Cutie ⇔ Muke ✓

[23] No you aren't, Cutie

MICHAEL

I am wasting away in this building. It's something that everyone has come to terms to by now, their eyes watching my weakening body as the weeks fade by. They are all vaguely concerned by how many times they take me back to be tested on during the week, due to the fact that none of them experiences such abuse. Once or twice, maybe. Three times at a stretch. But not near as many times as me, and my deadened form is frightening to them. It's frightening to me. I can't stand to look at myself in the reflection of Lila's glossy eyes, sharp like glass. I can't stand to look at who they have molded me to become. Nothing but a startling hybrid with the delicacy of a bird.

I've accepted the mortifying fact that they could care less about my health. It took a little while for me to finally believe it, convincing myself that the isolation in my cage is a way of caring. But no, it isn't. It's far from it, it always has been. I've just been too gullible to realize it before it gets to be too late.

It's too late now. I think if Luke came in and carried me away I would disintegrate in his arms, crumbling into a pile of drifting dust before he could stop it. I appreciate everything he gave me before this, but it was inevitable. This was bound to happen anyways, and there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I can cherish the memories that still burn in my brain, but I have to accept the emptiness my hands hold.

They took me out of my cage again this morning, to no one's surprise, despite the fact that they had left me alone for nearly a week and a half. I suppose they wanted my immune system to catch up a little, just a little, to where it can taste the recovery on its fingertips, only to have it burnt away at its touch.

They have become a bit more frantic with their injections, hardly slowing down enough for me to take a breath. I can't figure out if they are doing it out of hopes of reaching a conclusion about their experimentations, or if they want to see how fast my body can give in. I can't gather up enough energy to care.

Which brings me to where I am now, strapped down on the table with a disheartening familiarity. I've gotten used to the feeling of the needle's point, like the sharp downslope of a chough's bill against my skin. It's not something I'm proud of. More like a given fact.

My submission against the will of the scientists is irrefutable, especially with the help of my cat-like nature that seems to be brought out in moments like these. I hate it so much, hate being at the mercy of someone else, but that is how it seems to be from now on. And the scientists are so awfully smug about it all.

"You've been doing well, Michael." Draven generously compliments as he takes markings on my skin, circling the spots where I reacted unhealthily to the needle. He flips his head back towards Sam, who has his brow furrowed at a piece of paper stuck to a clipboard. "Didn't I tell you he would give in and stop resisting, Sam?"

Sam looks up at his name, eyeing me and Draven before confirming with a nod of his head. Draven turns back around complacently, continuing to mark my skin. I rest my hands on the table, listening to the rattle of the handcuffs. I don't see the point of them anymore, considering it is quite obvious to everyone that I'm not fighting back. And the handcuffs hurt. They leave rings of red welts around my wrist that seem to be incapable of fading.

Suddenly a sound erupts from the main hallway, and I whip my head towards the door, straining my eyes to see through the small window carved into the metal. For a moment, all I see is a fast blur of white clothing and strikingly blonde hair, and then my sight catches on a pair of dark ears, black as night.

It's Lila, I know it is, by the sound of her panicked voice and frightened whimpers, and it is easily to tell by the sounds filtering through the paper thin walls that she's getting beaten. She's getting hurt. Lila is getting hurt.