#distortus rex

It was why you worked so hard to take good care of all of the dinosaurs that you were assigned. You had gotten the job because of your passion for animals and you weren’t about to stop caring about them after being heartbroken a few times. After being there for a few months, you understood that many of them would pass very young. You gently cradled the small body of your newest charge. She was ugly. Very ugly. Even you, who defended the most visually unappealing dinosaur, would admit it. She was so pitiful though that you just held her through most of your work day. You weren’t an expert in any type of animal physiology but it was obvious even to you that the latest hybrid had some issues. 

Distortus rex was a good name for the new species. With six legs, a worryingly hunched back, and an oddly enlarged forehead, she was definitely distorted. You didn’t know why your bosses kept insisting on the hybridization of a T. rex, a few Titanosaur species, and whatever else they chucked into the poor thing’s genome. You found out through whispers in the break room that the little thing in your arms was the twenty sixth iteration. All of the others had either died as a fetus or before adolescence. You had a hard time sleeping at night after hearing that.

The small animal clung to your pointer finger with her two foremost paws as you held her in one arm. It was hard to believe that the little thing was supposed to become twice the size of a T. rex once she was fully grown. You were sitting in a well padded swivel chair after giving it the liquid pain medication that one of the vets on the team prescribed and then feeding her to prevent further discomfort. You had tried to put her down in her small enclosure but she had let out such pathetic cries that you picked her right back up. You knew that she was hurting and the only way that she wouldn’t cry was if she was in your arms, in your lap, or curled up against you.

“Shhhhh, shhhhh. It’s okay, sweetheart. I know. I know. It hurts right now but you just need your medicine to kick in. It’s okay, baby.” You cooed, doing your best to comfort the small creature as you gently rocked it.

She became more independent after many months of you sleeping in the lab with her. Your employers wanted to keep her alive so they reassigned all of your other charges, leaving you to focus exclusively on her. She grew quickly and though her confidence was oftentimes lacking, she was still as sweet towards you as she was when she was a hatchling. She never nipped at you and the most aggressive she would be towards you was when she would sit in front of the door to her enclosure so that you couldn’t leave and lick your face when you tried to get her to move. By the time she was two months old, she was seven feet tall. It felt like every time you woke up, she was already bigger. She ate an incredible amount of food and it felt like every time you sat down after bringing her more meat laced with vitamin and mineral supplements, she had already finished and was begging for more. You knew that since it was exhausting for you, it had to be even more exhausting for her.

Once she breached fifteen feet tall at just under a year old, it was time to move her to her more permanent research enclosure. The shareholders had taken one look at her and decided that she wasn’t fit to be put on display at the park. You remember reading the memo and your jaw dropping at the cruel way that they described her. You weren’t exactly surprised by their words but it was still much more harsh than necessary. You knew that most of the scientists didn’t like her and said nasty things about her when you weren’t there. You felt bad but at the same time, you were glad that you were able to keep an eye out for her safety. You knew that each baby dinosaur saw their main caretaker as their mother, regardless of their caretaker’s gender, and it was no different for you and the Distortus rex. She complied with your requests for the most part thanks to that. It saved her quite a bit of pain to have you guide her. Some of the scientists were more than a little overeager with a cattle prod.

The main reason that you wanted her to be moved out of the Research and Development sector was so that she could have a more appropriately sized enclosure. You weren’t stupid. You knew that the enclosure that the team had her in was much too small. Most of the enclosures for the carnivorous dinosaurs were way too small. The T. rex had an enclosure only a fifth of the size of what she should have but it was better than what your charge had. She had an indoor enclosure the size of a football field, which really wasn’t a lot considering the fact that she was 46 feet long. There was a treadmill that you could put her on but the lack of a proper environment for her to live in always bothered you.

Due to incompatibilities in her genetic makeup, she was constantly in pain. You had to give her medication four times per day to manage it but it meant that most of the time, she wasn’t truly lucid. She was cuddly, for a dinosaur and especially for a hybrid, and loved any kind of physical contact. She was curious but tried to stay close to you whenever she could. She loved it when you would sit and lean up against her when you filled out paperwork and wrote reports. She enjoyed it when you gave her baths and brushed her teeth, even though it took quite a while. It really isn’t easy to keep a 20,000 pound animal smelling nice but you did better with your charge than any of the other keepers.

In return for taking care of her, she would try her best to groom you as well. It always ended with you looking shell shocked as you wandered out of her enclosure, covered in slobber from her licking you. It made the rest of the team laugh but your main concern was finding the nearest shower. Another behavior that she displayed while trying to care for you was gently picking you up and carrying you away from any of the other humans in the area. She knew that they were the ones experimenting on her and how much it hurt. She seemed to want to spare you from it as she held you and shielded you from any and all people viewing the both of you from the observation window. It seemed like she didn’t understand that you weren’t the same as her even when she was fully grown and 26 feet tall.

You always felt bad when you stayed home from work when you were sick because you knew how lonely she would be. You made sure to bring in a blanket from your small apartment to her enclosure so that she would be able to at least have your scent around to comfort her. It seemed to go well, although she was much more aggressive than usual on the days that you weren’t there.

The Snickers wrapper incident happened on a day that you stayed home sick. You were feverish and felt like you were dying when the alarms started blaring with warnings outside. You weren’t exactly with it and just squinted at the people running outside through your window as you stayed curled up in bed. You ended up falling asleep again moments later. When you woke up, you were being carried out of your apartment building by one of the security guards. You could hear screaming all around you but your ears felt like they were filled with cotton and your brain was too fuzzy to think about what was going on. You watched lazily as hybrids from the lab attacked people all around you. In your state, your main question was why you weren’t back under your covers with your stuffed animals. You were thinking so hard about if your shark plushie was more of a dark cyan or a turquoise that you hardly registered the booming roar that came from the research center.

You smiled as your favorite dinosaur came barreling towards you and the guard. Your eyebrows furrow as you hear the man cuss as he hears her. You wondered why anyone would curse at your silly little buddy. Well, maybe she wasn’t very little anymore but you always thought of that itty bitty hatchling whenever you thought of her. You tilted your head and frowned as you watched her stomp on a few of the people in her path. It’s weird that the team let her outside of her enclosure, you thought. Someone could get really hurt.

Your fever-addled brain didn’t think much of it when she grabbed you away from the man carrying you with one of her foremost paws. You were used to her being protective of you. You leaned against her and were too distracted by her scales that you couldn’t hear the crunch of her biting the guard in half. You happily traced the different shapes of her scales as she continued wreaking havoc amongst the humans. Her hatred for the scientists that created her and then subjected her to inhumane tests came out at full force. The rest of the hybrids were behaving similarly. It was loud but you were so focused on the shape and smooth texture of her scales that you were lulled into a trance. It was always easy to distract when you were sick and feverish. You were like this ever since you were a kid. You could remember staring at bumps on the wall and being entranced by them when you were about seven years old. You were easily distracted by random things normally but now that you’re sick? You would be lucky to have your attention caught by something even mildly useful.

As the human screams and hybrid roars died down, the D. rex seemed to decide that it was time to do something different. There weren’t any visible human survivors and her stomach was full. The massive beast turned and began walking towards the mountains. She looked around cautiously as she made her way through the streets that wove through the buildings of the research center. She began carrying you off into the jungle, her massive form easily protecting you from any branches that could scratch or hit you. Between the warmth of the sun, the gentle rocking movement as she walks, and the steady sound of her deep breathing, you were easily lulled to sleep.

When you finally woke up again, you were only slightly more with it. You didn’t fully remember what had happened and just nestled into the grass that you were laid down on. You could feel each and every breath that the giant dinosaur took as you leaned against her. You could tell that she knew that you were awake, even when you were this sick. Her body language was different than usual. She seemed both relaxed and worried at the same time. You couldn’t help but giggle as she tilted her head down towards you and sniffed you a few times.

“Hi little sweetie. Have you been good while I was napping? You’re a silly dino, huh?” You croaked out.

You didn’t even realize how dehydrated you were until you spoke. Your throat felt like a desert as you sat up and looked around for some water. You were very confused when you realized that you were in a nest in a cave. The Distortus seemed to recognize that you were thirsty and gently nudged you towards a nicely sized stream that ran next to the entrance of the cave. She watched you carefully as you stood up shakily while steadying yourself against her. You slowly wandered over to the stream and sat down. Normally, you’d be incredibly worried about pathogens in the water but the fever was enough to shut down most of your higher thinking. You tried to scoop up water to drink for a bit before giving up and lowering yourself to the ground to drink from the source. 

You didn’t bother looking up as you heard her moving behind you. You weren’t surprised when she lowered herself next to you, though you were grateful that she was downstream from you. You didn’t notice the dried blood on her chin being washed away in the water. Once you had a belly full of fresh water and a soothed throat, you sat up and looked around. The D. rex seemed to see that you were done and carefully nudged you to go back to the nest.