By Chase Chapley
Susan Wong thought she had lost her daughter during the Dino-Day Disaster. She was nine-months pregnant at the time when she was transformed into a Triceratops, and like most of the city, she was confused and anxious, and her hormones didn’t help either. Then she gave birth. To an egg.
“I was so excited to be a mother and was actually due in a week,” said Wong. “My husband and I have been anxiously awaiting the birth of our daughter, and then I laid an egg. I freaked out.”
Wong was by herself at the time in Legends Park, and when she was beginning to have labor pains, she found a secluded spot in some bushes. There, she laid her egg. Exhausted and “freaked out,” she didn’t have time to contemplate or protect her egg. The Dino Army was on its way to the park. She had to run.
“It was the hardest thing for me to do,” she said, “and I still feel terrible for abandoning my child. But I tried to hide her as best I could and hoped the Dino Army wouldn’t find her. I couldn’t carry her with me.”
When she turned back to human, Wong went back to the park to look for her daughter. She found egg shells, and the ground was wet. There was no sign of a child, no tracks, nothing. Her and her husband searched everywhere and contacted the police for help, but in the aftermath of the DDD, the authorities were stretched thin. A few officers helped them search, but they found nothing. “I thought I lost my baby,” she said, failing to hold back tears.
Fast forward to last week, one of Professor “The Gator” Alan Guinness’s students was walking along the Winston River, and she came across a small Triceratops eating grass. The Triceratops was about the size of a St. Bernard and was scared upon meeting the undergrad, Kiki Nagasaki. “The little thing was so cute but also so shy,” she said. “I grabbed a branch from a tree and inched closer to her. I held out the branch, hoping she’d eat the leaves and let me get close to her. And she did. I petted her, and she just seemed so happy. Then she tried to cuddle with me with her horns, which really hurt.”
With the help of some friends, Nagasaki was able to transport the Triceratops to Professor Guinness’s lab, and the good doctor performed some tests. The results from the DNA scan showed the Triceratops was human in origin, but her DNA was mutated. Given his personal history with mutation, Guinness released the news to the press. “I figured someone out there was missing a child,” he said.
When Susan Wong heard the news, her and her husband rushed to Professor Guinness’s lab. She knew it was her daughter. Crying, she ran to her daughter and embraced her. The Triceratops, perhaps recognizing her mother’s scent, became excited, hopping up and down and poking her mother with her horns (which were covered with blunt rubber tops by now). The family was reunited.
The father, Ken, was more befuddled than ecstatic. While happy that his daughter survived the DDD, he wanted to know why she didn’t change back to a human like everyone else. “Our working theory,” said Professor Guinness, “is that being transformed in the womb made the transformation permanent. We’re not really sure why this is the case, but something in the magic the Dinosaur Queen used mixed with the Wongs’ specific genetics must’ve made this stick.”
Guinness is still studying Lucy, the name the Wongs gave their daughter, and has offered to let her live at his office. He promised the Wongs he would find a way to change their daughter back to human. “After all,” he said, “she’s going to get very big. Triceratops get to be as big as elephants, and being a 12-foot tall alligator man myself, my lab is big enough for Lucy.”
But the Wongs insisted their daughter live with them for now. “We’ll probably have to take the doctor up on his offer eventually,” said Susan. “But for now, I want to spend every day with my daughter. I’m just so blessed to have her in my life.”
Ken seemed less enthusiastic. “I love my daughter, of course,” he said. “I just wish she didn’t eat so much and poke her horns into me.”
