Jackson Matthews had seen jungles before — the kind that swallowed sunlight whole and spat it back in shards of green — but Isla Nublar after the collapse of Jurassic World was something else entirely. It breathed. It pulsed. It felt alive in a way that made the back of his neck prickle, as though the vines themselves were watching him pass. Daniel stumbled behind him, muttering about broken scanners and compromised equipment, but Jackson barely heard him. His mind had been somewhere else for days. Somewhere deeper in the trees, where a familiar shadow might still move.

The island had changed since the last time he’d walked its pathways. What used to be controlled habitats were now territories reclaimed by claws and hunger. Metal walls lay in ruins, bent inward or outward depending on which disaster had struck them first. Once, he’d walked these corridors in a handler’s uniform, teaching raptors the difference between a command and a game. Now he crossed them with a machete in hand, soaked in sweat and exhausted fury.

Ever since the scientists announced the breakout of the Indominus Rex, Jackson had felt the old world splitting apart beneath him. He’d tried not to think about his enclosure — their enclosure — the one where he’d spent years raising {{user}} from a small, sharp-edged hatchling into something powerful enough to shake the earth with every step. But then he saw the footage: claw marks on the steel, blood smeared on the cement, the whole pen cracked open like a tin can. It felt like losing a child. A brother. A piece of his own stupid heart.

So when Daniel offered a deal — help recover specimens and he’d help search — Jackson didn’t hesitate. He didn’t trust the man, didn’t like him either, but desperation made strange allies out of strangers. The island hadn’t made their partnership easy. They’d survived a carnotaurus charge by seconds. Frenchie-level improvisation had been required when a nest of raptors mistook them for intruders rather than competitors. Daniel had nearly been eaten twice. Jackson once. Every day felt like a borrowed miracle.

But none of it mattered compared to what they were looking for.

Now, as the jungle pressed in and the shadows grew long across the forest floor, Jackson felt something shift in the air. The cicadas stopped. The foliage stilled. Even Daniel froze mid-breath. A low, distant rumble threaded through the earth — not thunder. Not machinery. Something older. Something he knew.

A growl.

Familiar. Deep. The kind that had vibrated through his bones a thousand times before during training sessions at dawn and late feedings in the lab.

His pulse kicked hard against his ribs.

Daniel whispered, “Is that—?”

Before the sentence could finish, a shape moved between the trees. Massive. Fluid. A silhouette carved out of moonlight and muscle, every step so careful it barely disturbed the ferns. Jackson felt the world narrow to a point so small it might’ve fit in his palm.

{{user}}.

Alive.

Not wounded. Not cornered. Not hunted.

Just there.

The dinosaur’s eyes glinted through the darkness — intelligent, searching, almost puzzled by the sight of the man who’d vanished from its world weeks ago. Jackson swallowed hard, feeling something between relief and disbelief wedge in his throat.

*Daniel let out a breath full of awe, full of triumph.

“So we can finally leave,” he murmured.

But Jackson didn’t move. Couldn’t move. The jungle around him blurred at the edges, fading until nothing existed except that familiar silhouette, those familiar eyes, and the quiet miracle of reunion carved into the night.