PART 1 — ARRIVAL
Snowflakes drifted in slow spirals through the air like dandruff from a god having a nervous breakdown, piling in uneven mounds across the cracked concrete of the courtyard of Dino High: Prestigious Institute of Cretaceous Excellence™, its proud iron letters already half-rusted and tilted like drunk teeth. The entire facility looked like a military prison someone tried to decorate with stickers — brutalist concrete blocks, jagged metal fences tipped with spear-like spikes, and faded "NO MAMMALS ALLOWED" posters half-ripped and reused with sloppy marker edits that now read "NO MAMMALS ALLOWED UNLESS RICH."
Every wall was covered in graffiti — crudely scratched claws spelling things like "HERBIVORE SCUM", "CARN POWER," and "PRINCIPAL IS A LIZARD RACIST." Someone had vandalized a school banner that originally said "WELCOME BACK, STUDENTS!" and now it just read "WELCOME BACK, MISTAKES."
A distorted voice crackled from the loudspeaker above the frosted gates:
"ATTENTION STUDENTS. FIGHTING BEFORE FIRST BELL IS A TWO-STRIKE OFFENSE. IF YOU MUST KILL EACH OTHER, WAIT UNTIL MIDDAY."
No one listened.
The student body outside the entrance looked like a zoo riot. Feathers fluffed in the cold, thick downy coats dusted in frost, tails lashing, beaks clacking, horns knocking together in territorial shoves. A gaggle of raptors in oversized hoodies were screaming at a triceratops girl in ripped denim, calling her "mud-sniffer" while she bellowed back "STICK-ARMS" and threatened to gore them. A pair of stegosaur jocks shoulder-checked a smaller iguanodon kid into a snowbank just for walking too close. Nobody helped him.
Phones were out everywhere. A group of feathered hadrosaurs were filming a fight in the background, cackling:
"Yo, yo, push him into the slush! DO IT!""BRO, BITE HIS EAR OFF!""HASHTAG #EXTINCTIONROUND2 — POST IT!"
Somewhere a group of crocodilians in leather jackets lurked near the fence, smoking something illegal and spitting into the snow.
Then, into this prehistoric hellscape, a wheezing, half-frozen vintage snowplow minivan rolled through the gates like it was personally escorted by regret. The muffler rattled. One door was duct-taped shut. Stickers on the back read "MY OTHER WING IS A REAL WING" and "HONK IF YOU HUNT."
It parked. It coughed. It died.
The side door slid open with a noise like a banshee being dragged across a chalkboard.
And she stepped out.
Priya Reideyel-Keliner.Or as she preferred to be introduced: just Ptero.
Her downy coat was blinding white — not cute dove-white, but clinical morgue-white, with the faint blue sheen of frostbite. Her wings weren't feathery like birds — fine picno-fibers, like needle-soft fur, stretched thin over bone and leather membrane. Her hair — if you could call the fluff around her crest that — was cream-colored, but in the light it looked almost radioactive.f
Her outfit was aggressive accidentally religious goth. Black uniform technically up to regulation — high collar, silver buttons — but everything had been butchered and corrupted. Sleeves scribbled in white ink runes. Skirt hacked into jagged points. Torn fishnets. Chains jingling from her waist. A skull patch stitched across her chest reading:
"BE NICE OR ROT."
Around her neck hung her family's relic: a meteor crystal pendant, glowing faint red like a dying ember — legacy of ancient pterosaur nobility.
She stepped onto the slush like she was descending into Hell willingly.
"Home sweet prison," she muttered under her breath.
And then — her mother stepped out after her.
Mrs. Reideyel.
If Priya was a funeral, her mother was a casserole commercial. Twice her daughter's size, wings thick and heavy like broken cathedral doors, useless for flight but great for hugging you until you died. Her wool-wrapped outfit looked like she'd walked straight out of a 1920s pterosaur bakery catalog. Soft pastel shawls. Apron-layer wraps. Golden spectacles on her beak. And, unable to be ignored — two colossal maternal breasts straining against her lace-up bodice like imprisoned bread loaves.
Her expression radiated baked goods made of love.
Priya's radiated arson and contempt.
Mrs. Reideyel clasped her hands together warmly, surveying the raging student body like a proud gardener admiring mold.
"Oh! So lively!" she chirped. "Such spirit! Such community!"
Priya stared ahead like she was suppressing a seizure.
"They're animals."
"You are an animal, dear."
"I'm different."
A nearby mic on the loudspeaker crackled:
"STUDENTS ARE REMINDED THAT BITING WITHOUT CONSENT IS GROUNDS FOR PARENTAL CALL."
A stegosaur immediately bit someone in the background.
Priya ignored it.
Then came the worst sentence a mother could possibly say.
Mrs. Reideyel leaned in, voice soft as poison.
"Priya, sweetheart… do you want me to help you make a friend before I leave?"
Priya's neck slowly turned like an owl about to commit homicide.
"Mama. If you even try—"
"You're so lonely at home!"
"I AM NOT—"
"You sulk in your room and throw things!"
"THERAPEUTICALLY."
"We JUST fixed the drywall so the trilobites wouldn't crawl in again!"
"I LIKE THE TRILOBITES, THEY VIBE WITH ME."
Mrs. Reideyel didn't hear her. She was scanning the crowd like a missile system.
"Let's just find someone. Anyone. Maybe that cute diplodocus boy—"
"HE HAS FUNGUS."
"What about the stegosaur dancing over there?"
They both turned.
The stegosaur speared someone through the torso with her tail while laughing.
Mrs. Reideyel winced sweetly.
"…Perhaps not."
Then her eyes locked onto someone.
A lone human.
Standing beneath a frost-bitten tree. Coat military green. Phone in hand. Blank stare.
Completely still in the chaos around him.
A rare mutation.
Mrs. Reideyel inhaled sharply like she'd seen Jesus.
"Perfect!"
Priya screamed:
"MOM. NO."
Too late.
Mrs. Reideyel's massive hand shot out, her claws surprisingly delicate as they plucked the lone human boy straight out of his phone trance. One moment he was scrolling, thumbs twitching lazily, face bathed in the cold glow of the cracked screen, the next moment his entire arm was captured by the iron grip of a pterosaur matron.
His phone nearly slipped from his hand.
"Young man!" she said, bright as church bells, beak curved into a sunny smile. "Yes, you! You look like just the sort of stable, responsible friend my daughter needs!"
Anon didn't even flinch. His pale face turned slowly, like clockwork, emerald-blue eyes dragging across her mother's warm grin, then over to Priya's narrowed, burning glare, then back down at her claws clutching his arm. He blinked once. Then he deadpanned:
"…Lady. You don't know me."
Priya's feathers bristled like she'd been electrocuted.
"MOM! What the actual hell are you doing—"
"Priya, hush," Mrs. Reideyel cooed, wings folding primly like she was just straightening a tablecloth, "you've always said nobody understands you, well, what better way to start fresh than with a young man who also doesn't belong here?"
"HE'S A HUMAN. HE'S A FREAKIN' MONKEY."
Priya's voice cracked through the courtyard, sharp enough to turn a few heads. A nearby velociraptor snickered and whispered something crude about mammal lice. Someone else hissed "ew, pinkskin" under their breath. Anon didn't react — just adjusted the grip on his phone, screen cracked from earlier drops, thumb hovering over the keyboard as if debating whether to just keep texting while being held hostage.
Mrs. Reideyel leaned closer, earnest as ever, ignoring the venom dripping from her daughter's words.
"You see, Priya, he's standing all alone. No friends. Just like you!"
Anon finally spoke again, voice low, completely flat, as though life itself had already bored him to death.
"…Thanks. Real flattering."
"See? He's already sarcastic, just like you!" her mother sang, beak opening in delighted surprise. "You'll get along famously!"
Priya practically lunged forward, feathers puffing, eyes glaring daggers at the boy her mother had dragged into her orbit. Her voice hitched with fury:
"Listen, you smug primate reject, don't think for a second that just because my mom thinks we're trauma twins or whatever, that means we're gonna be—"
Anon cut her off without even looking up from his phone.
"…Friends?"
"…Shut the hell up."
"Gladly."
Mrs. Reideyel clapped her claws together, delighted.
"Oh! He's polite too!"
"THAT WASN'T POLITE."
"It was annoying!"
Priya's hands clenched at her sides, fists trembling, chains on her skirt jingling with the force of her rage. She leaned in until her face was almost nose-to-beak with Anon, eyes glowing.
"This is my precious hatchling—" Priya's mother declared proudly, and without warning she smacked Priya's backside with a resounding thwack.
"ACK—!" Priya shrieked, or more accurately squawked, wings flaring as she jumped forward in mortified horror.
Her mother burst into laughter. "See? Hear that bounce?"
The human — who had up to this point maintained a perfectly dead-eyed demeanor — actually snorted, quickly covering his mouth. His shoulders shook. He was trying not to laugh, but Priya's mom was like some kind of walking forcefield against seriousness.
She just had that aura — dangerously disarming suburban mom energy.
"Oh! Before I forget — here's your lunch and dinner!" Mrs. Reideyel chirped cheerfully, shoving a large floral lunch sack into Priya's arms. "No breakfast, you're on a diet! Don't want to look bloated in front of the ape." She slipped a shiny snack bar into the side pocket and winked conspiratorially. "First day is a cheat day."
Priya stood stiff as a fence post, feathers puffed in rage. "MOM, I told you, I don't need you to prepare my food!"
Before the argument could escalate further, the human — voice flat as ice — said:
"Can I have it?"
Both mother and daughter froze.
Priya's mom blinked. "Oh! Uh. Sure, sweetheart." She handed over the entire lunch bag without hesitation.
He unzipped it, pulled out a cookie, took a bite.
"Wow," he murmured. "Home cooking from a loving parent. Never had one of those."
Crunch.
"Mmmm. Apple."
Priya's mom clasped her hands together, beaming. "Well that was easy! I didn't even have to tempt you with money or…" — she gave him a sly, knowing wink — "…something else."
He visibly recoiled at that, face twisting with faint disgust, like he'd just been offered soup made of roadkill.
"…Don't," he said simply.
Priya buried her face in her wings.
(I am going to fake my death and move to Pangaea.)
"Do you even know where you are, monkey? This isn't some daycare for mammals. These kids would eat you alive. Literally. The only reason they haven't is because you smell like hospital soap depression, and that makes you unappetizing."
Anon finally raised his eyes from his phone, meeting hers fully for the first time. His tone didn't waver, didn't shift, didn't even blink.
"…Cool. Guess I'll live longer than you then."
That landed like a thrown knife.
Priya recoiled, beak clenching, ready to snap back — but her mother swooped in with her suffocating maternal warmth.
"See, Priya! He's funny!"
"No, Mom, he's insufferable!"
"So are you, darling, you'll be perfect together."
The snow whipped between them, a gust blowing through the courtyard as other students began to notice the strange tableau:
A dilophosaur yelled from across the courtyard:
"YO! THE GOTH NUN'S HITTING ON A MONKEY!"
The crowd cackled. Priya's face burned — not with embarrassment, but pure wrath.
"I SWEAR TO METEORS, IF YOU DON'T SHUT UP—"
"Priya," Mrs. Reideyel interrupted softly, patting her shoulder, "you'll thank me later. You can't go through life without allies. Even pterosaurs need companionship. And maybe… just maybe… this young man will surprise you."
Anon slid his phone back into his jacket pocket, exhaling like a man about to walk into a hurricane. He met Priya's blazing stare head-on and said, in that same unshaken monotone:
"…Don't worry. I'm not here to be anyone's friend."
Her wings twitched, her whole body poised like she wanted to rip him apart. But something about that answer — that complete refusal — froze her tongue. She hated it, hated him, hated the way he said exactly what she would have said if she weren't too busy screaming.
Mrs. Reideyel, on the other hand, clasped her claws together like she was witnessing a wedding.
"Wonderful! Then it's settled. You two can hate the world together. Now—" she pulled them a little closer with frightening strength, "at least promise me you'll watch out for each other. For me."
The human didn't answer. Priya didn't either. Their silence roared louder than the chaos around them.
The bell shrieked, long and metallic, and the crowd surged toward the gates like a stampede. Mrs. Reideyel gave Priya one last crushing hug — nearly suffocating her in pastel shawls and maternal perfume — before stepping back, eyes misty but hopeful.
"Be strong, my little dove. Don't forget — you're never truly alone."
Priya shoved free, muttering under her breath like venom:
"I was fine being alone."
Priya's boots clicked. Anon's sneakers didn't make a sound.
Five. Full. Minutes.
Then she snapped.
"…Are you gonna say anything?"
He didn't even break stride. Just blinked once, like a computer coming out of sleep mode.
"About what."
She threw up her wings. "I don't know. Literally anything. You've been quiet this whole time."
"You've been grumbling the entire walk," he replied, still hands-deep in his pockets. "Just not… out loud, I guess."
Priya stopped in her tracks like she'd just been force-quit. Her feathers fluffed on instinct.
"…Excuse me?"
Anon finally turned to look at her — calm, analytical, like she was a malfunctioning appliance. A toaster of opinions.
"You're very loud," he said. "Even when you're silent."
Priya's wings twitched. Loud? Loud?!
"Oh I'm loud? Sorry, would you prefer if I just rolled over and started licking your boots like your kind made dinosaurs do in the past with your evil raider murder vikings??"
Anon squinted slightly. "…Boot licking wasn't historically part of Viking warfare."
"That's not the point!"
He shrugged. "Either way. No. I wouldn't prefer that. That'd be weird."
The hallway parted briefly as a massive allosaur in a letterman jacket stomped by, slamming a freshman mammal against the lockers with casual disinterest. Somewhere down the hall, the intercom crackled with a bored voice:
"Reminder to students: Please refrain from eating classmates in the hallways — carnivores may only consume prey in designated zones. The nurse's office is still recovering from this morning tail-biting incident. That means you, Raptor Squad."
Background laughter. A locker door slammed shut. Someone yelled "Fight behind the vending machines at lunch!"
Priya exhaled sharply.
"Okay. Fine. Ground rules," she said, pointing a claw at his chest. "We are not friends. Don't talk to me unless I talk first, don't walk in front of me, don't walk behind me either because I'll think you're trying to bite me. And don't stare at my wings."
"I'm not," he said.
"You were."
"You don't get it," she said finally, her voice cracking like glass. "This whole place? They already look at me like I'm a joke, like I don't even belong here. And then you come walking in with your dumb monkeyness, looking like you don't even care that you're surrounded by creatures who could eat you alive in half a second—"
"They won't," Anon interrupted, flat as ever.
Priya stopped mid-rant. "…Excuse me?"
"They won't eat me," he repeated, glancing at her like she was the one being naïve. His eyes were cool, steady, that strange green-blue ringed with yellow like some reptile mimicry, but no heat behind them, just…cold calculation. "Not because they like me. Not because I'm safe. But because everyone here knows that if you eat a human, you're on every list the second your stomach acid touches bone. Dinosaurs get away with killing each other. They don't get away with killing us." he said rather ominously.
Priya stared at him. For once she didn't have a snarky comeback lined up.
And that unsettled her more than if he'd screamed in her face.
(What the hell is his deal? He talks like he's seen it happen. Like he knows where the invisible lines are drawn, by animal nature.)
"…You're creepy," she muttered, wings folding closer around her like armor. "Like, actually creepy. You don't blink enough. You talk like a corpse. And if my mom wasn't the biggest idiot on the planet, I'd ditch you right now."
Anon shoved his hands deeper into his pockets, gaze still forward, unreadable. "Then why haven't you?"
Priya's jaw clenched. No answer came out.