Project Dinosaur: Part Two

Story by Amethyst Mare on SoFurry

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Tyron wakes groggily, but the transformations at the company are only just beginning...


AUTHOR'S NOTE:

This story contains non-consensual transformation in a fantasy context.


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Project Dinosaur

Part Two


Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by anonymous

_ _

_ _

“Unff…"

Tyron groaned, rising slowly, though his limbs felt dull and heavy. His arms had been tied behind his back and his ankles were lashed together, though he could slowly heave himself on to his back and sit up. Dirt clung to the side of his face and he spat out another mouthful of it, screwing up his lips in disgust.

Outside. He was in a space just like the one where he'd seen that man transform into the small dinosaur. His heart pounded furiously, blood roaring in his ears, though Tyron fought to control his breath, gritting his teeth. At least he was wearing some clothes, though his jacket was gone, leaving him in a shirt and trousers, though his shoes were there too.

He wouldn't become a victim, like the others X-OM had taken. No… No, he couldn't. Christie knew about him; she knew where she was.

She'll come for me.

_ _

That was the only hope he had to cling on to.

As he sat up, legs bent and his back propped up against the rough bark of a tree, one of the higher-ranking scientists there surveyed him. Tyron didn't say a word, taking in Michael Andrews from head to toe: the devilishly handsome jawline, the crisp, clean press to his shirt collar – all sullied by the mud on his black leather shoes. They were of much higher quality than Tyron's, though it was not as if that was of any importance in a moment like that.

“So," Michael said with a small, tight smile. “What are you doing out here? This isn't your station."

His smooth, velvety voice washed over Tyron and he held fast.

“I don't know," he said slowly. “I went for a walk… Ended up somewhere weird… Then headed back to my desk. I don't remember anything."

Of course, Tyron remembered everything. But he wasn't about to tell Michael that, not as he blinked up at him and groaned, pretending that his mental faculties were not as sharp as they actually were in that moment. His headache softened, but he acted like he'd taken a blow, letting his eyelids hang more heavily as he blinked.

“Oh, don't you?" Michael queried, a nasty little tilt to his head not quite belonging there. “That would be something, wouldn't it? But you've been here for more than long enough to know what we're doing."

“What we're doing?" He repeated, slurring his words and dragging them out more than he needed to. “Hm… Uh… The old stories… I've fed back all my research into the system, but I've not had…any feedback."

He manufactured the pauses in his speech, though hoped it would be enough. How was Tyron to tell?

“Stories?" Michael laughed, shaking his head sadly. “Oh, poor, poor, Tyron… Is that what you believe? You've actually been helping our cause. None of these tales are false."

His heart pounded, a straining beat against the cage of his ribs, fighting to be free. Surreptitiously, he wiggled his feet and tugged at his bonds, yet they held.

“What…" He knew he shouldn't have asked, but he needed confirmation anyway. “What do you mean? It's…not real. It's just a story."

He shook his head and groaned, though Michael stepped closer, peering at him.

“Seems all is in place. You can wear that collar for the rest of your life," Michael said, pointing out the heavy weight around his neck. “Consider it a gift from X-OM. Few are lucky enough to wear that."

As Tyron froze, dumbfounded, Michael brushed his fingers across the strangely elaborated collar around his neck. It looked more like a woman's necklace – something someone might have worn to a fancy, high-class event. With several chunky links, it encircled his neck with the weight of collar, a large, blue gem set in the centre at the front, glistening faintly. It had a wet sheen to it – though Tyron's only visual impression of it had been while Michael was transferring it to his neck. Even if he twisted his head and looked down, he wasn't able to get more than a glimpse of it from the corner of his eye.

“Take that… What the hell is that? Take it off me!"

“Oh, but it's for you, Tyron," Michael said quietly. “You've seen too much. So, you will become one of our next subjects."

Tyron grunted and shifted his weight, not understanding what was happening. His stomach felt odd, as if there was a heavy weight in the pit of it, something pulling him down. And yet it moved too, jostling him back and forth, a rumbling and a grumbling, as if his digestive system was working overtime.

“Your subjects? But I work here… Michael, this is crazy, let me go."

He dropped his act a little, sweating as he rocked his weight back and forth on his seat bones. But Tyron's breath came increasingly shorter in his chest, huffing and heaving like there was a weight there that was pressing down on him. Yet he couldn't see anything, even if the collar was in place. It warmed to the heat of his skin and he grunted lowly, half-closing his eyes.

Why did he feel so unwell suddenly? Maybe he'd eaten something that didn't work for his stomach earlier? Ah, he had no idea just how it would all cease to matter so very soon.

“Oof…"

“Oh, it's not going to matter what you think," Michael said, standing and slicking his hair back from his face with both hands, mussing up the style, fingers running through to separate the dark-brown strands. “Don't you feel it? I've watched so many change… Yet it never grows old."

Michael sighed and fixed his hair, though the strands didn't quite go back into place.

“Tell me, who else knows about this?"

Tyron steeled himself, though his stomach did not settle. His spine ached and he let out a breathy moan, despite trying to hold back.

“No… No one."

“Oh, but that's a lie. Why don't you tell me the truth before you cannot?"

Tyron huffed and grunted in the back of his throat. Too much saliva pooled in the back of his throat and he struggled to swallow. Even that reflex didn't seem to work, however, something that had been so simple to him before.

“I can't tell you what I don't…know…" He said, tongue feeling odd in his mouth, like it was suddenly not sitting between the lines of his teeth as it should have. “I don't…know…"

He groaned, eyes closing. There was something wrong, something strange. It ached through his body as he groaned, tipping to the side. His shoulder hit the ground first and he rolled on to his stomach in the grass, wriggling pathetically back and forth.

“There now, you can still talk," Michael said, bending down to cut the bonds at his wrists and ankles. “So, let it come. But tell me everything you know."

“No… I don't know… I don't know anything."

At least, that was what Tyron tried to say as he scraped his body up on to all fours. How foolish of Michael to cut him free! But he was helpless, weak and shaking as saliva spilled from his gaping mouth, although it was nice not to have that filling his mouth too. He grunted and coughed, shoulders rounding, his chest dipping lower to the ground.

Michael just watched. Somehow, that was more disconcerting than anything else, even as his body ached and crackled, his back suddenly jolting.

“Agh!"

Tyron groaned as he strove to balance himself, though it was not easy, not as he pushed his hips back and tried to find a stable position. His body didn't feel right, as if he was taken very unwell, though his skin itched and prickled like he was being stabbed with a thousand tiny needles. Trying to rub his arm to soften the feeling didn't help at all, as it pushed him off-balance – and he was forced to slam his hand back to the ground to hold himself firm.

“Let me… Let me go…" He said, muttering the words as he huffed hotly, warm breath glossing over his lips. “I don't know anything. I've not done anything. Please…"

“Oh, perhaps. But you'll be an adequate test subject all the same."

Tyron's head spun. His skull expanded – but that couldn't be right. Yet he couldn't liken the scraping, stretching sensation to anything else, a deep, resounding crunch echoing through his head. His hips ached and he shuddered bodily as he strained to adjust his position, wanting to rock back, to bend his legs and set his body in a way he never had done before.

He'd never had much flexibility when it came to squatting and crouching, though it was all by the by at such a time. His tongue pushed between his teeth, softer and more slippery, more flesh pulling down the length.

Oh no…

_ _

Tyron fought, heaving and scrabbling at the ground, though his fingers left only light, raking marks in the dirt as he grasped at tufts of grass. No, no… It couldn't be!

Yet he finally put two and two together, recognising why his body was so out of sorts as chilling horror swept through him.

It wasn't just the other person who'd been turned into a dinosaur – they were doing it to him too! All as his hips and thighs bulked out with muscle, his stomach sucking in, parts of him that he'd never paid attention to before demanding he turn his mind to them.

Like the straining pinch of his toenails pushing out – into what he could only presume were claws.

The crack of his forearms shortening, though he had no idea where the bone or muscle of him was going.

His nose pushing out, flattening and dropping his nostrils into slits where he could feel every breath tickling the edge of them.

“Unff… No…"

Tyron forced himself on to his legs, standing “up" – sort of. He wavered and wobbled from side to side, trying to stand up straight, but his legs wanted to remain with a bend in them a lot more than they had before. He sank lower, yet his skin pulled around him in all directions, as if it was squashing in on him.

And all Tyron ended up being was a sausage that was too large for its skin in the butcher's shop. As if his flesh had lost that air of life, an otherworldly force squashed down around him, squeezing forcibly to press him into a form that was not his own.

A much-smaller form. Well, at least that was what it felt like to him as the top of his spine crunched where it connected to the back of his skull, gaping and hissing. His mouth hung open as his lower and upper jaws elongated, his entire head aching fiercely with a dull, pounding headache.

“Nnnnoooo…" He slurred, dragging his tongue as the longer, lengthening appendage slipped from his mouth, brushing against his teeth. “Caaaan't…beeeeee…"

“Fascinating," Michael murmured, pulling out his phone to make a note. “Your transformation is progressing more slowly than the others. Are you really resisting? Please, be clear."

Tyron grunted and worked his jaws up and down, though the stretch pulled into the underside of his neck as his teeth moved and started to pull into the sharp points of canines. Down the line of his neck, his skin moved over his flesh as it lengthened subtly, though the main difference there was in the new set of his head.

Still, he fought it, tipping forward on to his shorter, stubbier arms, which he could no longer stretch out as far in front of him as he had before. His fingers grew gnarled and small, losing the soft fleshiness of his palm as his nails sent a sharp, pulsating pain into his fingers.

Claws, he thought dimly, grappling with reality. They're turning into…claws.

_ _

I'm fucked.

_ _

His feet pushed out against his shoes, toes stretching forward with those new claws – which he could only pull into his mind as he had seen the other person transform before. It gave him a little context with which to understand what was happening to him as his chest narrowed, becoming more like the breastbone of a bird.

The dull pinch of his chest grinding in didn't help in the slightest as he tipped forward, balancing on his arms that seemed to want to put a bend in them. His shoulders rang out with a jolt of pain and his arms dropped as their position adjusted slightly, restricting him from sweeping his arms up and back as he might have done if he was swimming.

It was such a small thing and yet the loss of it clawed into the pit of his belly as he heaved and gagged, eyes blurring faintly. That didn't take him away from the furious, snarling moment, however, even as the scent of grass tickled his nostrils more than it should have done. In fact, lots of other scents became obvious to him, from the coarse dirt of the ground to the leather of Michael's shoes and even the lightly spiced scent the scientist had applied earlier that day.

Tyron's nostrils twitched and he dug his toes down, claws slowly grinding and pressing their way through the fronts of his shoes. He didn't have the presence of mind to kick them off as his socks clung to his changing feet, clothes fighting to contain him.

Although he was smaller, it was more difficult than ever to work his way against his clothes, his jeans pulling against his hips as something strained down his spine. It was like someone had hold of the base of his spine and was stretching it out more and more, forcing it out over the point of his buttocks. It tried to push his jeans out of the way and he jolted, shaking his hips in a strangely instinctual motion as he tried to find a way to free it. Even the pain of it bending, vertebrae flexing where they wanted to extend, was too much.

Thankfully for Tyron, his extending spine, growing into a short, stubby tail, found freedom, teasing over the waistband of his jeans, although his belt would prove to be an issue. He rocked back on to his heels a little more as feathers coated him, the prickle and itch intensifying now that the quills had seated themselves under his skin. Beneath the feathers, as they slowly grew to cover him from head to toe, his skin turned a dark grey, almost giving the impression that it had become leathery, with a rougher texture.

“Nnnnnoooo… Canmph…"

Yet speech was stolen from him as he rolled his hips back and his right foot came up without thinking. Kicking and clawing at the air, as if he was trying to strike something under him, he ripped through his hanging shirt and jeans, a claw sinking into his leather belt.

“Rarrow!"

He squalled, hating the strange, broken sounds that ripped from his throat. Yet his body kept kicking even as it transformed until the swelling muscles down his hind end allowed him to wrench the belt off entirely. Of course, he still had a shoe mostly stuck on that foot, though he shook it off the moment his jeans fell slack on his hips, sliding down to expose his ass.

There was not much to show there, however, as his backside smoothed out, for there was no longer any need for a crease between his buttocks. Tyron heaved for breath, his lungs expanding and contracting sharply, yet it didn't help any, not even as his ribcage narrowed, as if the points of his ribs were straining to dig back into his body.

This isn't right. I'm not a dinosaur. I'll think of what I am and the transformation won't be able to go through!

_ _

Ah, it was such a futile hope and yet it was all Tyron had to cling on to at a time like that, his lengthening tail trying to twitch jerkily back and forth. It, however, grew coated with feathers that lengthened as it extended, most of them clustering in a fan-like shape at the end.

Human, yes. He had to remember he was human. It wasn't possible to transform into a dinosaur, he told himself, doubting what his own eyes had seen only a short time ago. His claws dug into the earth as he steadied himself, adjusting his centre of balance back as he rocked his weight from one hip to the other. His tail helped balance him, even though it was not yet long enough to do all that much for him.

Still, every feather overwhelmed him with sensation, as if his body was on fire, too much aching through him all at once. And yet none of that could detract his attention from his shaft and balls, his genitalia more vulnerable now that his jeans had slid down, his shirt hanging open.

“Mmmph…"

He grunted, working his tongue around his mouth in a failed attempt to make any sound at all that could have been human. For he had to remember the times he'd walked down on the beach, how the sand had felt between his toes, the rush of water lapping at the shore with every rise and fall of the waves. Tyron had to remember countless hours spent binging his favourite shows, how it felt when his chest ached from laughing so hard with his friends – even the brush of a partner's lips on his own.

All that and more made him human: his life, experiences, all the choices he was yet to make. Yet Tyron fought a losing battle as he extended one arm and then the other slowly, better able to get a look at that part of his body with longer feathers extending from the humerus. They were dark, not quite brown but definitely not black either, as if they had found a shade that the human mind could not comprehend.

He growled and opened and closed his mouth, finding the sharp points of his more spaced-out teeth slotting into one another. It would have even been a pleasant feeling, like something easing into place, if he had not been facing it all against his will, his stomach heaving with the extremity of having his psyche crushed from one form into another.

It was not right and it was not natural, a sense of “other" digging into him, jaws slack. They were much longer than they had been with him as a man – but he was still a man! Tyron grunted, resolutely clinging to that notion to the exclusion of all else, as much as his body did not feel at all like that of a man anymore.

Ah, yet the suck and pull of his genitalia gently melding with his body again was not to be ignored. His organs lightly moved against one another and he blinked, the blurriness in his vision clearing. That, at least, gave him a wider range of vision, with his eyes still being the forward-facing ones of a predator but offering him greater peripheral vision too. Thicker feathers layered down his back, though his neck was quite slim – he could only see a faint sliver of it – with smaller feathers remaining on his legs. Those feathers stretched all the way down to where his leathery skin was revealed: thick, powerful legs tipped with clawed feet.

He twisted and staggered, finding some sense of balance – but it was tenuous. He heaved and roiled against the loss of what he thought made him male, yet he couldn't consider it in such a way, no. Not even as his member pulled back inside his body, leaving a slit before it. Yet the edges of that slit pressed together softly and firmly, sealing up as if it was something that was only to be parted at certain times.

“Ggrrrrroooow?"

He rumbled a growl that sounded more feral and dinosaur-like than ever. His eyes strained, yet there was no wateriness to them as he hissed and snapped his jaws, though he knocked his teeth against each other and sent a dull pang through his head.

“Well done, you're nearly a full deinonychus now," Michael said, though Tyron could not fathom why there was a ring of approval in his tone. “How does that feel? You're going to be one until the end of your days."

He growled, the sound rippling up from his throat, and shook his head. Horror and anger collided within him into something he could use: energy. He took a step forward, towards Michael, as his claws grew, turning wickedly sharp and hooked. Yet two of his toes were not needed anymore and had not grown, the extra appendages feeling cloying and clunky, throwing his stride off.

He needed a moment more for those to transform, feeding mass into the rest of his three-toed feet, though Michael did not appear concerned about him in the slightest. On the other hand, the scientist merely smirked and swapped the phone he'd been holding for a small, black box that looked something like a remote control.

“We can fish details out of your mind at our convenience," he commented. “Though there's really no sense in worrying about you saying something or the other anymore. Your mind will be long gone by now."

Tyron chewed and worked his jaw lightly, not knowing what to make of that. He could still think, couldn't he? He could still remember, casting his mind back through his younger years, birthday parties and promotions, soft times with his family. But did Tyron think he had lost his mind?

He froze, not knowing what to do, though his body still transformed, looking more dinosaur than anything else, leathery skin clinging to his muzzle as it settled and smoothed into place down the line of his face and jaw. His hips came forward a little to adjust his stance and he immediately felt a little steadier, standing up a little taller. Yet the dinosaur's position was still tipped-forward, kind of as if he was about to burst into a spring at any moment. With the bend in his back legs, his arm-like forelegs were left free to hang ready with a bend at the “elbow."

“What a ridiculous loss," Michael muttered, ignoring Tyron completely. “This thing… It's not big enough either. Who's decision was it to get a deinonychus?"

Was that what he was? He watched intently as Tyron left the enclosure and appeared on the other side of a metal fence. Tyron's eyes flicked up, though he had to tip his head up to so he could look, to check the sign noting it was a high voltage electric fence.

Figured. It was like being in Jurassic Park. Only, he was on the wrong side of the fence and he was one of the dinosaurs.

This can't be real, he thought, his mind locked into shock, not really comprehending the enormity of his change and situation, not yet. I'm going to go to sleep, or there's going to be a big jolt – and I'm going to be me again. I'm going to wake up and everything's going to be fine.

_ _

Only, he knew that was not true, even though he so very desperately wanted it to be true, to never have to go back to the facility and to forget everything that had happened there. No one would have blamed him for not going undercover and getting a job there to investigate.

His stomach growled and he swung his head back and forth, testing the weight of it, though his breath still wanted to come in gasps and pants. With horror coursing through him, he tried to push himself up a little, wobbling forward a step, although it didn't really feel like his transformation was complete either. Feathers lengthened and pulled achingly from his arms to fill out that span, though there were not enough feathers there to allow him flight.

Dinosaurs like him… Well, they weren't supposed to fly. That was either a good thing or a bad thing: his mind reeled too much to understand either way.

“Rrrrggghhh…"

He churred, trying to talk, though no words broke his lips. Tyron tried to use his tongue to talk, thinking a little more about how he formed words and shaped them from his lips previously, but that didn't help anywhere near as much as it should have.

His lower abdomen sucked and pulled, though he was not to know, intimately, just how his cock and balls were adjusting themselves inside him, though the deinonychus could have turned his head to see what was going on at his abdomen too. Horror clawed at him and he battled back against the denial of it, snaking his head back and forth with a huff and a heave, rolling his eyes.

The pull in his abdomen, however, could not be ignored, not even as it settled like imaginary fingers were stroking over his groin. There was an absence of something there and a sense that something had moved, though he was too busy grappling with his mouth, opening and closing his jaws haplessly, to focus on that. There was simply too much snatching at his mind, dragging his attention one way and then the other.

“You are rather a pretty one," Michael noted, taking a quick photo of Tyron using his phone, through the metal fence. “Feathers are a bit boring though, the dull brown of them. But that's the quality of the genomes we're using for these transformations, isn't it? Just because we've put your broken little mind through one doesn't mean there's no potential for more. But you don't understand a damn word I'm saying."

Tyron took a breath, his stomach churning, everything feeling like it was wiggling and shifting in the cavity of his body. His hips rocked from one side to the other and he fought down the urge to check out his “crotch" and exactly what had happened to his cock. He could feel it still, kind of, and a strange push that made him want to call out and scent the air, looking for someone. But he couldn't see his cock or balls, which seemed to have pulled inside him.

Didn't dinosaurs have a cloaca? Ah, but Tyron's mind couldn't linger there, not at that time. For it seemed Michael expected him to have the dull, unknowing mind of an animal – and there he was in the body of one with a human mind trapped there too.

He took a tentative step, swinging his head and lowering it, his feathered tail aiding his balance the less he thought about it.

Maybe I should just act like a dinosaur? Tyron thought, though that was as ludicrous a notion as accepting what had been done to him in the first place. This body… It's not mine. It's not me. But I can fool him into thinking I'm mindless.

_ _

Having a goal helped him force down his worry as he paused above a silver water bowl, which was long and flat, shaped like an oval. He didn't want to stare too much into it, for risk of Michael realising he was inspecting himself or freaking himself out too much, though the blurry shape of a theropod dinosaur blinked back at him.

Orange eyes slowly opened and closed as he turned his head back and forth, lowering his head and pretending to sniff at the water even as a dizzying sense of disconcertion flowed through him. Heat pooled between his legs, where he thought his cock was, though he paid little mind to the parting of the edges of his cloaca, as if it wanted to allow something out.

It wasn't him in the water, the blurry reflection of a feathered head, the dinosaur sniffing carefully as he took in the fresh, clean scent of the water – mingled with everything else in the near vicinity. But it was him too, all in a form that should never have come to be. There was little definition to be caught in the light reflection on the water and he knocked the bowl accidentally with a claw, letting out a shriek-like squawk that neither sounded reptilian nor avian.

This can't be happening, this really can't be happening…

_ _

Tyron shook his head and staggered, his transformation settling into him with a sense of finality. All those last details slotted into place, from the leathery skin around his lips and the longer feathers lining his arms, though he inhaled sharply, not finding the scent he wanted. His tail flicked back and forth, though his cloaca parted again to allow his shaft out, a tingling glow of warmth trickling through his body.

No… No. I'm not going to urinate in front of him. I'm so much more than a dumb beast!

_ _

But Michael only shook his head and made a note.

“All experience arousal, this subject is no different," he said, as if he was recording a voice note, sounding perfectly bored. “Subject has no partner with which to mate, so arousal appears short-lived. Interesting development."

Tyron snapped his jaws and the new deinonychus shook his head, working out just how his teeth locked together. The power in his jaw rang through and his mind tried to wander, wanting to wonder at his situation.

He could have done a lot with it, if he hadn't been fixed in the body of a deinonychus, but he was merely trying to force down the churning pull of dread in his stomach. It rested there too heavily as he tested out his weight and ability to walk, trying to look like a dinosaur – and yet not sure he was entirely pulling it all over.

If I don't hide that I've still got my mind, who knows what they'll do to me?

_ _

Yet Tyron had no idea how newly transformed “subjects" even acted, having only seen one transformation so far. Michael studied him, taking out a handheld scanner and pointing it at him. Even though Tyron didn't know what the scientist was scanning for, it gave a few beeps and Michael hummed under his breath.

“Interesting, very interesting… We'll have plans for you."

What plans?

_ _

He swallowed his fear, inspecting the ground – well, at least pretending to. At least the position allowed him to play with weight shifts in his body, though the smooth pull of his shaft (or so he presumed) back into his cloaca at least helped him feel a bit more “covered up" again.

“Mass similar to his being as a human, interesting," Michael commented. “It seems you have not changed too much, though your stature and perspective is lower. It'll be interesting to take the readings later to see just how you responded to that."

Tyron wanted to snarl – but he neither knew how to or what he could do to show himself as he was. His tail swung back and forth and he grappled with a strange surge of demand that wanted him to charge at the other figure.

Challenger!

_ _

Were deinonychus all that territorial? He couldn't say he had all that much recent knowledge of the dinosaurs, though anything read would have purely been speculation gleaned after others had researched what the creatures had left behind. He closed his jaw and sniffed again, touching his snout to the bark of a tree. When an itch presented itself, he managed a growl and continued the motion, rubbing up and down until the itch was gone.

That seemed to be suitably animalistic enough to put Michael off any sense that he was becoming something different, which was all Tyron needed in the moment.

What about my friends? My family? No one's going to know what's happened to me!

_ _

But he didn't have the chance to let fear grip him, not then. It was too much, everything, and he distracted himself by walking, though his stomach ached with a sensation he could only recognise as hunger. Perhaps there was something he could do to get himself fed?

He couldn't go to Michael for food, however, even though it made sense that food would come from people. He had to do something more creature-like, grunting in the back of his throat and lowering his head, scenting the ground.

Small mammals… It took him a moment to pull the word “rabbit" from his mind. They were nearby, but they had not been burrowing where he was. That was good: it might mean he had the chance to catch one. One rabbit, however, would not be enough for the deinonychus as he growled and stalked through the bushes, trying to get some distance from Michael.

Staying there wasn't going to help him, after all, and he slipped into a simpler mindset, focusing solely on his stomach. Need made the world around him simpler, though he could not have anticipated just how powerful instinct could be when it focused on his base needs.

So, he hunted. Unsuccessfully, of course, startling a bird from the bushes and lunging after it snapping, even though it was too small to be much of his usual prey. Yet even his hearing was heightened and he listened intently as it flapped away, noting a small deer outside his enclosure picking up their head. Unfortunately, he was not able to get to them and prowled his enclosure, dropping his head to work out how to drink water from his large, flat food bowl.

It was more difficult than expected, sort of lapping but trying to swallow at the same time. It was more like he had to “scoop" water into his lower jaw to get it down, though it become more intuitive the more he did it.

Yet his grumbling stomach demanded attention he didn't know how to give it, for his backwards-curving teeth were those of a carnivore and there was nothing there that would satisfy him. The scent of meat floated in on the air, though it was dead, from another source, and he turned away from it. If it wasn't alive, for him to kill, it just didn't seem to hold any appeal for him.

As he stalked his new enclosure, brushing through the undergrowth and checking the perimeter, now that Michael had left, Tyron ignored the crushing inevitability of his change.

Denial was all he had left to him.

To be continued in part three…