Felan

Chapter 2

 Felan could not remember his own mother.

He had been young; too young to understand the concept of life and death. Of pain and sorrow. He had been too young to remember his mother's face as she looked down at him with love. Too young to remember the way she held him, or the soft soothing voice as she whispered good bye.

At least, he liked to think that she had been able to say good bye. All he had been told was that she had loved him and that she had died. He knew not how it happened. Had his mother died a long, painful death? Or had she died peacefully in her sleep? These were questions that were becoming ever present in the back of his mind. They presented themselves more and more often while he sat in his dark cage and stared into empty space. He had never considered these questions before, when he was too young to understand what those questions meant. Perhaps it was his age, or his loneliness that brought these questions out.

Who was his mother?

He supposed that perhaps it didn't matter. She had died before he knew her, so what should it matter to him how she died? He had Galvin in her place. He had Galvin to hold him, to feed him, to teach him to walk and talk. He had Galvin to care for him and to pick him up when he fell down. He had Galvin to love. But maybe, having someone like Galvin in his life was too merciful for a disgusting mutt like himself.

Maybe that was why his mother had died. Maybe that was why Galvin had died as well. Maybe the reason he was sitting in this cage, sleeping in his own filth, licking the condensation from the bars of his cage, was because he was a disgusting mutt. After all, why would someone like him deserve someone as good as Galvin? No. Felan was not good enough for Galvin. Maybe he was in this cage because he deserved it. He was only a waste of space. Why else would his only loved one die, and he be locked up like this?

The more he thought about it, the more it began to make sense. After years of living like this, stuck in a cage, it was only seeming more and more true to him. He was filth. Just as the woman so often told him.

As the time passed and continued passing, Felan grew to be at terms with this. He lived for the scraps the woman fed him and nothing more. He sat in this cage to sit another day. He licked the droplets off the bars of his cage so that they would come back, and he would lick them off once again. This cycle he lived was, in his mind, never ending. He knew not of the outside world. He knew not where the woman went after giving him his meals. He knew not what occurred just at the tops of those stairs she would climb. And until one day, he didn't care.

It was just another day. Felan sat, his stomach rumbling, his tongue sliding across the bars of the cage as he remained huddled in his cage. His dark eyes were glazed, his mind focused on nothing but the sound of the water droplets. They fell to the ground rhythmically.

Drip

Drip

Drip

Thump

Felan blinked. His mind was still beside himself. His tongue continued to glide across the cold metal.

Drip

Drip

Thump

Felan jumped as the second thump could be heard from the top of the staircase. His eyes widened in fear, and his limbs stiffened. He could feel his blood suddenly running ice cold. The door above the steps remained closed, but there was someone on the other side of it.

Another thump against the door, this one louder than the last, sent Felan against the back of his cage. His wide, terrified eyes watched the door, each heartbeat pounding against his ear drums.