Because I Love You✔️

Chapter 6: Gentle Hands

Only, it was somehow getting dark outside.

He blinked, looking at the sky through the bars, but sure enough the sun was setting. He figured he must have been out cold, but when he turned his head to see what had woken him up he saw Gus setting a plate of food inside the cage.

The man's face was pale and he looked extremely unhappy.

"Ella wouldn't see reason when I inquired about what you were going to eat," he croaked. "This is inhumane, but it will have to do."

"What is it?"

Gus swallowed, looking sick.

"Pig feed," he said weakly. "It's what we throw into the troughs."

Xaphile blinked, but he couldn't say he was surprised. Gus watched as he weakly stretched out a hand to the strange looking oatmeal-colored slop, but he stretched too far and agony shot into his brain, making him see stars and nearly vomit. He went limp, breathing hard as his skin was swiftly coated in a sheen of cold sweat.

"I can't move," he somehow managed to wheeze. "Can you push it closer?"

Without a word, Gus shifted the plate until it was right in front of his face.

"Eat it when you can," he muttered. "I have to go now."

When he stood up and walked off with a stiff back, Xaphile tentatively attempted to move his arm and carefully inched his hand over to where the food had been placed, and with shaking fingers he grabbed the first chunk of whatever it was he'd been given, took a deep breath, and incautiously popped it into his mouth. 

His first instinct was to gag, but instead he choked, fighting to swallow past the flavor of rotting fruit, moldy cabbages, and something slimy and chunky that made his stomach churn. He coughed in the back of his throat, tail involuntarily snapping back and forth, then held his breath and forced himself to swallow. 

The taste was beyond revolting, but it was better than nothing, so he reluctantly ate all of it even though it physically made him feel nauseous and mentally made him feel lower than an animal. Once he finished it, he pushed the plate away and lay there, shivering for what felt like hours.

Time passed, and it grew so dark he couldn't see, but his stomach wouldn't let him sleep since waves of nausea and pain kept passing over him and disappearing into the gloom, overlapping each other like the rise and fall of the ocean's waves. 

He shakily wiped the sweaty hair off his forehead, but stopped and gave up when he felt dried blood crusted on his mouth and nose.

Feeling filthy and completely exhausted, he closed his eyes, wanting nothing more than to fall asleep and get away from himself for a little while, but his wishes were granted sooner than he expected them to. Swirls and colors slowly danced behind his eyes, pulling him deep into that weird half-dream place and stringing him along half-formed visuals, but he swore he could hear faint, indecipherable voices conversing and speaking somewhere in the void of his mind.

It wasn't until he heard a clang and jumped, startled awake that he realized two things, the first being that he'd actually fallen asleep and the second being that the voices were real.

Confused, he opened his bleary eyes again to see that the sun was in the sky, people were walking to and fro, chatting and conversing in front of what looked like stalls, but it wasn't them who had disturbed him, it was Gus with another plate of pig food and a bowl of water. The man refused to meet his eyes and simply crawled out of the cage without a word, locking it up.

Xaphile wordlessly drank the water, but left the slop untouched since he'd already decided not to eat anything after the first time around... he would rather starve. Finished drinking, he closed his eyes for the third time and drifted off, falling asleep for what felt like a good long while this time around, but sure enough he was roused again later that evening by Gus, who held two more bowls and, strangely enough, a rather large pot.