Forbidden Link

26. Dinosaur

"Maybe the dinosaurs weren't as big as the ones in the movies. But they are still much bigger than our bodies.”

Alex closed his eyes when he heard Willow's answer. It was possible that Willow's answer was indeed important information. But that's not the answer Alex and Bianca need right now. Alex and Bianca just needed to be given a statement that was more logical than bringing in a dinosaur.

“Dinosaur… tyrannosaur… brontosaurus… those dinosaurs, aren't they?” asked Bianca, moving her mouth and hands in an attempt to reveal a sinister creature, but it became an underrepresented thing.

“Yeah… I'm sure you won't believe me. But you can ask everyone here and they will give the same answer as mine.”

Even though Willow had answered her question, Bianca was still unsure about the information she had just received. So the girl turned to Alex and hoped that Alex would reassure her.

Meanwhile, Alex was looking around the court again as he did when he passed through the door to the basketball court. Almost everyone who was in the stands showed a resigned face. Regardless of whether Willow's words were true or not, the faces of the people on the basketball court showed a pessimistic situation. And among the hundreds of people Alex could see that some people were crying, especially the women.

After being satisfied with seeing the conditions around him, Alex's gaze stopped at the girl sitting beside him who was looking at him intensely.

"I really can't imagine what will happen next."

Alex was silent as Bianca spoke her thoughts with a confused face. Alex wanted to ask a lot of things but his mouth was tightly shut when he saw the girl in front of him. From less than a meter away, Alex could see Bianca's expression clearly. Supposedly, the close distance between him and Bianca made Alex focus his eyes on Bianca. But Alex instead imagined the face of another person who had the exact same hairstyle as the person he saw at that time.

It took a few minutes after hearing the word “dinosaur” for Alex to understand the connection between the word and his sister, Kaira. Alex's confusion was replaced by a sudden fear. And that fear made Alex slowly understand the clue which was happening in this forbidden link world right now.

Intimidation and dinosaurs. Perhaps no one would link these two unrelated things unless someone knew Kaira quite closely. For Alex, those two things had been his daily breakfast when he saw one by one the paintings of Kaira. Kaira was quite famous as a painter who produced painting after painting that was given a dark and terrifying theme. However, there were some works that she had never shown to the outside world, namely works that showed her fear of several things. And two of them were the intimidation from the people around Kaira and creatures that became extinct more than a hundred million years ago, namely dinosaurs.

Kaira's family, including Alex, had only found out that the youngest child from the Donati family had a phobia of dinosaurs when Kaira had been in the first grade of elementary school. At that time, in Kaira's class, there had been a student who had been storytelling about a movie he liked and then he showed a picture of a tyrannosaurus. At that moment, Kaira immediately ran out of the classroom and did not return until the lesson ended. All the teachers had been looking for her until finally Alex had been asked by the teachers to look for Kaira, who had disappeared.

Calming Kaira, who had been crying continuously at that time, had not been easy. If Alex asked, Kaira would cry even more. So, at that time, Alex could only accompany Kaira besides until the evening without speaking a single word. Alex had even sat on the floor and had fallen asleep beside Kaira.

Since Kaira's disappearance at school, Kaira had been known as a student who had been often absent. The teachers had kept complaining to Kaira's parents until finally Charles and Gabrielle -who at that time were still husband and wife - had to stop Kaira from going to school and had given homeschool to the youngest child of the Donati family.

After Kaira's disappearance, Alex had learned that his sister often had nightmares about dinosaurs. In her dream, Kaira had been scared to death because the dinosaurs had been chasing her. Before she had been less than ten years old, Kaira had not been able to explain to others how scary her nightmare had been. But after ten years old, Kaira finally dared to tell Alex her dream through a painting.

“Every time I dream about dinosaurs, I have to keep running to avoid them. There were times when I couldn't run in the dream and the dinosaur started biting me all over my body. My hands, my feet, they even just let my head fall on the ground while watching my whole body being grabbed by a group of dinosaurs.”

Alex, who had been thirteen years old at the time, couldn't say much when his younger sister told him about the nightmare. And when Alex had asked how often the dream occurred, Kaira had said that if she had seen even the slightest picture of dinosaurs, she would have had a nightmare every day for a whole week. It had been a tremendous mental torment for a child who was only six years old. In fact, it had still been very torturous when Kaira told the story at the age of eleven.

The flashback that occurred in Alex's mind made cold sweat run down his temples. Kaira's face, which was very flat when she told her about her nightmare, turned into Bianca's worried face. Bianca waved in front of Alex because Alex didn't answer her question.

“Ah… what is it, Bian?”

"I've called your name many times, Al. Are you really that oblivious? Hey.. you sweat quite a lot. Are you okay?"

Alex wiped his sweat with the knuckle of his right hand. He had just realized that Kaira's fear of dinosaurs could frighten him. Imagining how similar Kaira's condition was when her classmates had shouted at her about the conditions in the first stage, Alex spontaneously imagined what Kaira's imagination would look like in the middle of the basketball court. Dinosaurs with sharp fangs and claws. Body pieces with blood splattered everywhere. Shout after scream, that would make the atmosphere even more tense.

"What happened to the guys who played basketball with the dinosaurs?"

Alex's question again made Willow speechless. Willow's expression didn't change much. It was just that his words grew slower as he hesitated to answer.

“They… were eaten by that dinosaur…”

Before Bianca could scream, Alex immediately covered Bianca's mouth with his right hand. Then Alex asked again, “They will still be alive, right? Like you said earlier?"

Willow took a deep breath and exhaled loudly. While looking at the two people who were staring at him, Willow almost opened his mouth to speak but didn't. If, from the beginning, Willow's face had looked very flat, this time his expression changed to one of aggravation.

“Do you really want to know what happened to the players? I was just about to tell you to do nothing and let the match be called off.”

"And when the game is canceled, then everything goes back to the way it was before, right?"

Willow nodded with a furrowed brow at Alex's question. It seemed Willow caught Alex's desire to continue the match. Willow kept frowning as she saw Alex staring at him intensely.

"Please, new players… we don't want to hear scream after scream again in this room."

“Then you will take this condition forever? How long are you going to let it repeat itself over and over again?”

“There is not a single person here who will let you continue the match. After all, there are five players needed. You won't be able to gather people who are willing to give themselves up to be tortured in this place. Hahahaha… unless you ask the person who just walked in from the door,” said Willow, smiling sarcastically at Alex while glancing at the door of the basketball court which had not shown any new players after Alex emerged from there.

“Then you are all cowards.”

Alex's intonation started to rise as his face was so serious. While Alex already knew what he was saying, Bianca looked confused by the intense atmosphere between the two men in front of her. Neither Alex nor Willow tried to lighten the tense atmosphere.

After several minutes, it was Willow who was the first to stop her intense gaze at Alex. Taking a deep breath, Willow tried to stand up with his sizable body. Before leaving Alex and Bianca alone, Willow had one last look at Alex with a straight face.

“You will regret ignoring my words. I had good intentions of informing beforehand so there would be no tragedy.”

The big man left Alex and Bianca and walked towards the other end of the basketball court. Willow's gaze fell on the basketball court door. He seemed to be the one who would approach everyone who just walked onto the basketball court and forbid everyone to choose to play basketball. But Willow's appeal had no effect on Alex. Instead, Alex became increasingly convinced that Willow's activities were completely useless.

“Are you going to follow that person? I'll explain more practically to you. If you follow me, you will feel pain that you may not have imagined before. Perhaps you will feel how your limbs are detaching from each other.”

Alex asked Bianca with a very serious face. Bianca, who wasn't ready for Alex's statement, couldn't help but be silent. Even Bianca was having a hard time breathing at that outspoken statement. There was no conversation between Alex and Bianca for the next few moments even though Bianca really wanted to ask a lot of questions at that time. It's just that her mouth was tightly shut because suddenly there was only fear in her mind.