Chapter 40: Trust issues

When he returned to the clearing the vehicles were still burning and would probably have gone on all night. Better this way: the smell of smoke would have kept the other animals away, since it meant that there was fire there and every animal feared fire. Also they were far away from the trees, so he didn't risk to cause a wildfire and therefore burning half of the forest. The girl was still there and was desperately trying to crawl away. The ropes that immobilize her were very tight. Sobek could clearly tell by how deep the marks were on her wrists. When she saw him coming, the girl froze and almost stopped breathing, staring at him in terror. "Yeah. I guess the way I introduced myself isn't the best way to curry favor with a twelve-year-old girl..." Sobek thought, then he lowered his muzzle towards her. The little girl screamed, surely convinced that he wanted to eat her. However, shouting was useless: the strings wouldn't have melted with the force of the sound. Unless the child possessed some mysterious power that would have made her scream so loud that Sobek's eardrums explode, she had no chance of escaping a ten-tons predator. Sobek brought his claws to the ropes. He certainly couldn't untie them manually, but he could cut them. His claws were now as sharp as knives, a rope wasn't a challenge. The difficult thing was to do it without hurting the girl under those ropes. He had to act cautiously. Very slowly he tried to find the right angle. Fortunately the little girl didn't dare to move for how scared she was. Eventually he managed to graze the ropes. In an instant the strings of the rope fell to the ground, completely freeing the girl. As soon as the girl realized she was free, her survival instinct took over and she ran away. Even though she knew he could easily reach her, she didn't care. Clearly, at that moment in her mind there was only the desire to get as far away from there as possible. However, she was too battered. The tightening of the ropes and the blows that the kidnappers had given her had reduced her badly. She seemed to have even a sprain in her left leg. After a few meters she could no longer run and collapsed against a tree, not having the strength to do anything except stare in fear at the figure in front of her. Sobek felt frustrated. What was he supposed to do now? Just leaving was out of the question: by now he saw humans only as cute little animals, but he wanted to maintain a certain moral superiority. If he left her there the girl would have died in less than half a day. Even if he didn't want to eat her, any other predator wouldn't have thought the same way. Such an easy meal would have immediately attracted the attention of any creature that fed on meat. At the same time, however, he couldn't expect her to magically stop being afraid of him. Even though he wasn't attacking her, the relationship between them was still the one of a little baby deer in the presence of an enormous and ferocius tiger. For the little girl he was just a dangerous predatory dinosaur. If only he had the gift of speaking! But spinosaurs didn't possess the organs to communicate as humans did. Besides, Sobek wasn't even sure he remembered how to talk. He couldn't find a solution: whatever came to his mind (approaching, stroking or even licking her) would only have frightened her more. In the end he decided to try a crazy experiment. The girl was injured and those bruises must have hurt her a lot, so he could bet on that. His knowledge of medical plants came to help him: in the past months he had learned how recognize the plants of the forest that have pharmaceutical propertis. He had wanted to be sure to be able to stop bleeding and relieve pain if he was injured, so he had deliberaty injured some small animals and then follow them to see what they had do to heal, and so he discovered some medical plants. Even if now he didn't need them anymore thanks to [Regeneration], he could still use this knowledge to his advantage: with his sight he spotted some ferns nearby that he had learned acted as a natural pain reliever. He picked up some and dropped them on the girl. She was clearly confused, but when she grabbed a leaf and it touched a cut in her palm she immediately understood what to do. Without taking her eyes off the dinosaur in front of her she began to rub the fern leaves all over her, on all the wounds and bruises she had. When she was done Sobek immediately realized that she was better: she was no longer grinding her teeth in pain and there was an evident trace of relief on her face. Now in her eyes there was no longer only unchallenged fear: even if that emotion was still dominant, Sobek could also notice doubt. However, he had no intention of pushing their relationship any further. For that night he had done enough: trust is certainly not built in one day. So he lay down on the ground not far from her and pretended to fall asleep. He was sure the little girl would have stayed awake to check on him, but she collapsed after a very short time. All the tension, the adrenaline and the fear that she had suffered had created a tiredness that the girl had never felt, a tiredness that had used the only apparent moment of tranquility to make her collapse into the world of dreams. Sobek grunted with satisfaction. If the girl had had a good and healty restful sleep, at least she would have been stronger, that means that her wounds would have healed more quickly. Now he had to think about his next move. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= AUTHOR'S THOUGHTS Hi! Time for some new explanations: 1) In case you haven't guessed, yes, I'm going to put a lot of social criticism into this story. From my point of view, in fact, a self-respecting book must contain a meaning and above all it must teach something, regardless of what the message is. I wanted to include this kidnapping scene because these are situations that happen every single day in different parts of the world. Not only in third world nations, but also in many of the more civilized ones. Kidnapping a woman, even a minor, or even a child, marrying her and forcing her to end the relationship with a man, is unfortunately a practice that still exists today. And of course this is just the tip of the iceberg: just think of child brides or how women are treated in many parts of the world. This is to remind you that just because you were born on the right side of the planet and in the right historical moment does not mean that you have to forget what is happening elsewhere, because ignoring these situations means being accomplices of those who are in effect crimes. We all have the duty to condemn such acts and to do as much as possible to put a stop to these barbaric practices that deprive thousands of people of their freedom every day. I could make a very long list of all the monstrosities that are performed every single day in all parts of the world, but there is really too much to say, so for this time I leave you the burden of informing yourself. After all, also gathering informations is our duty. 2) Could dinosaurs resist firearms? The honest answer is that we don't know. With neither skin nor, in most cases, complete bone and body structure, we cannot establish how much a dinosaur could endure before its vital organs were injured. Furthermore, it should be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, since there were so many dinosaurs and each species was different from the others. Today the most accepted theory is that at least the largest dinosaurs had very thick skin, similar to that of wild boars, rhinos or elephants, if not even more resistant, and also their strong bones helped them to resist even more powerful shocks. As a result, it is unlikely that an ordinary gun could kill a dinosaur such as the t-rex or the triceratops. Of course, that doesn't mean they were invincible (we're not talking about the magical dragons of the stories), but it is likely that we humans would need more powerful weapons to be able to take out an adult dinosaur. In my story I have decided to stick to this theory, so large dinosaurs cannot be killed by small and medium caliber bullets, even if they hurt them a lot. As a result, Sobek can safely resist ordinary bullets, and on top of that he also has [Regeneration], so it's impossible for a group of humans without heavy weapons to seriously injure him. 3) Mika is a character of the film "The captive", a 2014 film where a young girl is kidnapped and kept segregated for eight years by a maniac who uses her for child pornography. And yes, that maniac is Mika. I didn't know his surname since it is never mentioned in the film and I hadn't found it in any reviews or even on Wikipedia, so I decided to give him the surname Magni. Even though the situation here is a little different, it seemed fair to mention this film that takes responsibility for denouncing other horrible acts that happen every single day around the world. Yes, we humans really suck.