THE EPOCH CHRONICLES | ✔

01. NIGHT-TIME EXCURSIONS

D A M O N

Bradleyston, Eden
19 AR
(Sixteen years later)

━━━━

DAMON WOKE up, and he couldn't quite pinpoint why.

In the quiet of the Jurassic-period night (compared to the seasons when the pterodactyloids migrated, flying overhead and overall making a ruckus that the First Gens compared to starlings in the early morning, whatever a starling was, this was practically a vacuum), he sat up in his cot, shrugging the thin blanket he had away.

The A/C in the corner of his room hissed quietly, dispelling some of the hot air and replacing it with slightly less hot air. A few Othnielia whistled quietly outside his window like the little pests they were ("Roosters," his dad had told him, a little wistfully. First Gens were weird).

Damon blinked back the sleep in his eyes with a yawn and a glance at his digital watch. Almost four AM. Too early to get ready for the day, but a little too late to catch a few last winks of sleep.

Damon flicked his blond fringe from his face and lay back down again with a sigh. Maybe... with willpower alone... he could try and block out the Othnielia and get back to daydreaming about Laila.

Laila Harvord. It was almost awkward to give into his fantasies, mostly because there was a 0.999 continuous percent of her ever reciprocating his feelings. His mother, Shaunia, would've called it 'puppy love', but he wasn't so sure. It felt deeper than just a mindless crush—mostly because he knew Laila like he knew his own face.

They'd been placed in the same Learning Cycle (Practical Implementation from nine to twelve, and GenesisCube from two to three) and lived within two platforms of one another. He knew she wanted to become a botanist and work on the PlantMods. She knew that he wanted to become a Pod technician.

If he closed his eyes right now, he could see her angular face and bold blue eyes that were stark against her dark hair; curving lips already lit in a teasing smirk, her nickname for him—Dumbo, because she was a kind friend like that—just about ready to whack him in the nose.

Beautiful, though she wouldn't like being called that. She'd rather be known as intelligent or world-changing.

Damon rolled over, and his cot squeaked a little. The Othnielia had surprisingly quieted, which he took as his cue to try and sleep a little more.

Damon shut his eyes and was just about to give in to the swirling black behind his eyelids when there was a muffled thump above him, which seemed deafening in comparison to the faint chirps of dinosaurs and the thrum of Bradleyston's lifeblood generators in the center of the town.

His heart pounded a little faster as he opened his eyes and rolled his head back to look at the ceiling in confused wariness. Roosting fliers weren't uncommon, but the pterodactyls had already moved on to their breeding site eleven miles over.

Damon strained his ears and tried to pick up more sounds coming from the roof, clambering to his elbows. You weren't going to go back to bed anyway, he consoled himself with a sniff, just as there was another series of distinct footsteps across his room's roof.

Yes—footsteps. That was the only possibility, 'cause fliers didn't shuffle around when they were asleep. But who the hell would be walking around on his roof at, he checked his watch again, one minute past four in the morning? Not even Luca, who was eccentric enough as the town's Head Mechanical Overseer (a job that sounded just as important as it was, he guessed), was that nuts.