#i rex

The Indominus rex hatchlings were intimidating, even when they were smaller than puppies. At three days old, they had both established territories in their tiny enclosure. It was the size of a large horse stable and you were a bit jealous that the other raptor trainer had more space for his animals. You understood that whatever his name was, something Grady, you think, had four hatchlings instead of two but it was still irritating considering how quickly yours grew. You had read his file and the files of his animals but you weren’t allowed to talk to him about your animals. You didn’t question it. He had his job and you had yours.

You remember sitting in the hybrid enclosure and watching them play fight at the invisible line dividing the enclosure in half. It was very endearing and an excellent way for them to learn boundaries. You were making sure that neither of them were injured when they both froze. You furrowed your eyebrows as you followed their gaze to a rat that had climbed into their pen. Your eyes widened. The rats were an invasive species to Isla Nublar and were known for carrying diseases. Suddenly, the rat darted towards you.

You screamed. 

It’s one thing to gently pat a friend’s pet domesticated rats that would do tricks for sunflower seeds. It was quite another to have a wild one sprinting at you full tilt with the likelihood of catching a disease dangerously high. You scurried back in the mulch, trying and failing to get up as your back hit the wall. You squeezed your eyes shut and prepared to be bitten when there was a loud shriek from the rat and then a sickening crunch. 

You slowly opened your eyes to the larger and more assertive of the two hybrids ripping into the now dead rat. She looked up at you with a blood covered muzzle and a sparkle of what you understood to be pride in her eyes. You watched with mild horror as she tore the innards of the rat out of its ribcage and carefully picked up the liver. She smugly walked towards you with the liver in her mouth and dropped it at your feet. She began letting out a rumble that was surprisingly similar to a purr and affectionately started to rub up against you, smearing the blood onto your cargo pants. You gently petted her tiny head and body as you looked at the bloody liver. The liver was always her favorite part of any meal and she had brought it to you. She gently licked your hands and then playfully licked your face as if she was comforting you. It was a wild report that you wrote that day.

Over the course of a few months, both of the rexes had grown to the size of a great dane. The first hatchling, the one that had imprinted on you first, had remained larger than her sister. She had also become significantly more territorial, especially when it came to you. She was more than happy to scare the daylights out of any of your coworkers or bosses that she saw interacting with you, especially if they acted in a way that she deemed as aggressive. You remember the time when she waited for one of your bosses to get close to the bars of the door of the enclosure before reaching out and grabbing him with one of her forepaws. She had roared so loudly into his left ear that he had a partial loss of hearing and scratches from her claws all over the left side of his body. You remembered how he screamed at you earlier that day for filing reports into the wrong folder. It was in front of the enclosure. It was impossible for your animals not to hear him.

After that incident, both I. rexes were put into a larger, more secure enclosure and you weren’t allowed to be yelled at within a mile of the containment facility. It was literally written into the safety codes. Things at work were a lot more peaceful for a while after that. You did your training activities with your animals and enjoyed the peace. The elder sister became even more affectionate and snuggled you while you were working on your reports. It was a nice way to keep the animals used to humans and get your more tedious work done. You still paid plenty of attention to the younger sister but it was difficult when the elder one was constantly begging for attention and physically pushing the younger one out of the way.

Your bosses didn’t like it when the rexes were aggressive towards each other but there wasn’t much that you could do. They were in a tiny enclosure for animals their size and they were extra hormonal and cranky as they progressed through their adolescence. The two animals were constantly competing for attention and affection, even as hatchlings, and it was unlikely to change unless they both had more space. The two hybrids still occasionally fought but not nearly as often as when they were younger. There were mostly just aggressive vocalizations. They had established a pecking order and they didn’t seem to feel the need for injuring each other further than a few light claw and bite marks.

You continued on with your schedule of daily feedings and training sessions. All of your requests for a larger enclosure for your animals were denied so training was the only thing that you could do to keep their minds occupied. They kept getting bigger and you were very proud of the dinosaurs that you had raised. They were practically your babies, despite them both being slightly smaller than a T. rex at only a year and a half old. You had to make sure that their diet was strictly maintained so that they could get enough nutrition and calories to continue growing properly. You had taken to giving them whole animals like cows and deer after pumping their stomachs full of a nutrient solution to mimic life in the wild a bit. You had come up with the idea after seeing how snakes were fed mice given a similar treatment. It truly helped to bulk up your two charges.

You were in the middle of a training session with the sisters when you were going through standard medical evaluation training. You were in the middle of checking the smaller animal’s mouth for any abnormalities when her massive jaws snapped shut only inches away from your fingers. She knew that the behavior that she was trained to do was to keep her mouth open while you poked at her gums to simulate an actual exam. You were stunned. This was the first time that she had ever disobeyed you outside of a playful context and it was terrifying.

Faster than you could blink, the elder sister charged the younger sister. She clamped her jaws around the other rex’s neck and threw her away from you. The smaller hybrid twisted and managed to slip away before roaring at the larger animal. The larger animal moved to block you with her body and roared back. You were panicking. You had never experienced anything like this. You were trained to work with crows and ravens, not giant dinosaur hybrids. You looked around the enclosure frantically as the two charged one another and began to fight again. 

You could clearly see the door but it was on the opposite side of the enclosure, right behind the smaller dinosaur. You backed up against the wall and just watched the two fight. You weren’t stupid. You knew that you had to stay behind the larger hybrid if you were to stay alive and unharmed and you just prayed that the larger one won. She had successfully protected you from threats, both real and not, when she was younger and you were really hoping that this time wouldn’t be any different. After a few minutes of them fighting, the smaller hybrid gave up. She grumbled as she walked away from her sister and her sister just watched her. 

You relaxed as you watched them and figured that you’d just have to do a few months of training behind a barrier to rebuild trust with the younger hybrid. It would be a pain but it would likely turn out okay. You sighed and slumped against the wall. You watched as the elder sister looked back at you and smiled at her. She was a good dinosaur. You were surprised when she turned away from you and back towards her sister. Your eyes widened in horror as she charged towards the other dinosaur again and clamped her jaws onto the other animal’s neck. You watched in terror as her jaws crunched down. It was much, much louder than when she killed the rat.

You could see the light leaving the other dinosaur’s eyes. You had raised her and loved her for her entire life and she had just been killed by an animal that you had done the exact same for. You could see the twitches in the dead beast’s muscles as her sister dropped her and began tearing her body cavity open, just like she had when she killed the rat. She dug around in the organs as tears began to stream down your face. Just like she had done more than a year ago, she lifted up the liver in her jaws and walked towards you pridefully. 

She dropped the massive organ at your feet and tilted her head as she looked down at you. She rumbled softly as she gently nudged your leg with her muzzle, unintentionally smearing her sister’s blood on your cargo pants. She gently licked your shaking hands and then your face. She was behaving similarly to how she did when you were anxious before meetings or when you would get startled by her or her sister moving too quickly. She gently nuzzled the tip of her snout into your stomach, being as incredibly gentle as she always was when she tried to touch you.

You cried harder as you began petting her muzzle with trembling hands. You were deeply upset but you weren’t as afraid as you probably should be. She had protected you and even though her appearance was absolutely terrifying, her body language was calm, friendly, and open. She wasn’t a threat. She had never been a threat to you. Once you had stopped crying, she moved away from you and began to eat the corpse of her now dead sister. It was almost a peaceful scene, if you ignored the identity of her meal. 

You slowly got up and began making your way around the perimeter of the enclosure to get to  the door. The remaining I. rex looked up at you and gave a call that you recognize as one of acknowledgement. You looked back at her and mimicked the call like you did when she was a hatchling. She seemed pleased and simply went back to eating. Once you got through the human sized door, you were immediately whisked away by worried medics. You were sat down in a chair and examined for injuries. 

You looked around and tried to find a friendly face until your eyes met those of your boss. Not exactly a friendly face but you were frazzled and a little desperate for answers and someone to talk to about what happened.

“Did you see that…? She protected me from her own sister…! It’s a breakthrough…! She could have similar instincts to one of the species of eagle where the larger sibling kills the smaller one to have more attention from their parents. Can you check with the lab to see if there’s any eagle DNA in her genome?” You said softly to her.

“You need to sit down and let the doctors look at you. We can consult with the lab once we’ve made sure that you’re not injured. You need to be quiet so they can check your lungs.” She stated sternly.

You shut up after that. You were covered in dinosaur blood, you had just seen an animal you raised slaughtered, and you certainly wanted to stay employed so you could keep your health insurance and startle a company issued therapist with a retelling of your day. You took a week off once the doctors had cleared you as a mental health break. You divided your time between therapy, sorbet eating sessions, movie watching, video game playing, coloring in a coloring book from one of the many gift shops, and wondering what would happen when you finally got back to work. It was all very relaxing, minus the part where you dreaded going back to work.

When you finally clocked in for work the following Monday, you were pleasantly surprised by how the Indominus greeted you. You took the stairs down to the entrance to the enclosure and heard an ominous whooshing noise at the door. You stared at it for a second and then shrugged. You swiped your key card and then opened the door to see the nostril of the I. rex at eye level. You could feel her warm and legitimately terrible smelling breath as she smelled you and then she moved. This time, it was her eye staring at you. You stared back at her and realized that it was going to be a much longer day than you originally thought.

“Hey girl. Did you miss me?” You said quietly to her.

She grumbled at you and seemed happy to see you. You gently patted her scales and then motioned for her to move. That day, you didn’t do any training with her. She seemed anxious and just wanted affection. You ended up sitting there as she rolled on the ground near you and then licked you on loop for a solid hour. She seemed worried about you and kept looking at you to reassure herself that you were still there.

After feeding her, you laid down in the shade with her and gently petted her as she dozed. You climbed up onto her back and started gently picking the dirt off of the base of one of the spine structures on her back as she contentedly rested. You weren't sure why the lab had given her spines. It looked cool, sure, but you remember putting cold compresses on her and her sister's backs when they had them coming in as juveniles and hatchlings. It was like they were teething but on half of their little bodies. They had whined and yowled so pitifully that you had to keep them on pain medication for months.

You let your mind wander as you kept gently grooming the massive animal. You knew that she enjoyed it. She couldn't reach most of the spots on her back, especially with the spines, and it was up to you as her handler to make sure that she was clean. You thought a bit more about the lab. While you were grateful that you got to raise and care for the I. rex hatchlings, you couldn't understand why the lab made the hybridization decisions that they made.

It was just plain odd. Her teeth were constantly aching and her gums were always swollen. It was the main reason that you did the mouth check training in the first place. She would lose her teeth and they would regrow like a crocodile or an alligator’s teeth, which was both useful for preventing permanent tooth loss and concerning for her health. It meant that she was constantly teething. You had gotten her dog toys as a hatchling and then had to upgrade to the massive tractor tires that she uses now. You made sure to put them in a giant walk-in freezer whenever you had the chance but even then, she still had mouth pain.

She has grown exceptionally quickly and while it was fascinating to see, you knew that she had aches and pains everywhere. She was already bigger than expected while not even fully grown yet. Her enclosure was too small for her and you never quite got how your boss expected two massive and aggressive dinosaurs to get along in the equivalent of half a shoebox apartment. It was inevitable that one would get mauled. She would lean up against the sun warmed sides of her enclosure to have a heat source to soothe her growth pains and her sister would do the same when she was alive. They would often fight over the best spots, all for the sake of not being in as much pain.

You also didn't get why they made her so smart. Whatever they had sprinkled into her genome made her smarter than most of your coworkers, which is an absolutely terrifying prospect considering that they can vote. When she was younger, she would take your key card so that you couldn't leave and would spend more time with her. Nowadays, she has simply learned the behaviors that you thought were cutest and funniest and displayed them whenever she wanted attention. 

She had learned to wag her tail like a dog and started producing short roars that were similar to what you'd imagine a hellhound or even Cerberus barking would sound like after you watched funny dog videos while in her pen. She would scare the guard in charge of watching her whenever you were in the console room of her enclosure with him. She would lick you and try to groom you when you were sad or dirty. She would curl up around you to shield you from any prying eyes on the rare occasion that you fell asleep in her enclosure. She would listen to every single one of your commands and obey as quickly as possible. She would even try to respond appropriately with vocalizations when you spoke to her, even when she didn't know what all of the words you were saying meant. She just wanted you to be happy with her. She liked it when you laughed and smiled. 

Suddenly, the radio on your hip crackled to life and startled you and your charge out of the peaceful moment that you were sharing. You almost fell off of the Indominus’s back with how loud it was. She didn't seem happy about being interrupted and she seemed even less pleased that you were startled by it.

“Hey, are you okay in there? The boss says we have to do regular check-ins to make sure that you're alive and out of danger.” The man's voice said.

It was Dave, the guard in the console room. 

Before you had a chance to comprehend what was happening, the massive dinosaur had moved her forepaw and carefully pressed the talk button on your radio with a singular massive claw. She let out a vicious warning growl as she stared up at the observation window. You stared at her for a second and just blinked a few times as she released the button and settled back in. Talk about a grumpy animal.

You shrugged it off. She didn't chew on or break the radio so you really didn't care in the end. You had to learn how to be flexible and choose your battles in this job. You reached down to your radio and were about to somewhat playfully respond to the man as you settled back in as well but once again, you were cut off.

“Did your dinosaur just sass me?” He said bluntly.

“Yeah. She gets grumpy sometimes and likes to talk. Sorry.” You replied slightly sheepishly.

You couldn’t really say much else. What else could you say? Sorry, her temper is bad enough that she killed her sister for scaring me? That’s almost as crazy as the dinosaur hybrid that you were sitting on and using as a fidget toy. You just went back to picking at the dirt on her spines. It was better for you to just keep your head down at work. You may have been perfectly protected inside the enclosure but you still needed to maintain good relationships with your coworkers. Workplace politics were a nightmare and you wanted to keep the headache to a minimum.

As the days went on, you and the I. rex got back into a routine. Snuggles, training, snuggles, feeding, training, lunch break, snuggles, training, snuggles, go home, repeat. The remaining hybrid seemed to luxuriate in the fact that she was the only one getting your attention. She managed to look even more pleased than usual when you praised her for good behavior and rubbed up against you softly when it was time to snuggle. You always smelled like her whenever you left her enclosure. She made sure of it, much to your chagrin. The good news was that since you stank of animal musk and blood from her food, your coworkers avoided you. It was great after an exhausting day of training a fairly mentally unstable dinosaur.

You were at the island’s dentist for a regular checkup when you received the news of the I. rex’s escape. You had taken a half day and done all of the necessary care for your charge that morning. You had just finished spitting out the fluoride rinse when you received a text from the handler alert system. You rushed to the paddock in your company issued car and then wandered through the trashed parking lot with a stunned expression. You saw the other trainer, who you now remember was named Owen, and hurried over to him. You were met with significantly more hostility than you expected when he turned to greet you.

“How did your animal manage to be so poorly trained that she would unnecessarily attack and then escape?” He demanded.

What? This was so not your fault. You had done your due diligence and he and your boss’s boss had been the ones to barge in and get people killed with their carelessness.

“Hey, that’s not fair! No one notified me that they were going into her pen! I use the maintenance door like a normal person. It isn’t an issue when you follow proper handling protocol. Besides, you wouldn’t want strangers going into the raptor pen, would you? You can’t even go in there safely. At least I’m able to physically handle my charge.” You said a little more aggressively than intended.

“Yeah? Well at least I can keep all of mine alive.” He barked.

You didn’t even realize that you had decked him until you felt your fist connect with his jaw. You were livid. He had some nerve to talk to you about the second I. rex when he didn’t even know how to do clicker training correctly. It was no wonder that his training program was slow and ineffective. His animals were confused by the lack of consistency and it damaged their trust with him.

“That was a low blow and you know it. I need to get my rex and bring her back. Stay out of my way. You already screwed up enough.” You spat.

You stormed off to get your training equipment from your locker and quickly got changed into your trainer uniform. You didn’t need a stupid looking vest like Owen to be a professional. You actually knew what you were doing. Once you were properly geared up, you walked to the spot where she had disappeared into the trees. You rolled your eyes when you saw Owen and your boss’s boss talking. You knew that they found each other attractive and you had heard through the grapevine that they had gone on a date months ago. She could do way better than him. You made a mental note to find a kind way to tell her that she needs more self respect if she wants to meet someone that will treat her properly and respect her as a human being.

You turned your mind to the task at hand and began following the footprints that the I. rex had left behind. You walked and walked until you saw a broken gyrosphere and a dead ankylosaurus. You grimaced. It reminded you of the scene left behind after the incident with her sister. You weren’t entirely sure if she had eaten the people in the ride but you tried not to dwell on it. You had a job to do, after all.

You continued following her tracks into the large herbivore enclosure where you found her slaughtering the last apatosaurus in the area. You gasped at the bloody scene. She was surrounded by dead and dying herbivores and covered in their blood. She must have heard you. She looked up at you and seemed incredibly pleased with herself. She had the expression of a puppy that had proudly gotten into trouble. She turned back to the apatosaurus and quickly slashed her open. You were already familiar with the routine but that didn’t make it any more comforting when she carried over the largest liver that you had ever laid eyes on. She carefully laid the liver down at your feet before nuzzling your stomach with the tip of her snout. She began happily rumbling like she always would when she brought you what she felt was a tasty treat.

You gently began petting her scales. What else could you do? Despite the fact that she was covered in blood and had escaped, she was being very cute. You sighed and just watched her happy expression as you petted her. You loved your charge to pieces, regardless of what she did. She’s an animal and using human morality to judge her isn’t fair. You know that she’s smart but she isn’t human. You just kept petting her before deciding to speak to her.

“There’s my big sweetie. You made me so worried! We need to get you home. I need you to be good and follow me, alright? You know what to do. You’re a good dinosaur.” You cooed at her.

You carefully pulled out the target that you had trained her to follow and made sure to catch her attention with it. You began walking in the direction of her enclosure and relaxed a bit when you heard her following you. You were about three miles away from the pen and you weren’t sure how well it would hold her. You felt her nuzzle against your side as you both walked and you gently patted her nose. You reached for your radio and called in.