This is really great

Oh a TF with a bad end, nice.

Bad ends are best ends. :P and they are not nearly explored enough.

On that note on bad ends, I respectfully offer this peek at how things might have played out once the hawk caught poor Ben.

Ben struggled energetically as the large hawk circled the nest, flapping strong wings to touch down softly on the edge of a massive tangled collection of sticks and branches.

His struggles soon tired the unfortunate man in mouse form as the hawk maintained an unrelenting grasp on its prey with wicked talons.

“Let me go!” Ben squeaked repeatedly. “Please, let me go!”

His squeaks meant nothing to the successful predator. No dinner ever went willingly to the table.

The squawking from four hungry hawklings in the nest grew to a deafening cacophony once they detected the imminent approach of a parent bringing a meal. The young raptors looked like plump white bags covered with white downy feathers upon which perched a scrawny naked necks, a bulbous heads and enormous gaping orange beaks open wide as they tried to outdo each other in begging for the food being delivered.

The talons released their grip and a surprised Ben felt the immense pressure disappear as he dropped with more squeaking near the edge of the assembly of twigs and branches, which more resembled a log jam from the perspective of the tiny rodent.

The nest reeked from rotting scraps from previous meals. He saw fur and feathers and even some scales, scattered with a whitewash of droppings, in the branches comprising the nest.

He was immensely relieved to be free of the talons, and with the fearful stench of decay clogging his nostrils, scurried toward the edge of the nest, using his tiny paws to climb a large branch, only to come up short when he saw the steep drop to the ground beneath the tree.

The adult hawk flapped her wings and got comfortable on her perch on the platform’s edge. The tiny rodent felt the stir of air generated by the movement of the wide wings.

Regarding him with a single dark eye, the hawk made a deft duck of her head and retrieved the prey by snatching the rodent’s tail in her beak.

“Owwww!” Ben squeaked in serious pain as the powerful mandibles clamped shut on the tip of his long, hairless tail.

Then, whiplash, as he was jerked upward, and left to dangle from the hawk’s beak.

“No! No! No!” Ben repeated his squeaks like a broken record with no one listening. He had been free! He could have gotten back to his phone and put an end to the nightmare. If he had only leapt from the nest…

The hawk hopped deeper into the nest and swung the mouse in a wide arc over four snapping beaks as plump, downy young stretched their necks and tried to claim the morsel.

Terrified Ben squeaked as he heard the loud clacking of the mandibles of the young hawks.

The first attempts fell short of the mark, but the young were hungry and determined, and competitive.

A sharp beak closed on his left back leg. The parent hawk retained her hold on Ben’s tail and a gruesome tug-of-war commenced that only ended when the young bird severed a foot and part of the leg, gulping down the morsel before screeching for more.

Again, the adult hawk released the mouse, opening her beak and letting him fall into the center of the nest, surrounded by four towering, plump bundles of downy feathering.

Bleeding and shocked, he crawled, thoughts of his phone racing in his brain. Get to the phone. Activate the app. It’s not too late…

Searing pain erupted as a hawkling severed his bleeding tail from his body, swallowing the still wriggling morsel.

The shocked mouse looked up as the largest hawkling in the nest looked down at him, its beak open, gaping and orange. With a shocking lunge, the beak slammed down and closed around his entire form.

The mouse struggled weakly inside the closed beak.

The bird tossed back its head, bringing into play powerful throat muscles as it swallowed whole its still squirming prey as the cheated nest mates screeched in protest.

Thank you again for this nice addition to the story, it was a wonderful read with some lovely themes included.