TW: Violence, torture(ish) but not really because I'm a wimp.
Everything felt like lead; my limbs, my wings, my mind. I couldn't even get my eyelids to open. I had a numbing headache festering at the back of my head, brain clouded as I slipped in and out of consciousness.
Behind my closed lids, there was a harsh white light. Am I dying?
A sharp sting in the middle of my left arm dissuaded me of that thought, and a pained mewl left my mouth, the sound seemingly distant in my ears. Everything seemed distant, like my body was not my own, strung up with rope and moving like a marionette against my will.
"You're hurting him!" a female voice exclaimed, frantic and fast-paced. Familiar.
"Oh, please," a bitter voice muttered, rough and impatient, but also familiar. My arm felt a little slick, and I whimpered again as the sting returned for a brief second. "It's not like this is the first time we've done this, and he's out cold. He won't be waking up from those tranquillisers any time soon." As he spoke, there was a sting in my right arm, and I wriggled with discomfort. With my movement, there was the clang of chains, something digging into my wrists.
"Trevor, I told you not to hurt him!" The female voice was almost pleading this time, and I groaned, the familiarity of the voice muddled by the fog in my head.
Trevor? Do I know any Trevors?
The name rings a bell, but I can't... I can't think...
"You had no problem taking samples from the other specimens, Harriet," the male voice - Trevor - snapped, the name searing through my brain as I fought against the weight on my eyelids. Harriet. Harriet?
My Harriet?
It can't be.
"Harr... mnh... Harriet...?" I groaned, my eyes blearily opening into lethargic slits. I winced as a bright fluorescent light shone in my face, but I forced my eyes to open as everything began to fall into focus.
Silver-grey walls met my eyes, the metal slightly glossy and lined with matching metal shelving. Most of the shelves were stripped bare, with only the ones on the left wall filled with boxes of what looked like medical equipment; scalpels and syringes for specimen sampling, alongside other more intimidating items, which screamed 'torture' rather than 'healer'.
Dropping my head down, I saw that my top had been cut off, and it lay on the floor by my feet cleaved in half. My lower half was still clothed in the kevlar pants, though they were mottled with dirt and what looked like crusted blood. I didn't know where my mask or goggles were, but I definitely wasn't wearing them any more. My ankles and arms were strapped down with metal cuffs to a metal chair that had been bolted securely into the ground, that too, was made of metal. The room was sealed in with a large door.
It was strangely cold in the room, beyond the point of having the heating turned off in winter. No, the room was icy cold, and I was sure that I would've frozen if my avian-altered physiology hadn't managed to make me impervious to the chill. Though icicles weren't dripping from the shelves, the walls were slightly frosted over, the hardened condensation responsible for the metal's sheen.
I was in... a walk in freezer, of sorts?
Attempting to move my wings yielded no success; like my human limbs, they were tied back. The clang of chains and the way they were restricted in movement made me imagine that they were bolted to the ground in a similar manner to the chair I had been planted on.
"Huh, he's waking up. His drug metabolism is off the charts..." the male voice - Trevor - murmured, the keen tone of interest in his voice making me flinch back into my seat, a spike of danger screaming in my head. A calloused hand gripped my right arm, and I jerked against its bindings, only managing to make the metal dig further into my wrist.
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Swooped | ✓
Fantasy[BxB] Life was pretty average for Culver Fleet, an 18-year-old certified couch potato slash pothead. He has spent every waking breath dodging responsibilities, until one fateful day he is swooped by a magpie and is... changed. He thought he just cau...
