Ello! Quick heads up before you start reading!

Obviously, this is based off the game Ark: Survival Evolved. There are some aspects of the story, such as terrain shapes and actions, that are edited to fit the story and may not be in the game.

Also, this first Chapter is more of a introduction to the story. It gives some background information of the story for the most part and towards the end starts the story itself. This chapter will most likely be seen as the first boring chapter. You don't really have to read the first half of this chapter, but I would suggest it if you want to understand events and such used in later chapters.

"Wake up Nei!"

My eyes squinted open, my vision hazy and blurry from my half-asleep state. I felt a sudden impact against my stomach, nearly taking my breath away. I coughed a few times before opening my eyes completely, looking up from my bed to see a young, feminine face leaning over me. A few strands of her light brown hair fell from her shoulders, brushing across the end of my nose. Her dark blue eyes gleamed with amusement and excitement.

I pushed her back away from me, sitting up and laying my knees across the floor. My bed was very close to the ground, as every other bed around me, so my legs bend to the sides when I put my feet down. I stood and stretched out my arms, looking down at the girl who had woke me.

"Hurry up and get ready! You promised me a ride today!" The little girl then turned and ran out of the small wooden house, not bothering to close the door behind her. The light somewhat blinded me, but I still walked towards the door anyway.

The land that I saw in front of me wasn't one that was unfamiliar. An open meadow, one full of multiple forms of flora, all growing different kinds of berries. Wooden houses scattered across the field in no particular arrangement. Large trees towering over the land all around, some large and covered in vines, others very thin and weak. This was the home of the Tala Tribe, 'Tala' being another word for green, though no one really knows where the name came from. Our tribe was named, in general, after the large, floating obelisk that the tribe is build around. It can be seen from nearly the other side of the entire island and it's fluorescent glow can light up the night. The part of the tribe that I live in isn't directly around the platform that the obelisk hovers over, though. Only the higher ups of the tribe live there while the rest of us build our homes in the land surrounding. Most of our houses are small, since our families don't usually get that large very often. My family has four members, which is seem as a somewhat bigger family, but ours wasn't the largest in the tribe. My family consisted of me, my mother, my older brother, and my younger sister, who was the one to wake me up. Everyone has their own unique name, but every family has a name after their first that is used to identify when multiple people are related. In my family there is my mother, Lorinda, my brother, Emery, my sister, Cicely, and me, which my name is Neida. Our "family name" is Trotter.

We aren't the only tribe on the Island. There is the Azul Tribe, which lives around the blue obelisk, and the Rubrum Tribe, who lives at the red obelisk. Each tribe has a Chief, who is the wisest and usually the oldest in the tribe. Usually, at least in my tribe, a lot of the families that live in the tribe came from the Chief. The sons of the chief have the option to either change their family name whenever they get married or keep the name of the Chief. The daughters of the Chief usually end up taking on the family name of the man that they marry. In my tribe our Chief's name is Demarcus Baron and he has had many children, though I've never known who all of them are.

In the case of my family, our family name came from my father. His name was Darius Trotter and he gave his family name to my other and to me and my older brother. Before my younger sister was born, my father had disappeared, believably attacked by a raptor while out hunting, so he didn't directly give the name Trotter to my sister, but my mother gave her the name in honor of him.

It isn't very often that there is a family with no father or man in general to take care of it and represent it, but my brother Emery was old enough to be considered the man of the house when my dad vanished.

Either way, our tribe has different jobs that get assigned to everybody who is old enough. Hunting, building, gathering materials, exploring the lands around us that we haven't been to before, searching for new or hidden dinosaurs, stuff like that. Nobody has one specific job, so everyday the people will be assigned a random task for the day. The men can do any of those jobs and can be assigned any one of them without consideration. The women can have a choice. Women can either do the same jobs if they feel up to it, or they can stay in the tribe and work on more calm jobs, like harvesting berries and fiber, crafting clothes, helping make weapons. The boy children of the tribe usually are trained to do the same jobs as the men, but don't leave the tribe limits. The girls help the women who have the calmer jobs. The age you have to reach before you can do the bigger jobs is 16 and I am 18, so I have been doing the same jobs as the men for two years now. But there is something that I haven't discussed yet...

There is one particular title given to certain members of the tribe, myself included. They are called the Ryttare, or 'rider'. Dinosaurs are used in the tribe to help do our jobs. Most of the time the dinos we use are herbivores like parasaur, pachys, trikes, and the like. People don't have to be a Ryytare to use a dinosaur, usually one can be given to them or they can tame one themselves. But the Ryttare are special. They don't just go out, knock out the dinosaur, give it food and be its owner. They form a bond with their dinosaur, one that only they can share with it and only it can share with them. The typical dinosaurs that anyone can use are the herbivores, but anyone who manages to "tame", or form a bond, with a carnivore is seen as a Ryttare. Both me and my mother are two of the Ryttare in the village. There are many others, but most of the others formed bonds with herbivores, my mother included. My mother formed a bond with a dark blue female Pachy that she calls Dalia when she was very young and they have been together ever since. Me, I'm seen as one of the special cases.

When me and Emery were younger and Cicely wasn't around, he was a trouble-maker and loved sneaking out of the tribe limits. I didn't like to disobey what my mom said, but there was one time when I followed him to make sure he didn't get hurt. He had found an egg at the edge of the jungle that was moving and small chirps could be heard inside. When the egg made a cracking sound in his hand, he jumped and ended up dropping it. I had been standing next to him, so I tried to catch the egg when it fell. I had put my hands out and a part of the egg did fall in my hands, but the rest smashed. I felt something moving against my hands and when I looked, there was a baby dinosaur in my hands with an egg shell on its head. It squealed and tried to squirm, but I held onto it. I removed the egg shell and came face-to-face with a white, pointed face with large orange eyes and little feathers on its head. It had tiny hands and a few feathers on its tail. I didn't know at the time, but this was a baby raptor. We locked eyes and apparently, since I was the first thing he saw as he hatched, the raptor connected with me. The tribe flipped out when they found out that not only had two kids left the limits but also found a raptor. When they tried to take the raptor from me, I didn't let them get near him. I constantly watched over him, and when he could walk he followed me everywhere. Everyone saw that as a sign that I was a Ryttare, like my mother.

I changed from my simple cloth sleeping clothes into my hide ones that I had made myself before exiting the house. When I turned the corner of the building, a pure white raptor looked over at me, letting out a low call of greeting. I slid my hand across the feathers on his head with a smile, turning to look behind me. I saw Cicely running towards me with a large grin on her face before turning and instead running up to my raptor, Azir. She reached up to pet him but she was just barely too short to reach him, so he put his head down for her. She giggled before looking up at me expectantly. I rolled my eyes and walked around the other side of Azir to where I had my saddle hanging on the side of the house. I took off the brown saddle and hooked Azir up to it, which he was used to by now. I hefted myself up onto the saddle before putting my hand out. Cicely took it and I pulled her up, setting her on the saddle right in front of me. I held onto the reins while she held onto the saddle itself. I clicked with my tongue and Azir began to walk.

As we went passed a few houses there were some who waved to us, others who just glared in our direction. The majority of the tribe saw having a raptor, or a carnivore in general, in the tribe as a good thing, while others saw it as a threat or were jealous that they didn't have one themselves. I tried to ignore those that felt jealousy over me and my raptor. I had formed a bond with him fair and square. It wasn't my fault that they didn't have the same gift that I had.

We walked down the path that lead away from my house towards where one of the many large patches of ferns and bushes grew. These areas were used for all of the berry and fiber gathering, which my mother helped with. As we approached I could see my mother sitting on her legs next to a large bush. She had long brown hair that reached down to the middle of her back and regular cloth clothes on. When she heard us coming, she turned to look at us with light blue eyes and a smile. When we got there I helped Cicely down from the saddle before getting off myself. Lorinda stood from her position and approached us, caressing Cicely's face and moving some of her hair behind her ear. She looked up at me and chuckled to herself.

"What's so funny?"

"You let little one hold you up to something you said again. You know she wouldn't expect rides if you didn't offer them, " she stated, shaking her head. From behind the bush she was harvesting from came Daria, noticing Azir and trotting over. The two of them had gotten to know each other for a while now, even though she was older than he was.

"I don't really care and neither does Azir. I can give her rides until she is old enough to ride on her own. Maybe she'll end up being a Ryttare like us, " I said, shrugging. I knew that there was a chance that what I said wasn't true. Ryttares can usually be seen and noticed at a young age, and while Cicely was young, she wasn't near the age I was when I found out I was one. By now there was a chance that she wasn't. It was rare for the Ryttare abilities to show themselves when the carrier is older, but it happened sometimes.

As we talked, the loud blaring of a horn cut through the air. We both looked over to where a few men had ran into the tribe. They looked worn out, but also scared.

In my life time there were quite a few events that had happened, though they were considered common to the tribe. Never once while I have been alive have we dealt with large predators attacking the tribe. Somehow I never thought that would happen anyway. There was no way that-

"Carnos! A pair of them! Spotted near the river! And they are coming this way!"

End of the first chapter! Remember that this is just the introduction. Also, just a little helper for some.

(Just saying. Some of the words I used came from different languages, some of which I don't really remember. Also, some of these words might be pronounced differently than I am pronouncing them, but this is just how I am saying them. If they are wrong then forgive me, but this is just the way that I read them so this is the way I'm going with.)

Neida: nay-duh

Cicely: si-selly

Ryttare: rye-tare

Azir: ah-zeer

Please leave a comment saying if you like it or not! I'd appreciate it!