The Shrink Program

Chapter 152

If there were ever a time when being snatched by a giant bird could be considered inconvenient, this would be it.

"Are you kidding me! "I screeched, struggling madly against the claws that held me. "You can't kill me now, it's not fair! I just got here!"

Then again, expecting the universe to be fair is kind of like expecting this giant crow here not to eat me, just because I didn't try to eat him.

An assumption, it's best not to risk your life on.

I could feel it in the way that the claws didn't budge at all that my struggles meant nothing to the bird.

But just because my wriggling wasn't a threat, doesn't mean that the bird had to put up with it.

As I soon learned,

when it dropped me.

I didn't scream, too shocked to do even that. Eyes wide, I plummeted in silent horror, watching the room blur around me.

I was going to die... As rejected Bird food.

A sharp cry pierced my ears, scaring the hell out of me even before my fall was yanked to a brutal stop, with me once again trapped in the claws of the bird.

This time I didn't struggle, having been adequately educated as to what my other option was.

I held still for the remainder of the long flight, knowing my best option was to escape the bird once we were on even ground. It sounded simple enough, But...

... It was too strange.

This bird followed us in here, snuck up behind and grabbed me after we opened the door. It dropped me to teach me a lesson and seemed damn amused by my reaction.

I didn't know a lot about birds, but there was no way a normal bird would act so much like a...

Asshole.

The realisation vanished from my mind the moment I was dumped on the hard metallic floor.

I rolled with a cry of pain, hitting so hard I felt my bones cringe.

When the momentum run out and I was left to lay staring dazedly up at the faraway ceiling, I realised...

The bird hadn't flown out. Hadn't carried me away to a nest or even just the limitless sky.

It had taken me further in.

If the time spent flying was any indication, we were Very Deep.

With a hand clutching my ribs, I achingly rolled over, propping myself up on an elbow to try and get a better look at my surroundings.

This was nothing like the room with the big tower system thingy. It was smaller, darker. Far more private.

The only light in the room was the blue squares in the distance...

Computer monitors.

I grimaced, trying to slow my heartbeat enough to actually move.

Through the ringing in my ears, I could make out the strange whispery sound. The machine-like breathing that would cut off short of reaching completion.

Someone else was here

"WELCOME. BACK."

My eyes frantically searched the room for the source of the voice, landing on the slight shift in the darkness.

In the blue light of the computer screens, I could make out the huge dark shape of a...

Well, I would simply say chair, if it weren't for all the wires and whirling machinery connected to the person inside it.

And to call the being living inside it, a person was a far stretch of the imagination.

It was a cross between computer, human, tumour and ugly, I would say.

In this lighting, it was impossible to tell where the wires began, and the fleshy scar tissue ended. The torso looked human enough if a little Cyborgy with all the tubes pumping into it.

The head was bald, shallow from starvation.

The eyes were glowing blue.

The explosive sound of something large hitting metal stuck my ears, the crow landing above me with a clawed foot on either side of my body.

I covered my head with a scream, sensing the huge bulk of the bird looming over me.

Stupid. Move.

Pushing past the fear, I shoved myself up, leaping forward to escape the bird.

Only to be shoved forward and held down by its foot in my back.

Trembling with unabashed terror, I turned my head up to face my attacker, confronted immediately with the giant bird standing over me, watching me with its head tilted.

I recognised that look.

It wasn't cruel, or hungry or anything else that reflected it's actions.

It wasn't anything.

"JACK. "