An Average Day at Laminax

Chapter 19

I severely underestimated how hard it was going to be staying here. To boil it down, nice and simple, it was hell. If sleeping on the closet equivalent of a concrete bed with a concrete pillow wasn't hard enough, I also faced constant belittlements, insults, taunts and even some beatings from the guards. They knew I couldn't do anything about it, and I knew it too. During my fourth day here, one of the guards, who particularly hated me, called me into the so called lounge that they had set up here. His name was Tobias Scheff, and he was the Vice Head of the Security Department.

The lounge consisted of two sad looking leather couches, a small TV attached to the wall, a carpet made in Delaware, and a pool table with no billiard balls. I was forced into the lounge, to the confusion of the other workers in there. The place wasn't all that bad, I'll admit. Some of the scientists, security gauds and other workers were nice enough to me, and the Administrator seemed sane enough, despite his allowance of regular, almost every day Gootraxian executions. The guard then asked for the workers to leave, which they did, though reluctantly. This particular security guard was the Vice Head of Security, and on this particular day, the Head of the Security Department called in sick, so he was in charge. He asked me to sit down on the couch, which I did. What happened next was something I would've never predicted. Somehow, someway, he got the security footage from the Denver headquarters of me getting infected. I was forced to watch it, knowing I couldn't leave. I watched as my past human self was slowly transformed into a Catte, before dragging himself into the nearby janitors closet. Tobias skipped ahead a few hours into the footage, and I walked out the janitors closet again in my new, permanent form. After that, Tobias returned me to my cell.

During my sixth day, I had just woken up, my back feeling terrible and my entire body being stiff. I dragged myself out of bed and walked across the room, my tail dragging on the cold concrete floor beneath me. Here I was, former child prodigy from a tiny Indiana town, MIT graduate and Senior Researcher. If only they could see me now. A prisoner of something that is nearly comparable to a gulag, treated like either a vicious and mindless animal or a small, defenceless kitten. A former human, now an animal. And even though I knew I was going to be returning to Calgary soon, I felt that something terrible would happen to me beforehand. Suddenly, the cell doors opened, and in walked Tobias. My body tensed up as he walked right in front of me and squatted down so his eyes could meet mine, one of his arms hiding something behind his back. I tried to hold back my overwhelming feelings of fear and anger, but my body language betrayed me as my ears flattened, fur puffed up and tail twitched behind me in nervous anticipation of what could or could not happen next. On Tobias' pale face was a sly smile, and I sensed that he wasn't here for anything good. "Morning, kitty," he said, "I have a little surprise for you today." From behind his back he pulled out what looked like a metal collar. He unlocked it, forced it around my neck and locked it again. Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a small pair of what looked like black car keys, with two buttons next to each other, one green, the other red.

With a push of the red button, the metal collar around my neck started to emit a low buzzing sound, and sent a wave of pain and electricity throughout my body. Instinctively, I let out a hiss, ears lowering further than before and fur puffing up. "Shock collar," he explained, "You're going to get used to it over the next week or so." I looked at Tobias with anger, and he looked at me back with a sickly smug look on his face, knowing that if I even attempted to harm him, it would be reacted with brute force, or even death by the hands of his crony team of security guards that also hated me. I felt sick to my stomach as I looked him straight in the eyes, my claws involuntarily unsheathing themselves, digging into my mattress and a strange voice in my subconscious telling me to attack him. Then, smiling at me in an obnoxious way, he reached for one of the pouches in his utility belt, pulling out a singular, transparent white glove out of it. Putting it on his right hand, he patted me on the shoulder before leaving the room and closing the door, leaving me alone with my thoughts, and my pain. Would it get much worse than this?