The second bird beat back the first bird, and turned back to immediately focus a dark, beady eye on its target.
"No," Jeff pleaded. "Go find something else to eat!"
The bird ducked and came up with a prize — Jeff — held in its beak. It looked bad, and in his mind, Jeff started screaming.
But then the bird puzzled the terrified butterfly boy. The bird didn't swallow, and instead took flight. Jeff saw his yard, his house, his street, as the bird flew far over the treetops and rooftops.
Jeff prayed the bird would drop him, but realized that might not help. De-winged as he had become, he would never be able to crawl back the long distance the bird had already flown. His only rescue remained with the Chronivac attached to his computer back in his room. He wished he had never heard of it.
The bird dived into the branches of a tree and landed on what looked like a ramshackle pile of sticks. The bird ducked its head over a nest with four hungry baby birds.
Jeff started screaming again as he saw the four enormous beaks open wide, squawking and squealing for food from the parent that seemed to weigh the decision of which hungry mouth to stuff full.
Decision made, the bird dropped its captured prey into the widest of the wide beaks, which snapped closed on him. The nestling swallowed and immediately rejoined the clamor for more food.