There was once a little bird. 

She was a pretty thing, with a yellow belly and a black and white speckled back. Her song was bold, her beak sharp, and her eyes as bright as her future. She would have lived a long happy life with many successful hunts and more children than she could ever have hoped for. 

But instead she was caught. 

She was hopping through afternoon autumn tallgrass, hunting for the long-legged brown grasshoppers she so loved to eat when out of nowhere the sharp paws of a cat pinned her shrieking to the ground, one wing bent horribly wrong. 

Her little heart nearly gave out from the terror as she flailed, grinding soil into her fine feathers. In her bravery however she refused to claim her honorable death, and was instead humiliatingly carried off in the tabby’s mouth towards a house with every pleased step threatening to steal her consciousness. She was helpless as the house drew ever nearer, that faded overgrown shack which screamed danger to her animal instincts with its unnatural colorful smoke and loud noises, but she was helpless. 

Stolen story; please report.

The cat pushed through a small door and the little bird’s wing caught against the frame with white-hot searing pain. They were in a cluttered, nasty kitchen with a scratched wooden floor and hazy air. The darkness inside was so extreme that the cat, having just come from outside, did not notice an old, wiry man stride swiftly over and snatch the little bird from the cat’s mouth, teeth scoring deep burning wounds in her yellow breast. 

Though she could not understand him, the gaunt he grinned maliciously, and exclaimed, “Oh, this will do well! Well indeed, for my experiments,” and completely ignored the cat.  He pulled the bird’s wing out, tsked, then forced her beak open with his thumb and forefinger and poured a burning liquid in. 

This was the last she knew for a long while.