"The Hunger of the Spinoraptors"

They told me that when the serum took effect, it would hurt like fire and taste like copper. They didn’t tell me about the hunger. Or the stars spinning out of reach as my limbs broke and reformed and I screamed myself into a new shape.

Now, when I remember my name, it sounds thin and silly, like a childish nickname—Danny. Danny with an easy smile, too many keys on his keychain, always humming off-key on the walk to work. That’s all lost now, strangled under the weight of scales and muscle and something deeper, something in my bones that pulses with ancient memory.

It’s dark when I first come to, and the world smells different: sharp, alive, choked with the stink of fear and wet stone. My hands—my hands—are gone. In their place, front limbs strong as crowbars, claws curving under with a deadly hush. I try to stand, stumble as my massive tail drags behind me, bang my head (my long, narrow, reptilian head) against the low ceiling.

I bellow, a sound I don’t recognize, and beside me there’s another shout. Familiar, high-pitched, cracking in the middle. Scott.

“Danny! Danny!” The voice comes from a pit of shadows. “Don’t freak out, don’t—just don’t freak ou—oh crap, I HAVE A BEAK—”

I lurch toward his voice, nearly falling over. I thrash my head, and something crunches—a rusty air duct, maybe. There’s softer padding, talons—Scott, who’s pacing back and forth as if walking might undo whatever’s been done.

He’s smaller now, feathers—actual feathers!—ruffling down his arms, a long, stiff tail twitching behind him. His skin is dappled green and stripes, his mouth a wicked hooked beak. His eyes, though—his eyes are still Scott’s, wide and blue, glistening with panic.

“Are we dead?” he asks.

I try to answer, but all that comes out is a low huff, alien and guttural. I settle for nodding, jaws clacking by accident. He squints at me, tilts his head just so—an ancient instinct in a modern gesture.

“They… turned us into dinosaurs,” he says, dumbfounded. “I’m a velociraptor.”

I look at my arms, so far apart I could crush a garbage can between them. My sail (when did I get a sail?) scrapes the concrete ceiling. Spinosaurus, I think, the word shimmering in my mind like a secret.

Footsteps echo above, hard-soled, unhurried. The overhead lamps buzz, flooding silver light over our monstrous forms. A shape at the bars—a woman in a lab coat, carrying a tablet. Her gaze lingers on Scott, then traces the dark line of my sail, lingering on my claws, my jaw, my massive, hulking frame.

“Excellent,” she says. “You’ve integrated beautifully.”

Scott surges at the bars, shrieking, and slams his beak against the steel. I try to roar, but the sound is choked with bile and confusion. The woman waits, calm, one eyebrow cocked.

“I know you’re frightened,” she says, her voice treacle-sweet. “But you’re both valuable—so very, very valuable. For the next few days, you’ll remain under observation. If you behave… well, perhaps we’ll discuss your future.”

She tosses something into the cell—huge plastic bins of fish, reeking and slimy. My entire being surges forward, hungry in a way I’ve never known. I tear into the fish, Scott hesitating before snatching smaller ones with his clawed feet.

Days pass, or maybe nights—the overhead lights do not change. Scott and I learn to move, to keep the wild animal instincts at bay, to communicate in gestures, noises, the ancient language of fear and companionship. We serenade the dark with grumbling chirrs and drawn-out whistles. We dream of running—he, feathered and fast, me, a shadow gliding through swampland.

Once, they try to separate us. Scott shrieks and lashes out with his sickle-shaped claws, and I thrash, snapping at the bars. It’s enough to keep us together, for now.

But the hunger never leaves.

One day, she returns—our captor, our warden—with a new face beside her. The new face doesn’t look at us, only at his laptop, but I smell him—clean, nervous, copper and sweat.

“We need a demonstration, Dr. Melnik,” the woman says. “Let’s see if they're cooperative.”

She presses a button. My vision blurs—pain sizzles along my nerves. I stagger, drop to my belly, mouth hanging open. Scott chirrups, neck trembling, as we’re herded into a larger enclosure: a cold glass arena with walls so high I can barely see the lights above.

Speakers crackle. The woman’s voice, iron and honey: “Let’s see some hunting behavior, shall we?”

A panel slides open. A goat, trembling and pathetic, is shooed into the center of the arena. The scent of blood, of terror, rips through me like a drug.

I don’t want to move—I am Danny, I am human, not a monster—but my body slides forward, smooth and deadly, tail lashing, claws flexed. Scott sidesteps me, his steps almost elegant. For a moment, our eyes meet. He hesitates. I hesitate.

But hunger, sweet hunger, burns everything away.

Afterward, we curl in the far corner, sick with guilt, our bellies full, the world very small and cold. Scott picks at his feathers, muttering curses and reassurances to himself.

“We have to get out,” he says, over and over. “We have to get out. This isn’t us. I want my body back. I want a cheeseburger. I want my stupidly complicated coffee order. Danny, you’ve got to snap out of it. You’re the smart one. I just watched Jurassic Park too many times.”

I wish I could tell him I’m scared too.

On the third day, Melnik—the nervous man—approaches during a feeding. He slips a note under one bin, then vanishes like a ghost.

Scott finds it, tears it open with a claw. In tiny, cramped print:
*There's a failsafe built into the serum. You must get to the holding tanks—Level B. At the panel, enter “Spinoraptor.” That will start the reversal sequence. But there are risks…*
The rest is blacked out by a smear of fish juice.

We hatch a plan, communicating in terse chirps and nods, our new instincts bending to old cunning. When the next handler comes in to refill the bins, we fake a fight—Scott shrieks and rushes me, I lunge but miss, smashing the handler into the wall. He drops his card.

By the time the alarms ring, we’re already surging through the corridors, skidding on concrete, bellowing and chirping. Scott leads with speed, darting and weaving, tail balancing his turns. I follow, massive and nearly unstoppable, smashing through doors, my vision spinning between rage and terror.

The facility panics around us—sirens, guards, lights. At Level B, the air thickens with chemicals and ozone. There, against the wall, glows the panel—an old keypad, faint and smeared. I spell ‘Spinoraptor’ with the blunt tip of my claw, trembling.

A hiss. The wall rotates. Cool mist, bright with white light. I drag Scott and myself inside.

It burns again. Limbs re-breaking, retroscripting our DNA, monstrous pain. I lose sight of Scott in the haze, the electric rush of my body turning inside-out.

When I awake, I’m shivering, naked, on the cold linoleum. Scott sprawls beside me, clutching at his chest, both of us giddy with relief and horror at the incredible smallness of our human hearts.

Above, on the security monitors, the camera loops show battered labs, broken glass, a goat chewing on a stray badge. The words *Reversal Complete* blink in green.

Scott smiles at me, wild-eyed.
“I never want to see another fish again,” he says.

I laugh—my voice, thin, human, beautiful. And as we stagger to our feet, unlocking each other’s cuffs with trembling hands, I realize the hunger is gone.

But the memory—oh, the memory lurks just beneath the skin: The rippling power, the jungle breath, the deep, singing call of the spinosaurus. A part of me wonders if I’ll ever be Danny again… or if I ever want to be.

This story was generated by user kade with assistance by one of OpenAI’s large-scale language-generation model; prompts used to help generate the story are shown below.

Images were generated with OpenAI's AI system, DALL·E 2, or uploaded by the user.

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