Chapter 49: Doubts

"Good. Now get down..." "No, not like that. You have to move slower..." "I said to move slower, damn it! But do you listen to me when I speak?" Sobek shook his head as he realized how senseless his curse was. "I'm starting to forget that these words are only in my head. It would be really useful if she could hear them!" The spinosaurus let out a grunt looking at the young girl posted on the branch of a tree, who was trying in vain to get close to a lizard that was sunbathing among the leaves. From his point of view, Jocelyne made far too much noise. He had miraculously managed to teach her how to catch some mice or how to track down a burrow, but catching an animal on a tree branch seemed beyond her reach. Jocelyne tried to get even closer, but her movements didn't go unnoticed. The lizard saw her and opened two small membranes from its back with which it launched itself from the branch and glided towards another tree. "Right, coelurosauravus can fly..." Sobek thought. The coelurosauravus was a lizard from the Late Permian period that was somewhat reminiscent of the Asian flying dragon, in fact it possessed two wings with which it could glide from branch to branch. Jocelyne looked discouraged. "It ran away from me again..." she murmured. Sobek let out a low laugh. "Welcome to the world of hunting without firearms, child. In nature, a hunt rarely ends with the predator winning: usually the prey manages to escape" The coelurosauravus stared at the little girl from the other tree, making a guttural sound as if it were mocking her, and Sobek couldn't blame Jocelyne that she put on a corrupt expression. Too bad that just a second later a microraptor jumped out of the leaves and bit the lizard making it quickly disappear in its mouth. "Ah, so karma really exists!" Sobek thought amused as he watched the microraptor finish eating the coelurosauravus. "Or more simply, it knows how to be silent. Certainly more than her. Not that it takes much anyway..." As he laughed in his head at that joke that only he could hear, he grabbed the girl with his jaws and put her back on the ground. After all, it no longer made sense to keep her on the branches. After their river adventure, the two seemed to have reached some sort of unwritten agreement. Jocelyne finally seemed to have disciplined herself and she had never tried to escape or sneak out anymore, and she spent her days resting quietly on top of the tree in the clearing. This was flattering since she had finally stopped getting into trouble. All predators that could threaten her were on the ground, so she was safe as long as she stayed in the tree. Sobek, in his turn, spent most of the day hunting, but in the late afternoon he would return to the clearing, bring Jocelyne back down to earth and then teach her some basics of survival. For the moment he had limited himself to rather easy things, which were very difficult for a human being. Fortunately Jocelyne learned fast. Although the two didn't speak the same language, Sobek was still able to give her directions and Jocelyne seemed to understand them... most of the time. Thanks to their collaboration, Sobek no longer had to worry about her and was able to concentrate on hunting; which had allowed him to gain a lot of experience points and also some skill points. Jocelyne, for her part, was acquiring the notions of survival that she desired so much and this helped to lessen her fear of being left alone, even if only a little. Sobek would almost have appreciated their bizarre relationship, if it weren't for... that. He couldn't stop thinking about what had happened that day at the river. That young girl had guessed his name on the first try. This had sent Sobek into utter confusion. For a moment he had almost thought that she too was a reincarnator, but he soon dismissed that hypothesis. If she had a System, even if it were different from his, Sobek would have noticed it. It was impossible to hide superhuman abilities and certainly the child had had several opportunities to use them, as she had risked her life at least a dozen times. Apart from her intelligence and her observation skill, she didn't seem to have any other special abilities. Moreover, if she had been a reincarnator, her mental age would have been much more than twelve, yet she had always declared herself twelve years old, even in her breakdown moment. And even though she seemed quite mature for her age, she still didn't behave too differently from a child. So no, she wasn't a reincarnator. So who was she? Was it all a coincidence? Had she guessed his name by accident? It was a possibility, and also quite concrete: Sobek had in fact discovered that she wasn't referring to the Egyptian god when she called him 'the king of the river'. After all, Ancient Egypt never existed in that world; there had been nations with similar cultures, but they weren't the same as those on Earth. Checking on the Internet, Sobek had discovered that 'the king of the river Sobek' wasn't a god, but a character in a television series particularly popular among the youngsters of that world. So it could actually all be a coincidence. But Sobek didn't believe in coincidences. It seemed to him that too many things were happening to be the result of chance alone. How many chances were there that he would have been right there, in that spot in the forest, at the right time to save the smartest child he had ever met, who had been able to guess his name right away? He didn't want to let the imagination run too far, but he felt there was something more underneath. Had God decided to give him some kind of bad trick? Or maybe it was a sign? Would that young girl be important to him in the future? Or would she have been an obstacle? Sobek wasn't sure of the answer. He liked the girl, but she remained a human. In the future, Sobek was supposed to fight against humans. Who would have such a smart person sided with? Sobek didn't want to risk having Jocelyne as an enemy. The young girl had proven to be brilliant, so the spinosaurus didn't dare imagine what she could do if she got weapons and men and decided to fight him. Jocelyne wasn't the only intelligent person in the world, of course; however, Sobek believed that their meeting could be very important. The question was: God had cross their street to let him help her... or to let him eliminate her now that he had the chance? "I start to doubt about my decision... is it a good idea that I protect and train who could become my worst enemy?" ************* It had been four days now, and Jocelyne had begun to calm down. By now she was sure that the huge spinosaurus would never have ate her. Of course, it couldn't be said that her fear had passed: every time its jaws closed on her she was on the verge of heart attack. But at least she no longer spent time checking it out or imaging how it could kill her. By now it had become a routine: the spinosaurus waited for her to wake up, put her on the tree, left and returned in the afternoon with a large prey in its jaws. Jocelyne had had a little trouble adjusting to that lifestyle, used to having at least three meals a day, but the amount of food the dinosaur brought with each sunset was more than enough to make her feel full throughout the next day. Then after eating it the lesson started: the spinosaurus teached her something new and she had to learn it. She now was able to fish, hunt small land creatures, recognize some footprints, and even distinguish different sounds and smells to understand if a place was safe or dangerous. In fact, it seemed the animals were not as silent and invisible as she believed: they left very evident traces, which a keen observer could notice. Thanks to this, she could avoid areas with predators and remain in quieter territories. She had begun to appreciate those teachings. Although she had asked for them mostly because she needed them as life insurance, she had found it was really interesting to discover those things that nature hid. She had been fascinated by what the forest did not reveal. She felt as if the world she had lived in before was just the top of the mountain, and that now she was barely starting to come down from it. Of course, it wasn't all good. If it hadn't been for the spinosaurus she probably wouldn't have even been able to sleep for fear that something would come looking for her. However, she had begun to accept that fear. Becoming good at sensing a dangerous situation could have saved her life someday, so she didn't mind keeping her eyes and ears on constant alert. One day, that fear could turn into intuition. The comforts were also not the best: sleeping in a bed of grass and leaves wasn't comfortable at all, even if it was better than the bare earth. Not to mention what she was wearing: she had been wearing the same clothes for over a week now. However, over time she had managed to adapt and be content with what she had. She had even been able to get used to the acrid taste of raw food: after eating a scorpion, now even a lizard seemed like a luxury feast to her. She had also begun to like her strange protector. She still hadn't figured out what animal it was, but she had thrown in the towel by now and had decided to identify it simply as a spinosaurus: it was the creature it most resembled. Also, now the animal had a name. For some reason, after calling it 'Sobek', the spinosaurus seemed bothered by something, to the point that Jocelyne had wondered if it didn't like the name. However, after a while it seemed to have gotten used to it and would calmly answer every time she called it, as if it had just mentioned that name and learned to identify itself with it. Despite this, the spinosaurus still sported a strange expression every time she said that name. It wasn't an angry expression, was it more... suspicious? Investigator? Jocelyne didn't know how to define it. It was hard to understand the expressions of an animal completely different from a human being. But apart from this strange phenomenon, otherwise the strange relationship they had built worked. The spinosaurus had become quite accommodating and he no longer seemed bothered by her voice, in fact it seemed to almost entice her to talk. Jocelyne didn't get it repeated and she had argued with it every time she had the chance. She felt ridiculous: why talk to a beast that can't answer you and probably doesn't understand anything you say? Yet she constatly needed to say something; she felt that if she didn't have a conversation with someone she would have become crazy. She had told it about her life, her family, her travels and her plans for the future. If it had been a human, it could probably be said that she had revealed all the secrets of the Jersey family to it, but the spinosaurus couldn't tell them to anyone and even if it could it certainly wouldn't have cared: what value could humans' squabbles have for a dinosaur? Incredibly, the spinosaurus seemed to have been listening to her the whole time. It looked at her with its half-open eye and snorted when she giggled because she remembered something funny, like it wanted to share her hilarity. Jocelyne had found this to be very therapeutic. She had felt decidedly calmer as she spoke, as if all worries had vanished in that brief moment. And that evening, just like every day, she was determined to repeat the experience: when she finished eating, she waited for the spinosaurus to finish its meal and lay down next to her as usual, and then she prepared to tell it another anecdote from her life. However, before she could open her mouth, a roar ripped through the air. The spinosaurus sprang to its feet and began to frantically turn its head towards the source of the sound. Jocelyne was confused by that behavior. "What are you afraid of? You are the biggest and strongest animal in the world!" she asked to it even knowing that she would have no answer. To her surprise, however, the spinosaurus grabbed her and put her back on the tree. "Or... maybe not?" she asked while the animal covered her with leaves. Under her frightened gaze, the spinosaurus disappeared into the vegetation heading towards the source of the sound.