Sorry, a bit of an odd title.
Happy to announce that, after years of studying and working for experience, I’ve become a genetic scientist. This means I work to make things like tomatoes that stay fresh longer and blackberries that actually taste good. (Fight me.) It’s not what it’s talked up to be, really, but I learned (And am still learning) so many amazing things about how living things work. I keep many pets to observe and feed my modified foods, such as lizards, cats, fish, and my favorite- My chickens.
I then got a promotion in my job.
This was huge for me. More money, who doesn’t want that? I can afford a better house, better care for myself and my animals, and I get to create abominations that mess with the earth’s balance and could be the end of the world as we know it!
Wait, what?
That’s right. I was accepted into a small group of elite scientists experimenting to make animals for military use. I think I remember one of the projects was to create a horse-size spider to use the silk or something. My job was just helping with the implantation of embryos. The current goal was to implant reptile DNA into a chicken to create stronger, more nutritious eggs I believe. When I mentioned I had multiple female chickens to use, it was almost an unspoken agreement that we’d experiment on my pets. Selecting a beautiful copper-colored hen at the peak of fertility, we did it. As instructed, I destroyed all eggs except the healthiest-looking egg.
I raised this little chick as my own. Sure, the eyes were milky white. Sure, the chick was completely black. Sure, it hissed rather than making chicken sounds. But it worked! I named the little chick Mamba, making sure I took her in for check-ups all the time. As Mamba grew, I began to notice something… odd. The disappearance of chickens from my coop. The small bloodstains by the nest that looked like something had tried and failed to clean them. The pitch-black feathers that appeared all near those stains. The mad hissing and screeching in the night…
Something was wrong. So I needed to investigate. I grabbed my strongest flashlight, a handgun, and my fear. In the middle of the night, it started again. The screeching. So, I left to the coop. Carefully twisting the rusty metal bolts to unlock it, braced myself, and screeched myself. What I saw was forever burned into my memory.
My precious golden treasure, the fruit of my labor. Mamba.
Ever googled a picture of a Cockatrice? Yeah, that’s her. Wide, milky white eyes. Teeth inlaid in her beak. Slimy, dripping feathers. A long, gecko-like tail.
AND IT WAS SIX FEET TALL.
I don’t know how this happened. Maybe it was a midnight metamorphosis. I can’t explain it. But Mamba was clutching my pure white chicken, Angel, and tearing into her underbelly with that twisted beak. She stopped, twisted her head, and ran at me. Drawing my pistol, I fired a shot and didn’t wait around to watch. I ran like I’ve never ran before, ducking into my basement and calling the lab.
After around fifteen minutes, I heard shouting. A few more gunshots. And the screeching stops.
I don’t know what happened to my dear Mamba. The lab said she was still alive before they fired me. I did eventually find a job as a fingerprint analyzer at the police department, but I gave up chickens forever.
A few days ago the lab called me.
“Mamba had chicks.”