#indoraptor

You had received a notice that your coworker who cleaned the lab with you had quit the night before due to dangerous working conditions. Your supervisor had given you more safety guidelines to follow and you assumed that something had happened with the Indoraptor for them to leave so suddenly. You noticed that the red paint separating where you could and couldn’t walk near his enclosure was freshly painted. Something had definitely happened.

You were mopping near the cage when the dinosaur hybrid began to growl at you. You looked over at him, side eyeing the beast interrupting your otherwise quiet shift. You put your hands on your hips as you looked up at him and then began to realize something. It wasn’t his fault. Your face softened from annoyance into pity.

“Are they being for real right now? You have, like, zero enrichment in there. No wonder you’re so aggressive. I’d be pissed off too if I didn’t have anything to do.” You said, clearly unimpressed with the Indoraptor’s enclosure.

You ended up turning on a random educational kid’s show on your phone and propping it up right in front of the red line. You knew enough not to go past that. The sounds of the nostalgic show replaced the growls and rumbles of the hybrid as you worked on mopping the floor. When you looked over at the animal, you saw him laying on the floor closest to the phone with the side of his face pressed to the glass and his yellow eye locked onto the screen. You chuckled and went back to working. 

This turned into a routine for the both of you. You turned on a show for the animal, he didn’t try to grab your mop while you cleaned outside of his enclosure, and you both got a bit of peace out of it. Your phone died every once in a while you were in the middle of cleaning. You figured that he couldn’t understand you so you just talked about anything and everything. You told him about your tiny apartment, the books you were reading, drama going on with your friends, politics, and anything else that you could think of. He simply sat there and watched you, huffing and making small vocalizations at the appropriate times. That always made you laugh. To you, it was like a dog barking when you talked to them. He was just trying to participate in the conversation.

You were smart enough to never try to touch or pet him, no matter what he did to try to get you to do so. He would whine and press himself against the bars of his enclosure and occasionally would roll onto his back to try to get you to pet his belly. It never worked on you, though it did make you smile. You weren’t about to get your arm torn off for the sake of petting him, even if he was being incredibly cute.

On the night of the auction, you were instructed to clean the museum and lounge areas instead of the lab like usual. You weren’t given an explanation but you didn’t mind that. You quietly dusted as you listened to your headphones, entirely unaware of what was going on until you heard muffled screaming. You paused your music for a few seconds and then decided that it wasn’t worth potentially getting fired over. You resumed your music and turned up the volume as you went back to working.

You didn’t hear the screams getting closer to the room that you were in and then promptly being silenced.

You didn’t hear the soft clicks of claws on metal as the door to one of the living rooms was opened.

You didn’t hear the padded footsteps of a superpredator approaching you.

You did feel the hot huff of breath on the back of your head. 

You smelled the fresh blood as you slowly turned around.

You saw the hybrid built to kill far, far too late.

You closed your eyes and braced for impact as you came to terms with dying on the job.

Then a second passed.

Then another.

You heard a rumbling growl and felt the top of a scaled muzzle slick with blood gently rub against your cheek. 

You kept your eyes closed for a few more moments before hesitantly opening one. The Indoraptor was right there but instead of looking aggressive, he looked like he did when he was trying to entice you into petting him. His eyes were soft and warm and his body language was open and friendly. He genuinely looked happy to be around you, just like he did when he was in his cage, but he also looked incredibly pleased with himself. Blood dripped down his chin as he smugly stared down at you just like the cat that ate the canary.

You yelped as he pushed you back onto one of the plush couches and then began approaching you. You closed your eyes and braced for impact again before being surprised once more. A heavy weight sat beside you on the couch and that same scaly muzzle wormed its way under your shaking hands and onto your thighs. You looked down to see the Indoraptor’s muzzle twist somewhat into an imitation of a smile as he looked up at you. You just stared at him as he began to purr.

You slowly moved your hands away from the animal’s head and the purring immediately stopped. The hybrid gave you a sharp look and began baring his teeth so you quickly put your hands back on top of his head. The purring resumed and the hybrid’s expression changed back to one of happiness. After about 15 minutes, he began rubbing his scaly skin against your hands.

You got the hint. You carefully began petting his scales and his purring only got louder. He seemed to truly enjoy the feeling of your hands on his scales. He especially seemed to like it when you scratched the ridge that went down his spine. It wasn’t long before he rolled onto his side and began pulling on one of your hands towards his belly with one of his impressively clawed forelimbs. You weren’t about to tell him no at this point. You valued staying alive.

The scales on his neck and underbelly were smoother than the ones on his head. You assumed that it was because the ones on his head were meant to be used as armor while the ones on his belly didn’t need to give him nearly as much protection. It felt a bit like petting a warm version of the gigantic reticulated python that you pet at a zoo as a kid. The scales were smooth and the flesh had a bit of give from the soft fat that helped protect the muscle beneath. It was actually very pleasant to touch. The texture and feeling were so fascinating to you that you didn’t notice the affectionate look that the Indoraptor was giving you.

You were feeling significantly more comfortable now that you were pretty sure that you weren’t going to be eaten alive. You even felt comfortable enough to speak to the dinosaur hybrid.

“You’re not so mean, are you, buddy? You’re a good boy. Such a good dinosaur. You’re so good at not biting me, huh? Good dino.” You whispered quietly to him.

He perked up at the praise even more than he usually did when you praised him in his enclosure. He churred as he nuzzled against your side and the more you thought about it, the more likely it was that he could understand you. You hesitated for a moment before deciding to ask him something.

“Do you wanna watch some TV, bud?” You asked softly.

He perked up even more and huffed loudly. It was a very obvious yes.

He growled as you leaned away from him to grab the remote from the coffee table. You froze and went back to your previous sitting position.

“Nonononono, it’s okay, big guy…! I’m getting the remote so we can watch TV…! I’m not leaving…! It’s all okay…!” You desperately reassured him as you went back to petting him.

He growled again and you immediately gave up on using the big screen. It was fine. You didn’t even know for sure if they had the right streaming service for the show you usually turn on for him. You slowly grabbed your phone and started pulling up a kid’s show about nature. He seemed to enjoy that one more than any of the others that you had shown him. He rumbled in approval when the theme song started playing. You carefully held the phone near your knees as he shifted to sit.

Your hope that he would just sit next to you peacefully were quickly squashed as his clawed fingers wrapped around and gently lifted one of your arms. Much to your disgust, he began licking your arm, saturating your work uniform with saliva. Your nose crinkled in disgust at both the feeling and smell. There was the smell of fresh blood, of course, but also the smell of rotting meat from meals long since past. It wasn’t like the scientists who made him could get close enough to brush his teeth. All you could do was sit there and be grossed out.