Even though Victor was the first person to enter the time machine, everybody seemingly arrived there at the same time, and the portal instantaneously vanished. The 20 people were scattered across the floor of a dark cave. 

“Everybody should have headlamps in their bags, turn them on so we can see each other.” said Victor as he reached into the bag on his back to pull out his head lamp. Turning it on, several lights followed until their area of the cave was illuminated.

Digging his hand back into his bag, Victor pulled out a strong piece of metal and wedged it into the ground. “This magnet is strong enough to reorient everybody’s compasses to this spot. We’ll divide into four groups of five and search for the Cycax. One group lead by Dr. Conners will stay here. If you find the Cycax, come back here to find Dr. Conners so she can safely place it in the incubator. From there—”

“Um, sir?” A deep voice said. His back was to the group, his bright flash light illuminating the cave in front of him. “I think I found it.”

There was a huge commotion in the group. Stacy eagerly gripped her incubator, making her way over to the man with the deep voice. Victor followed close behind her, as did the rest of the group. Now with everybody’s lights facing the same direction, they were able to better see what the man was looking at.

“What the…” Andrew’s mouth dropped open, as did many other mouths in the group. Even Victor was stunned. In front of them all was the Cycax Olman. It looked just like the replica from the future; its long brown steam was fuzzy to the touch, and the palm tree-like leaves extended far out from it. The only difference was how much bigger the flower was. 

“It’s just as tall as us.” Maximus stated.

“We don’t even reach the top.” Nathan corrected. “This flower is twice our size.” 

“This doesn’t make any sense.” Andrew was viciously shaking his head, approaching the flower and careful not to lay too hard of a hand on it. “The fossils we have weren’t nearly as big. They were the size of a modern day rose.” 

“Sir.” Stacy tugged on Victor’s sleeve. “That’s not going to fit into the incubator.” 

Victor didn’t respond. His mind was spinning trying to come up with a solution to their problem. He didn’t understand what went wrong. Had they gone too far back? “It’s possible that this flower isn’t the Cycax Olman at all. It could be an ancestor, one that was a lot bigger than the one we’re looking for.” 

“Are you saying we’re in the wrong year?” A woman in the crowd yelled. “What about the portal back home, will they figure out we were sent too far back?”

A panicked commotion dispersed amongst the crowd. Some people hyperventilated, others shouted things that Victor couldn’t understand.

“Everybody quiet!” Victor shouted. He turned to the historian. “Nathan, how do we figure out what year it is?”

“Uh, we could by examining the soil. The only problem is I don’t have my reference charts or a testing kit.”

“We can figure it out by looking at the stars.” Stacy piped up. The crowd turned to her. “I have the star formations memorized from this entire time period. As long as we’re still in the pathologic era, I can tell you an estimate of what year BC it is.”

Victor clasped his hands. “Perfect! Everybody, we need to find an exit to this cave. I need us all to spread out wall to wall. If there's a turn or different passage I want to know about it. Andrew, Stacy, you’re with me.” 

The crowd started to disperse, the 20 people lining up on either side of the large cave. Victor wasn’t ready for how wide the cave turned out to be. Some people were standing more than 10 feet apart from one another, and two people touching either wall must’ve been at least 80 yards from one another.

Victor pulled Stacy and the paleontologist close to him. “Andrew, you’ve been in caves before. What’s the best way to find the exit?”

“Honestly, there’s not a whole lot we could do. Depending on what kind of cave we’re in, we might have to wander aimlessly and mark where we’ve been,” started Andrew. “Finding a lava tube would be our best bet if this cave has one. If we reach a spot with different routes, we should take the larger one. We could light a fire here if things get desperate and see which direction the smoke goes, but if unlucky we could risk smoking ourselves in.” 

“We’ll do what we have to.” Stacy said. “We’ll get out of this, right.” 

Victor didn’t know how to answer, but the question was certainly addressed to him. “Of course we will. It can’t get much worse from here.” 

There was a loud rumble in the cave. Victor ducked to protect his head from falling debris, but not much happened other than the pebbles on the floor shifting. The rumbling came from behind and was growing stronger each time it happened. Something was approaching, and fast. 

“Everybody!” Victor yelled. “Shut your headlights off!” 

One by one, the members of the cave turned off their headlights. They stood still, the rumbling growing stronger and stronger as something approached from inside the cave. 

“That idiot still has his light on,” said Stacy. Behind Victor, there was a woman on the far end of the cave who was struggling to turn off her life. 

“You don’t think something bad will happen to her, do you?” Andrew asked. It was impossible to know what was approaching them. If it couldn’t see light, then it might be safe to assume she’d be okay. It was out of precaution Victor told everybody to turn them off.

The rumbling grew close. The floor shook violently enough that the trio were now kneeling close to the ground. Victor stared at the girl. If she was attacked, it meant the creature could see like which meant they had to be close to an exit. If she weren’t then the creature was either peaceful or they were deep inside the cave. 

The rumbling stopped. The girl looked up, her light emanating above her. She screamed before a giant object crashed down on her. Before her light was crushed, the creature’s long, tanned and hair leg was illuminated. 

“Holy shit!” The man next to her screamed. “It fucking stepped on her. I’m getting the hell out of here.” He switched his light on, and briefly Victor made out the side of a giant blood foot before the man started running away from it. 

“No! Turn your lights off.” Victor tried to warn them, but several people in the group started switching the lights on their helmets on and running. “Screw it, we have to get out of here.” Victor turned his light on, as did Andrew and Stacy, and the three were running with the crowd. 

Another person’s screams were quickly silenced by a crunch, the rumbling following them. Victor peered over his shoulder. Giant muscular fingers bent down and picked up a man. “Stop! No!” He yelled. After a moment he screamed, “Somebody help! She’s going to eat me!” But he too was silenced with a crunch. 

“I see light!” A voice screamed. Victor approached them, and he saw down a passage the entrance to the cave. He sprinted for it, the monster behind them assumably giving up the chase. 

“What the hell was that?” grunted Maximus, appearing behind Victor. 

“I don’t know,” he answered. “But whatever it is, it can’t be good for us.”