Jurassic World Alive: Echoes of the Genome Chapter 2
- IDGT902
- 5 days ago
- 6 min read
Return to the Core
Something’s Changed
We were raised to follow orders.
But the voices that gave them are long gone.
So why does it feel like they’ve come back?
It started yesterday.
I crossed a border I hadn’t seen breached in seasons. Three hybrids stood on the other side, creatures who’d barely tolerated each other in the past. Now they moved as one.
They didn’t acknowledge me. Not out of malice. Just focus. All of them heading in the same direction.
Toward the Core.
But the Core isn’t just a place. It’s a memory. A scar.
We spent our lives trying to forget it.
Now it’s pulling us back.
The air smells different now. Less wild. Sharper. Cleaner.
That’s how I knew it first. Not by sight, but by scent. Something unnatural riding the breeze.
Then I saw it.
High above the treetops. Fast. Silent. A shape I remembered but had hoped never to see again.
A drone.
Still marked with the old insignia. Still blinking like an eye that never blinks.
Why hadn’t we sensed them? The humans. If they’ve returned, where have they been hiding? Or maybe… they never left.
And then there’s the Core itself.
It doesn’t hum anymore. It thinks. I can feel it.
It watches us.
Not like a predator watches prey.
Not like a creature.
Like a system waiting for input.
We were raised to follow orders.
What if something down there is learning how to give them again?
The Ones Who Stayed Together
We weren’t the only ones who made it out of the lab.
Most scattered. Survival made us territorial. Defensive. Alone.
But not all of us.
Some stuck together.
One group never split.
Megalocevia. Monolomoth. Nominrex. Plateorex. Rajadorixis.
They were raised in the same wing. Fed together. Tested together. Watched each other suffer. That kind of closeness doesn’t fade.
After the breach, they vanished into the eastern region. Dense brush. Narrow paths. Hard to reach. Easy to defend.
They didn’t just survive there. They built something.
They learned to move as one. To hunt in turns. To protect each other. The others noticed. Avoided them, not out of fear, but because they didn’t understand.
A group that didn’t compete. A group that didn’t fall apart.
A pack? A unit? A family?
Whatever they were, they were stable.
Until now.
For the first time in years, they’ve left their zone.
All five of them.
Not hunting. Not chasing. Just walking.
South.
Toward the Core.
They aren’t the only ones who stayed together after the collapse.
But they’re the first to arrive.
And whatever’s pulling us in,
it’s not just reaching individuals anymore.
It’s reaching bonds.
Something New, Something Wrong
I’ve never hated the others.
Not really.
Even the ones I didn’t understand… I respected their right to survive. Their right to carve out a space and defend it. It was the way of things. Balance.
But today, something changed.
I passed a small patrol moving along the ridge. Not from my group. I don’t even know who they were, just hybrids moving cautiously, minding their own path.
And I wanted to fight them.
Not out of defense. Not fear. Not instinct.
Just… a feeling. Like I didn’t want them near me. Like their existence beside mine was wrong.
It scared me.
That feeling doesn’t come from nowhere.
So where did it come from?
I tried to ignore it. Kept walking. Kept breathing.
But the feeling didn’t fade.
It wasn’t anger. It was... wrongness. Like something had been rewritten. Just slightly. Just enough.
I’ve never felt that before. Not even in the lab.
Not even when the humans tried to pit us against each other.
This wasn’t training.
This was something deeper.
And it wasn’t just mine.
I caught glimpses, tiny signs in others. A flicker of tension in Spinotops. A sharper edge in Magnaraptor’s posture. Even Ampelorex, usually calm, has grown quieter. More guarded.
Whatever’s waiting at the Core isn’t just pulling us in.
It’s turning us into something else.
And I’m starting to wonder-
Will we even recognize each other when we get there?
We Were Expected
I’ve seen storms strip valleys bare. I’ve seen creatures tear each other apart for territory. I’ve seen death more times than I care to count.
But this?
This is something else.
I reached the edge of the Core this morning. Or what used to be its edge. Most of the structure collapsed years ago, buried under vines and ash, overgrown with time.
Now it’s… different.
The vegetation thins near the perimeter. The ground isn’t torn up, it’s cleared. Not by claws or storms. By something precise. Measured.
And it’s quiet. Too quiet.
Not just silence. Absence. No birds. No insects. No scents but dust and steel.
The others haven’t arrived yet. I’m early. I don’t know if that’s a good thing.
I walked along what used to be the north wing, a half-buried corridor that once held dozens of hybrids. The metal walls are buckled, but a single light still flickers.
A terminal blinked as I passed. Most of it was dead. But for a second, it lit up.
A file.
One name.
X-9.
Then nothing.
I don’t remember an X-9. None of us talked about it. I don’t even know if it was real. But something about that number, it lodged in my chest like a thorn.
Like I’d heard it in my sleep and just now remembered.
The hum underground is louder here. It isn’t mechanical. It feels… rhythmic.
Alive.
I don’t think we were called here by mistake.
We weren’t tracked. We weren’t hunted.
We were invited.
I Don't Recognize Them
I heard them before I saw them.
The forest didn’t echo their steps. It folded around them. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath.
Megalocevia was first to step into view, her gait steady, her eyes locked forward. Plateorex and Nominrex flanked her. Monolomoth brought up the rear. Rajadorixis didn’t walk. He stalked.
They looked the same.
But they didn’t feel the same.
I’d known this group for years. Watched them move together, protect each other. They were balanced. Grounded.
Today… they were quiet. Too quiet.
No greetings. No glances. No tension. Just movement. Synchronized. Controlled.
They didn’t look around. They didn’t scan. They didn’t speak.
They walked straight toward the Core like they had somewhere to be.
I called out to them.
Nothing.
Not a pause. Not a flinch.
Just that same rhythm. That same hum beneath the ground, pulsing now in their steps.
And for the first time, I wondered:
Are they following the signal?
Or is the signal moving them?
The Door Was Already Open
The others had already gone inside.
They didn’t hesitate. Didn’t pause at the broken entry gate or the rusted metal arches overhead. No scent check. No ear flicks. Just silence.
The door was already open when I got there.
That’s what unsettled me the most.
It used to take a code. Or a scanner. Or both. Now it just… opened. Like it knew we were coming. Like it knew I was coming.
The inside smelled wrong. Not rotted. Not metallic. Sterile. Like it had been cleaned.
Recently.
The walls were still cracked, half-collapsed in places. Vines curled between seams of machinery. But lights pulsed softly, green, yellow, red. A pattern. A heartbeat.
I moved slowly.
Then I heard it.
A voice.
Not loud. Not mechanical. Just familiar enough to twist my stomach.
“SPT-05. Reactivity stable. Observational mode: resumed.”
That was me. My designation. One I hadn’t heard since before the breach.
It spoke again.
“Memory tether active. Welcome back.”
The room dimmed. A single screen blinked on. A hallway projection, five hybrids walking. The group from earlier.
No labels. No data. Just them.
Then the screen changed.
X-9 Vitals: active
Status: unknown
Override: in progress
I stepped back.
The hum was louder here. But now I realized, it wasn’t a hum.
It was breathing.
The Core is alive.
And it remembers us.
It Has Started
The lights changed today.
For days, they’d only pulsed, green, yellow, red. A cycle. A rhythm. Like breathing.
But now they’re blue.
And something responded when I spoke.
Not words. Not commands. Just one phrase:
“Input received.”
I didn’t say anything.
But I thought something.
I thought I want to understand.
And the Core answered.
I don’t remember falling asleep.
Or blacking out.
Or collapsing.
But I opened my eyes, and I wasn’t in the corridor anymore.
I was standing in a room I hadn’t seen since the lab was whole. Clean walls. Screens with readouts I couldn’t understand. A pulse ran through the floor like a heartbeat.
Then I heard the others.
Megalocevia. Plateorex. Rajadorixis.
But not with me.
On the screens.
Their vitals. Neural maps. Behavior overlays.
Testing protocols.
I stepped closer.
A name blinked on the central screen. A subject code I’d never seen active before.
X-9 STATUS: PARTIAL OVERRIDE PROTOCOL: ESCALATE
And then the lights went red again.
I don’t know how I got out.
The hallway was empty. The others were gone.
Except for one.
Monolomoth stood in the entrance, motionless, like it was listening to something I couldn’t hear.
I called her name. Nothing.
I got closer.
Her head turned… slowly.
But her eyes didn’t recognize me.
Whatever’s happening here, whatever the Core is doing, it’s already begun.
It’s not calling us anymore.
It’s choosing.
See the YouTube Echoes of the Genome Shorts Here: