Chapter 10, A Turn for the Worst

Unbearable pain. His legs and arms zapped to his chest to protect it, robot bodies could not help him here. His blue eyes were squeezed shut. He did not want to touch the ground. But it would come.

Screaming like a demented cat, he dropped to the ground, numb to his surroundings. He knew when he neared the ground, his back straightened, tingling, knowing it was about to be smashed.

It was like a dull thunk to Robinflight. That was all. Death sounds rang through his head.

And then it happened. He could not even yelp as his back was pulled back into what felt like a bow and snapped. He cried out finally when his wing crumbled underneath him and he thrashed until the leathery wing was zapped from underneath him.

He whimpered feebly, not passing out, still alive, still not dead, even though he longed for it. He scrambled into a crouch, his eyes squeezed shut and he hopped across the ground, one wing held up on his back, the other dragging across the ground, bleeding freely.

He was squealing and whimpering as he finally stumbled and landed on his face. His shaking hand came unsteadily from underneath him, and the fingers found his injured wing. They traveled across the smoky black surface until they found it.

A small, bullet sized hole.

He started to cry as he realized what had happened. He was crippled beyond repair. His flying was over. The perfect balance his wings and body had used to fly was shattered. It was over. He had been popped like a balloon.

His whimpers did not die down as he fainted.

XXX

Robinflight woke ages later, where the sun hovered in the middle of the sky, indicating noon.

He was not in the city. He lay on a little, stony grassy ridge over looking a fast, small stream, with a fallen log crossing over it. The ridge was surrounded by deciduous trees, most of them bearing only a few orange leaves.

He moved slightly and cried out and twisted around to place his hand over his wing. The limp thing was pulsing with pain, the sides of the bullet hole had started to heal, no longer bleeding, but the leather had been stretched to tightly when his wing was still perfect for the hole to mend together.

Feeling like the injured dog in a pack, an injured dog that could no longer go on, Robinflight tucked his good wing up to his back and hopped foreword like a bird who had broken their wing.

Finally, too exhausted to go on, he collapsed onto his stomach and slept.

XXX
He tossed and turned during the night, driven almost to insanity from the pain of his wing, which was not healing. His mind barely touched on worry for his pack. All he wanted was to get his wing back in flying conditions. In his heart, he knew that was impossible.

Robinflight thrashed on the ridge. His own sweat was drenching him, and he had to get some cool air against his skin before he threw up…

His weak legs could barely lift him, and he resolved it was because he had snapped some kind of strength circuit. He stumbled foreword, the broken wing dragging along the ground. He reached the cool darkness of the trees, and then bent down and thrust his face into the icy stream. He wrenched it out when the cold became too much. Then he looked up.

There was a rumble. A growl type rumble. Robinflight shot up, looking alertly around. The growl sounded again, this time louder and closer.

And then he saw the bear.

It was lumbering for him from across the stream. He screamed as the beast easily waded through the water, and Robinflight understood that what he had done was wrong, he had used the bear's stream, and the bear did not like it…

His hands flashed up to cover his head, because a bear's paws could break even a robotic neck. He fled for the ridge, but the bear just leaped after him, and he knew what he had to do, or he would have to drown in the river or be killed by the bear…

He threw himself onto the ground, his legs crumpled beneath his body, his back up and facing the bear. He whipped his hands out and covered the back of his neck.

The bear was not satisfied by his play-dead disguise. Claws dug underneath Robinflight's body, and he did not move as he was rolled closer and closer to the stream. The bear was grunting and growling. Then it looked at him.

Please think I'm dead, Robinflight prayed, please, please, please.

The bear was silent, giving only the tiniest grunt. Then it flipped him onto his belly, and large, three inch long claws were sinking into his shoulders and coming out again. Snapping small circuits and spraying sparks into the air. Its teeth plunged into the back of Robinflight's neck, but he did not move, even though he knew soon he would wail, and betray that he was alive, and then the bear would finish him off.

Another scratch on the shoulder blades finished the attack. The bear stood up on its hind legs and roared, looked down at him, then lumbered off.

Robinflight stayed there like that for several hours, and then, finally, he pulled himself foreword and began the painful crawl to the ridge.