It has been a very long day.
I didn't sleep much at all last night. Maybe an hour. The direness of my situation has really hit home. No one is coming unless I can get a message out. Few people knew the park existed, many of those people are now dead. There's no reason for anyone from the company to assume there are any survivors on the island. And I'm not sure I would be any safer if I was 'rescued' by representatives of the company or investors. I heard about shady stuff and dismissed it before. It wasn't my business. But if the company were to send someone back into this hellhole, I can bet they wouldn't be a friendly face. If I'm unable to make contact with someone else, a boat, coast guard, anyone, then I will die here.
I thought this would be a cool job. I thought it was great pay for janitorial work. I didn't mind the mosquitos. They said the dinosaurs were safe if you followed the rules. I thought I could maybe bring my nephews here with my discount. I didn't think I'd be the last asshole left in the building, trying to figure out these goddamn computers while a bunch of bird monsters try to flush me out like a fucking gopher in a hole.
As I was laying awake, I realized I was starving. At dawn, I got up and remembered there was a fridge in the break room for full-time employees. I don't like moving around the control center at night. It feels risky to turn on lights. I have found a flashlight, but that almost feels worse. I just don't want to attract any attention to myself at all. Upon entering the break room, the lights would not turn on, and the fridge was unpowered. I assume it has been this way for the last 3 days. Part of me was hungry enough to risk trying one of the better looking left-over burritos, but I don't need to add food poisoning to my list of problems. If I had been thinking, I would've checked the fridge sooner, but it wasn't my top priority. I found some dry ramen and some cans of tuna and soup in the cupboards, and ate some of the soup cold. I might be able to pull out the microwave and lug it to the command room later.
The radio needs to be my top priority. I get it working or I die. I spent the morning pouring over the communications manual and learning the terminal interface. I was able to figure out that the power outages and electrical issues had taken the main communications array offline, and the radio terminal was only using some sort of default, built-in antenna. Which explains some of the dismal signal from yesterday. The communication array is on the roof of the building, and is protected by its own breaker. In all likelihood, I probably tripped this breaker when I tried to bring the fences back online yesterday. Who fucking designed this park with all these fucking breakers so far apart? What did they think an emergency here would look like?
I spent probably too much time trying to think up some sort of distraction to lure the raptors away while I investigated the roof before just deciding fuck it. I don't currently have a death wish, but I'm realizing I may need to develop a bit of one to survive here. Paradoxes are fun.
The roof seemed relatively safe. It's two stories off the ground, technically three in some parts since the building is on a hill. It's very nerve-racking up there, because it feels both extremely quiet and extremely exposed. I could hear some sort of dinosaur commotion in distance: it sounded like a fight. At the time, this seemed good. Attention somewhere else. I located the communication array in a fenced cage on the far end of building. I also could smell something horrible, which maye I had caught whiffs of inside but had been able to ignore until now. I headed towards the communication cage, trying to stay away from the edge. Eventually, I realized that smell was coming from just to the south, an my curiosity got to me. I snuck up to and peeked over the south edge of the roof, where at ground level I saw the rotting corpse of some dino I frankly don't remember the name of. Big, brownish duck-looking fucker, its gut making rancid streaks across the shrubbery. When had this happened? Did this happen before I had reached the center on Friday, or could something like this have happened without me noticing? Did they kill it and drag it here to eat? Is outside the control center their hangout spot now? I also noticed big claw-marks above the dead dino corpse, snaking all the way up the concrete walls, stopping only a few feet below the roof. I decided to hurry the hell up. For all I knew, one could've been up there with me, watching.
Inside the fenced cage I was able to find and reset the communications breaker. (No padlock anywhere to be found, not on the cage, not on the breaker! Lucky me, I guess, but then why fucking cage it in the first place? This company, I swear to fucking god) I could see a few LEDs flicker: it seemed successful. The noise in the distance was getting louder, so I hurried back to the stairs.
I hadn't even made it down the first flight of stairs when the crash hit. Just a thundering sound. I froze for a second before Running back up to the roof and peeking out the door, I didn't dare actually step outside. I could see the south lookout tower down, it had ripped the cables out of maybe a half-mile of the perimeter fence. There were a dozen or so large dinos rushing toward the building, it took me a second to clock them as Pachys. I lept back down the stairs and headed for my command center, but almost immediately heard the first impact, and then more and more. Dull thuds that shook the building.
I ran to go see what was happening, against my better judgement, which seems to be the theme today. The hallway that runs along the south wall of the building is lined with floor to ceiling windows with 6-inch thick plexiglass. I remember someone telling me they were phenomenally expensive. I don't go in that hallway because how visible you are in it, but on Friday, in the chaos, I remember seeing a raptor try to attack the windows and fail to even make a dent.
The group of clearly terrified pachys were now up against these windows, randomly slamming their heads against them like confused pigeons. They left smears of drool and blood and foggy patches with bits of feathers along the glass. A group of five or six raptors were attacking the herd, egging them on. I stepped into the hallway and stood just watching in pure shock for a moment. I've seen the dinos up close before, but this was something else. It's something primal to see animals so much bigger than me so terrified and hurt. My moment of awe was literally broken by the cracking of the glass as another hard pachy head slammed into the wall. I bolted out of the hallway, but found myself still watching from behind the door for a moment as one of the glass panels shattered into thick wedges. One of the pachys screamed, impaled on shards. I ran.
Between the remains of the thick glass panel and the dead pachy, there wasn't much room for the raptors to get in afterwards. Looking over the tape later, a few of them climbed the pachy corpse and poked their snouts in as the rest ate, but oddly none of them tried to wiggle in between the broken glass. Not even the dark-feathered one. Yet, anyway. The raptors seem somehow both bold and cautious at once.
Getting around the control center will be a little slower now without that hallway. The doors on all sides are locked, and for the moment seem fine. There are at least two rooms that were only accessible from there, hopefully nothing I need inside. After I finish writing this, I am going to try to barricade all doors leading in and out of the hallway just in case. I should barricade the command center too. Honestly I'm worried about the walls and ceiling more than the doors. Could the raptors dig their way to me? I have no idea what they're capable of. It seems pretty clear to me that they orchestrated the pachy stampede, but its very hard to tell what's paranoia right now.
After all of this, I tried to call for help on the radio again. The signal of the automated Spanish recording comes in better now. I'm going to have to call that a success.