I am currently 18 years old, finishing up my senior year of high school. Throughout grade school, many friends came and went, but only 4 are important for this story. I won’t use their real names.
There was Johnny, a 19 year old who had yet to start college, said something about “Getting his shit together” before he went away, whatever that meant. He was never one to have his life all squared away nicely, if you get what I mean. Still a very nice guy though, would probably jump in front of a bullet for any one of us.
Julia, also 19 but already in college. She was visiting home for the summer. She was a bright, happy soul, and her smile made the rest of us smile, especially Johnny. I suspected he had a slight crush on her. I wish he got the chance to tell her how he really felt. They would’ve made a good couple, and she could definitely help him with his troubles at home.
Her brother, Edmond or “Ed” was 16, the youngest of us all. He was also slightly autistic, but that's not too important. All it meant was he would talk under his breath sometimes and you’d occasionally have to repeat yourself to get his attention. He loved the outdoors but was a bit of a neatfreak, always bringing hand sanitizer and bear spray with him whenever we went romping about in the woods, despite the fact no bears have been seen in our town for over 5 years.
Lastly, there's Teddy, a high wired, nerdy 17 year old with orange, curly hair like Ms. Frizzle from the Magic School Bus. He’s tall and lanky, and back when creepypastas were a big thing on the internet we convinced him to dress as Slenderman for halloween. Gotta admit, it was a pretty scary costume. He actually pranked us with it a couple times while all those fake “Slenderman sighting” videos and short films were floating around the web and had everyone convinced the thing was actually real. I remember vividly how he snuck into my house one morning with the costume and stood at the foot of my bed until I woke up. I think I screamed so loud the neighbors down the street heard it.
But Teddy’s favorite interest was Biology, specifically Paleontology. He would always try to tell us about the coolest new prehistoric species or dinosaur that had been discovered recently. The others humored it, especially Ed who seemed greatly interested in the subject as well. I never shared their enthusiasm though. I don’t know, maybe it’s just a me thing but I didn’t really wanna hear about the brand new “Superceratops” or “Ceratospinus”
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It was impossible.
It made no sense at all.
And yet it was standing right in front of us.
A living, breathing Deinonychus, an actual mother-fucking DINOSAUR!
Edmond actually fainted, and Johnny and Julia looked not far behind.
“W-What?” uttered Johnny. “T-There’s no way, T-T-That’s impossible!! It’s gotta be an overgrown peacock or some shit!”
“I have no idea how,” replied Teddy. “but there’s no mistaking that body shape, or those claws.” I could tell his shock was wearing off, quickly being replaced by nerdy excitement. “I mean, thats the one defining trait of the Dromaeosauridae-”
“Teddy, cut the bull!” suddenly interrupted Julia. “That’s not a dinosaur, it's a big bird! Since when do dinosaurs have feathers?! Haven’t you watched ANY movies? They’re just big lizards! Stop trying to freak us out and tell us what this actually is!”
She was fuming, looking almost ready to chew Teddy’s head right off. I was honestly more scared of her in that moment than the creature cautiously eyeing us mere feet away.
Teddy wasn’t intimidated, which is funny in retrospect as he’s probably the most cowardly of us all.
“That’s because your childhood lied to you.” he said matter of factly. Then without another word, he whipped out his phone and typed something faster than I could imagine possible. Within practically the blink of an eye, he was showing both of us an image.
“This is what a raptor actually looks like, not those scaly movie monsters from Jurassic Park.”
The image showed a large, feathered animal with a scaly muzzle. It was practically identical to the creature in front of us, except the colors were different. He scrolled down, showing more and more pictures. They all lined up, and they all had the name Deinonychus under them.
Julia knew she was defeated, but she still couldn’t believe it. I could hardly believe it myself, and I wouldn’t call myself a massive skeptic, unlike Julia.
“But how-why-It doesn’t make sense!”
“Tell us something we don’t know.” I said with a sarcastic tone.
Apparently she took offense to that. She looked over at me angrily, and was about to say something else when a low chirp made us turn.
Guess we had somehow forgotten about the dinosaur a coin-toss away.
The animal had begun approaching us, its head tilting almost like a dogs. It kept its curious yet cautious attitude as it took one delicate step towar
... keep reading on reddit ➡Hi! What is the actual goal of the Wildlife sanctuary? Are we supposed to get through each level or get a full tiger? Thank you in advance 😃
I’ve been thinking about this for years and I can’t seem to find this one reality esque tv show about a wildlife sanctuary I watched. I have this one super specific memory of it and it was a hurricane and they were all trying to fix things, there was a wooden deck/stairs and they had a baby black jaguar or a black panther. It was either on Animal Planet or National Geographic (probably AP, since that’s all I watched), and it was sometime in the early 2000s. I was watching it in Europe if that helps. Any ideas?
TK2 offered a closer look into Tim Stark and the organization of Wildlife in Need. I found it was sometimes called an "animal sanctuary" and had volunteers (some of them eventually reported Tim) like Big Cat Rescue or Easy Street. How do non-profit animal sanctuaries like those work? Are owners of them, such as Carole and Tim, not supposed to profit from these organizations? Compared to them, Joe's zoo was completely a private zoo aimed to turn a profit, wasn't it?
Remember trying to make my own site B inspired sandbox in the first one but didn't turn out too well because of certain dinosaur behaviours and limitations. Wanted to know if it's more possible in this game or if anyone has attempted to do it.
