“Aagghhhhh!!!”mature language
The scream was shrill and ghastly. The room, reverberated with ugly thunder. Curtains shivered, books on the shelf shrank away, and the bed - the bed shook.
On it was a writhing mass of black feathers and hard keratin. A blanket was ripped, the covers thrown awry as the creature that was all pain and suffering and little joy cried her heart out. Beak wide open she cried agony to the skies, making the ashes of the fireplace scatter. Any critters in the room fled, any small peace was shattered. The pain was so real, so dominating her small form that it expanded out and encompassed the room, making every inch of dust feel it to the core.
“HHEEELLPPP!”
Truly, she was screaming. Shrieking, calling, fearing, crying, wailing, hurting. All as she squirmed helplessly on the mattress of the bed: her beak open as she gasped desperately for air through the screams; her back arched unnaturally; her whole body wanting to collapse but not able to; hands extended with her claws, scraping at her thighs; her legs curled terribly twisted under her into forms that they had never meant to take, but had had to live with when the agony began. Her head smashed back into the bed, but still her back curved, pushing itself into an ever increasing parabola, the gradient sharpening with each passing second.
BAM!
The door flew open with a tornado of haste. Two feet, banging hard on the floor ran over without any hesitation, ignoring the carefully folded pile of clothes on the floor and heading straight for the creature on the bed - the contorted, feathery beast. He ignored the strewn blankets, the ornate furnishings, the glorious dawn outside that gave a little light to this terrible scene. Nay - his concentration was on her. All for her. Within a span of two and a half seconds he was on the bed, pulling the gnarled, screaming form towards him with shaking hands and wide, petrified eyes.
As soon as he touched her, she howled again, wailing in his ear. It was then that his perceptive eyes could see the sharp, black, jagged shapes that were angling their way out of her back. Forcing their way into existence. Two, pointed new joints that were jutting out of her skin, full of bone, muscle, fat and tissue - and still growing.
His breathing began to accelerate, and he did the only thing he could think of then. Grabbing her head and neck he positioned himself in front of her. Leaning down, he pressed his torso to his and, placing the other hand on the small of her back, began to gently encourage her torso back to being straight.
There was an ugly, brutal crack, and the … things suddenly shot out further. Blood flicked out this time, shooting out of where her skin was being ripped and splattered onto the covers. He closed his eyes as he pulled her closer to him. And he managed it, easing her aching and breaking form into line with his - but it did not stop the paroxysms and the miseries that lacerated her suffering body.
“HELP!” she yelled.
Wildly, his heart beat and he felt his emotions beginning to run amok within him. He embraced her, trying to keep her straight as best as he could. He bound her arms to her side as her talons dug into her flesh, and he opened his mouth to begin to speak in a haunted tone.
Words that never left his lips.
For that was when the crooked horrors urged and obliged their way out of her body again. A fresh howl of discomfort and torment. Fresh tears flowing freely from her eyes. A fresh gasp of air as he stared over her shoulder, down at the things that …
He could see sinews and protofeathers that had sharp, thin fibres akin to that on a fledgling avian. The shape, however, of the apparently newly forming masses was clear. His - the god Vitruvion’s - heart began to now palpitate as his lips soundlessly moved, but mimed words of utter astonishment. And he knew - he knew in that moment that he would let this terror continue in her, however it happened, whatever the genesis. Because this - this was …
Again, a screech. And he saw his hypothesis became confirmed as the new limbs - for they were limbs - pushed out great bone and fresh blood. It gushed out onto the sheets, but by the stars he did not care. Not by the extremely rare ones that had a chance of life in the rotating balls of dirt that orbited then them, not for all the beauty that they shone onto imperfect worlds. Because he saw the separate parts on the whole, the three separate bones, with their accompanying tendons, sinews and flesh. He saw the bend forming under link skin and the feathers pushing their way to the surface to become long, deep black, strong and full of purpose and pride.
New limbs. New features for this most unique of kenkus.
Wings.
“HELP!”