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Rite of Spring

 Fear rises up and out into the night. The horned face emblazoned with markings like terrible, piercing eyes thrusts forward and out. Guided by instincts with the force of a living locomotive. Steam billows out of gaping nostrils. In the dim brain of the Triceratops it is gripped by awful, primeval terror. Fight. Live! Fight! Live. Fight. Live! 


Jaws crashed down. Heavy, impossibly heavy. Fatal. Moonlight catches impaling teeth, massive blunt daggers meant to pulverize bone and concuss flesh, pulling giant chunks from still living prey. The Tyrannosaurus is Death in the Cretaceous world, it is emperor and regent over all living things, it is the epitome of annihilation born in flesh. Its black hide almost glows in the night, darkness on darkness. So fast for something so huge. Blurry. A mountain astride legs, legs as thick as the cedars of biblical Behemoth. Step. Step. Step. Bite. 


Horns reach. Push. Sweep. Jaws crack, close, yawn open to a furious gullet. The titans dance, spin, graceful and brutal. Beneath them stir mammalian vermin aghast at the earth itself shivering, splitting. Tiny rodent minds flicker, flash, sputter, all as if this was a divine catastrophe. Miniscule fury bodies scurry in their burrows. Down! Down! Down! 


Hot blood splashes on scuffed ground and black rock. A triumphant horn slashes at muscular belly, and the resulting roar feels like it could shatter the Moon to glittering bone pieces. Instinctual motions the envy of yet unborn military men springs the Tyrant forward and over and kicks on taloned foot out, ten tons of weight on a single foot as momentum carries it forward. The Triceratops coughs in surprise as its legs go out from beneath it, body half turned, faltering under the speed of its own frantic turn. Something cracks. Broken. Huff. Huff. Huff. 


Terrible regent jaws loom, replacing the moonlight and stars and sky with a single, black maw ringed by infernal teeth. And then– darkness. 


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