Chapter 45: Return and healing

Jocelyne hadn't dared to move a muscle as the two superpredators fought. She almost forgot to breathe. She didn't remember ever seeing such a scary scene in her life. She'd seen some animal fights before, but it was mostly big cats and sometimes a few dogs. But that... that was nothing in comparison. It had been a battle between monsters, literally. Even the conformation of the land had changed: the dinosaurs had cut down trees and moved rocks and earth with their mighty legs. Many low plants and bushes had been uprooted within seconds. She couldn't imagine how primitive humans could have survived in a world ruled by such animals. Such beasts could have killed a person with just their finger. Jocelyne felt small and helpless when confronted with such monstrous creatures. They were literally the representation of power. When the battle finally came to an end, the ground was dotted with red spots. The blood of the two predators had spilled everywhere. Much of that blood still dripped from the spinosaurus' claws and wounds. It took Jocelyne a few seconds to process what she had just seen, but when she saw that the spinosaurus was starting to move away she istantly panicked: "Hey, wait!" she yelled, hurrying down from the tree. That battle had made her realize one thing: she absolutely didn't want to stay in the forest alone. The last thing she wanted was to come face to face with similar predators. So she quickly chose to rely on the protection of the only dinosaur who had shown kindness to her. She didn't know if the spinosaurus' behavior would have changed one day, but now it didn't attack her and that was enough, and it was certainly big enough to protect her. The problem was that the spinosaurus didn't seem willing to wait for her. "No! Stop!" Jocelyne yelled almost throwing herself off the tree. "Bring me with you! I won't run away anymore, I swear!" "Mh, now you want my help, huh? Asshole, I almost got killed for your stupidity!" Sobek thought angrily, but that shred of humanity he still had convinced him to stop, even though he didn't turn to look at the girl. Jocelyne thanked heaven when she saw the spinosaurus stop. Very quickly she finished climbing down from the tree and ran under it. She expected the spinosaurus would have grabbed her, but instead it started walking again without looking at her. Even though the spinosaurus was just walking, Jocelyne had to run to keep up with it, because a single step of the dinosaur was equivalent to at least ten of hers. The little girl had to rely on all her breathing skills and stamina to avoid being left behind. The spinosaurus didn't seem to be willing to help her, but if it noticed that it was getting too far apart, it would stop to give her time to catch up with it. Eventually the two returned to the clearing. The cold wrecks of the cars were in the same position as when Jocelyne left, and so her bed. The spinosaurus went to the tree where Jocelyne had hidden the day before, and it lay down where it had slept the night before. Finally seeing that the spinosaurus had stopped, Jocelyne sat down and rested her back on the tree trunk. Every muscle in her legs ached and her poor heart was basically begging for mercy, indeed it was a miracle that it still hadn't stopped. Now that all the excitement of that day was finally over, Jocelyne felt like a truck had run into her. Every inch of her body felt very heavy to her, as if she had lead instead of bones. She looked up at the spinosaurus and swallowed. She hadn't noticed it before, too worried about following it, but now she could see the wounds clearly. Two deep bite marks were carved into the dorsal sail and many of the vertebrae were broken; red blood ran through the wounds as if all the veins, arteries and capillaries had been severed cleanly. Jocelyne felt a deep terror pervade her body as she imagined that the same jaws that had caused those wounds had closed on her instead. Plus a sense of guilt assaulted her. After all, it was her fault that the spinosaurus was injured. She looked around and found some leaves of the medicinal plant the dinosaur had given her two days earlier. Perhaps with that she could alleviate the pain of the animal a little. However, she quickly gave up on all good intentions: the dorsal sail was too taller than her, she would never be able to reach the wounds. This made her feel even more helpless. "Hey... listen... I'm sorry" she murmured; she didn't know why she had said those words, since the spinosaurus couldn't understand her, but she needed to apologize. To her surprise, however, the spinosaurus snorted and looked in a casual direction, as if trying to avoid eye contact with her. "Are you angry with me?" the little girl asked. In response, the spinosaurus turned its head away. Jocelyne rolled her eyes speechless. Could animals hold the grudge? Apparently yes... or at least, this one did. The little girl rolled her eyes. Although the foliage of the trees was very dense, the sun could be seen very clearly through them, so it must already be at least noon. "Aren't you going to hunt today?" A deep growl emerged from the jaws of the spinosaurus, and even though Jocelyne couldn't speak its language, she could tell it was furious at that request. "All right! All right! I'll shut up!" she exclaimed trying to calm it down. Unbeknownst to her, Sobek was cursing her with his mind. "I almost broke my back for you, and now you want me to find you dinner? Fuck you! Did you want to do things on your own? Now you can remain hungry!" he thought angrily. Seriously, did that little girl have a minimum of conscience? How did she expect him to hunt with the huge wounds he had on his body? Any creature would have smelled his blood from many kilometers away. Not to mention that with all probability any animal within a kilometer had already fled: after all, a battle between two superpredators certainly didn't go unnoticed. Any creature with a minimum of common sense wouldn't have thought twice to run away. For Sobek it wasn't a problem to remain without food for a day: thanks to his continuous hunting he had a good amount of protein available that would have kept him in strength for a long time. Besides he was a predator, and as such his body was designed to last for many days without food. But the same wasn't true of Jocelyne; however, Sobek didn't care. As it used to be said, 'whoever is the cause of their own illness weep to themselves'! And in fact, after less than half an hour, Jocelyne's belly began to grumble. All the energy she had wasted due to the strong emotions and motor activity to which she had been subjected, combined with the fact that she hadn't eaten anything since the previous evening, created a vacuum in the center of her stomach that closely resembled the appetite. But the appetite in human beings, especially children, moves quickly; and in fact very quickly the appetite became hunger, and the hunger soon turned into a wolfish hunger. Jocelyne felt like her stomach was tearing apart. However, she didn't dare to complain again and remained silent, despite the cramps she had from hunger. Sobek had assumed he would have ignored her, but when by mistake he turned his gaze slightly towards her and found her intent on staring into void with the drool dripping from her mouth, surely imagining dishes of pasta or roast meat, due to the lack of pity that he had decided that perhaps it was not really necessary to leave her completely with no dinner. However, he also didn't want to make dinner too pleasant for her, so that she would completely take away the habit of running away. So he chose a compromise. With his nose he could find any creature nearby, so he knew where to look; with one paw he grabbed a nearby bush and uprooted it, showing what was hidden under it: a huge black scorpion about three feet long. [Prey identified: Pulmonoscorpius kirktonensis, centromachidae. Experience: 1,000 points] The pulmonoscorpio was a giant scorpion that lived during the Lower Carboniferous period. During its time it probably didn't have to fear many enemies, but the rules on Eden were very different. Sobek didn't know if it was poisonous and he didn't care: he just had to forcefully lower his paw to crush it as if it were made of paper. He then grabbed the pulmonoscorpio by what was left of its tail and threw it at Jocelyne's feet. The little girl screamed, visibly disgusted by the one meter long scorpion, but when she noticed that it wasn't moving she calmed down. But when she realized that this was going to be her dinner, she almost felt like throwing up. Jocelyne wasn't picky, but eating a scorpion wasn't certainly a pleasant experience for anyone. She thought that maybe she should skip the meal, but a stomach cramp brought her back to reality: she was too hungry, she absolutely needed something to eat. She looked pleadingly at the spinosaurus, begging him with her eyes to give her an alternative, even just a lizard or a frog, but the dinosaur ignored her, making its answer very clear: eat that, or eat nothing. Jocelyne looked at the scorpion's corpse again. She would never be able to swallow her hairy paws (the very idea of having them in her mouth made her faint) but maybe she could eat the soft flesh of her abdomen. The armor of the pulmonoscorpio had been literally shattered by Sobek's paw, Jocelyne would only have had to remove it to reach the tender flesh below. "Come on... it won't be that different from a crab, or a shrimp..." she tried to convince herself, failing miserably. With shaking hands and disgust painted on her face she removed the pieces of the armor and tore a large piece of meat. It was pink and a strange substance, probably hemolymph, dripped from it. Jocelyne closed her eyes and put it in her mouth. She almost threw up. The meat hadn't a bad taste, it was rather sweet, but as soon as it touched her tongue it seemed to melt into a viscous mush. "It's only meat, it's only meat, it's only meat!" Jocelyne yelled in her mind, and with extreme willpower she swallowed the morsel. She felt faint with disgust as she felt that kind of slime descend down her esophagus. Fortunately, the hard part was always swallowing the first bite. And in fact, the others were easier to swallow, even if the instinct to vomit was always present. In a short time she managed to completely empty the carcass of the pulmonoscorpio, leaving only armor, sting, legs and head. She would have liked to eat a little more, but she wouldn't have touched those hairy paws with her tongue even under torture, nor would she have ever tried to put the eyes or the brain of the scorpion under her teeth. Her belly was already full and that was enough: the rest of that crawling monster could rot. When she was finished she lay down in the bed again rubbing her belly, trying not to think about what she had just eaten. To distract herself she looked at the spinosaurus again, and she was surprised to see that the bite marks on the dorsal sail were slowly disappearing. The blood had also stopped flowing as before, although there were still many parts of the sail broken. It looked like the spinosaurus was healing fast. Jocelyne prayed earnestly that the next day it'd be strong enough to go hunting, and not let her eat a scorpion again, or worse, a spider. Compared to that, the raw and stringy meat of a wild boar was even inviting. Unbeknownst to her, the reason Sobek was healing so quickly was because of [Regeneration]. As he had predicted, very soon he would no longer have been in danger of his life. At maximum level [Regeneration] could heal wounds in a few tens of seconds, but at its current level it was much slower; it was still fast enough for Sobek to recover in less than a day. Sobek was pleased with that. If he had suffered similar injuries before gaining [Regeneration] he would have died for sure. Luckily he had unlocked the ability before fighting the carcharodontosaurus, or it would have ended very badly for him. He promised himself to look for the carcharodontosaurus the next day, when he would have returned in full shape. Not only he was tired of that annoying asshole following him, but he also wanted to take the skill points it could provide. By now the carcharodontosaurus was wounded and dying, it would have been easy to kill it once he was back in strength. He looked at the little girl. Although the sun was still quite high in the sky she had already fallen asleep: having finally gotten her meal, her little body had succumbed to all the accumulated fatigue and had fallen into the world of dreams. Sobek couldn't blame her. He too was tired. He decided it was time to take another nap; the last time it didn't end well, but he was sure that the girl had learned her lesson and would never have tried to escape again. So he too fell asleep.