MICHAEL

I am wasting away in this building. It's something that everyone has come to terms to by now, their eyes watching my weakening body as the weeks fade by. They are all vaguely concerned by how many times they take me back to be tested on during the week, due to the fact that none of them experiences such abuse. Once or twice, maybe. Three times at a stretch. But not near as many times as me, and my deadened form is frightening to them. It's frightening to me. I can't stand to look at myself in the reflection of Lila's glossy eyes, sharp like glass. I can't stand to look at who they have molded me to become. Nothing but a startling hybrid with the delicacy of a bird.

I've accepted the mortifying fact that they could care less about my health. It took a little while for me to finally believe it, convincing myself that the isolation in my cage is a way of caring. But no, it isn't. It's far from it, it always has been. I've just been too gullible to realize it before it gets to be too late.

It's too late now. I think if Luke came in and carried me away I would disintegrate in his arms, crumbling into a pile of drifting dust before he could stop it. I appreciate everything he gave me before this, but it was inevitable. This was bound to happen anyways, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I can cherish the memories that still burn in my brain, but I have to accept the emptiness my hands hold.

They took me out of my cage again this morning, to no one's surprise, despite the fact that they had left me alone for nearly a week and a half. I suppose they wanted my immune system to catch up a little, just a little, to where it can taste the recovery on its fingertips, only to have it burnt away at its touch.

They have become a bit more frantic with their injections, hardly slowing down enough for me to take a breath. I can't figure out if they are doing it out of hopes of reaching a conclusion about their experimentations, or if they want to see how fast my body can give in. I can't gather up enough energy to care.

Which brings me to where I am now, strapped down on the table with a disheartening familiarity. I've gotten used to the feeling of the needle's point, like the sharp downslope of a chough's bill against my skin. It's not something I'm proud of. More like a given fact.

My submission against the will of the scientists is irrefutable, especially with the help of my cat-like nature that seems to be brought out in moments like these. I hate it so much, hate being at the mercy of someone else, but that is how it seems to be from now on. And the scientists are so awfully smug about it all.

"You've been doing well, Michael." Draven generously compliments as he takes markings on my skin, circling the spots where I reacted unhealthily to the needle. He flips his head back towards Sam, who has his brow furrowed at a piece of paper stuck to a clipboard. "Didn't I tell you he would give in and stop resisting, Sam?"

Sam looks up at his name, eyeing me and Draven before confirming with a nod of his head. Draven turns back around complacently, continuing to mark my skin. I rest my hands on the table, listening to the rattle of the handcuffs. I don't see the point of them anymore, considering it is quite obvious to everyone that I'm not fighting back. And the handcuffs hurt. They leave rings of red welts around my wrist that seem to be incapable of fading.

Suddenly a sound erupts from the main hallway, and I whip my head towards the door, straining my eyes to see through the small window carved into the metal. For a moment, all I see is a fast blur of white clothing and strikingly blonde hair, and then my sight catches on a pair of dark ears, black as night.

It's Lila, I know it is, by the sound of her panicked voice and frightened whimpers, and it is easily to tell by the sounds filtering through the paper thin walls that she's getting beaten. She's getting hurt. Lila is getting hurt.

This angers me, for more reasons than one, but mostly because it's supposed to be me getting beat up by the scientists. Me, only me. The only reason I think I have been able to stand the beatings and injections and cruel horrors of the scientists was simply because nobody else was getting hurt. It's okay if it's just me. I deserve it anyways. Lila doesn't. She doesn't deserve anything awful.

I strain my wrists against the sharp handcuffs, lifting my body against the straps holding my down. Draven narrows his eyes at me, the pen marking an accidental streak down my arm from where he was attempting to draw a circle. I ignore his protests as I open my eyes and scream Lila's name, wanting to get her attention, let her know that I want to help her, something. Something that will calm her nerves, since nobody did that for me.

I nearly had forgotten the punishment for resisting, combined with that of screaming, but I am quickly reminded as Draven's hand repeatedly hits my jaw, my mouth, my eyes, my throat, my nose, until I can't seem to breathe and I can't seem to remember why I am getting beat up in the first place. Even so, I lay limp under the weight of the handcuffs and ankle straps, eerily calm as the slanting moon.

Once Draven feels he has punished me enough, he unstraps the restraints and yanks me off the table, ignoring the way I collapse onto the cold flooring. He hands me over to Sam, mumbling a few lost words and then pushing the two of us towards the door. Sam tightens his grip on my arm as he drags me down the infamous hallway and back into the room filled with cages. He hurriedly puts me into mine, locking the door and stalking straight back out of the room as quick as he arrives.

I don't move.

I sense Lila's presence in the cage beside me, and I can feel her sorry eyes drilling holes into the back of my head. I blink hazily, gathering up the last bit of energy I have to turn my body towards her, lifting my eyes to meet hers.

She has a black eye. A broken nose. A bruised lip. It hurts for me to look at, so terribly horrible to see the pain inflicted on her, although I know I got the worse beating. I know that I must look horribly worse, I must look horribly worse all the time, but I hate seeing it all the same.

"Michael..." Lila sighs, her eyes gazing over my blood crusted features, but I plaintively ignore her, sliding down the edge of the cage and holding my tail in my hands, tucking the matted fur under my chin as I flutter my eyes shut. I don't want to listen to her sympathy, her apologetic phrases that are meant to cheer me up. I unhappily close my eyes and will for sleep to find me, although I know it won't. It never does, trapped under the shadows of my upset thoughts.

I never used to feel so watched before. I had grown so accustomed to the silence and privacy of the woods and with Luke, to where the eyes cornering my shadow against the wall makes me want to efface myself with the rest of the world. They make me feel filthy, ludicrous, a figure cut from paper that drifts unwanted through the wind.

Not that I was ever anything better.

~*~

I had just begun to fall asleep later that day, sometime around five in the afternoon. The facility was growing quieter, workers leaving to go home or to situate themselves in their offices to stay for the night. Many of them preferred to live here in the facility due to its supposed isolation from the rest of civilization. Or at least, that's what I assume.

My eyes were just beginning to shut when I hear obnoxiously loud footsteps enter the room, echoing around the walls and bouncing back to shake half of us awake. I open my eyelids, blinking through the fog to peer through the metal bars of my crate. My bones are weak, exhausted.

They jolt to alarm, though, when I see who walked in. It's a face I thought I wouldn't have to ever see again, one I thought was gone from my life forever. I start to shake uncontrollably, unhappily pressing myself towards the back of the cage as the footsteps edge closer, stopping every once and a while to analyze one of the hybrids in their crates.

The footsteps, clad in all black Vans, abruptly stop at my cage. They turn, the toes facing me. I don't dare to look up at the face, keeping my eyes trained on the rust crusting the metal floor.

"Well, look who it is." Carter says. "Michael."

I bite my tongue, obviously upset about his presence. I shift my gaze up a bit. He's wearing jeans, ripped at the knees. I look up a little more. A Fall Out Boy t-shirt. It only brings back memories in painful flashbacks, and I want to beat the remembrances out of my head.

Carter bends down, his face pressed up to my cage, to where I have no choice but to look at his face. He looks slightly sympathetic, even, to see me all crumpled up in the corner.

"I felt bad, you know." Carter says. "When I called the detectives over to Ash's house."

His nickname for Ashton only makes me want to curl up and hide even more.

"But seeing you now is a bit more real for me." Carter says satisfyingly. "This is where you belong. Half-cat-half-people like you don't belong out in the world. Only humans do."

"I am human." I say, hating how weak my voice sounds. Carter laughs almost humorlessly.

"Humans don't have ears and a tail, Michael." Carter reminds me. "Humans don't purr and act all shy and kitten-like all the time. That's just you, and all the other animals in this room."

"We're not animals!" I protest. "We're people, too." Carter smiles with pity as he rakes his eyes over my sullen figure.

"No you aren't, cutie." Carter grins at the impact Luke's old nickname has on me, and I skitter as far away from him as possible, wanting to cover my ears. Carter sighs and stands up, dusting off the knees of his pants.

"Though, I'm quite surprised you haven't realized that yet." Carter says thoughtfully. "Perhaps you need some tougher treatments to get it through your head."

My bones lock. No, no, no more tough treatments. I don't think my body can handle it, I don't think my mind can handle it. I'm exhausted, worn down to the bone. Carter's eyes skim down to the lock on my cage before bending over, sliding the bolt and letting the door fall open. I push myself away from him, curling my tail away from his grasp and tucking my feet under me as his hands reach inside. Hot tears spring into my eyes, my muscles too sore and weak to fight back as he fists the fabric of my clothes, yanking me across the cage floor.

I squeak, all too aware of everyone looking, everyone staring. Sitting in their cages as elegiac ghosts would hide in their desolate attics.

Carters pulls me out of the cage, obviously frustrated by my lack of cooperation. He twists his fingers over my arms, jerking me to my feet and tugging me towards the hallway once again. I blink back any more tears, not wanting to oblige, wanting to hide back in my cage and turn my head from all the stares.

Carter takes me into the back hallway, and I lift my gaze away from the arena of tortured hybrids to the empty hallway of the scientists. They have all disappeared I suppose, gone to go and rest while the rest of us suffer.

The tan boy pulls me across the shiny flooring, passing rows and rows of doors until he stops at one. I look up at it, and choke when I see it's just pure metal, no window at all. Just a doorknob with a lock from the outside. My frenzied breath shudders and Carter's finger ghost over my skin, his fingernails digging into my frail arms as he carefully unlocks the door.

I watch it creak open, revealing a dark and slightly mucky room inside. It smells like copper and dust, and I weakly try and pull away from Carter's grip, but it's no use. His muscles are at least ten times stronger than mine, and I have nowhere to run.

"Please, Carter, please don't--"

"Shut up." Carter snaps, swatting away my pleading fingertips as he pulls me into the dark room, the light from the hallway weakly illuminated the dim area.  His fingers burn my skin as I feel hot tears prick the corners of my eyes.

Carter yanks me farther into the room as he leads me into the corner, pushing me against the wall and expertly pulling at the rope of chains attached to the wall.

"W-What are you doing?" I stammer, frightened by Carter's menacing shadow dancing along the wall and his expressionless face hidden by the darkness. He doesn't answer, the sounds of chains clanking against each other filling the room as he untangles the ropes. I stare at his precise movements with fear.

He untangles them shortly after and then swiftly slaps a pair of handcuffs around my wrists, locking them painfully together as he knots the chain. He finally empties his hands and steps back, admiring his work. My wrists are clasped together by the handcuffs, tightly held captive against the wall, unable to even move. My heart rate quickens, straining against the metal cuffs as Carter shakes his head.

"Maybe this will teach you some discipline, yeah?" Carter says, before backing slowly out of the room. I widen my eyes, frantically pulling against the restraints.

"No, Carter, please don't leave me here, please don't--"

The door shuts.

The room blackens, and I can't make out anything in the room anymore, swallowed up by the dark. I start to shake, tucking myself into the corner as the metal rubs blisters into my thin skin. Images appear through the darkness in my eyes and I can't figure out if they are real or not, but I can't seem to stop hearing voices and can't seem to stop thinking and can't seem to stop shaking and I just can't seem to stop.

A few tears prick at my eyes and I sniff quietly, the sound echoing throughout the room. The facility is deathly quiet, and I try and slow my breaths, but they come out uneven and gasping.

I press myself against the wall as a substitute for Luke's warm chest, and I adjust the chains around my waist as an alternative for Luke's strong arms. It may not be much, but it's all I've got left.

---

A/N it's a long drive to the facility ok

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