An annoying blinking darkness broke Darius' sleep, and he groaned his frustration, rolling over. It didn't seem to help.

"Come on," Darius muttered, his eyes still squeezed shut. "I just got escaped an island full of meat-eating dinosaurs and even worse humans. Don't I deserve a-."

Suddenly, Darius' eyes shot open. His own words were a reminder to him of what just happened, and he shot out of bed, panicking. That was real, right? He was home... right?

But the ceiling above him, lit up in that mysterious, and annoying, blinking red light, was unfamiliar. Darius' eyes scanned the room he was in, a boring grey one that had cracks in the ceiling and walls and absolutely no furniture to speak up. Just like the ceiling, it was completely unfamiliar.

Darius clutched at his shirt, his breath coming out harsh and uneven. No... no, they had escaped hadn't they? They had finally gotten off of that island, out of that nightmare, and now they were home!

Or, they should be. Darius could not lie to himself, even as he was hoping against hope that he wasn't really seeing what was right in front of him. What, had he hallucinated meeting with his brother again? Had he hugging his father and mother? The ride home? Everything?

And where were the others? A quick scan of the strange room, covered in dust and spiderwebs, confirmed that they were not here. But where could they be? What happened? Where was he?

Even the fabric Darius was gripping tightly was not what he remembered. When Darius finally looked down at himself, he saw a grey button up shirt, and a green jacket wrapped on his shoulders. Darius tugged at them, confused. What was this? He'd never seen these clothes in his life... clearly, this was more that just hallucinating going home, but what did it mean?

Suddenly, Darius was seized with panic. The necklace. Oh no, please, please, please...Darius reached under his shirt... and breathed a sigh of relief as his fingers curled around his most important possession. The only thing he still owned that he had taken to Jurassic World, the only thing that had survived the trip, and now, the only thing that had followed him here, to this room. Whatever that was.

Ignoring all his questions for now, Darius took out the necklace from under his shirt, and pressed it to his forehead, trying to calm his breathing and his rising panic. Apparently, he had been muttering things to himself this entire time without realizing it, and he quieted himself, trying to focus.

"...Okay," he whispered once he felt significantly less worried. "Okay. I'm okay, I'm alive... and I will get through this. I'll get home. But first I have to find my friends."

Darius took one last deep breath, and raised his head, immediately wincing as the blinking red light once again made itself known. Okay, first he'll turn that off, and then he'll find his friends.

"I can't believe you were my alarm clock," Darius huffed, shifting his glare to the source of the blinking red light: a bracelet thing, kind of like a watch, but far bulkier, with a square screen, that lit up with red light. It was bright and irritating, but at the very least, it wasn't making noise. Darius picked it up, studying it. "I don't even have an alarm clock."

Darius touched the screen, and as soon as he did, the blinking stopped. Now, green words appeared on the black screen, just large enough for Darius to read.

To properly use The Red Box, please put it onto your wrist.

"The Red Box?" Darius repeated, studying it. It was... not red, it black. "Uh, sure. I don't really know if I should trust this, though..."

If Darius was expecting the watch to talk to him, he was sorely disappointed. The words on the screen stayed the same, and, after a minute of thinking (of which not much thinking was done), Darius put it on like a watch. Trust it or not, Darius was a little curious.

As soon as he did, the screen flashed, but not in that headache-inducing way it had before, thankfully. A loading circle appeared, and Darius sighed, hoping it wouldn't take long. Thankfully, it only lasted a couple seconds before the loading circle disappeared, and words flashed across the screen, too fast for Darius to read. It reminded him of those old computer bootups, even though this 'Red Box' seemed like much better tech.

Finally, the words slowed down enough for Darius to read, apparently finished with its bootup.

Thank you for choosing Spark Labs™ as your Official Guide through the world. We at Spark Labs™ hope you find our service amicable, but if you do not, or if you have any questions, please contact Spark Labs™ Center, or your nearest Spark Labs™ building at the location you're at.

Below that, there was more text, but Darius it was so small that Darius could barely make it out. But after a minute or two of squinting out it, Darius finally figure it what it said.

(Disclaimer: By choosing Spark Labs™ technology, you are automatically signing an agreement that you, [Darius Bowman] will never buy, endorse, or use any technology, websites or buildings from SpellMatrix. We do not offer any compensation for illness, injury, mental illness or death at the expense of our technology. We at Spark Labs™ thank you for your support! :))

Darius blinked. Apart from the parts of that that sound vaguely illegal, that disclaimer was a little worrying. What did they mean by 'illness, injury, mental illness or death'? What exactly did this watch do?

Darius grabbed it, and tried to unhook it. But the claspe he had used to put it on had disappeared like it was never there, and after a few minutes of trying to find it, Darius finally gave up, trying to pull the thing off. But he had made it too tight, and now he couldn't get it off past his wrist. Seriously?!

After another few minutes of struggling with the watch and cursing it, Darius gave that up, too, and went back to trying to interact with it. He tapped the screen, and it changed, with the first message and the disclaimer disappearing, replaced by new words.

The Red Box's main objective is to get you, our loyal customer, through the Outside alive. The Red Box has many such features to help you, and to learn more about that, you can access The Red Box's information by clicking HERE. If you want to access your information, you can click HERE. And if you would like to see The Red Box's main information, either don't click anything, or you can click HERE.

"My information?" Darius repeated, his eyes going wide. Immediately, he tapped that, and the screen changed yet again, now showing words that were... vaguely worrying. Where had the red box gotten all of this?

Subject: [Darius Bowman]

Status: [Alive]

Gender: [Male/ AFAB]

Health: [10/10]

Food Intake: [6/10]

Water Intake: [8/10]

Inventory: [Uncalibrated. If you wish for your inventory to be connected, please click 'Inventory', and then grab which ever bag you want to connect. When you have done that, all you need to do is click 'Calibrate'.]

To see The Red Box's information, click HERE. To see basic information, either don't click anything, or click HERE.

Darius stared at the information on the screen. Okay... that was creepy. Again, where did it get all this? And what did 'Inventory' mean?

Just out of curiosity, Darius looked around the room, and found a satchel nearly the base of the bed, nearly hiding underneath it. Darius picked it up, then clicked 'Inventory'. More words appeared on the screen.

The Red Box can connect to at least one(1) bag. There is one(1) bag found nearby. To calibrate, click calibrate below. Please keep in mind that this process works better with Spark Labs™ bags, and it does not work with SpellMatrix bags. We at Spark Labs™ thank you for you support!

Calibrate

Darius rolled his eyes at the warning, ignoring it completely, and then clicked the offered button. The screen was replaced with a loading circle for a moment, and Darius waited patiently. For the first couple minutes, at least. But as the long, boring minutes dragged by, Darius got bored, then annoyed.

Just as he was starting to worry he had accidently grabbed a SpellMatrix bag, the loading circle suddenly changed to a checkmark, and the screen went back to his information.

Subject: [Darius Bowman]

Status: [Alive]

Gender: [Male/ AFAB]

Health: [10/10]

Food Intake: [6/10]

Water Intake: [8/10]

Inventory: [Empty]

To see The Red Box's information, click HERE. To see basic information, either don't click anything, or click HERE.

Well, that was... not worth it at all. Darius sighed, wondering why he tried that at all, but at least he had a bag now. For what that was worth.

Out of curiousity, Darius selected the next option: The Red Box's information. He had even more questions about that than he had about his own information. For one, he had never heard of Spark Labs, and he sincerely doubted they were connected with Biosyn or Jurassic World, so Darius had no idea what this was doing here. The Red Box was... a strange piece of technology, like something straight out of science fiction.

Classification Number: 82118931145

Updates Available: 182 (UPDATE)

A.I: None (DOWNLOAD)

Nearest Spark Labs™ Location: (COMPASS)

Terms and Conditions: Already Agreed

To see your information, click HERE. To see basic information, either don't click anything, or click HERE.

"When did I agree with the Terms and Conditions?" Darius sighed, but at this point, he was not surprised. Nothing on this screen gave him any answers to any of his questions, and though the promise of A.I. interested him a little, Darius ignored it for now. Instead, he clicked on the last link he had, the one that went to the basic information.

Day 1

Location: Sky High Hotel (8th Floor)

Time: 1:34 AM

Primary Objectives(s): Find the others [0/15]. Find the Truth of The World.

Secondary Objectives(s): Collect all figurines! (1/16)

Darius nearly facepalmed. Why would something that was SO important be labeled 'basic information'? This wasn't basic, this was the most important thing he'd found so far!

Okay... there was a lot here, so Darius decided to focus on it one by one.

First of all, his... objectives? Darius wasn't aware he had goals, let alone whatever these meant. Who set them for him, and what did they mean? The truth of the world? Even racking his brain, Darius couldn't even begin to make sense of that.

And the other one. 'Find the others'... Darius' mind immediately jumped to his friends, but he didn't have fifteen of them, he only had five... well, unless he was really stretching it and included Mae, and maybe Bran... but that only came up to seven. Maybe they meant the dinosaurs...? But then he'd have the opposite problem. There were way more than fifteen of them.

As for the collectibles... Darius didn't even want to think about what that meant. Not right now... or probably ever. He'd never been a video game completionist.

Next, the time. Darius only barely glanced at that, because ever since Ben, the only one of the campers with a watch, broke his, they began keeping time more with the position of the sun, or with vague estimates when it was clouding. Darius suspected, sometimes, that they were completely wrong about the actual time most of the time, but they never really had any need for it, so it didn't really matter if they kept time, or they didn't. And even now that he had a (maybe" working watch, Darius didn't expect that to change.

Then there was the location. Now, Darius wasn't an expert (when he was being humble, at least), but he had never heard of the Sky High Hotel, either in the original Jurassic Park or in Jurassic World. He never saw it on the other island either. Which brought up a bunch of new and old questions. Again, where was he, and now, how did he get here.

Darius felt that he would have imagined falling asleep in this place, especially since he was on the eighth floor, and he definitely would have remembered putting on these clothes. So... what happened?

...Well, no matter how long Darius sat there and wondered, he doubted he would really be able to come up with an answer.

"Well, thanks for your help," Darius muttered at the watch, only slightly in indignation. In truth, the watch had helped a little bit, far more than Darius was willing to give it credit for, and even if he could take it off, he doubted he would, at least not yet. Still, it would help if it was a little less creepy... Darius glared at it for a couple seconds, and then sighed. What was he even doing?

It was time to move. Darius lowered his wrist with the watch and got up from the bed he was on. It creaked loudly under his weight, like it was screaming. Its legs bent underneath him as he moved, but they held. When Darius' feet hit the floor beside his bed, a small layer of dust flew up, making him blink and shake his head, holding back a sneeze.

This room... it was clear it was old. Very old, and it had fallen into disrepair. Darius frowned at it. He had been in abandoned buildings before, because literally every building on the islands where abandoned, but none were this old. Well, maybe the old buildings were, Darius supposed, but definitely not any of the Jurassic World ones. Those were too new.

Darius shook the thought off. Again, nothing he would be able to figure out by standing here. And curiosity had overcome confusion, so Darius moved to a big window beside the bed, closed with blinds, and tugged on the string that opened them. Usually.

As soon as Darius touched it, the string fell, weakened by years and years of nothing until it had been frayed away by time. Darius looked at it quizzically, and then dropped it, reaching up for the actually blinds, and lifting them up so he could see beyond them.

What was beyond this building was, strangely enough, another building. Darius blinked at it, then sighed. It was blocking the view of anything else. Even when Darius leaned out of the building to look left and right (surprisingly, this window was missing its glass. When Darius hooked his fingers around the edge of it, he could still feel the sharp edges of it poke against his fingers, but the rest of it was gone), there was nothing else, just old building, looking just as shabby and destroyed as the room he was already in.

And none of them, for some reason, had any of their windows. Or much of them anyway. Darius could see that some of the glass was still on the edges of the windows, but most of it was gone. What happened here?

And then Darius looked down. Oh. That's where it had gone. It looked like every window on either building had shattered and fallen down onto the cracked and grey pavement below, creating a sparkling, glittering road that looked as though snow had fallen down recently. Darius shuddered. Walking though that would not be fun, so, for the time being, he turned his eyes upward.

The sky above him was a blueish grey that looked just as miserable and depressing as both buildings. In fact... Darius squinted. No, that colour was not natural. There was clearly some sort of gas up there, covering the sky, but not enough for cloud cover. It looked disgusting, and Darius' face crinkled up in disgust before something else caught his eye.

The roof of the Sky High Hotel was taller than that of whatever that other building was. And that meant...

Darius nodded, sticking his head back through the window, and back into the dusty room. He moved towards the hallway connected to the room, and then paused, turning back towards the satchel. Should he...?

Darius shrugged. He already calibrated it, hadn't he? Before he left the room, Darius grabbed the satchel, putting it on over his shoulder. A bag would be useful to collect whatever he needed while he was out looking for his friends. And the others, he supposed. Whoever they were.

Darius looked around the depressing room one last time. It was a habit, to look over one's hotel room just before leaving, just in case. But none of his meager possessions where here, and there was nothing else in the room to take, unlike most hotels. Still, Darius found his eyes searching over the room, before shrugging that feeling off, and leaving through the short hallway, then out through the door that connected to that hallway.

The door softly clicked closed behind him, but Darius still flinched at the sound. In Jurassic World, all the predators had much better hearing than any humans did, and if a human down the hall could have heard that small sound in this silence, Darius shuddered to think of all the dinosaurs that could hear it.

He moved fast, towards the end of the hallway. The walls, where grey, just like the room he had started in, but unlike that room, Darius could see the places on the wall where wallpaper had once been, but now had already been torn down, or it was so faded that Darius couldn't tell what colour it had been, or if it had even once had a pattern on it. The floor under Darius' feet had a carpet, but it was so destroyed now that it was basically just a bunch of strings kind of woven together in faded colours of red, orange, and black. At one point, perhaps it would have muffled Darius' footsteps as he ran, but now, it was nothing more than a tripping hazard, and Darius had to watch his feet as he moved towards the end of the hall.

Still, no dinosaurs have appeared yet, but Darius was still on edge, and as soon as he reached the end of the hallway, he wrenched the door open, closing it quietly behind them. Darius nearly breathed a sigh of relief, before he realized that the cold slim stairway, he was in was probably far worse for him than the hallway was.

Darius clutched his satchel nervously, and hurried up the stairs, two at a time. Maybe there were no dinosaurs in here, but if there's anything that Darius had learned so far, it was better safe than sorry. For some dinosaurs, humans were about as much as a bit sized snack, eaten up in one bite. Darius had seen that way too often to be comfortable with it.

He reached the top of the stairway in record time, flying up six floors like it was nothing... at least until he reached the top and was doubled over, panting. The door to the roof was right in front of him, but Darius still hesitated, waiting until he had caught his breath back. Just in case he needed to run away again. When he finally felt he was ready, Darius reached for the door.

It moved a fraction of an inch under his palm, and then stopped. Darius blinked, and then pushed against the door with his full strength, as if it was just stuck or something. Nothing. Darius stepped back and glared at it. The door was locked with a big pad lock that rattled every time Darius pushed against the door.

"Oh, come on," Darius muttered, glancing back down the stairs. Not that he thought he could have down anything if something actually was coming up at him, but still.

Darius relaxed when he saw it was empty and turned back to the main problem at hand.

"If Brooklyn was here, she'd probably pick the lock," Darius said helplessly. "I don't think I can do that... Ben would break open the lock with a rock... I might be able to do that."

Now with a plan, Darius searched around the space around him, but despite the general disrepair of the stairwell, there were no hard objects lying around on the ground that he could use. Darius frowned. He didn't exactly want to go back down to see if there was anything to use in any of the rooms he had passed, but if he had to...

Then Darius spotted the railing that lined the stairs. Once, it had almost definitely be used for safety, to keep people from falling down the stairs, but now it looked like it crumple and fall down at the slightest touch. Darius had avoided using it on the way up, convinced that it would make him more likely to fall, but now, it might be the very thing he needed to open this door.

Grasping it, Darius took it in his hands and pulled. The metal whined and screeched as he did, popping away as he tugged at it. It resisted for a moment, and then finally snapped, most of it breaking it into little pieces, but as Darius fell back onto his butt, he was left with a piece of rusted metal as long as his forearm, and just strong enough to do what it need to. Darius pumped his fist into the air and cheered, before quickly covering his mouth.

It probably didn't matter, because tearing the metal railing had definitely made a lot more noise than Darius had, but he still kept his celebrating to a minimum, turning to the offending padlock with a triumphant smile on his face as he raised the piece of metal.

He brought it down with all his strength. At first, the strike damaged the piece of metal more than the lock, but Darius kept at it, and eventually, the lock bent, than fell. The door creaked open.

"Nice," Darius said, grinning to himself. The metal was now nothing but a misshape lump that probably wouldn't do anything for him anymore, so Darius tossed that away. Still, he felt that his new locking picking method was useful, and vowed to find something else that would work just as well as the metal, as well as survive more than one use.

Taking a deep breath, Darius stepped forward and pushed the door open, seeing more than feeling the sunlight from outside stream in. Darius hadn't noticed how dark the stairway had been before, but maybe that was a good thing. What he hadn't notice wouldn't kill him, right?

...Well, that probably wasn't true. Darius rolled his eyes at the stupid thought and stepped outside.

The view from the roof was... Darius could hardly believe his eyes. He was in a city, and not just any city, but a city destroyed. Anything that wasn't a skyscraper had basically been reduced to a pile of rubble, with very few buildings still standing. It was like... it was like everything had been razed to the ground by some sort of earthquake. Or worse. No, definitely worse. And the thing was, the destruction looked old, like it happened a long time ago.

This... was not Isla Nublar. Nor was it Isla Sorna. There were no cities on the islands, and even if there were, no dinosaur could have done this. Darius didn't even know what could have done this. An earthquake? Aliens? A tsumani? Whatever it was had gone, and left a shell of a city in its wake. It was worse than anything Darius had ever seen.

With a sinking feeling in his gut, Darius sat down, feeling overwhelmed. This couldn't be... no, how could this have possibly happened? And why would Darius had not remembered that? And where was everyone else?

So caught up in his despair, Darius hardly noticed the blinking red light coming from his watch, and when he did, he just clicked at his watch, trying to make it stop.

"Darius? Kenji? Ben? Yaz? Sammy? It's me, Brooklyn!"

Daius' head snapped up, and he brought up the Red Box to his face, his eyes blown waide. On the screen were the words 'Playing transmission...' and nothing else, but Darius stared at it like it held all the answers to life itself.

"Brooklyn?" he gasped, hardly daring to believe it.

"Listen, I don't have much time," Brooklyn continued. "So please listen! It took me so long to be able to do this and-no, never mind, it's not important. The important thing is that I'm in a place called the Nightlight City, and I'm trying to get out, but-Ugh, just listen! Guys, just find the Nightlight city and get there, but whatever you do, don't go inside! I'm trying to get OUT but they aren't letting me... Just don't get stuck like I am. I'll find a way out, and then meet you all outside. I don't know if you understand yet, and maybe by the time we meet up you will, but there's something I have to tell you, it's important! So stay alive, and meet-."

Brooklyn's voice cut off. Darius gaped at his watch, the words had disappeared, replaced by the words: 'End of transmission. Would you like to save it? YES/NO'. Darius hastily selected yes, and the screen was filled by a loading circle, before finally saying 'Transmission saved. Secondary objective(s) updated. To view saved or downloaded transmissions, audio files or calls, click HERE.'.

Darius did so, worried. He had never heard of Nightlight City, in Jurassic World or otherwise, but if Brooklyn was there, and even worse, if she was in trouble there, then Darius made up his mind that he would go right away, and that he would let nothing get in his way. And once he was with Brooklyn, they could find the rest of their friends, and then they could figure out a way... home...

Darius lowered his watch, Ignoring the information that flashed across the screen for the moment. Thinking of home had reminded him of the place he was right now, and ow when he had first woken up, he had immediately assumed he was on the island, but now, it was clear that wasn't the case. There were no cities on the island, at least not like this. But still, the only alternative is that he was home... and that something unthinkable had happened to it.

Darius winced at the thought, his mind shying away from the possibility as soon as he thought it. This couldn't be his home... could it?

Slowly, Darius raised his watch. It was back to displaying the basic information, that seemed to be its default, and Darius once again read through it.

Day 1

Location: Sky High Hotel, Bottleneck City, Badlands

Time: 1: 45 AM

Primary Objective(s): Find the others [0/15], Find the Truth of The World

Secondary Objective(s): Find Nightlight City

Darius blinked, rereading the location name again and again until he was sure. Bottleneck City... Darius had never heard of that place, but it wasn't his home. He didn't know where he was, or what he was doing, or what was even going on... but he still had hope that everyone he love was safe. Darius pressed the watch to his chest and breathed a sigh of relief.

When he had finally stomped his rising panic down, Darius took another look at his watch. He tapped at the basic information and the interfaced changed, showing yet another list.

Your information

The Red Box's information

Maps

Downloaded

Connections

Radio

Settings

Darius moved to tap downloaded, but when he saw the maps option, he paused, and the tapped that instead.

A big red dot was clearly blinking on the screen, hovering over a spot labelled 'Badlands'. Connected to the red dot was a red line, and it moved across the map, through places labelled 'The Blood Sea', 'The Wasteland' and 'The Frozen North' until it ended at a star over a spot named 'Nightlight City Entrance'. Darius frowned. That looked... really far away.

Well, there was no better time to start, was there? Darius was going to listen back on Brooklyn's transmission, but he had already gotten everything he needed from it, didn't he? Darius didn't need to listen to the transmission over and over again because he was going to find the REAL Brooklyn. Darius was determined now, and nothing would stop him from getting to Nightlight city.

Suddenly, a noise distracted Darius, drawing him over over to the side of the building. He move carefully, all too aware of the edge of the building and the yawning drop beyond that, but the roof, thankfully, seemed more stable than the rest of the building. Not that the roof would hold him up if the rest of the building collapsed, but whatever. Darius peeked over the edge.

"Dreadnoughtus!" he cried, his eyes going as wide as saucers as he saw the giant, lumbering titanosaurs walking down below him. A huge sauropod weighing thirty eight tonnes Dreadnoughtus was a dinosaur that was not featured in Jurassic World based on the sheer impossibility of feeding them. None of the huge titanosaurs were, so Darius had given up on ever being able to see one. But now it was here, right in front of him, and Darius couldn't be more excited before remembering his earlier promise.

"Oh, right..." he said outloud, not able to completely stamp down the excitement at seeing the pod of sauropods. He winced, remembering his friends. "Man, they are not going to be happy to see you. I can't believe there are dinosaurs, even here!"

-

Footnotes:

New Skill Added: Makeshift Lockpicking

You will be able to lockpick almost any lock if you have a strong enough weapon, but depending on what you pick you can lose speed points. And no matter what you choose, you will lose stealth points. It is possible to learn both Makeshift Lockpicking and normal Lockpicking, but Makeshift Lockpicking will use less materials and less skill points than normal Lochpicking.