According to the current knowledge of Earth's paleontologists, the andrewsarchus was the largest carnivorous mammal ever lived on the planet. Although most modern reconstructions saw it as an animal more similar to a warthog than to a wolf or in any case an active predator, it was still very large by the standards of a mammal.

It reached the impressive length of more than five meters and a height at the withers of almost two meters.

By comparison the Bengal tiger was just a adorable kitten, and even the massive polar bears were smaller than it.

However, its size was still minimal in a messy world where dinosaurs, mammals and any other creatures lived together. Even if the andrewsarchus could be considered the top predator in the mammal kingdom, it still had no chance against large predatory dinosaurs. Ceratosaurs, allosaurs, carnotaurs, giganotosaurs, carcharodontosaurs, mapusaurs, tirannosaurs: they all could kill it with a single bite.

Compared to the giant reptiles of the past, even the most powerful predatory mammal could only admit defeat.

That was why the andrewsarchus of Eden had learned from a while to avoid the large dinosaurs. They stayed in places were they knew that the dinosaurs didn't come, and if they were forced to live togheter with them they learned their paths and avoided them assiduously.

However, that strategy worked only if the dinosaurs didn't want to hunt them specifically. In that case, there is no way that the andrewsarchus could fool their powerful sense of smell.

The only way of salvation for an andrewsarchus that was tracked by a large predator dinosaurs was its speed: even if many theropods could run at more than 50 km/h, the andrewsarchus could still exceed that speed and escape.

But for escape, it had to notice the danger in time. And there is no way it could notice the arrive of a predator that had the skill [Ambush].

Sobek hadn't had to make any effort to catch it: he just had to sneak up on him and strike him from behind, and he broke his back without even trying. Once consumed, the andrewsarchus gave him 4 skill points, the highest sum achieved by a mammal.

He currently had 5 skill points. If he had accumulated five more, he could have raised [Regeneration] another time. Which would have made him a little less worried about the torvosaurs.

That bastards were cornering him. Another two days had passed and for all that time they had continued to travel closer and closer to the place where he momentarily lived. At this rate they would have found him within another two days at the latest.

The more they tracked him, the more difficult the hunt began; he now could barely catch one carnivorous mammal at day, and so his harvesting of skill points had slowed down too.

Sobek had made up his mind by now. He would have waited another day, and then he would have left. Even though he was interested in what the girl might represent to him and his future, he didn't intend to risk too much. He had been waiting for more than a week, if humans weren't able to find a lost child it wasn't his problem.

He had done his duty as a good citizen: he certainly had no intention of dying!

A new smell led him to a lair. Inside he found a cave lion that he immediatly devoured. His number of skill points increased to 7.

He wanted to keep hunting, but it was getting dark at night. He picked up a piece of meat that he had left over and carried it to the young girl who as always stood on top of the tree. On the way he had to change direction three times because he risked running into the torvosaurs. He could smell them on several trails he had previously followed, and he had to be careful to mask his own, too.

After offering the girl her dinner, he lay down on the ground, his senses alert as always. The last thing he wanted was to be surprised in the sleep.

******

The spinosaurus had returned once again. Jocelyne breathed a sigh of relief. This time she seriously thought it wouldn't have come back: it had arrived at least three hours late.

Jocelyne was getting more worried every day. Even from the tree she could see that the tension on the body of the spinosaurus hadn't diminished at all, instead it seemed to have increased. The animal seemed ready to spring like a violin string.

Whatever its mysterious opponent was, it was really cornering the spinosaurus.

As usual, it give her a piece of meat from the carcass of the animal that it had killed. It tooked it with its jaws and it handed it to her. Jocelyne leaned slightly from the branches and reached out to grab it, then once she had it she went back to the center of the tree and began to eat in silence.

The piece of meat was covered by the spinosaurus' saliva, but she closed her eyes and tryed to ignore it. She didn't care anymore about what she was eating, if it was eatable. Hunger was a cruel teacher.

When she finished, she leaned slightly out of the tree again and she stared at the spinosaurus. The animal looked back while it finished eating its prey. That was what they did every night: they just looked each other in the eyes.

The last time they continued to do it for nearly two hours, so much so that by the time Jocelyne had finally succumbed to her weariness the pale light of the moon was already illuminating the clearing.

Jocelyne was a smart girl. She knew that the spinosaurus' behavior was justified, in fact she was glad that it was trying so hard to keep protecting her and bringing her food. However, her mind was rapidly going towards the madness. Being trapped all the time in the tree, without knowing what was happening outside, was driving her crazy.

She calmed down only when the spinosaurus arrived and they started to look in each other eyes. In that moments, she felt more safer: the spinosaurus was there, ready to protect her, and based on how tense it was she could understand how dangerous the situation was. Even if just a little, the animal's presence reassured her.

But for the majority of the day, the spinosaurus went off to hunt or try to drive away its mysterious rival. In that moments, she was alone, with only her thoughts to keep her company. And this thoughts became darker and darker every day.

Jocelyne couldn't avoid to think of the worst case scenario, the one where the spinosaurus was killed or ran away abandoning her. Would the other predator have come looking for her then?

It was unlikely it would have focused on her, after all she was a poor meal for such large animals, but it could have tracked the spinosaurus' scent and found the clearing. There it would surely have smelled her and at that point it could have decided to have a snack. After all, food was still food, even if little.

In that case, Jocelyne would never have been able to escape. She still have the botched rope made of vines, that was still tied to the same branch as several days ago, for descend from the tree; however, she would never have been enough fast to run away from a giant meat-eating dinosaur. It would have eaten her even before she could start to descend from the tree.

And even if she would have been able to reach the ground, she would never have been able to run fast enough to outpace it.

There was also the possibility that the predator wouldn't have considered her... but the consequences for her may have been even worse. Perhaps it was better to be eaten quickly by a large carnivore than to die of starvation and exhaustion over the course of days. She now knew how to fish or how to catch small animals...

but she also learned that rarely a hunt ended with the predator that obtain its meal; the majority of the times it ended with the predator that remain empty-handed. And she wasn't exactly a good predator. Even if she managed to catch a fish or a mouse or a bird a day, it wouldn't have been enough to fill her.

And surely she couldn't live eating only the forest fruits, especially because she still didn't know many of them and so she risked to remain poisoned. In less words, the only thing that permitted her to go to sleep with a satisfied stomach was still the spinosaurus.

She shivered. She remembered very well the horrible feeling of emptiness in her stomach that had given her to remain without food for just a day. She didn't dare to imagine what terrible would have been for her to not eat for weeks.

On the contrary, getting eaten would have been quick and fast. Perhaps it would have been even painless...

This dark thoughts contaminated her mind every second when she was alone. She really felt like she was become mad.

That night she was barely able to sleep. Every noise made her jump. And apparently the spinosaurus shared her anxiety: for all night she didn't see it fall asleep. That could only increase her anxiety.

*******

The next morning Sobek rose as soon as the sun rose. He had spent the night awake, too scared of torvosaurs to sleep a wink, but he didn't feel tired. After all, he could not sleep for several days now thanks to his evolution.

He scrabbled at the ground, then looked at the tree. The girl was awake too, and she was staring at him. Looking her in the eyes, Sobek for a moment thought to change idea; maybe staying another day wouldn't have been so bad... but then he remembered how close the torvosaurs were and he returned to think clearly.

"Well, what I can say... goodbye, little girl! It was good to know you" he thought before turning his heel and walking away in the direction of the river. His plan was to dive and escape using the water as a cover. Once he would have been under the water of the river, he would have been safe: the torvosaurs would never have found him that way.

However the wind suddenly changed direction. A whiff of odors hit him right in the face.

Sobek's heart leapt when a familiar, well known smell entered his nostrils. In an istant, he forgot all the bad thoughts he had been having up until that moment, and without holding back he roared with contentment. Finally a good news!

Humans! They were close!