Morning light crawled through the gaps in Vera's curtains, pale and hesitant, painting stripes across her bedroom floor. She lay still for a moment, suspended in that strange space between sleep and waking where reality hadn't quite solidified yet. The house was silent except for the distant sound of her dog's paws clicking against hardwood somewhere downstairs.

She stretched, feeling each vertebra in her spine pop and resettle. Her fingers splayed wide against the cool sheets, and for a brief moment she studied them—five digits, pale skin, perfectly ordinary. The lie of normalcy, right there at the end of her wrists.

Still pretending, she thought. Even alone.

Her phone sat on the nightstand, screen dark but somehow accusatory. She reached for it without thinking, muscle memory from years of mimicking human routines. The screen flickered to life, and her eyes caught on the notification.

1 Missed Call - Unknown Number (3:47 AM)

Vera's brow furrowed. She didn't get calls. Not really. The few people who had her number knew better than to use it for anything important. Her thumb hovered over the screen, hesitating in a way that felt almost human—uncertainty, curiosity, the faint electric buzz of something that might have been anxiety in someone else.

She opened the number and pressed call.

The line rang once. Twice. On the third ring, a woman's voice answered, bright and professional in a way that made Vera's teeth ache.

"Hello! Ms. Vera, I presume?"

"Yes." Vera's voice came out rough from disuse. She cleared her throat. "Who is this?"

"My name is Claire Dearing, and I'm calling from Jurassic World." The woman paused, as if waiting for some kind of reaction—excitement, maybe, or disbelief. When Vera offered nothing but silence, Claire continued, her enthusiasm undimmed. "I'm pleased to inform you that you've won an all-expenses-paid trip to Jurassic World, along with six other teenagers. You'll be among our very special guests for an exclusive week-long experience. Welcome aboard, my friend."

Vera blinked. Once. Twice. The words settled in her mind like stones dropping into still water, sending ripples through thoughts she hadn't been thinking.

"A trip," she repeated, testing the words. They felt strange in her mouth—foreign, like a language she'd learned but never truly spoken.

"That's right! All details will be sent to your phone momentarily. Your transportation has already been arranged. We're so excited to have you join us."

Excited. What a human thing to be.

"Thank you," Vera said, because that's what people said in situations like this. The phrase was automatic, borrowed from years of observation. "I'll... I'll be ready."

"Wonderful! See you soon, Vera."

The line went dead.

Vera sat there for a long moment, phone still pressed to her ear, listening to the silence that replaced Claire Dearing's voice. Something twisted in her chest—not quite emotion, but the shadow of one, the echo of what feelings might be if she could reach them.

Jurassic World. Dinosaurs. Six other teenagers.

She should feel something about this. Excitement, maybe. Nervousness. Normal people would feel something.

She felt nothing. Just the familiar emptiness, and beneath it, a faint curiosity that might have been her own or might have been another borrowed affect.

Vera lowered the phone and stared at it. A message notification popped up almost immediately—the details Claire had promised. Flight information. Packing list. An address where she'd be picked up.

Today.

She stood up, her body moving with the fluid grace of something that had studied human movement and perfected it. Her closet door swung open under her hand, and she began pulling clothes from hangers. T-shirts. Shorts. A jacket, because the list said the island could get cool at night. She packed mechanically, efficiently, each item folded with precision that came from something other than practice.

Her dog wandered into the room—a golden retriever named August, because the name had sounded appropriately normal when she'd adopted him. He sat in the doorway, head tilted, watching her with those dark, knowing eyes.

"I'm leaving for a while," she told him, her voice soft. "Mrs. Chen next door will take care of you."

August's tail thumped once against the floor. He understood, in the way dogs understood—not the words, but the shape of them, the intention beneath.

The rabbit—a small gray creature named Mercy—watched from her cage in the corner, nose twitching. She didn't bother speaking to Mercy. The rabbit had never needed her words.

Vera's phone beeped. Another message.

Van arriving in 15 minutes.

Fifteen minutes. She glanced around her room—at the bed she'd slept in but never dreamed in, at the posters on the walls she'd put up because teenagers were supposed to decorate their spaces, at the photographs she'd staged of concerts and bars and smiling faces of people whose names she sometimes forgot.

Evidence of a life. Evidence of humanity.

All of it so carefully constructed. So empty.

She grabbed her packed bag—a simple black backpack—and headed downstairs. August followed, his nails clicking a rhythm against the wooden steps. The house felt larger in the morning light, more hollow, as if her impending absence had already carved out space where she used to pretend to belong.

Through the front window, she saw it: a sleek black van pulling up the long driveway, tires crunching against gravel.

Here we go.

Vera opened the door before the driver could knock. The morning air hit her face, cool and sharp, carrying the scent of cut grass and distant rain. Human senses, registering human things.

The van door slid open, and a young man stepped out. Early twenties, maybe, with dark hair that fell across his forehead and an easy smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. He wore a polo shirt with a logo she didn't recognize and carried himself with the casual confidence of someone who did this often.

"Vera?" he asked, though his tone suggested he already knew.

"That's me."

His smile widened, and now it did touch his eyes—warm, friendly, rehearsed. "Perfect. I'm Felix. I'll be taking you to the airport and getting you all set for your trip to Jurassic World." He reached for her bag, and she let him take it, because that's what normal people did. They let others help. "Excited?"

There was that word again. Excited.

"Sure," Vera said, and the lie came easily, smooth as glass.

Felix loaded her bag into the van, chattering about the weather, about how lucky she was, about how incredible the island was. His words washed over her like white noise—pleasant, meaningless, human.

She glanced back at her house one last time. August sat in the doorway, watching her leave. The big beautiful house stood behind him, empty and full all at once.

Six other teenagers, she thought. Six other humans pretending to be excited.

But they would be actually excited. Actually nervous. Actually feeling whatever it was humans felt when they went on adventures to see prehistoric creatures brought back from extinction.

And she would pretend. The way she always did.

Vera climbed into the van, and Felix shut the door behind her with a solid thunk that felt like punctuation—the end of one sentence, the beginning of another.

"Ready?" Felix asked from the driver's seat, catching her eye in the rearview mirror.

Vera looked at her reflection staring back—a teenage girl with dark eyes and an unremarkable face, someone who could disappear into any crowd and leave no trace.

"Ready," she said.

The van pulled away from the house, and Vera watched through the tinted window as everything familiar grew smaller and smaller, until it disappeared entirely.

Jurassic World, she thought. Dinosaurs. Things that should be extinct but aren't.

She understood that feeling better than anyone.

The drive to the dock took longer than Vera expected, though time had always been a strange thing for her—elastic, meaningless, something humans obsessed over while she simply existed through it. Felix filled the silence with practiced small talk, pointing out landmarks she didn't care about, sharing facts about Jurassic World she didn't ask for. She made the appropriate noises at the appropriate times. Mm-hmm. That's interesting. Wow.

All lies. All easy.

When the van finally pulled into the parking area, Vera saw them before Felix even put the vehicle in park: six figures clustered near the dock, backpacks at their feet, faces turned toward the water where a sleek ferry boat waited. Six other teenagers. Six actual humans who probably had actual feelings about being here.

The van door slid open with a mechanical hiss.

"Here we are," Felix announced cheerfully, already moving to grab her bag. "Your fellow campers are right over there. Go introduce yourself—they don't bite." He laughed at his own joke, then seemed to remember where they were going. "Well, the kids don't bite, anyway."

Vera stepped out into the salt-thick air. The dock stretched before her, weathered wood planks that creaked under the weight of waiting teenagers. Seagulls screamed overhead, their voices sharp and desperate. The ocean beyond was gray-green, restless, hiding its depths.

She approached the group slowly, studying them the way she'd learned to study all humans—cataloging details, filing away information, searching for the patterns that would tell her how to behave.

They noticed her. Of course they did. A new person always disrupted the tentative social equilibrium.

"Hi!" A girl with dark skin and box braids turned toward her, smile bright and genuine. "You must be another winner. I'm Sammy!" She had the kind of energy that filled space, warm and overwhelming. "This is Brooklynn, Yaz, Ben, Darius, and Kenji."

She pointed to each in turn: a girl with pink hair filming everything on her phone, a tall athletic girl who nodded once in acknowledgment, a thin pale boy who looked like a strong wind might carry him away, a shorter boy with curly hair and excited eyes, and finally—

The boy with the necklace.

Vera's eyes caught on it immediately, drawn to the object in that way she sometimes was drawn to things that felt wrong in the right way. A tooth. Large, curved, serrated edges worn smooth by time or handling. It hung from a leather cord against his chest, primitive and out of place on someone wearing an expensive designer jacket.

She felt her head tilt, the gesture automatic, birdlike. "Nice necklace," she said, her voice flat despite the compliment.

The boy—Kenji, Sammy had called him—looked down at the tooth, then back up at her. His smile came slow, slightly crooked, tinged with something that might have been shyness or might have been practiced charm. "Thank you." His hand came up to touch it briefly, a protective gesture. "I like your, uh... earrings."

Vera's fingers moved to her ears before she consciously decided to touch them, finding the small smooth shapes there. They sat snug against her earlobes, tiny and white and sharp at the ends. She'd worn them so long she sometimes forgot they were there.

"They're dog teeth," she said simply. "My dog loses his teeth now and then, but they grow back."

The words hung in the air for a moment. Vera watched the group's reactions with the detached interest of someone observing a lab experiment. Sammy's smile faltered slightly. Brooklynn's phone camera swung toward her. Yaz raised an eyebrow. Darius tilted his head, clearly processing.

But it was Ben—the thin, pale boy with anxious eyes—who spoke up, his voice cracking slightly with confusion and something that might have been concern.

"That... that can't be right." He blinked rapidly, his hands fidgeting with the straps of his fanny pack. "Dogs don't do that. They lose their baby teeth when they're puppies, but after that—" He swallowed, looking between Vera and the others as if seeking confirmation that he wasn't crazy. "—they don't just grow them back. That's not... that's not how dogs work."

Vera turned her full attention to him, and she watched him physically react to it—a small flinch, a half-step backward. She'd seen that response before. Something in her gaze made people uncomfortable when she forgot to soften it, forgot to add the warmth that human eyes were supposed to have.

She blinked slowly, deliberately, and when she spoke again her voice carried the faint lilt of amusement, though she felt none. "Huh. That's strange."

"Strange that they grow back?" Ben asked, his nervousness making his words come faster. "Or strange that I'm telling you they don't?"

"Strange," Vera repeated, not clarifying. She touched the earrings again, feeling the smooth enamel under her fingertips. She'd made them herself, drilling tiny holes through the roots with patient precision. August had been confused the first time she'd collected one of his teeth, had watched her with those knowing eyes that saw more than a dog should.

But August's teeth did grow back. She'd watched them fall out and re-emerge from pink gums more times than she could count. Watched with fascination as the impossible happened again and again in her house where impossible things were ordinary.

Did other dogs not do that?

The thought arrived with strange detachment. She'd assumed—but then, she assumed a lot of things about what was normal, based on what happened around her. And things around her were rarely normal.

"Maybe it's a breed thing," Kenji offered, his tone diplomatic, trying to smooth over the weird tension that had settled over the group. He still wore that crooked smile, but his eyes had sharpened with interest. "What kind of dog do you have?"

"Golden retriever," Vera said. "His name is August."

"Golden retrievers definitely don't regrow teeth," Ben muttered, but quieter now, as if he'd decided this wasn't a hill worth dying on. His fingers were still fidgeting, nervous energy radiating off him in waves.

"Weird," Brooklynn said, drawing out the word as she studied Vera through her phone screen. "But like, cool weird. Dog tooth earrings are very..." She paused, searching for the word. "...metal."

"I think they're neat," Sammy said with determined cheerfulness, clearly trying to steer the conversation back to safer waters. "Very unique! So, Vera—you excited about dinosaurs?"

Excited. That word again, following her like a shadow.

"Sure," Vera said, and let her mouth curve into something approximating a smile. She'd practiced this expression in mirrors for years—the right amount of teeth showing, the slight crinkle at the corners of her eyes, the tilt of the head that suggested warmth and openness.

It must have worked, because Sammy's own smile brightened, and the group seemed to relax fractionally. Even Ben stopped fidgeting quite as much, though he still watched her with wary confusion.

Only Kenji continued to study her with that sharp interest, his hand unconsciously touching his raptor tooth necklace. Something passed between them—not understanding, exactly, but recognition. Two people wearing strange pieces of things that shouldn't be, standing at the edge of an ocean, about to visit an island of impossible creatures.

"Well," Darius said, his voice carrying the authority of someone who'd decided to take charge, "we should probably board soon. Felix said the ferry leaves in ten minutes."

The group began to gather their belongings, falling into the natural chaos of teenagers preparing for an adventure. Voices overlapped, bags were shouldered, last-minute phones checks were made.

Vera hung back slightly, watching them move and interact with the fluid ease of people who understood social rhythms instinctively. She could mimic it—had been mimicking it for years—but she would never feel it.

"Hey."

She turned. Kenji had separated from the group, standing close enough that she could see the flecks of gold in his brown eyes, the small scar above his left eyebrow.

"The earrings really are cool," he said quietly. "Even if the whole growing-back thing is... unusual."

Vera studied him. "Your necklace," she said. "Is that a real raptor tooth?"

"Supposedly." His hand came up to touch it again. "My dad gave it to me. He owns part of Jurassic World, so..." He shrugged, trying for casual and almost achieving it. "Figured it was appropriate."

"It suits you," Vera said, and meant it in a way she couldn't quite articulate. There was something fitting about him wearing the tooth of a predator, something that resonated with whatever passed for instinct in her.

Kenji's smile turned genuine, surprised. "Thanks."

"All aboard!" Felix called from the ferry, waving his arms like he was directing traffic. "Let's go, campers! Adventure awaits!"

The group moved toward the boat, Sammy already chattering about what she hoped to see first, Ben nervously consulting what looked like a guidebook, Brooklynn filming everything, Yaz and Darius discussing something in low voices.

Vera followed, her hand unconsciously touching the dog tooth earrings one more time.

Strange that they grow back, Ben had said.

Strange indeed.

But everything about Vera was strange. What was one more impossible thing?

The ferry cut through the water with mechanical precision, leaving a white wake that dissolved into foam and memory. Vera stood at the railing, watching the island grow larger with each passing minute. The others had clustered inside the cabin, voices rising and falling in excitement, but she'd stayed outside where the salt air stung her skin and the engine's rumble drowned out the need for conversation.

Within the hour, the island materialized fully before them—lush and green and impossible, a place where extinct things lived and breathed and hunted. The dock appeared, larger and more impressive than the one they'd left behind, all gleaming metal and corporate polish.

Two figures stood waiting as the ferry pulled in, both wearing khaki uniforms with the Jurassic World logo emblazoned on their chests. A man and a woman, mid-twenties maybe, with the kind of outdoorsy attractiveness that came from working in the sun.

Vera disembarked with the others, her feet hitting solid ground that somehow felt less solid than it should. The island hummed with something—energy, maybe, or the weight of all those impossible creatures existing where they shouldn't.

"Hello there!" The man stepped forward, his smile wide and practiced. He was stocky, with sun-bleached hair and the kind of enthusiasm that felt exhausting to witness. "I'm Dave. This is Roxie. We're going to be your camp counselors for the week."

He dipped his head in a casual bow, then his attention snagged on something behind them. "Oh." His eyebrows rose, surprise flickering across his features. "Felix? What are you doing here?"

Vera turned, following Dave's gaze to where Felix stood at the ferry's edge, one hand on the railing, his expression caught somewhere between guilty and defiant.

Felix waved, the gesture small and almost sheepish. "Hey, Dave. I thought maybe I could join? You know, as an extra counselor or—"

"You rarely do," Roxie interrupted, her tone sharp with confusion. She crossed her arms, head tilted in a way that suggested she was trying to solve a puzzle. "You don't like dinos, remember? And anyway, don't you have that band you're training with this week? The gig at The Underground?"

Something shifted in Felix's expression—his smile going tight at the edges, tension creeping into his shoulders. His hand came up to rub the back of his neck. "Yes. Yes, you're right." He shook his head, the movement jerky, wrong. "I'll, err, go."

But he didn't move immediately. His eyes swept across the group of teenagers, lingering for just a moment on each face—Sammy, Brooklynn, Yaz, Ben, Kenji—before landing on Vera. Their gazes locked, and something passed between them that Vera couldn't name. Recognition, maybe. Or warning.

Then his eyes jumped to Darius, and the moment stretched impossibly long. Darius stared back, his expression carefully neutral but his posture rigid, like someone trying very hard not to react.

Interesting, Vera thought, filing the observation away.

Felix broke the stare first, turning back toward the ferry with movements that seemed too quick, too unnatural. "I'll just... yeah. Have fun, kids." The words came out hollow, and then he was gone, disappearing back into the ferry cabin.

"That was weird," Kenji muttered, quiet enough that maybe only Vera heard him. She glanced at him and found him frowning after Felix, his hand touching his raptor tooth necklace in that now-familiar gesture.

"Alright!" Dave clapped his hands together, shattering the strange tension that had settled over the dock. His smile was back, bigger than before, aggressively cheerful. "Who's ready for the adventure of a lifetime?"

Sammy whooped. Ben made a sound that might have been enthusiasm or terror. The others murmured their agreement with varying degrees of excitement.

"Excellent!" Dave gestured toward two open-top vehicles parked nearby—sleek, modern things that looked like golf carts and military Jeeps had a very expensive baby. "Let's load up! We've got about a twenty-minute drive to Camp Cretaceous."

They piled into the vehicles, Vera ending up in the back of the second one with Kenji and Yaz. Roxie took the driver's seat while Dave climbed into the first vehicle with the others. The engines hummed to life, electric and nearly silent, and they pulled away from the dock.

The island unfolded around them in layers of impossible green. Dave's voice carried back from the front vehicle, amplified by some kind of speaker system, launching into what was clearly a well-rehearsed speech about the dinosaurs they might see.

"—over 200 species across the island, though you'll mostly encounter the herbivores near camp. Brachiosaurus, Parasaurolophus, Stegosaurus—all gentle giants, really. The carnivores are kept in more secure paddocks, but don't worry, you'll get to see them safely during scheduled excursions—"

Vera listened with half her attention, the other half absorbed in cataloging her surroundings. Trees that shouldn't grow in these formations. Bird calls that sounded almost but not quite right. The way the light fell through the canopy in patterns that made her eyes hurt if she looked too long.

"—and of course, we have the Mosasaurus in the lagoon, which you'll definitely want to see during feeding time. Spectacular show, really puts things in perspective about the food chain—"

"Do you think they ever escape?" Yaz asked suddenly, her voice cutting through Dave's monologue. She was looking at Roxie with the sharp, assessing gaze of someone who didn't take bullshit answers.

Roxie's hands tightened slightly on the wheel. "The enclosures are state-of-the-art. Multiple redundancies. It's perfectly safe."

"That's not what I asked," Yaz said mildly.

Roxie's jaw ticked. "No. They don't escape."

Liar, Vera thought, watching the micro-expressions flicker across the counselor's face. She'd gotten very good at spotting lies, having told so many herself. But she said nothing, just filed the information away with everything else.

The vehicles climbed higher, following a winding path that seemed to have been carved directly into the jungle. Through gaps in the trees, Vera caught glimpses of the island below—vast paddocks, distant structures, and once, the massive shape of something moving through the canopy that made her breath catch in her throat.

Dinosaur, her mind supplied, though the word felt inadequate for the reality of it.

Then the trees opened up, and there it was: Camp Cretaceous.

"Welcome home for the next week!" Dave announced, arms spread wide like he was presenting a prize.

It was beautiful in a way Vera hadn't expected. The camp sat nestled in the trees themselves—a series of structures built on platforms connected by bridges and walkways, all weathered wood and modern design somehow working together. String lights hung between the buildings, currently unlit but promising atmosphere after dark. A main lodge dominated the center, windows reflecting the jungle canopy. Smaller cabins branched off to either side, six in total.

"Whoa," Ben breathed, and for once his nervousness seemed to have been replaced by genuine awe.

Vera found herself smiling, and this time it wasn't entirely performed. There was something about the camp—perched up here above everything, separate and secret—that resonated with her. A place apart from the world. A place for things that didn't quite belong.

Fitting, she thought.

The vehicles pulled to a stop at the main lodge, and everyone piled out. Vera stepped onto the wooden platform, testing its stability with her weight. Solid. Well-built. The kind of construction that suggested either paranoia or experience with things going wrong.

"Alright, campers!" Roxie called out, her voice carrying easy authority now that they were on her territory. "We'll give you some time to settle in. Your cabins are already assigned—you'll find your names on the doors. Get unpacked, explore the immediate area if you want, but don't wander too far. We'll meet back here in an hour for orientation and dinner."

"And trust us," Dave added with a grin that showed too many teeth, "you're going to want to be well-rested. Tomorrow, the real adventure begins."

The counselors headed into the main lodge, leaving the teenagers standing on the platform in a loose cluster. For a moment, no one moved. Then Sammy broke away with characteristic energy, already heading toward the cabins to find her assigned room.

The others followed, dispersing like water finding its level. Vera hung back, watching them go—Brooklynn filming everything, Ben clutching his guidebook like a security blanket, Yaz moving with athletic efficiency, Darius taking in every detail with those observant eyes, Kenji affecting casual confidence that didn't quite hide his own wonder.

Vera looked out at the jungle canopy stretching in every direction, at the impossible island where impossible things lived. She touched her dog tooth earrings one more time, feeling their familiar weight.

A week, she thought. A week of pretending with six humans and two counselors and whatever else is out there in those trees.

She could do a week. She'd been pretending her whole life.

What was one more performance?

But as she turned to find her cabin, she caught movement in her peripheral vision—something large and dark shifting in the trees below the camp. Too big to be a bird. Too deliberate to be wind.

Vera stopped, staring at the spot where she'd seen it. Nothing. Just jungle and shadows and the fading light of late afternoon.

You're being paranoid, she told herself. It's an island full of dinosaurs. Of course there are things moving in the trees.

But the feeling didn't leave her—that crawling sensation at the base of her skull that meant something was wrong, something was watching, something was coming.

She'd felt it before, the night she'd sent her father down a rabbit hole that had no bottom. The night she'd stopped pretending to be human and became something else instead.

Vera shook her head and walked toward the cabins, pushing the feeling down where it couldn't touch her.

Just a week, she repeated to herself. What could possibly go wrong in a week?