Inside the Fire

Chapter 3: Dilemma

   

Song to listen to: Zombie

    The lights find their way into my eyes, and I roll over onto my back groggily. My stumach sinks in painfully, very little remains of the bunny in my stumach, there's a warm tantalizing aroma in the air, along with what must be a weeks worth of piss and excrement. How long have I been sleeping? When was the last time I'd slept? I run through memories in my mind, finding that it had been since the last time I'd had a full belly.
    I sniff at the smell, letting it draw me in, and flip over onto my stumach to hunt it. I stop mid stride when I see the cats eyes, the cats, I feel disgusted with myself as the memories before I'd fallen asleep return to me, I pull up into a sitting position.
    Their skin clings to their bones, they shiver slightly in exhaustion and fear, their pupils dilated, even in this blinding white light. They haven't been fed since being put in here, I glance at the window, it's a different set of scientists, two younger females, one darker skinned, and the other has honeyed brown hair, both have stuff artfully placed on their features, enhancing them to some extent.
    Both are bored, and flipping through old footage, one wonders if she can get away with checking her social media again, and steals a glance at the other. Neither had expected me to wake up today, I was the furthest thing from their minds as they politely discussed a tv show they were both kind of interested in, but too "busy" to watch. Each kept coming up with an extra grievance as to why they hadn't seen it yet, the conversation resolving into who was more busy. I can imagine what the last few days have been like, pretty conversation while these animals starved right in front of their faces.
    Uncaring, indifferent, was this a sign of power? Or is it simply a lack of feeling? I look closer at their expressions, trying to read their deeper meaning, as the young male had (what I assume was) last week. And... they look miserable, every feeling behind the dark haired females thoughts are accented with a deepened sadness, there's something she's trying to forget, but it still causes her emotional pain. The honey brown one is a little more obvious, her thoughts betraying a blood test she was still waiting on the results for. Both upset, both feeling shame at their hidden feelings.
    With their complete indifference to me, I walk slowly and reassuringly towards the cats, they shiver more violently the closer I get, the older one giving a distrustful growl. I place each hand and foot on the ground carefully, trying very hard to convey that I mean them no harm. My stumach squishes so hard with hunger, it's making me nauseous, but I refuse to be hungry for the cats.
    Finally, I'm close enough to reach out a hand, they're so tired that they let me touch them, the older cat growling in protest, but does nothing. I step a little closer, and rub my hand gently over the older one's fur, following the contours of her body. Her skin is so thin, she's so thin, I gulp back some saliva, duel pains in different regions of my torso are at war with each other, the one centered in my heart not unlike the feelings of the darker skinned female behind the glass.
It's painful to look at them, I don't quite understand why, so, I back away from them, and return to my usual spot in the center of the room, and lay down, facing away. I stare at my hand, the smell of the older cat lingering in it, still makes my mouth water. I lick my hand, trying to wash the smell off, it makes my stumach flip and twist with each new stroke of my tongue. I fight against the fantasy trying to play in my head, I don't want to see the cats, lifeless, and my heart squeezes almost as painfully as my stumach is aching at that image. I shove it away. No, even if it meant my stumach would be full and no longer in pain, I refuse to kill and eat them. I hear a mild gasps and a quick scramble before a button is hastily pushed.
    "How long has Zed been awake?" It sounds like the young Male has walked into the room, his eyes look tired but alarmed, set a little deeper into his head from the last time I'd seen him, dark circle betray sleepless nights. The honey brown one wonders how he'd look if he'd just wear makeup up,
    "He just woke up!" She tries to smile distractingly, tilting her head nearly unconsciously to enhance it slightly. "Exactly as you walked in." She touches a hand to her Male coworkers arm, trying to pull his attention from me, her social media still pulled up on her personal tablet sitting in the crook of her arm. The darker skinned female hastily hands her tablet to the young male coworker and promptly leaves,
    "You guys, have fun! Thank you for relieving me so soon sweetie." She pats the male coworker on his shoulder before stepping out the door, it closes noiselessly behind her.
He stares, dumbfounded, at the honey-brown haired female, and steps away from her to remove her hand from his arm with an expression close to disgust.
    "When Dr. Humbert comes in here, I'm not going to cover for you." A memory of him asking this coworker out and being turned down harshly flashes through his mind. She pouts,
    "Zed really was only awake for a second." He eyes her, and holds his thumb to the tablet, it recognizes the new user and switches over to his account. He take a few steps further away from the female, to the other side of the small rectangular room, pulling up the footage from before he entered into the room.
    "Wait, you do-" she reaches for his tablet, and he pulls away from her reaching hand, cutting her off midsentence, and annotates in his notes the time and date I woke up.
    "I wish you the best, really." His expression is smug, and her irises shrink slightly with fear. She steps back, and takes her personal tablet out from under her arm, and exits out of all the apps she has running on it, and takes the work tablet out of her borrowed coat pocket. Another male coworker, older than the one in the room, but still younger than the older male one, enters the room, peeping only his blonde head into it.
    "Somebody page?" His smile at first friendly, but changes when he reads the room.
    "Yes, call in Dr. Humbert, her subject just woke up." The young male politely informs him, with just the hint of his smugness leaking into his tone.
The other male nods and eyes the honey-brown "chick",
    "You aight?" He asks in an almost concerned tone, the female waves away at him, " I'll tell you about it later."
    'There might not be a later for me'. Her mind goes back to the blood test, 'If I do have cancer, and with this minor mistake, she might have me terminated.'
    The blonde male internally shrugs and exits the room to call in the Older female, his footsteps fading faster than others with his wide strides.
   The atmosphere is thick in the room, her fear and sense of rejection making both of them too unco6to speak to one another. The younger male's feeling of revenge cools and he wonders if he should try to interject for the honey-brown haired female. He internally fights with himself as his guilt grows in putting another human being in the position to die. Self preservation wins out, he hopes that the older female will follow her barely veiled conviction that I'm a female and sacrifice the honey-brown to me. I roll over the idea in my head, I don't particularly like the idea of killing things, I am starving, but I doubt she'd give me someone with genetics, I wonder how that smells...
    I hear her overly excited thoughts before her foot steps, what has she done? I'm baffled at what I'm hearing, her excitement shines bright in her eyes when the door opens, the younger male looks up, and is taken aback by her chipper mood. The honey-brown female feels a slightly relieved, exiting out of her account on the tablet, and handing it over to the eager hands of the older female who has to place her finger over the scanner twice in order to get a proper reading to unlock her account. She hums excitedly, I fight the urge to go over to the cats and stand over them, the younger male already knows my secret, and one human is enough. Who knows what her twisted mind would come up with to test out my "hearing" abilities.
    The male's fear for his life grows at her excitement, and is almost too afraid to ask what it's about. A cart's wheel catches on the tough floor outside my room, a cage containing a creature whose thoughts are so disjointed, confused, hungry, and above all angry, are so tangled up, just trying to listen to them gives me a headache.
    "What test do you have planned today?" The younger male probes.
    The cart stops outside a hidden door to my right, in the opposite corner to the cats, I allow myself to lift my head in it direction, she already knows I can hear outside my box, she is still impressed by it, and shakes her head in awe. The younger male has noticed the tightening fear in my expression, but since this face is a new one, he hasn't been able to pinpoint what it means quite yet. The door to the cage is pulled up with some effort from a grizzled old human, a muffled noise in his heart increasing a little with the pressure, he takes a hit from an inhaler before straightening up, and presses a button on a remote he removes from his back pocket, and the primary door into the chamber before my room opens. The half starved drugged up creature walked carefully into the room, snuffling at the floor in curiosity, she can smell the female cats lingering scent, the old man watches with mild impatience.
    "You'll see." The older female smiles at her tablet, eager and intent to not miss a single moment of her 'genius'. I could see her remembered frustration at me sparing the cats, she'd thought long and hard after I'd gone to sleep how to inspire any sense of violence from me.