Taken

Chapter 11: Trouble on the Horizon

Trigger warning: Descriptions of animal abuse.

I awoke to the wet sound of raw meat chunks, fruits, and veggies being dumped into a circular galvanized feeding trough that had been placed on the ground in the front right corner of my stall. The shallow, decent-sized dish wasn't there yesterday, so I assumed that it had been put there at some point (along with fresh, blood-free hay) while I had been asleep. I stood up slowly from my nest of hay at the back of the stall and stretched as I parted my jaws in a massive yawn and rocked my hips back in a deep stretch before I made my way over to the food trough and peered in at my first meal of the day. Drug-free rabbit, caribou, salmon, sliced apples, blueberries, pumpkin mash, sliced carrots, broccoli, and spinach were on the menu for me today based on the smells that greeted my nostrils from the raw meat cubes and plant parts. I grinned when I saw the fish and smelled that my meal was also drug-free. I was never really a huge fan of fish when I was Human; but somehow, that had changed when I was given this body. I now loved fish! In fact, it was probably my favorite protein! However, I still didn't care much for spinach. Those dreaded green leaves had been fed to me twice a month so far since my arrival to the facility and every time, I had just eaten around them. I didn't know why the scientists insisted on trying to feed them to me when I clearly never ate them.

"Morning, Clara." Alasdair said in my head.

"Morning." I replied back over our link flatly as I began to pick my way around the full food trough.

I was in an unusually bad mood this morning. Perhaps it was because of yesterday's events... or maybe it was because I had just woken up of the wrong side of the figurative bed.

"Annnnny chance you want to-"

"No."

"But, you didn't even know what I was going to ask you!"

"Yes I did, and the answer is no."

There was a growl laced in with my words as I crunched a skinned rabbit leg hard between my teeth for added emphasis. The resulting snap echoed around me and the oddly rhythmic sound of equines munching on their respective meals stopped for a few seconds before it picked back up again.

"Okay, okay. I won't ask anymore."

"Good."

I found it strange that after three months of continuously receiving drugged food, I had suddenly gotten a meal without a side of trippy visuals, itchy eyes, and weird physical sensations and found it hard to focus on enjoying the flavors of the various contents in my dish. Something here wasn't right.

"Alasdair?" I linked the Kelpie as I crunched down on a sliced bit of carrot after a period of silence.

The sound of bone crunching from Alasdair's stall stopped, followed by his blood-covered nose appearing between the bars that separated our stalls.

"What's up?" Came the response.

"Something's not quite right. My food wasn't drugged this time."

"Has it usually been?"

"Yeah, the scientists do it to 'keep me under control'."

"Shit. This is not good. This is not good!"

"What isn't?"

There was a moment of silence, followed by a wave of sympathy and fear from the Kelpie next to me.

"What isn't?!" I repeated, my mind voice rising with panic.

Alasdair took a deep breath before he withdrew his nose from between the bars and continued to eat his breakfast of raw meat.