thisavrou | video; I Want to Hug Every Dino But I Can't. (Can't Hug Every Dino)

[ Kelly Ann takes a deep breath and lets it out, tense and fidgety in front of the camera. ]

Ok. Wow, heh. This is um. Harder when I'm not on pain meds. So anyway, I don't know if everybody has noticed but like. Half the space station is fucking flooded. But this isn't about that.

Even with the cull and all, there's still a bunch of these little dinos around. [ She glances at something behind the camera and gestures, indicating it should follow. ] All the water is making them like, cold or some shit. So they're looking for warm places. You might find them like, near lamps or even in your bed in the morning. They might get attracted to appliances, like if you're baking something. Shit like that. See, here's some. I just got these towels out of the dryer and there's like these little anklyosauruses, I think, all curled up in there. Looks like two or three. They're really wiggling around in there. See if you can get a good shot.

[ The camera pans down to show the chicken-sized armored dinos burrowing into what used to be Kelly Ann's clean towels, with a similarly diminutive velociraptor looking on with an expression that is unmistakably miffed. The camera then pans back up to Kelly Ann. ]

When the dinos first showed up, Shepard said not to keep them as pets but Peter and I have had Pino this whole time and he's fine. [ She glances behind the camera again and hisses. ] Shut up he doesn't bite you that much. [ She looks back to the camera. ] And I mean. She's still in cryo so. [ She pauses just a moment. ]

So whatever. They don't all have to be used for research or killed. If you want one as a pet, let me or Peter know. We've been collecting them in my room, but I can't keep any of them. Pino has been trying to eat the others. And he gets protein cubes and jerky so he's not hungry, he's just being a little shit.

[ She glances behind the camera. ] Right. Stop rambling.

There's a bunch of different kinds, not just anklyosaurs. So whatever your favorite dinosaur is, we probably have one. Or a new favorite you don't even know about yet.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Right on. I figure some of them have to be herbivores, I guess? They must have been eating out of the greenery all that time there was nobody here and they were all alone.

Yeah.

My friend Richie's got a carnivore. I don't even want to think about how those ones survived.

[Beside her, Marvin starts to stir, his tail swishing slightly.]

I can't believe these guys have feathers and fur!

I mean, they probably ate each other. [ Kelly Ann shrugs. ] Rules of the space... jungle.

Oh yeah you have to like, clean that shit. They get into everything and even the feathers can get all matted and it's pretty gross.

Probably.

[She wrinkles her nose. It's how it went, but that doesn't mean she likes it.]

Thanks for the advice- I'll try to pass it, on see if I can get my friends to listen. I doubt Richie's gonna care too much about how his Teddie looks.

It's not really about looks, it's about keeping their skin healthy and shit. They can get infections and there isn't a whole lot of information about how to treat them for anything.

[Beverly nods.]

Good point. It's hard to find a dinosaur vet when they all died out forever ago.

Except for these guys.

Which is pretty wild. I don't know where they all came from. This station was abandoned for centuries before we all got dumped here. Their own tiny isolated ecosystem all that time. It's wild.

Centuries, wow.

Maybe someone was incubating eggs? Y'know how they do that in science classes? Then the station was abandoned and the eggs hatched on their own.

[ Kelly Ann shrugs. ]

I have no fucking idea. If there's records of how these things got here, I haven't been able to find them.

Maybe I'll look into that.

[If Ben were here, he'd be all over that. He was the best researcher out of all of them, knowing his way around libraries so well. Mike grew up to be a librarian, but Ben had been the one to find so much out about Derry in the first place.]

There's loads of books in the library, they might have some useful information for care, at least. Even if it's like, just info on how to deal with birds and lizards we might be able to cobble together something helpful out of that.

My friend Stan is really into birds. [She wasn't into birds, but Stan was a smart guy and she wasn't going to let his expertise go to waste.] Maybe he's got a good idea.