The day was split--overlain with the shuddery thunder of a heavy tread on sedimentary soils.

Soils that were soft and non-impacted.

Soils that were still new.

He stood there, blind and deaf to any world but this. His vision was trapped here, while his body lingered in a world a hundred million years--maybe several hundred million years--away.

Past experience had warned him not to move. In a place like this it could be deadly. Because, over the aeons, so many of the land's physical features had changed.

What you see is not always what you get...

He could only watch, paralysed by his vulnerability, as the monstrous shape came toward him. His eyes fixed on the long talons, the ripping teeth, the daggerlike spine--almost like a scorpion's stinger--at the end of the tail. The stinger was what caught and held his eye. He forced himself to focus on it, as the creature did a series of bounding leaps in his direction.

It can't see me, he thought, trying to bolster his confidence.

It didn't do much to help. Because there was a gleam in the predator's eye now, and Dustin could swear it was aiming right for him.

The mud slapped with each heavy step, and now, there was mud flicked in his eyes. Flicked in his eyes and flecked on his face. Sweat on his skin and terror in his heart.

The mouth opened so fast, he knew he'd never stand a chance. No hope to outrun it on terrain he couldn't even see.

Not true. It's because you see too much...

It's not here! You're not here!

But it didn't help. He was in a world stinking of methane and sulphur, and rotting meat on three-inch teeth. Where enormous lizards snapped jaws at man-sized morsels.

And it didn't do him a damn bit of good to tell himself he wasn't here.

Because he'd never tested it before. He'd learned not to move, because his own world could kill him. But he'd never deliberately sought to place himself "somewhere else".

His existence had never been at risk before...

I can't sit here and be eaten...

The monster was confused by his stationary pose. It was accustomed to having its prey flee, squealing. At the very least, it was expecting some evasive manoeuvre: head bobbing, counterattack, dodges--something any prey with a gram of intelligence would do.

And, suddenly, it was no good. "I need out!" he hissed urgently. "Josh!"

It was the panicky squawk the creature had been waiting for. The eyes widened, and in that second, Dustin knew it was going to strike. The jaws snapped once, and he wasn't imagining the saliva. As the head lunged forward in a snake-like strike, he dove to one side.

But the tail moved even faster.

This time, when the man's mouth opened, it wasn't with shrieks of terror--it was with an even shriller howl of pain.

"Dusty!" Someone was shaking him roughly.

Josh.

"Can you hear me?"

"Yes, I can hear you," Dustin replied mechanically. He waved a hand in front of his face. "His breath was better--" He squinted his eyes open, peering at his surroundings. Dried, reddish soil. Bright blue--not the sullen overcast of dinoland.

There was a note of tension in Josh's voice. "Did you see one?"

Dustin wiped his face. "Could be-e..." He dragged it out, but Josh's sigh made him snigger. Put him out of his misery. "Nasty things, those Drepanosauruses--" He left it hanging, and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. Sweat, and something else. A gritty something, that stank of sour soils.

Josh's hand gripped his shoulder so hard it hurt. "You saw one?!" He twisted him around so Dustin was forced to look at him. "Did it--" At this point Josh swallowed hard, his voice barely above a whisper. "Did it have a spine?"

"Yeah--" Dustin said, a little distractedly. He was thinking of the weight behind the impact. The force of the blow that had left him stunned.

Or stung... There was a tingle of pain in his leg--like the nerve-jabbing sting of a cold sore.

No way. That's impossible, he thought, trying to calm the lurch of panic that sent his heart racing again. I'm an observer. Only an observer.

The pounding of his heart was suddenly matched by a throbbing pulsebeat in his left leg. The throb gave way to a searing, stabbing jab that shot down between his toes and back up to just beneath his jaw. "Josh--" he gasped, his eyes widening. He gripped the front of Josh's shirt with his fist. Dustin's face was white, his teeth clenched.

"Shit, Dusty!" Josh said worriedly. Was he having a heart attack or something?! "What's wrong?"

Dustin grimaced, but pushed himself up, so he could look at his left leg. See, he told himself, an icy wash of relief running through him. All normal. The relief lasted until the next agonising jolt of pain hit him. This time, he felt it in his gut, too.

Can't be, he thought, through chattering teeth. Only in your imagination...

He gripped his thigh. He sensed Josh's panic, but he could hear his voice only dimly through a fog. "M-Make it stop!" Dustin grunted, unaware that he was saying it aloud.

"Make what stop?!" Josh almost yelled at him. "Tell me what's wrong!"

The back of his pants leg was wet. Must be marsh mud, Dustin thought, confused. He lifted his fingers to look. The tips were bright with blood.

"What the hell!" Josh shrieked, hitting the panic button. He forced his voice down a notch. "W-What have you done now?" He pushed Dusty over on his side--afraid of what he was going to find.

There was blood soaking through Dustin's jeans. Blood leaching into the arid ground. A lot of blood. But, it could have been worse--undoubtedly, would have been worse--if there hadn't been a stopper in the hole.

It was so coated with blood, that at first he couldn't figure out what it was.

"I-Is it bad?" Dustin asked.

"No," Josh lied. It was a tooth--or, maybe, a spine.

Josh's mind rejected it. It can't be... Reason told him he should leave it in, to help control the bleeding. But something else--some other instinct--told him bleeding wasn't the worst of Dusty's problems. Better to make it bleed... With a shaking hand, he grabbed the back of the "tooth" and started to yank it back, out of the hole.

It didn't want to come. It had gone all the way to the bone.

Josh's gorge rose. Maybe into the bone--

"Good," Dustin was saying, and it took Josh a moment to realise he was responding to the "No". It bothered him that Dusty couldn't feel what he was doing.

Dusty was still talking, but he didn't sound right. "Josh," he muttered, "feeling a little weird..."