Content Warning: Bad parents, fire

Salina

Salina was home.

That was the first thing she noticed. Everything was sunny, and there were rainbows, and fluffy clouds, and golden palaces.

The second thing she noticed was her wings. They felt lighter, softer- because they weren't the wings of a fallen angel. They were the wings of a Goddess,

When Kana said they wanted to get to know me, I guess they wanted to get to know me in my full glory, she thought with a smile.

She had her powers again. She was a goddess again. Life was good. Not that it was real, but, well, she could savour it for a little while anyway.

"Salina." A loud voice growled from behind her. She turned to see one of her fellow Gods. He had a thunderous expression, and the fluffy white clouds turned a dark grey.

Oh no.

Oh no oh no oh no.

She remembered how this went.

Salina dropped into a deep bow. "Lester." She whispered.

"I know what you did."

Her heart dropped. "Please. I- I didn't mean to, it was an accident."

"Your actions led to the death of a human. That goes against the code."

"I'm begging you, just give me one more chance-"
"NO, Salina. I'm stripping you of your Goddess title. You are banished from returning to your home. You will walk among the humans as though you are one of them- except you never truly will be one, because humans don't accept creatures different from themselves, and your wings are a clear sign of just how different you are."

"Lester, please- it was an accident- please don't do this-"

"You will find no mercy in me, Salina. Give up."

"Please-" She was still whimpering pleas as he placed one hand on her shoulder. But not a gentle hand, not a comforting hand, not the hand she was so used to from him. This was a final hand, a merciless hand.

He shoved her, hard, and suddenly she was falling through the clouds and down to the earth below. It was so far below.

She was pretty sure her stomach had been left behind. Tears ran off her face and fell like raindrops.

Eventually, she realised she was no longer falling. She was lying on the white floor, wings squashed uncomfortably underneath her. Kana was standing in the doorway.

She didn't say anything, just stood up.

"I think watching yours gave me motion sickness." He said, moving out of the way.

He was watching that?? She didn't respond, just shoved past him and out of the cubicle.

Lulu

Lulu was still shaking violently as whatever the serum was doing to her began. She saw a house, and a cradle, and a group of other people her age. She was young- tiny, like she was just born. It was strange- this place was bringing up some memory of hers, like she'd been here before, but she couldn't place it. It was as if the memory was swimming through thirteen years of fog to get to her.

But, as she turned her head and saw another tiny baby, with soft brown ears and a tail and a little button nose, she suddenly realised something.

This was her first house. The one she was born into. She wasn't in a cradle, she was in a basket, with four other baby meifwas. Standing over the basket were her parents, her biological parents, watching their newborn kittens. Her mother, a brown meifwa with tabby-like patterns on her tails and ears, picked her up in her paws and examined her.

Bad parents begins

"This one looks strange." She said, in words Lulu hadn't fully understood at the time but now knew. "Why is she all white? That's a weird colour."

"Maybe she'll grow out of it. All the others look normal." Her father, who had grey ears, replied.

Lulu meowed softly, and her mother frowned. "Sure, okay. We'll wait a few months, see if her colour comes in.

A few months passed. Every day she'd seen the disappointment, and disgust, on her parents faces- that she wasn't normal, that her ears were still white. As soon as she'd figured out the source of their feelings, she'd started trying to change her fur colour. She'd once dipped her ears into a bowl of raro in an attempt to dye her fur, but she'd only ended up making her parents madder.

One day, her mother had come up to her while she was playing with one of her brothers. She grabbed Lulu by the scruff of her neck.

"Mommy?" Lulu squeaked.

"Don't call me that. I'm done with you. It's pretty clear by now that you'll never be normal, and I don't want to look at you anymore. I'm putting you up for adoption."

Lulu hadn't understood what that meant. She didn't know why the colour of her fur was enough for her mother to get rid of her. But she'd looked into the future and seen a nicer family, who didn't look like her but who were kinder than her mother and father had ever been. So she let it happen, trying not to think about her siblings, or her home, or- or anything.

Bad parents ends

Kana was standing in front of her, which confused her for a second. How was she here again? She'd just been with her real parents, her werewolf parents- she was sure she'd relived her whole life just now. But no- she was in the lab, and it had been only a few minutes.

"Did you ever see them again?" Kana asked. She frowned.

"What? Who?"

"Your siblings."

Was he watching? "Uh... yeah. We reconnected a few months ago. Why do you even care?"

He shrugged. "I don't."

"Oh.."

Julian

After a significant amount of arguing, Kana had finally convinced Julian to let him inject him. Julian almost laughed when Kana had to climb a stepladder to actually get to his neck, and seconds later warmth was spreading through his veins, his clenched fists relaxed and he was shoved into a cubicle.

Next thing he knew, he was sitting down in another white lab room. A cell. But this one wasn't the one he'd been in seconds ago. This was bigger, and more secure, and lonelier. He remembered this place and he hated it.

But he wasn't completely alone. In his hands was a squishy pokemon-looking thing, with pink and white splotches, a long tail, an angry expression, and a tie. It was Patches- a haunted stuffed toy that had brought him comfort many times. It helped now as well, calming down his remaining fear that the needles had triggered. He stood up cautiously and walked to the glass wall, peering out. This was definitely his old lab cell. Why was he back here?

A person walks past in one of the hallways he can see, carrying something. He watches them trip over an untied shoelace, and the thing crashes to the floor. Suddenly, he knows exactly what day this is.

Fire begins

The person lets out a horrified gasp, and chemicals spill everywhere. The reaction is almost immediate- a bright orange flame flares up, teasing at the ankles of the person who dropped it. They turn tail and run, not looking back. Julian is transfixed. He's torn between the scene in front of him, and remembering how this played out when it was real- because this isn't real, it can't be, I've been here before -the heat and the pain of that memory haunting him.

The fire kept spreading. Smoke reached the ceiling and an alarm began to blare, snapping Julian out of his mind. He squeezed Patches. "It's fine." He said, half to the creature and half to himself. "We'll be evacuated. They have to evacuate us."

But the fire continued to spread, and no one came. Julian kind of knew that this wasn't real, that it couldn't hurt him- but part of him was slipping back into his past self, experiencing this for the first time.

The fire was right outside the glass. It was becoming unbearably hot in the cell. He banged furiously on the glass, yelling for someone to let him out. But still nobody came. He turned to the camera in the corner of his cell, screaming profanity at it, pleading with anyone watching to let him out. But the fire was spreading into his cell. How, he wasn't entirely sure, but he knew the room couldn't be airtight. Smoke was crowding the ceiling and he dropped to his hands and knees, cursing his abnormal height.

Suddenly, there was a loud creaking sound, followed by a crack, and something insanely heavy and painfully hot crashed down on his back. He yelled his agony at the world, but there was nobody to hear him except Patches, who was trying its best to comfort him.

He was going to die. He was really going to die. All the shit he'd been through in this bloody lab, all the horrible treatment and painful experiments, and this was the end. A basic fire. It had all been for nothing. His throat was hurting, and he didn't know if that was from the smoke or the yelling. Actually, everything was hurting. Everything burned.

Through the smoke, he thought he saw the cell door open. He wondered if he was losing his mind- is this what happens when you die? Suddenly the burning weight was heaved off his back and he was able to scramble to his feet- collapsing to his knees shortly after due to inhaling a lungful of smoke. He scooped Patches up, and looked around to see who had saved him. Whoever it was had collapsed onto the floor, and he crawled over. Ash coated the other person's features, but he saw a glimpse of reddish hair and a gas mask and realised it was Xavier- the owner of the lab, who he hated with a passion.

He stood up, hunched over, and started to make his way to the door- but looked back. Can I really just leave him here? After he just saved me? And knew that, as much as he hated the other man, he couldn't just leave him to burn.

"Oh, fuck you Xavier!" he yelled, grabbing his legs and heaving him over his shoulder.

Julian walked out of the burning building with Patches in one arm and Xavier on the other shoulder. He dropped Xavier into the cool grass a safe distance away, before getting as far away from that hellhole as he could.

Fire ends

Julian walked straight into Kana before noticing where he was. How was he back in the lab? Hadn't he just escaped it? Wait, this was a totally different place...

It took him a little while to remember what had happened. The needle. The 'virtual reality' test. None of that fire was real.

Then why could he still feel it blistering on his skin? Why had he felt the pillar on his back?

"What the fuck was that?" Julian cried. "What did you do to me? The hell kind of virtual reality-" He grabbed Kana by the collar and shoved him against the wall.

"Julian, let me go. I don't want to sedate you." The other man didn't even flinch.

"Like hell you will! What did you do to me?"

"That wasn't any worse than what that other lab did to you- and this one, you actually gave your permission for."

Julian glared at him for a few seconds, before releasing him and shoving him away.

"Now." Kana said. "Follow me please."

{1869 words} {or 1940}

{I was tempted to have Julian shake Kana so you could have your maraca moment, but oh well}