For those of you curious - I'm currently into writing. Yah - I know my profile says a-muzic-guy - and I DO write music, but - my current passion is a book I'm working on. I've gotten a large section of it done...for perusal here is the very first taste (sent publicly) of this work.

Please Enjoy - and remember this is a short introduction to a much larger work. It has been edited for the kiddies....

Ryan J. Price

PS> Please remember - this work is Copyrighted.


Might Makes Right

Derek opened his eyes. His head hurt horribly. He was strapped down to a metal medical table of some kind. A bright fluorescent light shone down on him, and flickered intermittently. An IV ran from his wrist to some type of a machine. Tubes, wires made up the bulk of it, and a computer the rest. The dingy metal walls of this room showed definite unsanitary conditions with stains marring their surface. With his arms, legs, and neck strapped down, his slightly furry chest hair had been shaved in places and various different sensors were hooked up to his chest.

The room was silent except for the sound of the power supply fan in the computer contraption and the tick tick of the fluorescent light as it randomly flickered on and off.

Franticly Derek thought back to how he had gotten here. There had been a party. That’s right. His friend Samuel was shipping out tomorrow for the Middle East, and there had been a going away party. There had been girls, and drink....there was a fight of some type...someone got thrown out. The party had resumed. Then everything was getting interesting with one of the girls. Shawnee. That’s right, the dark exotic girl from New Mexico. Then...then...something about a dare.

Derek tried to strain the bonds holding his arms, neck, and legs to no avail. He was firmly secured to the bench.

"Oh God, now what."

The door opened to the room. Derek had almost missed it as it was also the same dingy corroded metal of the walls and blended in with nary a crack. He caught a glimpse of woman walking in. Derek had expected someone who looked like a mad scientist. He had expected a half-crazed old man wearing a stained lab coat, and possibly some weird magnifying glass contraption strapped to his head. He did not expect the blond bombshell that was striding towards him in a white medical frock. She had been at the party hadn't she? Someone had introduced him to her....her name....it was...wait a minute...

"Sara. We met last night. But you can call me Dr. Smith." She smiled slightly, in a not very nice way. She was holding a clipboard. Her ample breasts showed her magnificent cleavage. Despite the situation, Derek could feel himself getting aroused. She only smiled. She pulled out some half spectacles, put them on, and began to write on the clipboard.

"What am I doing here." Only another slight smile came from Sara's face. No reply at all was forthcoming. She pulled a chair over the computer. The hard-drive whirred into activity as she began typing noisily on the keyboard. Derek couldn't see what she was typing. She didn't reply.

"Look - get me the heck out of here lady." Derek began to strain as hard as he could against his bonds, but only earned himself some friction burns.

Sara stood up, and walked out of Derek's sight. There was the sound of a cabinet opening. Then some other sounds. Glass on glass. Some paper rustling. Then some scratching of a pen on paper. When Sara came into his field of view again, she was holding a very large hypodermic needle.

"Now - this is for the pain."

Derek began to squirm.

"But I'm not in any pain."

Sara plunged the needle into the IV.

"No."

She pulled the needle out. A white liquid gleamed on the end of it.

“Not yet at any rate.”

A sudden heaviness settled over Derek. It was difficult to think properly.

When she sat back down at the computer, there was another sound of computer activity. Then a few loud beeps from the tiny PC speaker.

"Now then Mr Coldwell. This is going to hurt. Maybe."

All of a sudden the IV leading to the machine changed colour. The liquid inside, which was whitish before, began to darken settling finally on a dark green. A device swung out on an arm and a larger needle pierced his neck on the side. There was a sharp pain all down his spine, followed by more numbing sensations, then the feeling of some type of heavy liquid being pumped into him via the IV.

As soon as it began, it all ended. The liquid running into his IV turned clear again, and the needle in his neck retracted. The door opened, and Derek noticed two more women, definitely not as attractive as Sara entered. One was pushing a cart filled with cans of a diet / protein shake. They untied his bonds. Immediately Derek tried to stand up, but could only manage to weakly flop himself on his side. His arms were all but useless. His thoughts ran thickly inside his head.

The two would-be nurses sat him up, and began to dump the shake down his throat. His back was beginning to hurt, and he was developing a massive headache. He spluttered on the shake and tried to shove their arms away - but it was either choke on the stuff or swallow. He had no choice. He thought he was going to vomit it up as they kept dumping can after can into him. Finally they were finished. They roughly hauled him to his feet as he could obviously not stand without assistance.

Sarah came around and took his vitals. His head began to itch horribly.

"Wha...is...happ...."

Sarah only smiled.

"What's happening Mr. Coldwell? Why - a medical and scientific breakthrough of course. Take him to his room please."

Sara went back to the computer as the two nurses dragged him bodily down the hall. They passed door after door until they finally reached the end of the hallway. The end door was thrust open, and he was led to a bed where he was roughly laid down. In the corner he noticed was another case of the protein drink. Just as he was about to ask what it was for, Sara walked back in with another hypodermic. She roughly administered whatever was in it directly to his neck which was feeling rather painful now. He stared into her green eyes as the world went black.

***

Pain woke him. He thrashed to the side, as an immense pain shot thought his back. Something was wrong. He shouted out fitfully in a mournful manner. The numbness was fading, and there was still dullness to his actions. He thrashed about and fell off the bed uncontrollably. Pain lanced through his head, and he could no longer turn it side to side as he lay on his back. The pain intensified until finally he could no longer stand it, and passed out.

***

Derek woke some time later. He was ravenously hungry. He was also still in pain. His head hurt. His lower back was in agony, and his legs felt very odd. He thrashed around trying to stand up, and couldn’t. He looked over to the side of the room where the shakes were on a low table. His vision looked flattened and odd. There was a blind spot directly in front of him. He dragged himself over to the table and reached for a can. As he did so, he saw his arm was covered in fur. Not hair, not skin, but fur. There was no time to worry about that. He had to drink the shake. There was no other purpose in life. He downed can after can after can until there were no more.

Suddenly as he finished there was immense pain again in his head as he passed out.

***

"Tsk tsk tsk. Mr. Coldwell. What will we do with you?" It was not Sarah. Another woman was standing in front of him. She was a large woman. Not fat, not husky, but muscular in a freakish way. She had short black hair, and was also wearing a white medical smock which did nothing for her complexion. She held a long black stick at her side.

All of a sudden Derek was filled with rage at his imprisonment. He tried to stand up, and fell as his feet slipped. There was something wrong with his feet! He began to scramble towards the lady and screamed. It came out as a deep rage full inhuman bellow. The lady quickly jabbed the stick at him and he was stunned by an electrical shock. The stick was a cattle prod.

"None of that now. Come along."

She reached down with one huge hand, and roughly grabbed him by the....HORN??? and began dragging him down the hall. Door after door passed him. He recognized none of them. His whole attention was on one thought....

A horn?

The stun had worn off from the cattle prod, but the shock of a horn had not. He barely noticed passing through another door as he was roughly thrown into another room.

HORN??

Franticly Derek began taking stock. His arms were covered in black fur. His vision was badly impaired in the front of him, and colours were dully muted. His jeans were nothing more than tatters and rags. They wouldn't have fit his new huge frame anyway. His legs were massively huge, and ended in hooves. Derek tried to scream but the same rage full bellow came out of his mouth.

Suddenly there was a sound behind him. Derek quickly tried to turn his head, but one long horn hit a wall. Then all of a sudden something came into his line of sight.

The lights in this new room were non-existent, but Derek could still see! In front of him was a Minotaur. White, and tall. It awkwardly walked towards him. It was definitely male. It had a frightened look in it's eye and was making hand gestures. Derek recognized the international sign of "calm down" - palms down in a pushing down motion.

Derek calmed. The creature was huge. It stood probably about seven feet tall. It was very muscular and entirely white. Its eyes were a pinkish colour. Derek looked down at his own arms and legs again. Black fur covered him entirely. Jet black.

The Minotaur reached him. It reached out it's hands and grasped Derek's. It gently pulled him up into a standing position. The hoofed feet were a challenge to stand on, but after a few shaky moments, Derek was standing. He was taller than the other Minotaur by half a head. The other began to take steps backwards, pulling Derek with him to a bench where Derek sat down.