from internal acts of rebellion and terrorism. Indeed, the gym incident was not the only one, since I also heard of an all-girl group wanted to revert back into the Stone Age in search of freedom, resulting in a failed attempt to place a bomb beneath the school building. Another incident before our company’s arrival was when the church near by the school, much smaller than the one near the one I resided in, was seeking aid from the Davis Harrison government against the distorted mobs of pro-anarchist rebels. However, unable to enforce its policies, due to the defiance of even its police force, the government was too weak to exercise its policies.
As I looked around the whole society, I soon came on top of the walls and noticed that north of the settlement was a tall windmill they were using for their energy supply. I was told that the process took place back at the third day since the incident and it took about four days to complete it entirely. I noticed a strong activity of security forces guarding it in order to prevent a blackout, which made me think that they took their society much more seriously. While we, the society of Travis Jefferson were more likely divided into factions, each claiming to know how to lead better than the rest, Davis Harrison was of a more unified state that was on the brink of chaos and anarchy, forcing the government to give up its responsibilities to the security forces, in which most of it remained true to its duty and tried all it can to weed out the corruption from within and abroad. Suddenly, a man in black with shades on his face came towards me and my pet, Waffles. He had a short beard, bushy eyebrows, and short, brown hair with a middle-aged appearance. Something that bothered me was his menacing glare, which haunted my inner soul.
“You are the one named Chester, correct,” he asked me.
“I-I am,” I responded nervously while holding Waffles tight in my arms, “Who are you supposed to be and why are you here?”
“You don’t remember? You’ve been going outside the wall back at our community in the middle of the desert. Care to explain why, young man?”
I was shocked to realize that the principal, Mr. Richards, must have sent him to hunt down the company, including me, and I was guessing that the principal realized that we were planning to save Barrick and Sandy, which he refused us to commence. It seemed he knew what we were trying to do all along and he wanted my company back and me either to make examples out of us or have us executed. I walked two steps back in fear of what the man might do with my pet and me. Still, the hallow-hearted man glared straight at my face and didn’t make any move as he spoke.
“Well, boy,” he said, “Aren’t you going to say anything? Principal Richards hired me to hunt you and your companions down and bring you back where you’re supposed to be. He’s caught a friend of yours trying to cover up what you were planning and he has not given you any authority to leave from his sight.”
“What are you talking about,” I asked.
“Don’t lie to me, boy! The principal wants your head and he is going to make sure you follow his direct orders. Even if your friends, Barrick and Sandy, did survive and captured, then what of it? They were just a couple of dimwitted fools who wanted to go pursue in an expedition that our leader knew all along was actually a way of getting rid of those who knew too much about this world we are in right now. He wouldn’t stand having anyone questioning him and leaving the facility. Besides, with all those prehistoric animals running around, every adult, teenager, and child needs to turn to a man of great power who will offer them a reason to remain in the campus and survive.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the more people keep trying to go outside, the more likely we’ll be closer to extinction at the hands of giant beasts running around us. Right now, he has declared martial law and expects everyone to remain at their homes.”
“But what about Eli? He just went to the—“
“I know. The Howling Forest. But forget about him, because anyone who gets in these woods is no longer of any use to us and deserves to die alone and isolated from us. You and Gregory, however, are to come with us and explain everything to us about what you were doing in order to save your friends, Barrick and Sandy. Otherwise, I’ll have no choice but to shoot you. Now tell me, why were you not sent back home as ordered?”
I whimpered and I was too scared to respond. But he had something on his belt and it was a club that was hidden behind his brown jacket. Still, I could not move, for fear had shackled me like a dog chained on to a tree. As the man grasped the club slowly, he soon decided to execute his next move.
“Wrong answer,” he said.
He whacked me on the head, knocking me unconscious and causing Waffles to flee into the Dread Marches for safety. I also heard of Gregory being captured by two other men in the same uniform as the one who whacked me. The security guards near him were somehow shoot on the head, and the upper level of the school building exploded, killing twenty students. Then, darkness took me and while I was still breathing, everything was now out of my sight.