3 Mistakes I Made Confronting a Dinosaur

Did your village ever get stormed by a Tyrannosaurus Rex? How did you handle it?

Asking for a friend.

Before Flint or I could even think about getting inside Ye Moonlight Inn & Ale, before I could even attempt to answer Dillard’s question, the ground trembled.

Dillard’s bloodshot eyes stuck out like golf balls. The last few locals scurried off to their huts as if they knew something we did not.

“Run or you’re dead,” Dillard shouted over his shoulder.

Another giant earthquake, is what I was thinking. Ground giving way, everything falling into a giant abyss, swirling purple void, yada yada yada. But, nope.

For his part, Flint’s face changed from a casual sneer to mild curiosity. The rumbling became more pronounced, to the point where my feet lifted off the ground ever so slightly with the cadence of a heartbeat. An outrageously strong heartbeat.

That’s not an earthquake, I thought. That’s something running. Something really freaking heavy is coming, and it’s not wasting any time.

Mistake #1: Not Following Local Advice

A hundred yards west of the village, the ridge of a blind crest broke to reveal a sprinting, copper colored dinosaur. Not just any dinosaur. The dinosaur. Tyrannosaurus Rex. Yep, a T. Rex at full rumble. And, I say copper in color, but also with a hint of dusky gray like you might envision on a rhino. Gah, does such specificity matter when you’ve got angry, steaming death headed straight for you?

Flint grabbed his future gun. The T. Rex belched an ear piercing squelch, charging like a linebacker. Flint steadied his weapon, but I had another idea.

“Wait!” I screamed. “My friend!”

Flint glanced at me, then back at the incoming beast. He’d already unhitched his horse, and slapped it hard to get the creature running to the hills for safety.

“Aubrey,” I said to Flint. “I need you to go and protect her!”

“That is your order?”

My ‘order’? No time to be confused by his response. The Rex had halved its distance to us. It smelled of manure and vinegar.

“Yes, that’s my order,” I said.

Flint took off like a shot, toward the huts on the rise, faster than any human I’d ever seen on foot. His Running was rated a 20? You sure about that, System?

With the dinosaur bearing down, I felt like laying in the mud in front of the Moonlight Inn, and calling it a life. Probably should’ve listened to Dillard from the start. He’d likely encountered these animals before, and knew not to waste a moment considering anything other than hustling in the opposite direction.

Mistake #2: Overestimating Your Own Running Speed

Someone shrieked from the second floor of the inn, “dash away, you fool!”

More good advice.

But, even rushing indoors wasn’t likely to save me given the mass of this oncoming murder lizard. Its sheer weight, and musculature meant it could easily knock down walls, and ceilings to get at its prey, i.e. me.

Still, I kicked my legs into gear, and ran fast enough I’d started heeling myself in the butt. The center of the village lay ahead where I saw a small bit of masonry with a bucket hung above, and it gave me an idea.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

But, perhaps no idea needed.

The earth stopped quaking. I could no longer hear the monster’s snorts. I had done it. I’d run with such blinding speed, I’d broken Olympic records, and proven too swift for one of nature’s most destructive carnivores.

Wait, are T. Rex’s carnivores? Probably. Google wasn’t a thing in the stone age, so I guess I’d never know.

Stone age. That’s what this was, right?

Come to think of it, what was a dinosaur doing in human times in the first place? This was the aliens’ best approximation of what my home planet looked like pre-System implementation? Heaven help us.

Ah, but yes, you’re probably wondering, why entertain these inane thoughts given the situation at hand? What about the giant all killing fiend previously high tailing it in my general direction? Why had it stopped?

Well, as it turned out, I had overestimated my skills as a sprinter, I hadn’t made my righteous escape after all, and really what had happened was the bloody thing simply stopped in its tracks for a moment to take in the spectacle of this ridiculous human kicking its own ass in an attempt to get away, when it was clear if that dino wanted to catch me in a foot chase, it could do so in probably three simple strides.

I’d turned to look behind me, and this proved to be an error. As soon as I saw the critter standing there with its half tilted head eyeing me like a crow eyes a sandwich in the street, I knew it would charge at me again.

And… sure enough…

Mistake #3: Not Appreciating What You Have, a.k.a. Failing to Utilize the Assets Available to You

Just so you know, screaming doesn’t work either. There’s no scaring this thing off, so you can forget the idea should it happen to you. Yowling at the top of my range didn’t matter. I’d curdled an entire village’s blood with my caterwauling. My legs pumped, my chest heaved. I darted in a zigzag pattern. (Turns out the Tyrannosaur’s smarter than an alligator.) None of it mattered, and the nasty Rex’s massive head hovered above me in due course. Good thing I’d been running for that bit of masonry I’d spotted before. It was the village well.

I smacked my face off the hanging bucket as I jumped in feet first. My right cheek bore the brunt, and before you start thinking I’d likely broken a leg or two in the drop, instead I scraped my elbows on each side of the skinny well, then plunged into a cold depth probably twice as great as my height. In other words, the well didn’t present as all that deep to where I’d broken the surface. There, I tread water about ten feet down from the bucket, and the well had been constructed narrowly enough the T. Rex couldn’t dip any part of itself down to reach me. Genius.

But, that didn’t save my ears.

Frustrated at its inability to get at me, the thing roared its annoyance a half dozen times. The last two, I’m pretty sure, ruptured an eardrum. I kept kicking my legs staring upward at the lizard with full dark approaching, unsure when the nightmare would end.

Wouldn’t you know it? Dinosaurs aren’t honey badgers. The goblin gave up. The water around me rippled with every one of its foot falls. Mercifully, those foot falls grew more distant. Finally, I couldn’t hear anything at all above my own frigid breaths.

Exhausted, drained of adrenaline, with scraped arms, a swollen cheek, a bleeding ear, and probably a bruised buttocks, I let out a whimpered mix of relief, and self pity.

What a welcome sight to see Flint’s face flash over the side of the well, squinting down at me like a gunfighter at the ready. Night had fallen, but Flint was illuminated by a torch. Which brought an even more welcome sight, the torchbearer herself, Aubrey.

“Are you alright?” She asked.

“I made it,” I said.

“I told him to run,” said a male voice somewhere out of view. Had to be Dillard. “The fool didn’t listen.”

“Why’d you order your friend away?” Aubrey said. “Why’d you send him to me?”

“I wanted to make sure you were alright,” I said.

“What an idiot,” again, pretty sure that was Dillard.

“Not the most prudent move,” Flint said. He held his weapon out in front of him so I could see.

“You could’ve killed him with that thing?” I said. “You sure?”

“Of course he could,” Aubrey said. “He showed me. You’ve got, what is it, 60 shots you said?”

“64 bolts,” Flint said. “Along with 16 blasts.”

“I have no idea what any of that means,” I said. “Any chance we could talk about this, together, up there?”

The water was only slightly warmer than the air temperature. Pretty sure it could’ve turned to ice at any moment.

“I think it means your friend’s weapon could’ve easily taken the T. Rex down,” Aubrey said.

“Would’ve been half a winter’s meat, tell you that much. Unbelievable.” Dillard obviously had to get his two cents in.

“One thing being here has taught me,” Aubrey said, “work smarter, not harder, Adam. Appreciate, and use the assets that you have.”

Pretty good advice. Definitely a valuable lesson I’d be keeping in mind for later.