Chapter 138: Extinction

For a dinosaur, the basic rule was survival. So if a danger came knocking on its door there were only two options: fight or escape. Surrender wasn't even contemplated, because it would have meant being eaten. That is why Buck had no doubt that he needed to go to war. Sobek had shown him what was happening and assured him that the humans would never stop. Escaping was therefore not an option, which left only fighting. Buck trusted Sobek. If he had said to go to war, he would have done it. However, he was also afraid. Sobek had repeatedly warned him about humans and now he found that concern was well founded. Was it really possible to fight against such creatures? The instinct of self-preservation clashed strongly with the reason that instead reaffirmed the need to face them. Suddenly Sobek spoke. "You know, despite my powers and my strength, I will never have the greatest of treasures" Carnopo and Buck were quite confused by those words. They remained silent, waiting for their pack leader to explain. "I'm talking about a family. Every creature of this world struggles for one, because it is the guarantee that a part of themselves remains here, even after death. You are what remains of your fathers, and your grandparents, and all your oldest ancestors... every time you breathe, they breathe through you. And in the same way you will have children, who in turn will have children, and you will continue to live through them. But I won't be able to have this blessing" Sobek's voice turned wistful. "My strength is also my curse. I modified my body to make myself better, but that precluded me from having a lineage. There is no other in the world like me. And that leaves me with a certainty. It doesn't matter what happens, how many years I have left to live, how I will live or what choices I will make: I will die alone, and there will be no one to continue my legacy. When I die, I will... disappear. While you continue to live in your descendants, I will vanish from this world forever" Buck and Carnopo were taken aback: Sobek had never been so open to them. They could understand it and were stupid for not having thought of it before. For the animals it was unthinkable not to leave a lineage: it was the guarantee of the continuation of the species. But Sobek couldn't do it. The instant he underwent his first evolution, he had become the only specimen of a new species. This precluded any offspring. Buck and Carnopo felt bad for him. It was a very sad thought not to be able to have children. Even for those animals who did not care for their unborn children, it was still important to have them. Suddenly they felt sad thinking about how Sobek must feel every day: going through life completely alone, without a mate or offspring, while everyone around him started a family. It was a very depressing thought. "And believe me if I tell you: becoming extinct is really a bad thing" Sobek continued. "But I accepted this fate. I hate it, but I know this is the price to pay. I always knew. I made this choice long ago when I decided to become who I am now. I have chosen to lose the greatest joy that life could offer me in order to gain enough power to stop the human advance. Because I knew that if I didn't, I wouldn't be the only one to die out. All of you would have gone extinct. All life forms in this world, from the largest to the smallest, would cease to exist. And when a species disappears, it's over. There is no way to make it reappear. That's why I chose to follow this path" Sobek rose to his full height and looked them both straight in the eye. "You will not have to suffer this fate. No dinosaur will have to do this. I will die alone, and in all likelihood I will die on a battlefield, but not you. No, I want you, ALL OF YOU, to get old and tired, and to enjoy the company of your children and grandchildren. I want those descendants of yours to be able to live in a world that is exactly like that of their ancestors, where they can run in meadows, climb trees, swim in clean water, breathe fresh air, feel the thrill of hunting ... those things that make a life worth living. This is the world I want, but I can't do it alone. I need your help. I need you to believe in me and help me. No matter how dark the road ahead of us is; if you also want that future... then help me. There is no one I trust more than you two. Are you willing to trust me?" So Sobek ended his speech with an effective pause. He compliments himself: of all the inspiring speeches he had invented, this was by far the best. Obviously he had said those things to try to inspire loyalty in Buck, but that didn't mean they weren't true. Since he was now a spinosaurus, Sobek felt the pain every day of not being able to pass his genes on to the new generation. For the animals it was everything, because it was the key to the survival of the species. But Sobek had made his choice when he evolved to Spinosaurus superior, and he couldn't go back. Buck and Carnopo had remained silent. Suddenly they both felt themselves selfish. Buck had always been convinced, even before meeting Sobek, that he was making a fundamental contribution to the pack in which he lived. Carnopo had been angry with life several times, thinking that there was nothing worse than being imprisoned. But now they realized how foolish and arrogant they had been. Their life had actually been futile: neither of them had ever tried to make a contribution to the big picture. Sobek, on the other hand, had sacrificed the most important thing for any living thing, his own lineage, and he had agreed to be doomed to extinction, the thing that every breathing creature feared more than anything else, just because the rest of the dinosaurs who perhaps they would never have even known it continued to exist. He had thrown everything away and he will never get any prizes; it would be others who benefited from his actions. Regardless of how the war ended, Sobek had already lost his battle, because having no offspring meant that he was destined to disappear irreversibly. But Sobek had accepted this fate to save everyone else's life and lineage. In their eyes, Sobek could no longer consider himself just a mere pack leader. He was a hero. Sobek had made the ultimate sacrifice to save the rest of the world. In the eyes of the dinosaurs it was no different from giving one's life. Carnopo felt guilty. He remembered all the times she had yelled at him, and that she had even tried to oppose him before he knew the truth. Couldn't he have been nicer? Buck was also out of sorts. He wondered if he couldn't do more, be more efficient. Maybe he should have trusted Sobek more right away. Sure, his actions might seem strange, but that was because he was preparing for a war! A war that would have been the only purpose of his life. A life destined to be long and lonely, devoid of any joy bestowed by a progeny, focused only on combat and survival. A life empty and without purpose, except to allow others to have what he couldn't possess. The only real act he could have done, the only meaning he could give to his existence. Then there would be only the death. The death. And with it the extinction. Looking at the sad eyes of the two dinosaurs, Sobek wondered if he hadn't gone down a little too hard, but he didn't regret his choice. Even if that speech did not inspire any loyalty in Buck, he still found that saying those things had been very therapeutic. Sobek had never opened up to anyone since his new life began. God had been the last true confidant he had ever had. But after he became a spinosaurus he kept any negative emotions to himself; initially because he had no one to talk to, then because he didn't want to show his fragile side to others. A pack leader must always be strong: admitting your feelings was a sign of weakness. But that didn't mean that Sobek had become as emotionless as he wanted that the others believed. He had lost most of human morality, but human feelings weren't the only ones that existed. Animals had their emotions too and they often reflected their needs and instincts. And for an animal, having offspring was everything. Passing one's genes on to the next generation was the key to becoming nearly immortal. A living being would continue to live in its descendants, leaving an inviolable imprint of itself on the world. Animals were not afraid of death: when they ran away from a predator they did so because they were afraid of the pain that the carnivore's bite or claws could cause them. But they were not afraid of dying, especially wild animals, because unlike humans who tried to prolong their existence as much as possible they were well aware that everything had its expiration date, and that it was the natural order of things. And having children for the animals was tantamount to defeating death: if one's offspring continued to live, then the original animal would also live in the world through them. His blood would continue to be passed on, generation after generation. It was not a stupid immortality like that to which certain humans who dreamed of living forever aspired: it was a natural immortality, destined to continue in their descendants. Sobek could feel it every day. He still had the instinct to reproduce, but he knew he couldn't. And this tore him apart from the inside. The idea of not being able to have an offspring made him melancholy and sad, and he felt as if his existence was no longer worth anything: what was the point of continuing to live, if he would die anyway without the possibility of leaving an imprint of itself in the world? Even though Sobek knew that the afterlife existed, and that therefore all souls were immortal, he still felt emptied of the knowledge that nothing of him would remain on Eden after his death. While all the other dinosaurs would have lived through their children, he would have simply vanished. That was the extinction. Stop existing because unable to create a lineage. Disappear from the world without a trace. Since it had first evolved, Sobek knew that he had condemned himself to that fate. Even if he did his best to keep his nefarious thoughts at bay, there were still days when his sadness reached such levels that he didn't even want to get up from his bed. Only his mission had kept him going: knowing that he had a task entrusted to him by God himself was a strong stimulus. Once he had strongly considered cutting his genitals, so as to completely suppress sexual desire and perhaps with it also his sadness at not being able to have children, but he had thought about it immediately: it would have been useless, since they would grow back thanks a [Regeneration]. In spite of everything, however, he had never considered the possibility of talking about it with anyone: there were no psychiatrists among the dinosaurs and he didn't want to ruin the image of the strong and self-confident pack leader he had undertaken to create. Whether it was humans or animals, leaders never had to cry. Never. Rather, they threw themselves into anything to get distracted. Yet, in that moment of madness in which he had tried to inspire loyalty in Buck, he had opened up with him and with Carnopo. And he wasn't sorry. Opening up to someone was... liberating. The tyrannosaurus spoke first. "Pack leader, I... I don't know what to say. I never thought about it... I'm sorry" Carnopo also seemed to want to say something, but Sobek stopped him immediately: "Stop it. I didn't tell you those things to bask in your pity" he said. "I told you because I want you to understand the situation. Do you know what I see when I look at the three of us? A bunch of losers" Carnopo and Buck widened their eyes at those words. "Yes, in the sense of... people who have lost something. Buck, you lost your brother, and even if you don't talk about it I know you miss him". The tyrannosaurus let out a snarl and darkened even more. "Carnopo, you have lost years of your life that you have been forced to spend inside a cage". The carnotaur lowered his head, as if he didn't have the strength to look him in the eye. "And then there's me who... well, you know. We have all lost something. Unfortunately, life... or God... can sometimes be a real bitch. But I want to believe that this time it didn't fool us. I want to believe that we have a chance" "A chance for what?" Carnopo asked. Sobek sighed. "To not surrender. To not waste time in self-pity and do something so that others do not have to lose everything we have lost" Silence fell between the three. Sobek did not know how to continue. He too lacked his voice now. Perhaps, he thought, he was wrong. Maybe he was the one who needed an inspiring speech for once. Perhaps... Suddenly Carnopo raised his head. "Pack leader... no, Sobek" he said. "I have spent my whole life surrounded only by creatures I hated. I will be happy to fight alongside the first who treated me like a friend. I have already said it, but I want to reiterate it. You have my jaws and you can use them however you want. Order and I will also follow you to the end of the world" Sobek was surprised at the great willpower that came from the carnotaur's words, but before he could say anything it was Buck who spoke. "My brother also couldn't have an offspring. It is my duty to pass on our blood, so that he too can live through our descendants. And to do it I will fight". He raised his head and looked into Sobek's eyes. "You are a good person, pack leader. The best one I've ever encountered. I will fight with you, even if it costs me my life" A notification from the System rang in Sobek's mind, warning him that he had succeeded: he had won Buck's loyalty. But Sobek was too moved at the moment to open it. Otherwise he would have noticed immediately that there was not just one, but four system notifications. In fact, an instant later the trees near them shook and Al emerged. Sobek only realized then that he had focused so much on the conversation that he had ignored his senses, or it would have been impossible for the allosaur to get so close. without getting noticed. Evidently it was the same for Carnopo and Buck, because they too were surprised. "Forgive me. I first saw the two of them walk away from the pack and followed them. I'm sorry" Al said. "But I want to tell you that I'll fight too. You are right. It is our duty. I don't know what we're really going to go through and I don't care. Our children will have to live to carry on our legacy, and our job is to allow them to do so. I will follow you" The fronds moved again, and behind Al appeared the shape of a large ankylosaurus. Sobek recognized Old Li. "Yes, I'm here too. I followed Al, who in turn followed you" he said. "I want to fight too. I am old and have practically wasted my life in a paddock. I don't want any of my descendants or even a distant member of my family to suffer the same fate. I still have enough strength left in my body to deliver deadly blows with my tail, and this old head remembers many things, I can offer any advice" There was a rustle and a faint flutter of wings, then a pterosaur flew over Buck's head, much to the annoyance of the tyrannosaurus. It was Rambo. "Aren't you supposed to be guarding the border?" Sobek couldn't stop himself to ask. "I was. But you told me to report to you once a week, and since I didn't know who to send... I decided to come back personally" the rhamphorhynchus replied with a beaming smile, as if he had done something to be proud of. 'Chicken brain' was the only thing Sobek could think of about it. "I meant that I too am willing to fight. I have not understood much, but it seems clear to me that it is for a just cause. So, let's do it! Right?" Despite the pterosaur's stupidity, Sobek managed to crack a smile. Even if he didn't want to show it, that scene was touching his heart. It was the first time since he had left his family to grow up on his own that he didn't feel that familiar warmth that symbolized unity and mutual affection. "Right. Let's do it" he said. "Let's take back what is ours. Let's take back our world. For the future of our children!"