Like I said before, try not to cry. It's not that sad....LOL

OR IS IT?!   O.o

Queen was broken and dead when I found her lying in the burning soil nearby the dead Indosuchus. Her face was curled in a mid-snarl, as if she was fighting against death, and her charred flesh scorched my nostrils.

A wing from Cal and his pterodactyl family was left floating around in the darkness from the volcano's wind. That scared me more than ever. I couldn't imagine seeing a family disintegrate into nothing. Only to leave behind-

The limb floated past me, slipping against my bruised left leg. I wanted to gag at first, but without expressions to imitate this, I stayed quiet and still, watching it float away.

Feather still laid quiet, but her body shook in the aftershocks that rampaged upon the valley. After picking up another rock from Atlas's trapped hind, I was beyond scared's limits.

"Oh gosh..." I shook my head in tears, "How could this happen?"

"It just did," Atlas muttered, still cradling his long lost love, "We just can't do anything about it Tyrannosaurus."

"We're the last ones..." I quaked as I picked up another boulder, "And if we die...."

"We won't." Atlas hissed, "We can't. The portal's open, we'll find a way out."

"But what if it still happens?" I croaked, dropping the rock.

Atlas just turned his head away.

"It won't."

Within every agonizing step and removal of the rocks from Atlas's trapped tail, there was some type of distinctive beating of the Earth's core beneath my feet. I paused quickly and lowered myself, feeling the ruined burnt ground between my toes.

It was shaking strong...

Stronger.

"We gotta go," I growled, hauling up more boulders, then tossing them to the side to add to the rubble. After a few more seconds, Atlas's crushed tail would free from its hold, and with a wheezing growl, he slowly moved to his feet. My eyes lowered merely towards the subtle earth, watching small little pebbles bounce violently around, for they seemed to impress its mate nearby. Atlas, still trying to stand up, began to sink low from his brutal injury, and quickly in panic I snatched him by the spine, hauling him to his feet. Atlas wheezed harder and harder, broke away from my side, then nodded to me with tears of pain; "I can carry myself."

"Good," I croaked, "Because I gotta find Whiteclaw. He's still alive." I backed away from Atlas before turning around, half-sliding and half tumbling downhill to where the broken cavern laid waste among the splattered blood and dust of old life.

The fire mountain that blazed like the morning sun behind me crackled and boomed with the sky, plunging countless stones down its weakened slopes. It held itself high as its base rumbled, and made the sky sway upon its wreckoning. The land shook and cracked, spewing small gaps of lava and hot flashes of steam, hot enough to tear flesh from bone.

I knew it was only a matter of time before its rage killed us all.

I limped faster through the scorching and rattling lands, tripping at some points to land on my chest. At times, the soil jolted on way, then swayed opposite beneath my chest, and it's ugly but strange movement forced me to my three-toed feet. I stopped a few meters farther from where I fell, facing away from the volcano and sniffed the air.

There were a TON of scents, some of smoke, some of lava, some of blood.

C'mon, I thought, where are you? Where are you Deinonychus?

Another ramble made me lose my footing, but somehow before I could fall, my left injured foot planted into the rocks and bent its knees, equalizing my other side. My tail went up too, holding me still even as the jolts quaked on. I expanded my nostrils one last time, taking in the waft of strange and different aromas, until one scent, an old and bloody perfume sank into my mind. My eye pupils capsized into my iris, and at once, I knew who that belonged to.

Following the scent upon the earth, I kept my eyes and head low, sniffing to stay on track of the Deinonychus's blood. It grew a bit stronger over time, and my eyes swept over the debris before me. Closer....closer, my mind echoed. It struck dead center upon a pile of rocks, making me gasp for a second.

Under there.

I took a feeble step to the right, then with a roar, swing my tail directly into the rocks. It cracked on impact, throwing rocks everywhere and depleting its amount to rather smaller rocks.

"Ow," I groaned from the sharp sting, before I opened my jaws, snatching the nearest rock below me to haul away.

After a few boulders were launched to the side, the color of Whiteclaw's flesh glowed into the light, indicating that he was there.

With one more whiff of his scent and one last rock removed, Whiteclaw's crippled body took form in my eyes, making me gasp. His one sharp and slick Deinonychus spine appeared wrinkled and bent in all directions. It's bone shone through the bloody flesh, red and white simultaneously. His body was wet with scratches, gashes and blood, and his tail laid limp and utterly useless. I bent low, careful to not fall, and pressed my huge snout into his chest.

I paused, listening in and invertedly rejecting the sound and feeling of wobbling earth.

It was silent at first.

I blinked anxiously waiting for a-

Thu-Thump. Thu-Thump

A strange sound, like T-rex feet in the distance echoed in my skull from Whiteclaw, and with a surprised gap forming in between my jaws, I let out a weak toothy grin.

He's still alive, I thought with a pleasured nod, I could feel his heart still beating.

My jaws hinged open, and as I did when I first met Whiteclaw, I did today, cradling him into my huge jaws without pressing upon his hide or added more scratches to his broken body. I turned my head, watching the sky blaze with the fiery lava of the supervolcano and narrowed my eyes.

No more hiding Shadow.

I blinked worryingly.

No more being scared.

I trembled as another vibration tingled my claws, and breathing once more, I dipped my head.

I'm not afraid anymore. Not even of death itself.

And with that, I raced back to the glowing clock.

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"Atlas?" I called, seeing the young Indosuchus now lying spiraled on the floor, twitching every few seconds. His face wrinkled in pain, and every breath he secreced seemed more of being stabbed than being alive.

"Shadow..." he moaned, blinking slowly. He began to rise, then yelped for a second before returning back down.

"My leg," Atlas panted in pain, eyes wide in fear, "...My leg hurts..." I placed Whiteclaw's body onto the ground, then using my large snout, overturned his leg.

What revealed to me was a huge gash, as if something cut clean through his thigh. Purple-ish blood soaked his scales into a darker tone, and his flesh was red and inflamed, glowing in the light of the fire. Atlas closed his eyes and gritted his teeth, growling when I touched it again, and when his eyes opened again, he looked strangely tired and worrisome. My heart raced as he laid there on his chest, looking as though he may never walk again.

He was bleeding out. And that blow was fatal.

Another ground shaking bump of the earth made my stomach writhe inside, and led Atlas to bow his head before it stopped.

"Leave me," He wheezed next, "I'll just slow you down-"

Don't be afraid, I repeated back to myself, Don't give up now.

"No," I snorted back, nudging his side to get him standing, "None of us are going to stop right here after we came all this way. C'mon-" Using gentle jaws without pressing deep into his flesh, I lifted him up once again to his quaking feet and allow him to press his good side into my good side.

No fear Shadow.

"Ready?" I coughed. Atlas nodded.

"Hope so."

I bent low to the ground to shovel up Whiteclaw's body, and with a nod, both of us limped towards the clock.

The ground shook beneath our feet, but working together like this, we broke the barrier of failure. We grunted and winced with each struggling step, but no matter the slow progress, we were getting closer and closer.

And for the first time, I felt excitement rush through me.

But it only drowned within seconds after a new sound broke to the surface.

Both me and Atlas jerked our heads up, watching helplessly as a new type of roar from the volcano shook the skies. The mountain top that glowed with lava seemed to be moving like jelly, wobbling back and forth. At the last second, it could no longer contain itself, and out of the darkness came a huge and powerful eruption that shook the earth. Me and Atlas flinched as a powerful blast of air and light shot straight into us, blinding me for a few seconds. We both dropped simultaneously from the intensity of its flame. I was sure that my eyes, along with Atlas's boiled quicker than a frogs' moist skin.

"Nooo---GAH!!" Everything went white!

"My eyes! AH!" Atlas shrieked, yanking away from the sight. Even after the painful vision from the mountain, I could feel a new type of danger thundering below in the quakes of the earth. Thus thereafter, another huge explosion took shape from its top as the light settled back to normal. But what came from its top was more deadly than its previous attacks on us. A huge ash cloud unlike anything I've ever seen rocketed down the mountainside, carrying debris, fire, ash, heat.

And Death.

If that first volcanic explosion didn't kill me, this will.

I didn't say anything. I was just speechless, jaw hanging open in terror of the frightening sight heading our way.

The world really wants us dead.

Fireballs rained all over, wreaking havoc upon the crumbling plains of our old home.

"I can't see!" Atlas yelped in a whimper-like voice, cranking his jaws wide with fear, "I can't see!" I pushed with my snout to my feet, then with a crouching hiss, dragged Atlas back onto his limping feet.

"C'mon Atlas! Lean on me!" I heaved, trudging forwards with all the energy left inside of me. Whiteclaw's limp body swung in my jaws as we stumbled in the earthquake, then regained our balance to head towards the flickering portal.

"We can make it," I cried, squinting through my blurred vision, "We're almost there-"

"SHADOW!"

BOOM!

Something struck nearby me and Atlas, something so fast that we didn't have time to find out what it was. Atlas's face vanished in a flash of light and heat, and our flesh burned red from its explosion. Both of our bodies got tossed hind-wards up into the air violently, and even before I touched the ground, I had already blacked out. Something tore clean through my leg, and I felt air and pain wash immediately over its cut. Whiteclaw's body slipped from my jaws at the last second as I collapsed on the side of my head. The rest of my Tyrannosaur limbs followed with my ribs striking first, then my spine, then my legs, and finally, my tail. I flipped once, throwing dirt into the air, before my skull slammed chin first into the dust. My eyes bounced around brutally with my skull underneath the flesh that consumed it.

The ground shook on impact and wobbled for many more moments as my aching self settled in, before it finally went still, (except for the noise of an ash cloud and the rumbling earth below me).

I couldn't move.

A ringing noise, like a high-pitched bug squeaked on and on, louder and evermore louder in my ears as I laid there, feeling the earth move and shake. The ash cloud's voice soared above the ring, which terrified me. I knew that then, it was really close. A cold stinging feeling seeped deep in my calf as I tried to move, and every second that I did, it grew worse, until I could feel my own blood sputtering upon my scales like rain.

I opened my mouth to scream. But nothing came out but my own torrid breath. Weak and destroyed by pain, I dropped my huge head with a quaking thud to the crumbling earth, silently whimpering to myself.

This is how I die then, I guessed, taking in another wave of the agony, I came all this way to just die.

Another boom sounded in the distance as smaller pebbles fell over me, and deep in my heart, I feared for the worst. But somewhere in my mind, as if controlled, something, and old thought a while ago, returned.

"I'm not giving up!!" My past self growled into a demonic roar, "No matter what stands in my WAY!"

And then another voice.

"Don't give up Shadow!" A female Triceratops's voice called, "You're stronger than you know. Don't be afraid kid." She smiled, "I'll be with you every step of the way. You can do this."

My eyes snapped open and my pupils sank into my eyes.

I can do this.

I grunted as I wobbled my injured leg around, then pressed down on it. I almost yelped from the pain again, but with Stella's voice in my mind, I knew I had to fight it.

I had to fight the pain.

The sorrow.

My own fear.

"C'mon Shadow!" I growled in tears, glancing back at my hind as I struggled to awaken, "C'mon Shadow!" I roared as more of the pain erupted in my calf, but through it all, I knew that I mustn't give up.

I pressed on my injured leg, feeling the blood gush all over and sobbed, but even still, I had to keep going. Eying the flow coming down towards us, I pushed with my snout to my feet in blurry tears, ending up with my left foot and leg bent by the knee, suspended in mid-air. Every time it touched the surface with force, more blood drew from the injury. My vision blurred, but I shook myself to my senses.

"Stay awake," I growled to myself, limping towards the downed Indosuchus on the ground. His eyes looked glazed and cold, and his breath was shuddered and quiet.

His body was truly broken.

"I got you Atlas," I wheezed, hauling him up once more. He didn't say anything, just drunkenly dipped his head, stumbling a bit onto my shoulder. I grabbed Whiteclaw from the earth by my jaws and took a few more steps towards the clock, until we were directly in front of it. But at that moment, my eyes began to grow heavy.

I was losing too much blood.

"Stay awake..." I whimpered, closing my eyes to throw Whiteclaw in. Another violent jolt in the earth made me stumble, but with the last bit of energy left in me, I managed to nudge Atlas into the portal. His body vanished in one quick blue flash.

"S-stay....a-awake..."

I was hyperventilating, my jaws slowly moving up and down in harsh painful pants. My eyes were growing even heavier, and despite that fact that the clock was only one step away from me, I could not even do it.

"Stay awake...." I moaned, swaying from side to side as the pain became excruciating. My legs were failing, quaking so hard that my own joints couldn't hold themselves up.

The flow was only kilometers away.

Any second now, I'd be dead.

"Stay......Awake!" I cried in a violent tremble, blinking back tears.

My energy was draining. And now the flow was only seconds away.

I can't do it, I thought in my mind, feeling the earth start to vibrate from the raging cloud. And with one quick motion, my eyes snapped shut.

But something inside my brain was strong enough to scream:

"WAKE UP SHADOW!"

At the very last second, before the claws of death could grab me, my eyes flashed wide open. I lunged forwards in a half-jump, half-fall into the clock's blue spiral. As I fell in, the pyroclastic flow's power smashed right into my body, tossing me further into the clock. My spine slammed into the side of its blue wall as I fell, and all I could see was blue. My stomach lurched as I fell further into the void, for I couldn't see anything else besides the fires that found its way into the clock, attacking me with speed. Everything suddenly went white around me, and the noise paused in mid-air.

Did I die? I thought, trying to blink. But all I saw was white. Suddenly, out of nowhere, darkness rose all around me, and before my half-opened eyes, the ground came barreling right at me. The explosion behind rocketed me forwards into the air as I fell, and my huge body crashed into tons of trees. Each one I struck snapped on impact, falling alongside me with their leaves falling from the sky. I struck the earth hard, rolling down upon leaves or some type of green material beneath me. The sound of fires and ash bursted into the darkness, before it too descended onto the earth. At the last second, the bottom of my skull was dragged onto the dust, burning my scales off. My body curled with my head as the ground quaked upon my landing, before everything went silent.

Leaves from my ground-shaking fall fell from above as the trees still vibrated, before they too went still and quiet.

Everything was quiet.

"Stay.....awake...." I groaned, battling myself to keep my eyes open. But no matter what I did, they grew heavier and heavier. Whiteclaw was lying upon the roots of a tree, silent as a log.

"......Stay........awake......" I blinked once more, taking one quick glance at the region before me of the trees and dusted soil, before darkness fell over me. I saw Atlas, curled with blind eyes and blood that painted his entire body red.

He wasn't moving.

".....Stay....."

My eyes fell closed.

".....awake...."

And everything vanished.