Inception

Chapter 38: Weak Bird

 Lena woke up amid smoke. The strangest smoke she'd ever seen. It glowed a pearlescent light. She could feel it too, curling around and into her like silk that didn't respect skin, tickling her muscles and bones.

It made her squirm.

More confusing sensations returned to her. A tickling, an itch, a coolness, a heat, all pressing against her as though she were naked. Her arms felt...

...She was naked.

She sat up amidst the smoke, trying to cry out, but failing. Her throat didn't feel right either. Sticky and unused.

"Ah, that took longer than I expected."

Her head zipped to the sound of Kaiju No. 9, her heart...thrumming? Was that a step beyond racing?

It had sounded so loud, as though it were yelling in her ear, but as she made out its figure, outlined in bright blue among the glowing smoke, she found it was actually a good six feet away from her and barely opening its incisor-lined mouth. The girl stood next to him, outlined in vivid purple that bled and dissipated into the strange smoke.

"What an oddity," it said. "So weak. Kaiju No. 8 is very strong, so I thought this one might be too. I didn't think the health of the larva would count, but perhaps it does."

"She's so...ugly," said the girl.

Lena trembled and pulled her legs in, not understanding a word of what they said. Even as she did so, movement drew her eyes down to her limbs.

They weren't her limbs.

Feathers. Feathers and scales and claws and—

She screamed. Her throat unstuck with a snap and a ear-splitting, bird-like shriek echoed through the cavern, piercing her own ears.

Kaiju No. 9 and the girl recoiled.

"She had to have some defense mechanism, weak as she is," muttered Kaiju No. 9.

"Kill it!" cried the girl. "Kill it kill it! That hurt!"

But Lena wasn't paying attention anymore. Her arms had become wings, with her hands sprouted into eagle like claws at the middle joint. Her legs had lengthened, mainly in her feet, so now they were long, monstrous things ending in deadly talons as big as her hands used to be. Wherever her scales ended, white-silver feathers grew, all messed and long and feeding back to her vibrations she had no business knowing.

Even as she screamed again, her attention was drawn to her face—which she pawed at helplessly with her clawed, weighted hands. Oh god, she had a beak, a toothed, draconic excuse for a beak covered in scales and filled with fangs and—and—were those ears? Huge, downy like ears that went up and up like a rabbits—oh god oh god oh god—

"Stop SCREAMING!!" shrieked the girl.

Kaiju No. 9 raised a long finger and it shot out, lengthening, till it wrapped tightly around Lena's maw.

Lena kept screaming between puffs of air. Amidst the mess of info flooding into her brain, she made out the cavern that she hadn't been able to see before. The lit smoke brought out the rocky pillars, and so much more that she never wanted to see.

Because it hadn't just been her and the two kaiju in that dark cavern.

Ployps of veiny, mucous tissue hung from the ceiling, pulsing in time. They each glowed with their own color, creating a psycadellic scene like the surface of a puddle of anti-freeze or those old, hokey 3D pictures that were all neon green and yellows and blues. The mucous, veiny tissue covered the floor and went up to the table of sorts that Lena's mutated body now hunched.

Even as she struggled against Kaiju No. 9's steel-like finger, she felt the strange smoke curling deeper into her, faster, as though being sucked in. She couldn't hear whatever else the kaiju were talking about as her breathing, her panic, her own screaming blocked her hearing.

But she stopped abruptly when she realized the smoke had a smell. A strange scent like ozone and the first burn of a match. It set her skin prickling, raising her feathers.

"Good. I can hear myself think now," said Kaiju No. 9.

"Please, can I kill her? Please?" begged the girl.

"No, not yet. I still have to figure out why this one is so different."

Kaiju No. 9 lashed his finger, flinging Lena's long maw onto the disgusting, sticky ground.

"Long ears, big eyes, a large nasal cavity...this one's developed for heightened senses."

"Her head's not very big."

"Size has nothing to do with intelligence when it comes to the brain, else any kaiju larger than me would be smarter. You're not too smart yourself, so do be quiet."

"Sorry, Father."

Kaiju No. 9 drew near, making Lena's nostrils flare. She could smell him as she hadn't before, and she loathed it. She could feel the weird blue version of the smoke coming towards her as well and it felt just as sticky as the disgusting surroundings.

She recoiled, but Kaiju No. 9 held her back, again with just that finger.

"Ah. She's gotten stronger. Though not by much. How strange. So very, very strange. She's not even strong enough to breach the cavern like most kaiju, but those eyes...you can see it, can't you? Tell me, what do you see?"

The finger uncoiled from her scaly beak.

Lena flung herself back. And screeched with every bit of strength in her body.

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I think poetry is a bit too above a 5-year-old's head. This online school stuff is weird...