Impossible Truths

The air in the makeshift excavation tent still held the metallic tang of disturbed earth and something else, something JJ couldn't quite place. It clung to her senses like the damp Alaska chill, a persistent whisper of the impossible. She traced the rim of her coffee mug, the ceramic blessedly solid and familiar in her trembling hands. Her mind, usually a well-ordered archive of facts and deductions, felt like a chaotic jumble of shattered glass. The fragmented traumatized memory conjured images of sheer, unyielding mass, of primal power barely contained. And then, the shift. The impossible unfolding before her eyes, a terrifying ballet of bone and muscle and fur.

"You're quiet," Bishop said, his voice low, cutting through the hum of the generator outside. He sat across from her at the folding table, his gaze fixed on a scatter of photographs – X-rays, soil samples, detailed sketches of the skeletal remains. He looked as if he were trying to force them into a narrative that made sense, a narrative that didn't include a creature that defied every law of biology she knew.

JJ swallowed. "Just… processing."