(Note: I will be abandoning the first person perspective portion of each episode and just doing both main characters in third person. This episode also starts wrapping up the story of the original character, Nikolai, who I kind of forgot about)
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The forests of Virginia
February 15th, 10:00 AM
Nikolai had only been trapped in the facility for a little more than a week, and yet it felt like he had been there for years. Out of the ten scientists who were trapped, only he was left. The others had been whittled down by the prowling raptors, and two of them had even tried to escape but had been almost instantly killed.
He laid back in his desk chair, fiddling with a .45 magnum. Maybe I should just run for it, he thought. Ideations of simply ending it all had crossed through his mind, yes, but he was still set on trying to make it out of the facility alive. Fucking zombie raptors. Who would've thought? They could be wounded and killed yes, but they had no sense of pain. Nikolai had witnessed one of his colleagues fire six bullets into one, wounding it heavily, but the raptor simply plowed onwards, decimating the poor scientist before collapsing and dying of blood loss.
He stared out his shattered window at the snow below. Multiple dead mercenaries hired by Summit scattered the area around the facility. They had sent two waves of five mercs up here since the first breakout, and as far as Nikolai knew, none of them made it back.
Their efforts had not been in vain though. The corpse of a slain raptor had been dusted with snow and had been laying in full view of Nikolai's "window" for the past two days. One of the mercs had landed a lucky shot in the middle of the head and killed it instantly.
A deep rumble shook the floor under Nikolai, accompanied by the soft whine of an engine. He peered through the window carefully. Perhaps more mercs were coming? He stared into the snow coated forest as a National Guard M2 Bradley fighting vehicle emerged from the woods,
None of the mercs Nikolai had seen had operated Bradleys. A new sense of hope hung in the air for the first time in a long while.
Nikolai leaned out the window frame. "Hey! Over here!" he screamed.
It took less then a second for him to realize his mistake. The distinct sound of a raptor chirp rang out from the floor below him, sounding like an eerie mix of a hawk's screech and a crow's caw. Fuck, he thought.
The Bradley drew closer. Nikolai remained still. Maybe the raptor would go for the vehicle instead of him? The M2 was basically a can of meat waiting to be opened... if a raptor got inside somehow...
The click of the raptor's claws came from the adjacent staircase. Nikolai held his breath.
A shout came from the Bradley. "Gunner, sabot, contact!"
And then the sound of an autocannon ripped through the air. 25mm chaingun rounds tore through the walls of the facility. Nikolai scrambled to a corner, trying to stay out of the line of fire. After a couple seconds, the firing stopped. Nikolai watched as the door slowly swung open, its lock having been obliterated by the Bradley's fire. The raptor emerged into the room.
It was riddled with wounds, blood pouring from its body, its feathers were soaked. The creature staggered forward. Its right arm had been completely severed off by the autocannon rounds. Its torso had holes going straight through it. Nikolai could hear it struggling to breath as its lungs began to fill with fluid.
With its final rasping breath, the raptor weakly lunged at him, before collapsing onto the floor in a bloody heap.
Nikolai rose to his feet, stumbling towards the bullet-ridden door, just as the soldiers began pouring into the building. He clambered down the stairs, which had almost been completely destroyed by cannonfire, falling to his knees at the landing. The soldiers rushed around him. He was lifted up and placed onto a stretcher. "It's alright buddy, we got you now", said one of them. Nikolai fainted from relief, slipping into darkness.
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Gonzalez awoke on a hospital bed. How long have I been out?, he thought. He rose his wrist to check his watch only to find an IV jabbed into the skin instead. He suddenly became aware of the presence of a fucking horrendous headache, and shut his eyes again. As if to insult him, the TV in the room decided to start playing the latest national news broadcast.
Regarding the situation in Virginia, the seemingly undead raptors have been traced back to a facility located in a heavily forested area, operated by the now defunct Summit Biotechnics. The National Guard was called in to clear out the facility, where they rescued one malnourished, but alive, scientist. Two raptors were killed by the Guard at the facility. As we covered yesterday, another has been gunned down at Summit HQ in Richmond, bringing the total of unaccounted raptors to thirteen. Remember, stay indoors and keep a watchful eye! The raptors remain on the prowl.
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John waited in the interrogation room, a cold steel table and empty chair facing him. His hands were bandaged but the blood had still managed to soak through, tinting them dark red.
The door opened and an officer entered the room, taking a seat across from him.
"Now John," he said. "I'm not going to ask you about what you were doing at Summit HQ armed and with an accomplice wielding a shotgun. We know what happened and you will be treated accordingly."
John winced.
"What I want to know is every single bit of information you have about these crazy-ass zombified dinosaur birds."
The interrogator placed down a folder with photos of the sixteen raptors.
"Three of them have been hunted down so far. Anything you know will be useful in taking down the rest."
"I'm no scientist sir," John said.
The officer gave him a look. "Everything you know, now."
John sighed. "They amount to a bunch of spliced together genes. Summit wanted dinosaurs. Their scientists gave them dinosaurs, or at least the best they could do."
"And why do these dinosaurs simply refuse to die?"
"Something went wrong in the gene coding. They have no sense of pain, barely any survival instinct. All they want is to hunt. Their sheer will carries them through any normally lethal wounds. Anything to get the kill."
"But they can be killed," said the officer.
"Yes sir they can. They die the same as any other animal, they just manage to last longer after suffering fatal injuries."
"Now tell me about Summit. What happened?"
"That's a long story sir..."
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