Log: 6000000.8.19, Personal, Captain Yormdrill

They say life comes at you with high velocity, and I believe it comes at you with that and malicious glee at reminding you that you're getting old. I know you'll read this one day Trandi, so I want to tell you that I'm proud of you, and I love you, Happy Halfway sweetheart! Anyway, I'll just keep on like a normal entry. Well, obviously from above it's Trandi's Halfway today, and just like my parents did for me and my wife's did for her, we got Trandi something to be responsible for. Did we get her something useful? Something like a robot she'll have to maintain and direct? A set of tools that she'll have to keep track of and in good condition? Maybe a personal holopad that she'll have to not misuse and infect with viruses? Of course not. Because my beautiful wife is as stubborn as she is beautiful. We got her a pet.

At least we didn't go to a pet shop. I hate those places; I'm pretty sure they buy from mill breeders and poachers. Absolutely disgusting places. Unfortunately, Trandi had no clue what kind of pet would be a good pet, so going to a reputable breeder was out. However, there happened to be an animal rescue shelter on station. By the stars how fortunate that Trevdi's idea would work after all. Oh joy.

Anyway, the shelter was only slightly less depressing than a hospice. I really hope that all of those animals will get adopted soon, but a lot of them are getting defensive of their kennels, so you can tell they've been there a while. I tried to steer her toward the juvenile animals, but Trandi was adamant that the "old boys" deserve to at least get a look. Trandi's kindness is something to be developed, not curtailed, so obviously I went along, for better or worse.

Well, she laid eyes on this lump huddled into the furthest corner under what looked like a soft blanket or towel with its head sticking out. I thought it was its head anyway, since its eyes were there and what looked like a pair of ears, one to each side. The issue was that it looked puffy and lumpy under a shaggy patch of red fur. I asked the adoption person (stars save me if I know that his title was), "What's wrong with its head?"

"The lumps and discoloration are bruising," he answered, and I privately congratulated myself for identifying its head.

"It survived injuries to its head that severe?" Trevdi asked, and I reached over to rub the space between her upper and lower shoulders to comfort her.

"He has bruising and microfractures throughout his body, oh it's a mammal and a male by the way. From what we can tell over the past three days, the injuries appear to be regenerating. Remarkably, his brain case wasn't damaged despite the severe bruises on his face, and we theorize his bones must be very dense to have sustained such injuries. I do not recommend him for adoption though, as he has refused any kind of feed we've offered."

"Don't you know what it eats from a scan?" I interjected, hoping the adoption person would drive the point home.

Instead he said, "Unfortunately not, since we only have a low level scanner to detect symptoms of illness or injury. Can't afford a full level four bioscanner."

"Maybe he's not eating because he's too sad?" Trandi asked. My poor heart can't handle being melted like that.

"Very likely, animal control said they found him in a pit-fighting ring."

"Has it done anything aggressive toward the staff?" I asked with baited breath. If it was a broken pit animal, then I would refuse it. No amount of adorable daughter antics could possibly sway me on that point.

"Well, if we enter to offer feed, or to clean the kennel, or take him to exercise, he exhibits avoidance behavior. However, if anyone tries to get close to him with a medical device, he will lash out and attempt to destroy the device. We theorize that the pit gangsters used injections to keep him drugged up to make him fight."

"I want to try going in."

I tried to refuse. It was an unnecessary risk, the poor creature had obviously lost the will to live and would probably just lay there like a lump anyway.

The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"We can start by letting him see you, we keep the inner door opaque on his side to try to reduce the stresses he's exposed to."

I could tell she was nervous as she stepped into the space between the inner and outer doors to the kennel, but a glance toward the huddled lump showed that it heard the door cycle. Its eyes flicked open, and they seemed cold to me. Blue like the old stories about ghosts lurking in the bogs. When it could see through the inner door, I saw that his face was actually quite expressive. Its eyes widened, it glanced to my wife and me, and then back to Trandi. I think it was surprised, but instead of tensing under the blanket, it seemed to just lean back a little. The inner door cycled, and Trandi stepped in.

It surprised the adoption person, it surprised me, it surprised Trevdi, stars I think it surprised itself. When Trandi cooed softly to it and reached out as she slowly stepped forward, it didn't flee to the other corner. It didn't even flinch. Instead, it reached its upper appendage and met Trandi's fingers with its own. Well I was boned.

I decided to ask what it looked like under the blanket, and the adoption person very helpfully provided an estimation of how it would look without the injuries. Pinkish skin, two legs ending in feet with short digits I guessed helped it walk bipedally, two arms ending in dexterous fingers and opposable thumbs, only one thumb per hand though. It had patches of fur in certain areas, under its arms, the groin, and what seemed like a thin layer on its lower legs. Over all, it would look kind of cute, like one of our children except the wrong color missing a set of arms, a thumb on each hand, and a tail. It might even tolerate being dressed up. That is if it survived that long.

When I objected, my beautiful and wise wife told me, "An animals last days are also a responsibility." There was no way I was getting a robotics buddy. Ignoble.

Journal entry: 1. Date: IDFK. Name: Greg George.

This is an improvement from the arena, but it leads me to some disquieting conclusions. I was in my cell, trying to get some sleep again. I was pretty sure I was on day three, or at least bowl with five compartments of kibble number three. Well if they weren't going to force feed me kibble, I wasn't going to eat it. I was just thinking how it was a shame that the cell didn't have anything to tie the blanket to when something weird happened. The outer door cycled, and when the inner door turned transparent there was no creepy spider centaur thing going clickety-clack at me. There was a four armed girl there. A four armed blue girl. I thought she was a girl because of her dress with lots of flowers all over, and her parents looking through the door at me with a slightly worried look on their faces. The adult female honest-to-God had huge tits. Massive jugs, so the one in the green jumpsuit must have been the male, therefore dresses were for girls amongst the blue Greivus people. Bleivuses. I'm a fucking genius. I should probably be more scientific and shit, but this is my sanity journal so if any doctor types get their mitts on it they can suck my balls.

Anyway, so the Bleivus girl comes in to the cell and starts making like quiet noises to me, like trying to be all soothing and stuff. So she wasn't gonna do anything weird, maybe? So maybe I wouldn't be injected with that weird shit that made my blood feel like fire and my brain feel like a murder hornet nest and get dragged off to beat some poor alien to death? Okay, cool, I thought. She reached out toward me, and I couldn't help myself. I reached out to her like Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapple. It would have been hilarious if these aliens knew shit about art.

Anyway, she left and and I eventually fell asleep. Well slap my ass and call me baby if I didn't wake up in what looked suspiciously like a storage closet with all of the junk cleared out. At first I was stoked to not be in either a filthy hole in the deck or a featureless high tech cell. Then I realized that I had been put on a big, firm pillow and had the same blanket from the cell. That's when I figured shit out.

I was a God-damn pet. With shocking clarity I realized that I wasn't a gladiator before, I was a fucking pit hound! In that book it made the fuckers who kidnapped me worse for making me mutilate and kill helpless animals under the influence of drugs. I cried about it. I might actually admit that to somebody if they asked, but I doubt that's in the cards. So you know, a good quiet cry, since habits electroshocked into you die hard, and I was ready to do a little exploring. The closet was about three yards by four, with a set of shelves built into the back wall, which had one conveniently at waist room with enough room for me to sit up between that and the next shelf. Bed upgrade acquired. One of the other walls was bare, and the other one had a rack of what looked like various hooks for hanging things from. The final wall had the door, what looked like some kind of touchscreen panel next to it, and a bowl of water on the floor.

I wrapped myself in the blanket and scooped up the bowl to take a drink of water while I glanced over my ad-hoc bedroom again. Score, I don't care how alien a place is, a notebook and pen are a notebook and pen wherever you go. Sanity journal got me through the shit back home, sanity journal will get me through having nobody to talk to. I'll have to consider my options, but first I want to test the door and see if I can find the pantry. I want food, and not even a family of nice blue Bleivuses is stopping me. Sneakibreaki thyme.