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Until now, I’d lost all hope.

The high, bright sun filtered through the leathery-green leaves of the towering canopy above me, bloodthirsty insects having their way with my exposed skin as I tried to mitigate the extent of my body’s overheating in the thick, heavy air.  I crashed through the underbrush far too conspicuously, making my way to the rendezvous point as fast as I could--all the while dodging the large, scaly ghost that I knew was there, just beyond the edge of my vision.

I didn’t know what it is.  I’m no biologist, let alone a paleontologist.  I volunteered to come here because being one of the scientists on this first mission was a game-changer.  I could write my ticket to any university, any private corporation, and all the funding I could ever ask for.  I’d argued and championed my case, finally convincing the board of directors that an astrophysicist would be an essential addition to the team.  Just think about what we could learn by studying the universe as it had been one hundred million years before the birth of Christ!

Oh, how I wished I had stayed with my dinky little department, booking observatory time and watching streams of data for anomalies.  My tiny, stuffy office had been safe, if not well-lit.  My coffee had been hot, if not potable.  And I would not be stuck here, countless ages in the past, being hunted by a ravenous dinosaur.

We’d known it was coming.  The perimeter grid had flagged the charging beast as it made its purposeful way directly toward us.  Webber had called the big one a Spinosaurus, right before it crushed the defense grid like a pile of twigs.  It didn’t eat her. . .  It just sort of. . . tore her apart with an indifferent ease that chilled me to the bone.  I couldn’t help myself: I threw up at the sight.  The fact that Rodriguez had run is probably the only thing that saved my life.  That poor, sweet man.  I’d sort of liked him, before. . .

I don’t know how I ended up with the beacon--I must have blacked out.  I just know that one moment I’m screaming like a madwoman as two lizards the size of German Shepherds dart out of the underbrush and leap on Mark, the security guy, and the next I’m running through the forest, the smooth metal cylinder tucked under my arm.

For hours I had despaired that I wasn’t going to make it, for several reasons.  The first was that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if I stopped or slowed for any reason, I would be dino-food.  The second was almost slightly more terrifying: the beacon’s transmitter had been triggered, and I didn’t know how long it had been on.

The company who’d sponsored this trip, DynaTek, had stressed one single fact in the briefing before we’d all come here: once the return beacon had been turned on, the team had exactly six hours to return to the rendezvous point, or they risked returning to the present inside of something, like, say, the ground.  They only had the ability to keep the “door” open on their side for so long before they had to shut the device down, and due to the spin of the Earth’s axis around the sun, and the continental drift and changes to the landscape, there was no guarantee that the team wouldn’t end up phasing into a mountain, or even the vacuum of space. 

And so, I didn’t know how long I had to get to the one place the DynaTek had promised us they could lock onto.  I could be stuck here, one hundred million years in the past, as long as I dropped the beacon and got at least a hundred yards from it before it triggered, or I could risk popping back inside the Rocky Mountains.

IF ONLY I KNEW HOW MUCH TIME!

But then I saw it, and I knew I would be okay.  I’d almost lost all hope, but I finally broke from the dense underbrush of the forest, shading my eyes from the bright sun as I stumbled my way up the rocky crag of an outcropping that had been spray-painted in vivid, gaudy neon-orange:

CLICK YOUR HEELS, DOROTHY!

Whoever had written that had no idea how poignant the message would be to someone like me, and how ironic it was that they would never see their loved ones again.There’s no place like home, there’s no place like home! I chanted to myself as I scrambled to the top and lifted the beacon to the sky, checking the single green LED to make sure that it was lit.  As I did, caught a glimpse out of the corner of my eye and heard a high-pitched, shrill cooing from behind me.  Terrified, I punched the RECALL button as pain seared into my shoulder and the world tilted and blinding light surrounded me, before fading to darkness.