It is dark as night at around 6:00am in the morning. A sixteen year old girl named Serria, who does not fit in with other girls in anything, finds her calling with a group of boys who fight demons for a living.  Serria does not like the dark. Whenever she is in the dark, Serria thinks of all the things that could go wrong. Especially the BAD things.  Just now, Serria only thinks about dinosaurs… to be specific, a carnivorous dinosaur called a valdoraptor. 
	She smells the eggs and sausages cooking from the kitchen to her bedroom, and her mouth starts to water. Serria gets out of bed and goes to see if her little brother Bryan is up and cooking the food she smells in the kitchen, which he is not. Serria goes and lets her cat baby outside, but is too tired to notice that there are valdoraptors everywhere outside her house. She leaves the door open so that the cat can come back inside. Serria goes back into the kitchen to flip the eggs and sausage so they will not burn. Meanwhile, a valdoraptor pushes the door the rest of the way open. Serria hears the click-clack of its nails on the linoleum. She turns around when she hears the click-clacking, sees the valdoraptor, and grabs two steak knives. Meanwhile, her father, Darin, is coming back into the kitchen to finish cooking his eggs and sausage.
	
      The valdoraptor rushes at Serria’s father. Then Serria attacks the valdoraptor before it can hurt him. She takes one of her knives and cuts its throat, then takes the other knife and shoves it through the valdoraptor’s skull. Her father Darin is shocked. “What is going on, Serria?”  She sees there is another valdoraptor entering the house and goes to stop it. 
      Serria slides underneath the valdoraptor and cuts its belly open. A little bit of the coppery-iron blood gets in Serria’s mouth. Serria gets up, and drags the seventy five-pound valdoraptor out of her house. Then she hears a “mew wow”, looks down and sees Baby. Serria picks him up and throws him inside the house. Then she closes the door.
      All of a sudden something bites Serria in the leg, pulls her off the porch, and throws her into the side of her dad’s pickup truck. She hits her head on the door, leaving a huge dent in it, and she sees stars. Serria doesn’t taste just the valdoraptor’s blood, but her own, and it makes her feel sick to her stomach. 
      Kanda, Alin and their friend are walking in the woods. Then a portal opens up a few feet to the right of them. Out comes one hundred valdoraptors. Alin, Kanda, and their friend Crowley, start to fight the valdoraptors. When they are fighting the valdoraptors, they are unconsciously heading up to Serria’s house. Alin sees the house and says, “I hope the people who own that house are all right.” Kanda sees a grey and white cat.
        He grabs the cat and tries to throw it at a valdoraptor. The cat latches onto his hand and turns around. Then the cat scratches him five times in the face. Kanda throws the cat away from himself and the valdoraptors. The cat lands on the porch, and then looks at Bryan, Serria’s brother, who is sitting on the railing eating popcorn.
      Kanda is having problems ignoring the five scratches from Baby. His eyesight is becoming blurry for some reason. The valdoraptors are starting to separate Kanda from the rest of his friends. They succeed in separating Kanda. Kanda is cutting them down left and right. Unfortunately he has a huge blind spot…his back. A valdoraptor is sneaking up on him and getting ready to deliver the killing blow. 
      Alin is too preoccupied with his twenty-five valdoraptors, so he cannot aid Kanda in time. Alin has enough time to yell a warning before being somewhat overcome. So Alin takes a huge breath and yells, “Kanda-behind you!”
      Serria has already seen the valdoraptor, and does not hesitate to throw one of her two steak knives. Then she gets back to fighting for her life, now one knife short.
      Kanda turns around just in time to see a glint of light off steel… then the valdoraptors head explodes into chunks. Kanda gets hit in the face by the skin, skull, and brains. Bryan says, “Cool—gross, but cool, nice throw Serria!”
      Serria starts to work her way to Kanda. “Sorry about that,” she says, and keeps fighting beside him. They both start to work their way back to Kanda and Alin’s friend. They finally get to them, and the valdoraptors are gone. 
      Serria looks over at a boy who looks no older than she is. He’s lean, strong, and deadly with the two swords in his hands. She asks Kanda, “How did you get those scratches on your face?” 
      Kanda is furious that Baby attacked his face, and that this little girl who is younger than he is, pointing the scratches out for everyone to see. “A grey and white cat attacked me.”
       “Who, Baby? Why he would not harm a fly unless it disturbed him first. What did you do to him?” 
       “I tried to get the valdoraptors’ attention drawn away from me by using Baby.” 
      Serria is furious. “You tried to give my cat to a valdoraptor! You…you …oh forget it. You ever touch my cat again, or I’ll kill you, and no one will be able to stop me,” she said in a deathly, calm tone.
      “Serria, don’t forget, he threw Baby away from him, but toward the valdoraptors.” Bryan wants to see what Serria will do to Kanda. 
      “I did not, you little twerp!” Kanda is thinking about slicing Bryan in half. 
      Bryan does not like being called a twerp. He points his finger at Kanda and says, “I don’t care who you think you are, but you are so lucky I still have popcorn…” When he says popcorn, popcorn shoots out of his hands at Kanda. Kanda is shot back into his friend, Crowley and goes no farther. Crowley looks like a vampire who is always in pain. Kanda is thinking how hitting Crowley is just like hitting a brick wall, only harder. 
      “You two knock it off!”  Serria wants answers, and wants them now. She grabs Kanda by the front of his shirt, she feels it give slightly, but doesn’t care. She picks him up off his feet, then asks, “Where did you and those…those…dinosaurs come from?” 
      Kanda is stunned that this girl can lift him off his feet when he’s taller than she is. 
      Alin asks, “Who are you? I am Alin, and my friend you’re holding is Kanda. 
      “So you have no clue what those dinosaurs were?” Serria looks at Alin like he’s a lunatic. “You’ve never heard of a dinosaur? Where are you all from? Those dinosaurs were valdoraptors . . .  it is also a carnivore.” Alin, Kanda and their friends have the same look Serria had.
       “What is a carnivore and dinosaur?” asks Kanda.
	“Hello? Were you not here for that fight? Those were dinosaurs! A carnivore is a meat eater.” Serria does not understand these people. How can they be so clueless? Bryan is laughing so hard that he is crying popcorn. Serria wonders what this world is coming to. Her little brother can shoot popcorn, and cry it out too. These people, Alin, Kanda, and their friends do not even know what a dinosaur is. She learned all she told them in second grade. “Did you people ever go to school?” she asks them. 
	They look at each other, and ask the same thing at the same time, “What is a school?” Kanda immediately thinks the worst. “Is it a prison?” 
      Serria thinks this is crazy, “No, school is not a prison. It is a place where you learn. Do you even have parents? Wait, I don’t even want to know that, do I?” 
      “Probably not,” Kanda says
      Serria wondered who took care of them growing up. But instead of asking that she asks, “How old are you people?”
       Alin answers her question, “Only two are older than twenty, the rest are less. How old are you?” 
	Serria is confused, but interested. She does not see how three of the five of these people could be younger than twenty, but two are older. How much older can they be . . . at most thirty to thirty-five, right? 
      “I am sixteen.”
      Cowley says he is older than two-hundred years old. Kanda says he is older than Crowley by so many years that he will not tell.
      “How do you guys stay looking so young?”
      Kanda and Crowley answer the same way, “We haven’t the slightest idea.”
	Bryan sees a flicker of movement out the corner of his eye. Bryan looks to make sure that he is correct. He is correct. He sees another fifty valdoraptors coming out of the woods. “Serria! Your friends are back!”
 	“What do you mean Bryan?” 
      “Dino’s!” They all turn to face the oncoming battle. What none of them but Serria knows is that she is just waiting to see a T-Rex appear, so that they have to fight. When the battle begins, Serria is quickly surrounded, and far away from any help. She is starts to think about how a T-Rex would do in a fight against valdoraptors. 
	Then fifteen valdoraptors that are left stop. Even Alin, Kanda, and their friends stop and stare in Serria’s direction. She starts to look around her to see what they are all looking at. She looks left and right, and sees two legs that are bigger than any tree she’s ever seen before. Then she looks up and sees a T-Rex right above her, looking at the valdoraptors.
	Then valdoraptors attack the T-Rex from all directions. Some try to get underneath the T-Rex, but are either get hit by the tail, be stepped on and left on the ground in the shape of a pancake, or they are cut down by Serria. It looks like the valdoraptors are dead. Everyone surrounds the T-Rex and Serria. Kanda says to Serria, “When I count to three, run forward, and don’t stop.” In reply Serria tells him to wait a second, and she looks up at the T-Rex and asks it where it came from. The T-Rex looks from her, to the inside of its leg. Serria looks at its leg, and sees a hand print that is about the size of her hand.
	Serria reaches for the hand print wondering what it will do. She touches the T-Rex’s leg, and feels like she has just been electrocuted. She falls on her butt. Everyone is in shock that she would touch the T-Rex. Everyone except Kanda. He starts to walk toward Serria, cautiously watching to see what the T-Rex will do. 
      Kanda touches Serria on the shoulder and lightly shakes her. She mumbles something unintelligible; Kanda shakes her harder. “Serria wake up please, I don’t know what you’d call this thing is, but it could turn on us all and kill everyone, including you.”
 Serria is out of her mind but mumbles, “No he’s a friend.”
      Serria starts to open her eyes and sees a blurry Kanda. She just recalls the speech she heard Kanda give. She asks, “Did you just say please?” 
      Kanda is so happy he kisses her. Serria is surprised by these turn of events, so she gently pushes Kanda away. She gets up and walks out in front of the T-Rex and tells him to lower his head. He complies and lowers his head. They see a little boy about the age of ten sitting on the T-Rex’s head eating handful after handful of popcorn. A piece of popcorn falls on the T-Rex’s head. In reply to the popcorn Serria gets told to stop the BURNING! The boy picks up the popcorn and eats it. The T-Rex tells her, “Thank you.”
       Serria now realizes that popcorn feels like acid to the T-Rex, and most likely the valdoraptors too. Serria is mad about this and says, “Bryan get down, now!” 
      Bryan does not want to get down off the T-Rex. “No.” He likes it up there. Serria wonders how she will get her little brother off of the T-Rex’s head. The T-Rex tips his head so Bryan will fall off. Bryan starts to slide off and grabs the T-Rex’s nostril. 
      Kanda, Alin and their friends look at this small, innocent boy on top of a demon who could eat them all for breakfast. Kanda is just about to draw his sword and take a swing, when the T-Rex shakes its head and the boy goes flying. The T-Rex grabs the boy with its teeth before the boy hits the ground. The boy laughs as he’s put into his sister’s arms. Serria grabs Bryan, and bends him over her knee. Bryan starts to scream and cry. Bryan drops his popcorn and is mad. 
      “I feel sorry for him”, says Alin. 
      Kanda asks, “What has the boy done wrong?”
      Serria tells Bryan to go and play, but stay off of the dinosaur or throwing popcorn at it. Bryan goes to the driveway and starts to play with his toys. Alin, Kanda, and their friend say their good--byes and leave.
Dino Crazy
Grades 9-10
Page 1