The laboratory’s red alarm lights flashed wildly as a massive wave of energy rushed toward him. In the final second before losing consciousness, paleontologist Chen Ye clutched the briefcase in his arms. Inside were twelve fossilized dinosaur embryos of different species, the culmination of his life’s research.
“…Doctor, his vital signs are stable.”
“…Strange. There’s an ancient sequence in his genes that we can’t decipher…”
The noisy voices reached Chen Ye’s ears in broken fragments, as if coming through water. He jerked his eyes open, only to find himself facing not the worried faces of his colleagues, but several faces covered in tiny scales, with slit pupils… lizardfolk.
“Human?!” the lizardfolk leader cried out. He spoke in a language Chen Ye had never heard before, yet could somehow understand. “Quick, inform the city lord! A human has appeared at the Dragon God’s burial ground!”
Chen Ye struggled to sit up and realized he was lying in the middle of a huge altar built from the bones of some unknown giant beast. Through the ruined dome, he could see two purple moons hanging in the velvet-black night sky.
What made his heart stop was the lifelike carvings covering the altar walls: triceratops, tyrannosaurs, diplodocus… The creatures he had spent half his life studying were being worshipped in the lizardfolk’s temple.
This wasn’t Earth. And deep within his consciousness, the “fossils” he had brought with him were pulsing faintly, radiating heat.
