I remember screaming that night.
A massive INGEN soldier -- bearing blackened hair, brown eyes, and a chiseled jaw -- had his electric stick pressed deep into my scaly hide, electrocuting me at full blast. He watched from above, smiling with satisfaction as my poor body flailed and writhed under his control. My claws dug into ground, drawing three sharp lines across the pavement, enough to crack the very frame of my blackened talons. But he didn't care for it, even as warm crystal tears began streaming down my broken face. I bellowed into the endlessness, forced to embrace hell for however long they demanded, for however long they so wished.
But electrocution wasn't new to me in any way. This happened often.
Some days it would last seconds. Others, like today, would last minutes.
Just enough time to kill... if they so wished to try. It was a common punishment, without the risk of physical abuse -- only offered whenever a hybrid failed (or refused) to complete a task.
In my case, it was killing a dog.
At the time I wasn't aware I could do such a thing. They were the right-hand followers of mankind: loved for all their secrets, all their tricks, and more. They never did hurt me, nor was that ever their intentions. So when INGEN decided to push a stay into my cell for the sake of food, I was surprised.
No, I was scared. So was the beast. And once our fears grew too strong, we did what any animal would do: fight.
The dog was barely armored when he attacked me. Void of scales, talons, and speed, he didn't stand a chance against a giant like myself. Even I knew his fate before he took the first lunge, and I hungrily salivated over the thought of free food. When I attacked it cried out and fought back -- just the same as any ordinary prey. I found it's spine and shook it about, like a chew toy, until I heard it's bone crack. Hopeless and afraid, it watched it whimper and crawl away, begging for me to spare it's life. All I did in return was pin it's body down, and go for the throat.
But I never finished.
I didn't know why I told myself to stop. I just did.
Part of me figured it was out of fear... It only made sense. The other believed it was pure mercy that held me back. Something happened that made me disobey their focus for me, something I saw in it's eyes that reflected my own soul.
And now-
"AAH! Nnh..."
The stick finally retracted from my bloody side, and I collapsed to the ground, twitching about like a pathetic hatchling. The soldier above me watched me go still for a moment, then made a signal with it's gloved hand -- a sort of L-shape -- prior to lowering down on one knee.
"Pulse check. Standby."
"Very well. Standing by."
The second before he grazed my neck, my eyes snapped open, and I whipped my jaws up faster than he could react. Once I sank into his speckled hand, tasting the sweetest nectar that made up human flesh, my eyes dilated and a predatory snarl rippled from my throat. The injured soldier screamed, trying to reel his limb away for escape but only managed to make the damage worse. Once he lost his footing, I managed to slam him onto his back, knocking the stick from his freed hand, and glare over at him while his hand was torn to shreds.
I've never felt this much control.
"AGH! HELP!"
This much fire within me. This much... power. It burned like a newborn star in my skull, far stronger than the pain welling up inside me. It was like the taste of fresh flesh-- sweet, warm, and utterly fulfilling to any creature like myself.
I loved every second of it. This dominance over a monster... a monster who deserves far more pain that what I now offered. But the sweetened freedom I thrived over could only last so long, before I lost my guard.
With all hope gone, the man beneath me reached for his electric-stick, and snarled. My eyes widened once I saw his hand snatch it, knowing I only had a brief second to release my captive prey before it struck.
But, even when I let go, it didn't save me from his wrath.
CRACK!
My skull rocked from the sudden strike of the INGEN soldier, spraying crimson blood in all directions as I fell to the ground. My own blood began to form on my maw, and I sounded my helplessness from the metallic floor.
'M-My head...'
I tried to raise back up, only to get whacked a second time. My spine shook from the blast, and my body went limp instantaneously.
'Please... can't t-take... anymore...'
Broken, battered, and bruised, I finally succumbed to gravity and watched the world around me shrink into oblivion.
Then everything went dark.
...
...
For a minute that is.
The echo of grinding metal tools stirred me from my short-lived slumbers, just this one time. But, equally as guilty as it's noise, a strange coolness began to circumvent the injuries upon the bone of my eye, replacing my bloodied odors with a spicy plant-like scent. I groaned, twitched, and growled altogether once the moment felt right, forcing myself to all fours to see what the noise was all about.
And then I came across a man.
A man upon the floor.
A startled man.
We looked at each other for a brief second, perhaps to take on each other's scents, but it was me who reacted far more devilishly to his unknown intentions. Instinct forced me to lash my tail at the man and roar, startling him before he could even manage a say. He scrambled backward before a tail whip threw him into the wall adjacent to him, where he slumped to the ground in pain.
"W-Wait!" he raised his hands up. "Ple-"
"Murderous humans!" I roared, mock lunging at him. "RAGH! Go ahead and damage me for all I care! I'll slit your throat, just the same..."
When his fear became too great to bear, I began to stalk him, bending down low and dragging my claws across the ground beneath me. I let his ears ring by the sound of nails upon rock, a grinding, uncomfortable sounds that sent chills down his spine. The man began to tremble, pushing a hand out in terror. He could do nothing but watch me kill him.
Until I stumbled. And gasped.
The pain came without warning. From every which direction it struck, and, only now, did I realize how badly injured it was. There, in it's gaping hole, remained my flesh, squelching and dribbling with the results of my outburst. I tried to lick it, only to hiss in displeasure as more pain flowered from my flank.
Saliva wouldn't help me this time.
My limping soon caught the man's attention, and his face stiffened when he noticed the fresh wound upon my flank. He, too, knew he simply couldn't step forward and tend to it without a brawl with the hybrid, and even if he tried I'd kill him out of primal fear. So, the man steadied himself -- first by easing his voice... then by relaxing his muscles. He pushed off the wall onto the balls of his feet, and exhaled.
"H-Hey-"
"ROAR!"
"Hey, hey... it's alright... it's okay..." he said softly, raising his hand out to me to gather my attention. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise."
Promise?
I snorted in amusement, and annoyance. I didn't believe him for a second. Every single human said the exact same thing before plunging something sharp through my flesh and bones.
There was no way I could fall for it again.
"Tsk, tsk..."
I snapped my jaws at him, lashed my tail, and bared my jagged fangs at him, all to scare the creature before me. My body was flexing in and out of camouflage, but the human didn't care for any of that. Lowering down upon one knee, he kept his raised hand stretched out, and composed his stature, if submitting to my power. I looked down at him, confused for the moment, and approached with curiosity. In the back of my mind I kept my claws at the ready, just in case he did attack.
I couldn't be too safe about anything else.
"Tsk, tsk... Easy girl..."
The male moved his arm a bit closer to me, and I hissed quickly, winning a flinch out of him. Still, it wasn't enough to petrify him like all the others. Through a soft exhale of his snout, the male stretched dangerously close to my snout, just in the reach of death. Just inches away from a nibble.
"Easy..."
But I didn't move.
I wanted to see what would happen.
Even if every instinct inside me said otherwise.
He finally pressed his pale hand against my blood-soaked snout, nodding with agreement, then dragged up further down my snout to the base of my cheek. The feeling felt so strange, so peaceful even, and as he wiped away a tear my eyes widened, and I let loose another one. The human didn't mind the extra wipe, smiling at my calmness, then dragged further down my body toward the area where the electric stick struck. Once he rounded the puffy redness surrounding the bulge, my muscles flexed, and I flinched in pain.
"It's alright..." he muttered to me. "Tsk, tsk... hey, I won't hurt you. I'm not like them."
'He likes to click a lot', I muttered to myself, reproaching his hand yet again and falling still. Once he examined the wound, the man -- who I now nicknamed Click -- used his freed hand to reach for his little bag, pulling out a yellow tube of Neosporin, and pressed a little bit of the goo into his hand. The goo carried the very same scent as the cool liquid upon my skull -- the spicy plant odor. The sudden realization of their connection made my stomach writhe with realization: he was tending me the whole time.
He wanted me to live.
Meeting my blue eyes, Click stretched out his hand toward the damaged flesh, and pressed upon it.
My jaws clamped shut and I squeezed as hard as I could as an explosion of liquid fire raced through my body. Both eyes slammed shut, too, and, out of my shattered soul came the most broken, heart-wrenching whimper the two of us had ever heard. It shook Click more than it did me, but before he could sound his concern I fell me to the floor, where I trembled softly upon the floor.
I didn't know what came over me. This sound was a mix of both pain and relief altogether, but it mended me, and it helped me relax. Once the pain surpassed, I overlooked my injuries, then met his face, close enough that our snouts were inches apart. Click's breathing accelerated for a second, his eyes searching my own as if expecting a kill. But that thought never once surpassed my brain. He was the first to treat me right. The first to tend to me. The first to keep me alive.
All I could do now was brush against his hand, and thank him.
Only then did the pain subsided into a numbness.
And the numbness carried away into nothing.
"You're alright..." he whispered, stroking me until I lost consciousness. "I won't let them hurt you like this..."
"Never again..."