First, my world fell apart

Next, the kingdom fell.

And then everything else vanished into thin water.

I bypassed mountains, sticks, rocks, bunt algae, fire mountain. But never have I passed something alive since the whale vanished many days ago. I haven't kept track of where I was, or where I should be, I just swam. Hunger turned into more pain, and the light of the world was extinct. I swam constantly in darkness, complaining to myself of my own hunger. I forced myself to eat almost dead plants, and often grew sick of the herbivorous churning in my chest. But there was not a fish in sight. Not even a shark.

Or a whale in my case.

I was now thousands of miles away from the equator, deep in the heart of the freezing cold waters of the southern seas. I never felt anything more agonizing than freezing myself numb. I could only float at some points, unable to even move a flipper, hence my jaws.

I was dying, a thought I never thought could come true. Once a king, now the last standing marine creature. I looked around at my dark surroundings, then swatted my tail at the sand beneath me in a quick little design in the depths of the ocean. I was low to the earth if you noticed, struggling to find meat of some sort on the ocean floor. I've come across one huge crab, which I ate in a matter of seconds. That was surely a meal.

But that was 12 days ago. Crabs aren't plentiful anymore.

The water at the surface was poisoned at this point, and the hopes of finding something great in the unknown was extremely low.

I sniffed weakly around, tasting only the strong aroma of skeletons and muddy rocks. My flipper stump, which I fixed, had heavy leaves that were crushed up together into point. This helped with my balance for now, and helped me push forwards with each swish of my flippers. Suddenly, I let out a strange cough, then wheezed hard with another painful choking crack of my throat. I shuddered once, then swallowed to release the pain. But what I tasted in my mouth from the strange feeling wasn't normal. In confusion, I opened my long snout, then closed it to see what had come out.

"Blood..." I whispered, sniffing in my own scent, then snorted hard to dispose of it.

It tasted funny.

Actually that sentence sounded weird, but I have tasted my own blood before, especially when I'm in fights, but mine was old and sour. What was happening to me? Was I truly sick? Or dying?

I had the thought soar higher than anything else in my mind as I continued to float away, fidgeting with the 27 day old scar where one of my teeth were supposed to be. A new one was coming in now, and I could feel its sharpened bone poke my flipper. I tilted my head as I turned around a circular rock, then stopped hard by twisting my flippers up into a flat shape, pausing me in mid-flow.

My heart only shattered thereafter.

I was on the edge of this huge rock plate, staring right dead center into the darkness of the blue ocean. It moved and danced like aquatic plants, then swished away into the distance. Nothing laid before me, not even the bottom of the ocean. I glanced downwards at even more darkness which in turn, like smoke from below, stretched its ghouly hands up to the surface, spreading its virus uncontrollably. The water felt warm and smelly below, and the scent burned my eyes and nostrils.

That was lava.

I spun around from the edge of the ocean, staring back at where I came from. The cold frost made me tremble, though the heat from below helped a bit, but the chances of finding food anywhere...

I turned back to the empty water and growled into an angry sob.

It's over.

Game over.

I failed.

There wasn't anything over the rainbow as Dad would say.

Just emptiness and death. Just rocks and lava.

Just me.

"What was I thinking?" I wept, staring back at where I came, "What was I even doing?" Another stomach churning thob shattered my chest, and I cried out silently as I sank low to the sandy ground. More blood flowed out of my jaws, and I had to look away to rid of the sight.

"I'm dead," I shook my head, "I'm actually going to die..." Another spasm of pain forced me to close my eyes. Hunger and poison had really caught up to me. And it was going to end my life for good.

"I failed!! I freaking failed!!" I sniffled again into another wail, then a scream into the darkness in anger. Fire boiled inside of me as I screamed, but I had to close my mouth as I broke down, lowering myself even more.

Then something miraculous happened.

An echo returned.

But it wasn't my echo. It was another creature's echo.

I opened my eyes in the darkness, then raised my weak head. I couldn't see anything at first, so I thought I had imagined it. But when I let out another call, it responded again. My heart skipped a beat.

No way.

I jerked into my levitant height, and called again, following it this time. And as I did, a shape began to unfold in the darkness. A living shape. But not only that.

The shape looked like me.

Was it really my kind?! I felt so overjoyed and began swimming faster and faster, despite the pain in my heart.

"Hey!" I cried, coughing up more blood, "HEY!" The marine creature's face turned to mine, then eventually began slowly swimming to me. I slowed my flapping to see it edge closer, and I breathed in and out with the first sign of relief. I wasn't really the only one then!

But even with my positive thoughts, I was wrong. The shadow began to pick up speed, and even as close as he was to me, I would've stopped unless...

Unless he was hunting.

Unless he wasn't a Kronosaur.

Bingo. He wasn't.

"Jeez..." I began to float backwards as fast as I could, "is that a Tylosaurus?" Then the figure busted through the darkness, expanding its jaw wider than anything I've ever known. My heart stopped quick.

"Mosasaur!" I shrieked, "Mosasaur!" With a heave, I swished out of the way from his first attack, tumbling into the ground with a thud and a flip. I regained balance and spun towards the huge carnivore. But I was weak, so it wasn't fast enough. I felt its jaw close around my side rib and cover at least all the way to the other side, then my body jerk violently one direction from the Mosasaur's position. The worst of the pain only happened mere seconds later when it delivered a painful crunch on my body. I scream, struggling to shake out of his grasps, but he instead shook me like a rag doll, making everything around me spin out of focus. Extreme pain shattered my organs as I twisted my head to take a strong nipple on its eye. The mosasaur cried out, opening its mouth for me to escape. I quickly turned, then returned the attack to his neck. But his neck was way too big, and my teeth easily slipped clean out of the hold. I tried again.

Failed.

"No!" I cried out, seeing him turn to me angrily. The creature hissed angrily with its scratched eyes, then jolted at me, snatching me by the neck. Before I could fight back, my back slammed against the sharp rocks of the cliff from the plateau, then got dragged downwards. I'm sure my scales ripped from the drag, and when I shook off, he only caught me again and slammed me even harder. My vision was out of focus as he kept crushing me, but then, something worse happened.

I got impaled.

A jutted out rock laid below me that I'm sure the Mosasaur noticed, and with a heave of his flippers, he slammed me hard into the rock. It only took a second to realize the pain, but I still was able to break away from his hold and swim back to the surface. Breathing became a liability, and the more I tried to suck in a whiff of water, excruciating pain flooded my body. My vision was blurring itself, and drowsiness strangely began to cover over me. What was going on? I thought horrified, then put my flipper on my chest.

And out came loads of blood.

The water itself was changing colors from blue to pink or purple, I wasn't sure, but it was bad. I was losing a lot of blood. Enough to stop me dead in my tracks.

I wasn't ready for another attack by the carnivore, which struck me hard in the gut. My body get knocked backwards, striking the sandy earth with a thud. I flipped twice, before skidding to a stop in the dust.

And the leaves upon my flipper tore off, deep in the jaws of my enemy.

I thought it was over then as I laid there, silent and unmoving for a few minutes, before slowly opening my eyes to stare at the slowly moving Mosasaur. Blood was covering the sand beneath me as I moved a bit, and I let out a groan of pain as I shifted over a bit. I twisted my body over a bit again, weeping in pain.

Just end me, I thought horribly, end me please...

The Mosasaurus just rumbled, staring at me. His bleeding eye, I noticed, was facing towards me. So it didn't exactly see me! I gasped slightly, noticing a sharp rock ahead of me with a fixed point, and began painfully dragging my body towards the rock.

"C'mon," I hyperventilated silently, careful not to grab his attention, "C'mon!"

Even still, I wasn't fast enough.

The carnivore spun to me, gapping his jaws in a hiss, then began sprinting underwater, eyes locked upon my hide. My heart raced in its own way, its own laps, and my stomach lurched hard as I dragged faster, churning up sand along the way. I felt some sort of noise in the back of my head, like the ticking of a clock, and jerked forwards with power as the creature's shadow fell over me. With a screech, or war cry of some sort, I grabbed the stick by my jaws, spun around and threw my head forwards to the Kronosaur.

And screamed.

The stick got yanked out of my mouth was enough force to break at least three teeth from my mouth.

A bone tearing squeal of pain thundered into the air, followed by a thud and darkness.

Did it get me?

Was I dead? I opened my eyes, still breathing painfully with a bleeding stomach.

Apparently not.

I spun around and gasped, my eyes widening a bit as I stared across from me. There laid the Mosasaur.

Impaled.

Dead.

Its jaws were still sharpened and open, eyes locked and petrified, but dull a bit, like a greyish type color. The stick stuck out of the anatomical left side of his chest, and his blood floated softly out of his mouth, rising up to the surface quietly. His chest didn't make a single movement, but perhaps changed temperature from warm to cold. He seemed like he was sleeping to me, unless I've never seen a dead marine dinosaur before. I let out another cough, and more blood spluttered out of my mouth. And weakly, my eyes widened.

What was happening?

Seconds later, the ground that I laid on began to rumble, and that same clock-like ticking sound began to echo louder and louder in my head. More and more blood began recoloring the sea around me, and the pain within me was excruciating. I tried to speak, but all I swallowed in was the red liquid. Tears began to spring out my eyes as I choked again, now knowing the truth to myself.

I was dying. For good.

The ground shook more and more into an earthquake, and the more I fought my own impending death, the worst it got. I opened my mouth in a scream to help, or pain of some sort, but nothing came out. My head suddenly lost its feeling, along with the rest of my body, and I strangly lowered to the earth, unable to move again.

No, I thought sadly, no, get up!

Nothing.

Get up! I cried hearing more the ticking, get up please!

My eyelids were feeling really heavy, as if I was tired, and the pain was beginning to cease. That's because I was tired.

Tired for fighting for nothing.

I'm going to really die then, I thought as my eyes lowered more and more, so this is what death feels like...

I gritted my teeth, sobbing from the extreme pain, and watched my vision suddenly fizz and fuzz up into a strange whitish light.

There was nothing I could do.

My body began to go limp as the earthquake continued, and the ticking was louder than anything I've ever heard, like the boom of a volcano in the distance. I closed my eyes, realizing that it was finally over, breathed once with a choking sob, then let go.

And everything vanished for good.