Chapter 4

Chapter 4

The Plague

It’s now high summer. The weather has been more humid than usual. Synca is getting uncomfortably hot. He leaves his still sleeping family to try and find relief. After some walking, he finds a lake. At first, it’s a dream come true. He dives right in. He feels ten times better. As he gets out, he shakes his dripping body to dry. That’s when it happens. He feels an unbearable itch all over his body. He looks to see he’s covered in mosquitoes. Synca stares in horror as the lake becomes shrouded by thousands of the blood suckers. The unusually high humidity has caused mosquito numbers to skyrocket and the already swampy environment is not helping.

Synca takes off and runs as far from the lake of horror as he can. He’s got to find a way to get rid of the insects. He tries scratching himself against a tree. No good. They hold fast. He rolls all over the ground. Still nothing. Then, it hits him. He remembers a hot spring not far from here. He sets off for the spring.

When he finds it, the spring becomes the greatest thing in his life. He rushes into the steaming water. The boiling temperature has no affect on him. He doesn’t care how hot it is. But it does affect the bugs. The mosquitoes die instantly and he finally cleanses his body of them. Even though he is now clean, he stays in the spring for nearly an hour. When he finally emerges, he vows to steer clear of any body of water that is home to the vicious swarms of mosquitoes.

Now that he’s clean, he must find food. Synca begins to search for something that’ll satisfy him. The forest is unusually quiet today, except for the buzzing of the blood suckers. There’s barely anything moving. Finally, he finds the carcass of a young hadrosaur. Synca approaches it and does a quick look around. He’s alone. As he bends to eat, he senses something’s wrong. He sniffs the carcass. This hadrosaur did not die naturally. The smell of disease is quite obvious. Then, Synca sees it. He looks in the stomach cavity and finds thousands of mosquitoes. That’s when he realizes it. Malaria.

The high number of mosquitoes and humid air has made malaria a big problem. Hundreds of dinosaurs are dropping dead from it. Synca backs away from the carcass. He has to go back to his family. His parents will know what to do. He heads back in full sprint. When he enters the clearing they’re sleeping in, he stops dead in his tracks. They won’t be waking up. His entire family lies before him, their bodies articulated in their death throes and covered in mosquitoes. The site is too much to bear. It can’t be real. Synca looks away, then looks back, expecting to see his family playing and alive. But they aren’t playing and alive. They are gone. The plague has claimed five more victims. Synca looks from Fog, to Linea and Pratum. Then, his gaze falls upon his parents. His parents. The one’s that taught him everything he knows. The one’s that protected him. The one’s he thought were invincible. Gone. As a tear leaves Synca’s eye, he runs. He does not stop running. He must leave his home. He heads north, away from the plague. Away from Texas.

Miles away, Scarface watches as his parents riggle in agony as they become covered in mosquitoes. He almost grins as he watches them suffer. Diablo, the killer of killers, looks to his son for help. Scarface does not budge. Then, he and Ripper succomb to the disease and go limp. Scarface turns and walks away. He feels no remorse. He just walks. Like Synca, he too heads north. As both dinosaurs move on, it becomes inedible that their paths will cross again.