Traumatized since the age of seven...

This is a true story

They’ve taken our offspring! Deep in the recesses of our ancestral lineage contained within us, we knew of this possibility, but that could never have prepared us for the sound our offspring would make while distressed. That was nothing compared to the sound of our distress. Every food source, neighbor, and adversary in our domain stayed clear of us. They knew the fate that would befall them if they stood in our way.

            The two of us abandoned our catch from the night’s hunt. So proud had I been to have taken down a food source so large, but now the remnants of its flesh stuck between my teeth were toxic in my mouth. We raced to our child, knocking down trees in our path

            My mate and I had been satisfied with the size of our domain, but now were finding ourselves in uncharted territories. Unfamiliar paths. Cliffs and brooks and valleys. How could our offspring have ended up in such a place? Beyond that, the strange noises. Horrific flying things that resembled no native neighbors of our domain. Blocky things that traversed our lands with reckless abandon, kicking up dust and making the smells we relied on distorted.

            Our offspring was inside some…thing neither of us had seen before. Serpentine and bulky. Inside were the dastardly entities that took our offspring from us. The offspring cried out. With my mate, we encircled the large, serpentine entity. The sight of it was unnatural and unnerving. It was a shape at odds with the rest of the environment. One of the minuscule invasive bipedal creatures inhabiting these serpents created an opening, and it carried our offspring, slowly coming out and delivering it to us. Its poor leg was injured.

            Neither my mate nor I had seen these invasive entities before, but their smell was off, and nothing but problems had arisen since their arrival. They’d forced us to expand our domain. Once we placed our offspring in a safe patch of grass away from these bipedal things, we knew it was time to establish to these invaders what encroaching upon our territory would mean for them.

            Our massive heads made swift work of those puny beings and sent their serpentine shell, mover, whatever it's called, dangling over the cliff with the treacherous poison waters below. Those bipeds should have heeded the warning to never bother us again.

            With the statement made, our business was done, and it was high time to return to the depths of the forest. An awful noise brought our attention back to where we'd just been. Our statement wasn't enough, and another biped in a much smaller shell was trying to assist its pack, who were dangling over the cliff.

            Despite being surrounded by my mate and I, the biped made no attempts at escape and tried to pull its pack back up with a vine attached from its shell to the dangling shell. We made swift work removing the small shell. Once the shell was opened, I pulled the puny biped out by its kicking legs. I used my giant mouth to flip it while it was in the air. My mate grabbed one end of its small body and I the other. We pulled in opposite directions, and its body ripped in half. I swallowed half while my mate swallowed the other. It was barely sustenance. We weren't hungry, and I didn't even register a flavor despite the curiosity of eating one of those new bipeds for the first time. It was to send a message to the rest of them to leave this place.

Looking back on it, 1997 would likely go down as the best year of little David’s life. David was a boy of seven with a little blonde bowl haircut who loved to play outside and get in trouble. The only thing that could interrupt little Dave's enjoyment of playing in abandoned boxes and trash with his friends was going to the movies. It was the year of the Star Wars Special Editions being brought to theaters, with digitally remastered shots, new scenes featuring a CGI Jabba the Hutt, and an entirely new musical number in Jabba's Palace. It was the year of Batman & Robin, featuring the most incredible toy tie-ins David had ever seen. It was the year of George of the Jungle, of Men in Black, Good Burger, and Anaconda— all classics, but not the summer movie that had captured David's imagination. No, that title belonged to another…

            David was shooting aliens from his bike-jet fighter the way Will Smith would have done when his father said, “Get in the car.”

            This had to be big; David never went anywhere with just his dad. He knew what it must have meant but was too nervous to say it aloud.

            They pulled into the movie theater parking lot in his father's musky, heat-trapping beast of a Chevy pickup truck. The marquee read The Lost World: Jurassic Park. David couldn’t believe it was actually happening — a sequel to the best movie ever made.

            One of David’s earliest memories was as a three-year-old. The entire neighborhood had gathered to see the movie everyone was discussing—Jurassic Park. David knew it featured dinosaurs, but beyond that knew nothing of the plot. It didn't matter; every book, toy, bedsheet, and window curtain in Little D's room featured dinosaurs. He could name most of them. The plot was insignificant to him; all he knew was that he'd soon see dinosaurs on a big screen. He also had this sense, one he couldn't put into words, that he'd be seeing real cinema rather than something catering and pandering to little children.

            The neighborhood took up a whole row of seats to themselves. David's mother asked, "Do you want to sit on my lap?" The three-year-old responded with a resounding Shhhhh.

            The movie started, John William’s eerie music kicked in, and David was absorbed into a world of pure cinema. During the first appearance of the dinosaurs, David’s mother asked if he was afraid, to which he shushed her once more. Afraid? He was mesmerized. What he was seeing on screen was no mere movie trickery—it was real.

            He laughed with delight as the T-Rex ate the lawyer off the toilet and even more so when Samuel L. Jackson’s character said, "Hold onto your butts." Of course, he was shocked when Muldoon, the amazingly badass hunter, was eaten by the Velociraptor, but the Velociraptor was so unbelievably cool it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would.

            Already having knowledge of what the T-Rex was before the movie, he walked out of the screening with a newfound love for the Velociraptor and Dilophosaurus.

            When the movie was released on VHS, he watched it every single day after school, nearly wearing out the tape. As he got older, his love for the dinosaurs never disappeared, but his love for the characters grew. He found everything that came out of the mouths of Doctor Ian Malcom, Muldoon, and Doctor Arnold immensely memorable. He decided that he wanted to grow up to make a dinosaur theme park.

            Four years later, he was seven, and his father was pulling the truck into the parking lot. The line of people wrapping around the theater was unlike anything David had ever seen. It must've wrapped twice around the building— all people excited to see the continuation of Jurassic Park. Looking at this line, David's dad said, "Absolutely not." He drove them back home. David bawled his little eyes out. He couldn’t even look at his friends, those he’d left, convinced he was about to see the best movie ever made. The sight of dinner made him sick, and he went to bed more upset than he'd ever been.

            A week passed since his little heart had been broken. Life was a constant deluge of tears for the new dinosaurs he’d never see.

            He was in Mrs. Rammel’s class at school when an attendant entered and told him to come to the office. He could've sworn he'd done nothing to get himself in trouble this time, but he was always getting in trouble.

            His father was there to pick him up. Why was Dad taking him out of school? Dad, who worked all the way in LA, usually got home around 5 pm, but here he was after lunch. David got in the car without saying a word to him.

            When the truck pulled into the movie theater parking lot, sans the enormous line waiting outside, David’s little heart almost burst from his chest. It was actually happening. His dad didn't buy him popcorn, and he didn't even care; he was finally seeing the most awaited movie of his little life.

            The film started, and he could barely breathe. After about twenty minutes into the film, he realized he wasn't going to see Doctor Alan Grant, and something seemed different about Doctor Ian Malcolm. He had a harder edge about him. It didn't matter; soon, dinosaurs were on screen. There were more dinosaurs in the first forty minutes than in the entirety of the first film.

            When the sun went down, and the baby T-Rex was brought by Nick van Owen into the trailer, David knew shit was about to get real.

The two T-Rexes thrash the living hell out of the double trailer with the heroes inside, sending half of the trailer hanging over the steep cliff above the sea. The other half is on the verge of being pulled towards the cliff due to gravity, sending everyone to their doom. Whereas the first movie didn’t scare David so much as it inspired awe in him at seeing dinosaurs made real, this was the tensest shit he’d ever seen.

            Eddie shows up in his jeep. All the cool equipment in the movie is his. David notes that he's also the only character in the film who does not make silly decisions. Even to a seven-year-old, bringing a baby T-Rex into their trailer was a disastrous idea. He shows up to help them out of their terrible predicament. Eddie throws down a rope for the dangling heroes to grab onto while simultaneously attaching a towline from his jeep to the trailer and around a tree for extra leverage to pull it up.

            Eddie puts all his might into stepping on the gas, reversing to pull up his friends who got themselves into the ridiculous situation. He’s putting the work in when those dreaded, iconic footsteps can be heard. The T-Rexes are back, taking position on either side of Eddie Carr’s car.

            While taking bites out of his car trying to get to him, he never stops putting his foot on the gas, determined to help his friends rather than save himself. He goes for his gun that was set up earlier in the movie. It's no ordinary gun that fires bullets; rather, it shoots out a large, toxic dart. The weapon is stuck in some type of mesh. All the while, he never takes his foot off the gas, determined to save his friends at the cost of his own safety.

            The T-Rexes tear away enough of the car that one of them gets access to Eddie’s kicking legs. He lifts Eddie into the air by his legs. The poor, innocent man who did nothing wrong and only helped others throughout the whole movie is lifted into the air, screaming. The T-Rex flips Edde in the air so that the other T-Rex can grab Eddie by his legs, while the first T-Rex uses its massive mouth to grab onto the upper half of Eddie's body. The T-Rexes pull in opposite directions, ripping Eddie's body in half, each swallowing a piece of him.

Eddie was gone. Not only was he gone, but it was the most brutal, meanspirited, unnecessarily cruel death David had ever seen in a movie. For the remaining hour or so of the film, David could not get over Eddie's unbelievably brutal murder at the hands of the T-Rexes. No longer were they the cool, giant monsters he envisioned himself as growing up to be, but murderous villains. David didn't get it. Sure, in movies, it wasn't always bad guys who came to unfortunate ends. He remembered watching Terminator 2 as a kid and being greatly upset at Miles Dyson's death, especially because the movie had established what a loving father he was. However, there was something different about Eddie. When the lawyer was eaten in the first movie, he was sitting on the toilet. The movie also showed him abandoning children to save his own ass, so when he died, it was more of a comeuppance, and nobody was particularly shedding any tears for the bloodsucking lawyer. Even Muldoon, the coolest character from the first movie, went out like a badass, so while still sad, more than being upset at his demise, people remembered his final line, "clever girl," as a clear acknowledgment and sign of respect that the Velociraptor had gotten the better of him.

            Eddie—he was just a guy. He wasn’t a villain. He didn’t do anything wrong. He was just trying to help his friends. The death he got was so awful…ripped in half and swallowed and forgotten about by the rest of the movie. How painful his demise must have been. How scared he must have been. David would go to bed at night thinking about Eddie Carr’s demise in that movie well into his thirties.

Something happened to me. I felt…remorse. What was this feeling? I've eaten countless living things; it's how I survive. They didn't have names or feelings. The suggestions of them having families didn't matter. Why was I suddenly thinking of this bipedal I shared with my mate? Why did I know he was something called a human, and his name was Eddie? David, who is David? What is David? Why David? His thoughts…I could see them…how terrible! My mind…was it not my own?

            Worst of all, this realization came at a far worse price…the awareness of my own mortality. This was not something I or any dinosaur had ever pondered, despite young David’s beliefs that Velociraptors may have been sentient enough to grasp such a concept. Before that, meals were just meals. The fact of their being alive meant nothing to me. Every single thing I’ve eaten had a family, fears, and a mind of its own. Did Eddie have a family? The movie never said. What’s a movie? I dared not share these thoughts with my mate, not wanting her to experience the same existential dread I was.

            The awareness that every time I feasted, I was snatching a life out of existence did not take away my hunger. However, being nothing more than a product in a movie (sometimes CGI, sometimes animatronic) meant the lives I took weren't real lives but actors. I ate with reckless abandon.

Towards the end of the movie, I was in San Diego (it was actually filmed in Burbank), and I ate a dog right in front of a little boy and his family. This upset the majority of the audience far more than Eddie's death. Still not satiated, while people were running away from me in the streets, I ate some dork just trying to survive by running into a blockbuster. This guy had no concept that dinosaurs had even been brought back to life.

            After the carnage was over, I was reunited with my mate and child, and the movie concluded.

With Eddie’s death, a cosmic event occurred — the two (David and the T-Rex) became sentient and aware of their own mortality. While separated by living in different realms of reality, the thread connecting their minds together passed through this gulf and lasted for decades. No matter what they did to occupy their lives, the nagging thought of Eddie’s horrible demise would always come to the two of them before sleep, making it impossible for them to have a peaceful night. Is this just the way things were meant to be? Would this nagging thought haunt them until it killed them?

            What particularly bothered the two of them was what Spielberg's intent was. Was he trying to show that, good or bad, a dinosaur doesn't care who it eats? This bothered the T-Rex, as it meant consuming meals would always be a question of morality. Was he suggesting the death was heroic, as Eddie died saving his friends? Did he not give a shit at all because he was directing a sequel to the biggest movie of all time and simply thought it'd look cool? Did an assistant or intern come up to him and say, "Hey, since we have two T-Rexes now, wouldn't it be cool if they ripped a guy in half?" and since Vince Vaughn was a rising star, it certainly wasn't going to be him?

            As the years passed, the T-Rex realized David wouldn't discover these answers. He went on to lead a life of mediocrity and poverty. The T-Rex, on the other hand, came to a stunning revelation. His life continued long after the credits of the movie rolled. Despite The Lost World being his last appearance in the franchise, life on Isla Sorna went on.

            Initially hesitant to share his revelations about life and existence, the T-Rex decided the only way to get answers was through group effort. He became a teacher on the island, first to his family, then to other predators like Velociraptors, and eventually even included the herbivores.

            As best he could, he conveyed all the information about science and mathematics he acquired from probing David's mind. David, having rudimentary knowledge at best, wasn't the best source. However, the T-Rex was able to work with what he had.

            These scientific breakthroughs led to the T-Rex's extended lifespan. They figured out the optimal diet to remain healthy and live long. Isla Sorna, having been designated a nature preserve, was left undisturbed by humans.

            When the T-Rex realized he'd reached the limitation of his breakthroughs in his lifetime, he spent his remaining years developing hibernation tech so he could wake up in the future when the advancements he sought would finally have caught up. He could not abide by the idea of someone else taking his place after all the work he'd put in.

            He entered his hibernation pod with his wife in the pod beside him. He couldn't imagine going into a future without her. Their offspring would stay behind and rule over the island. He'd grown into a fine young man, but his place was on the island. He'd seen the human world and didn't have any desire to see it again.

            When they were taken out of hibernation in the future, the island seemed unchanged. Unlike humans, the dinosaurs were able to make advances in tech without completely destroying or transforming the natural world around them. The science to transcend dimensions was ready. The T-Rex would go to David’s world, find Steven Spielberg, and find out what his thought process was for killing Eddie the way he did. Not one to be left behind, his wife insisted on joining the expedition.

            Due to the dimensions running along different timelines, while it was closer to the year 2199 in the dinosaur world, it was only 2024 in David’s world.

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The T-Rexes tracked down Spielberg's house in the Pacific Palisades. After the initial shock of being face to face with two T-Rexes, the movie director relaxed a bit once they were able to convey their thoughts to him in English. They explained where they came from and how they came to be with him now. After this, the T-Rex asked the pressing question: “What was your intent in killing Eddie the way you did? What feeling or message were you trying to elicit from or convey to the audience?”

            “I can’t remember if I watched The Lost World all the way through. Which one was Eddie again?” the filmmaker responded.

The trip here was a one-way ticket. They'd never be able to return to Isla Sorna in their own dimension again. His life's work ended in this. Scientific discoveries and finding answers to life's big questions no longer held any meaning.

            The two of them tracked down David driving his shitty little car. One to his left and the other to his right. They took apart the car piece by piece until grabbing hold of David's legs proved no challenge at all. The T-Rex flipped him in the air so his wife could grab hold. Once each of them had leverage on David, they pulled apart, splitting him in half.