Lockdown

In the deep of winter Toraki decided it was time to show her daughter her place of birth, despite knowing well how dangerous and strange the underground ruins were. Avati was always eager to listen to her stories, but she was ever so the little sceptic in the family. While her other children took their own paths as they grew independant, the youngest of the clutch stayed at her heels, curious to listen and learn. Now Avati was old enough that Toraki wanted to offer her the proof she seeked so much.

Avati, the green coated acro, her white piebald pattern inherited from her non-feathered mother, was of course on board with it. She has seen human buildings and the tall shelters they left behind- they lived near a ruined town after all- but it was hard for her to imagine the same rectangular architecture deep down under the earth. Avati couldn’t wait to see the place of so many stories and compare it to her expectations.

She followed her taller mother to the step as she led her along broken roads, iced structures and towards the place she spent most of her life in with a sort of calmness that contrasted her daughter’s eagerness. They only stopped their stride once they reached the wide open gate of the vehicle bay. The same gate that Toraki, many, many years ago, stepped out of and witnessed the sun for the first time in her life. Now they stood at the gaping entrance with the cold wind snuggling up to their legs and brushing along their skin, ushering them inside.

Even before they set foot on the metal floors of the human cave’s entrance, Avati sniffed the air, wrinkling her nose at the stale scent of metal, old plastic, and something faintly chemical. “This? This is where you lived?” she coughed and shook her head briefly. Her repulsion to the odd smells and dark, cold interior didn’t stop her curiosity fully, and she stretched her head into the vast hall with her feet firmly planted on the outside snow.

Toraki, unperturbed by her reaction, walked ahead deeper into the facility’s vehicle bay as if pulled by an unseen force. She inhaled slowly, taking in the nostalgic air of oily broken machinery and the soundscape of distant electronics beeping and whirring faintly.

“You don’t live in a place like this,” she finally replied, her voice carrying not even a sliver of regret. “You survive.”

Avati shuddered at the thought and hurried after her parent, glancing at the tall doors along the hallway and ancient lopsided vehicles parked in their spots. Even with the ceiling tall enough for such big creatures as them to stand tall, stepping into the ancient caves made her feel claustrophobic.

The wind outside picked up its pace and dragged snowflakes into the vast entry hall. Avati admitted, having a cave large enough to accomodate two acros without issue and shelter them from the cold weather was quite nice. There weren’t many places in the city that could fit them comfortably except one or the other mall or warehouse.

She knew from the tales her mother told her that there were still dinosaurs roaming the human caves, some even seeming to prefer it to the outside. She couldn’t imagine why. With her mind trying to put the pieces together, knowing from the stories told that these halls weren’t known for peaceful living, she questioned how her mother remained so calm and collected.

“Did you have to fight a lot?” she asked. She had to, right?

The mother’s gaze lingered on the hallway reaching lower down. “Not often. I was strong, but I wasn’t the strongest. I avoided fights when I could.”

Avati studied her mother’s face with a tinge of doubt. Her mother was the largest and strongest dino she knew, how could there be anything that beat her?

“You weren’t the strongest?”

The mother shared a smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “I wasn’t and I still am not. Down here strength alone isn’t enough. You had to be smart. Cautious. Patient.” Her tail flicked idly behind her. “There are dangers in these tunnels that you’ll never encounter in places the sun reached. We won’t go too far.”

Avati shifted uneasily on her legs, but followed her mother’s calm pace. “How did you escape?”

With a light chuckle Toraki slowed to look at her. “It isn’t quite right to say I escaped. I didn’t know I was trapped. As I grew I just kept moving up the steps and tunnels. I don’t know what pulled me there. The upper levels were a little nicer, and eventually I found a way outside. Right here.”

Avati halted in her step and looked back at the open gate they came through.

When she noticed her daughter stopped, she did as well. “I had no reason to stay.”

They stood in silence for a moment, the hum of ancient machinery the only sound. Finally, the daughter shook her head. She meant to say something about this place being scary or wrong, but that didn’t feel right or fair to her mother.

Toraki smiled faintly while Avati hesitated, her eyes lingering on the open gate. “If you don’t want to venture deeper than this, we don’t have to.” She turned back toward the way they came to join her daughter’s side and nudged Avati’s fluffy coat. “If this place makes you anxious, we can leave.”

Her daughter hesitated, glancing once more at the dark corridors stretching further into the unknown. Then, with a deep breath, she turned back toward the exit, accepting she might not be ready to see the place with her own eyes. She was almost disappointed with herself, but there will be another chance.

And, then there was a loud grinding of metal on metal startling her. The gate groaned into movement. The old mechanisms scraping in their path as the gate lowered and settled in the cavity at the bottom. Resounding clicking finished the lockdown protocol as the locks decisively snapped into place.

The subtle wind and snow that had danced between their ankles just minutes earlier has turned into a storm that howled outside, a raging force now battering the exposed walls of the ancient facility. Snow and wind pushed against the reinforced metal, frost and hail drumming a hectic beat on the thick metal. Inside, the two acrocanthosaurs are left standing at the now closed gate in the eerie hum of the abandoned labs.

The flickering lights above the now closed main gate illuminated the faded logos and rusted control panels in urgent red light. Panels describing failing power sources buzzed overhead and a few alarms, their sirens silenced by corrosion, blinked in frantic symbols on abandoned technology. It appears a dormant program has been triggered as the growing storm rattled the facility's walls.

Seems the labs decided for them to stay inside its bowels. Shutting the storm outside, and them inside.

Avati froze, her eyes darting from the sealed gate to the flickering lights above. The hum of the machinery around them appeared louder as the storm’s rage was sealed outside. Now, standing in the depths of the facility with no way out, a creeping sense of unease wrapped around her as she felt truly trapped for the first time in her life.

She instinctively took a step back, her gaze fixed on the thick metal gate that now barred their exit. "Did you know... this would happen?" She asked, her voice wavering in a light panic. The old panels around her blinked in erratic patterns, but none of them were sensical to her. Even if they carried answers, she couldn’t read the foreign symbols.

Toraki, however, didn’t flinch. She glanced at her daughter, her eyes ever so calm and wise, and gave her a nibble as if to say that everything will be fine.

“I didn’t,” Toraki admitted slowly. “But there are things you can’t control down here, Avati. When I lived in this place, many things moved on their own or hissed and groaned. The place has a mind of its own.”

Avati swallowed, trying to push down the knot in her throat. “We’re… trapped.”

Toraki’s eyes softened, a flicker of sadness creeping into her usually stoic expression. She shook her head slowly, her large frame casting a shadow that swallowed the red light above.

“So… What do we do now?” Avati asked, voice trembling a little. She didn’t want to show her mother that she was scared, but the cold dread creeping up her spine was hard to hide. The metal walls gave her no comfort.

Toraki turned to face her, her large eyes locking onto her daughter’s. “We wait. And, while we wait, we learn. And if you don’t want to go deeper, we can wait right here.”

Avati looked around again, her gaze darting from the rusted control panels to the ancient vehicles that still lined the bay. The overwhelming scale of it all made her feel small, despite her own sheer size. It was as if the place was alive, but not in a comforting way. More like they were at the mouth of a beast that lies dormant, waiting for something to stir it deeper within. 

“I’m not sure I want to see more,” she muttered under her breath, her claws scraping nervously against the cold metal floor.

Toraki smiled softly, stepping closer to her daughter. “You’re frightened because it’s unknown and that’s okay.” She paused, considering her next words carefully. “There are secrets buried here. Some that have been forgotten by time.”

Avati glanced up at her mother. “What kind of secrets?”

A slow, knowing smile tugged at the mother’s lips as she settled down onto the cold floor, curling her tail around herself. “Sit,” she said. “I’ll tell you.”

The daughter hesitated before reluctantly lowering herself beside her mother, the floor uncomfortably smooth beneath her mass.

The Torakir’s gaze drifted upward toward the faded ceiling. “This place has been my home for the longest of my life,” she began. “Unlike you and your siblings, I didn’t hatch out in the open, beneath the sun or green branches of trees, but at the lowest level of this cave. My first memories weren’t of wind through the trees or water rushing over stone but of walls and high vessels of blue. Smooth and cold, with creatures inside frozen in time.”

Avati couldn’t help but shudder at the thought. She glanced toward the high walls around them and, even if her mother spoke in a calm and almost nostalgic tone, she felt uncomfortable. “That sounds… miserable.”

The mother chuckled. “It was all I knew. This was nature to me. When I first stepped outside into the green and saw the sun for the first time, to me the air smelled odd, the ground was so soft and it was so bright. I tried my best to see how far the ceiling goes just to notice there was none. To me the wilderness outside was this weird and strange world.”

The daughter tilted her head, watching her mother closely.

The mother was quiet for a moment, then shook her head. “There were moments, before I understood what I was missing, when I thought this was all there was.”

The nature of her words left Avati in awe. There was something else in her mother’s voice. A passion, perhaps, or a quiet desperation. Toraki had spent so much time in these corridors. She had lived in them, fought in them, learned them like the back of her claw. And now, she was offering the same knowledge to her daughter if she wanted to take it.

Toraki continued, her gaze sweeping the room with the same steady confidence she always carried. “This place has stories, Avati. Stories of those who came before us. Stories of those who tried to harness power that wasn’t meant to be controlled. Some say the old world here was full of wonders and others say it was a disaster waiting to happen. But the truth... the truth is lost to time.”

Avati’s heart raced as she listened.The young acro took a deep breath, her mind swirling with conflicting emotions. She wanted to turn back. She wanted to return to the open sky and the comfort of wide fields and the horizon ahead. But her mother’s words, calm and knowing, cut through the fear. She wanted to know more. Even as the walls seemed to close in, her mother was a beacon of wisdom, and her curiosity was too hungry to remain silent.

Time passed as Avati asked her questions, inquiring about the dangers of this place, the perils and challenges her mother winessed and beat. She wanted to know why this place felt so wrong to her but seemed like an old home to her mother even if it made sense in her mind, it didn’t satisfy her.

And, each question was answered in honesty by Toraki. Her answers were always informative, but it fell a little short, some detail missing, just enough for her daughter to voice her question about the pieces missing.

[...]

The wind outside let out a powerful gust, shaking the structure around them. Then, suddenly, with a crackling hiss, the red emergency light above the gate flickered off. A deep groan echoed through the room as old machinery sputtered back to life and old metal bit into neighboring gears to generate movement.

The daughter snapped her head toward the entrance. “It’s moving!”

The mother rose, stepping toward the heavy metal door just as it let out a loud clank and began to creak upward. Cold air rushed in as the blizzard outside began to clear, lingering as the subtle push of subdued wind swirled small snowflakes in circles.

Toraki turned to Avati, nodding toward the exit. “Let us go. You belong out there, in the wilderness. And so do I.”

Without another word, they stepped into the cold, leaving the past relics behind as they walked toward the freedom of snow dappled landscapes.

(2350 words according to google docs)