Eveline's memories - Part 1

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My perspective shifted so that I was no longer Ricardo 'Rick' Reyes. I was now a very young feline without a name.

I waited in the white room, lying prone on the work table, being prodded and probed by the humans in lab coats. I could smell their bodily secretions. It was overwhelming, and mixed with the antiseptic cleaning agents they seemed to want to use everywhere, it made for a toxic and potent blend of odours that would have made me gag if I could.

But I had adjusted to this smell long ago, and my own nanites took care of the problem. My nanites always took care of problems for me, I realised. It was strange to think of them as helpers, because while I knew they were there - they told me one day - they also told me they were far too small to see with eyes alone.

But it was good to know they were my little helpers.

They couldn't help me right now, though. It was always so frightening to be in this room, and I hated everything about it.

The door slammed open, and a small cage was pushed in on one of the trolleys. Inside was a young lion girl, a mane of golden hair, brown eyes, cinnamon-golden fur on her face, and for how young she looked, she also looked strong. Like the rest of us, she always wore a medical gown that covered most of her body, so I had no idea what she looked like underneath, or if she looked like me, furry and fuzzy, with my black striped and orange-red fur.

She also had a look on her face that told me "don't get on my bad side", though she said nothing to anyone. Instead, she just looked around. None of us here had names, we all had numbers, and thirty-four and I rarely saw each other. We knew we were both here, though. It was always obvious, because our scents were distinctive. I could never describe it in human terms, but it always made me think of all the good things about being the queen of the jungle.

"Subject 34A prepped," one of the humans called across to whoever was tending to me. "Ready for transit."

"Good, put her with this one," he replied, looking over to someone next to one of the other doors in the lab. "Subject 37C prepped and ready for transit," he voiced in that direction.

I had no idea what any of that meant, but I knew that door. It was the door of death, as we called it in our bunks. It was a door that cubs went through, and never came back from. It usually happened once cubs got to be about five years old, then they just disappeard one day.

And I had no idea, but I must be five years now.

"Transit pickup," someone said through a voice box in the wall next to the door, and the door itself opened.

I let out a whimper as my heart started tippy-tapping in my chest. I had to do something, so I tried to push myself up off of the table, only for one of the humans to push me back down again. "We got a live one, here!"

No!

"Help!" I shrieked. "HELP! SOMEBODY-"

My world went black.

I woke up in a dungeon-like room of some kind. The walls were made of brick, were surprisingly clean, and the room contained two double-bunk beds and a toilet that was just about small enough for cubs of my size to use.

I was also not alone. Thirty-four was here, her soft-mane, cinnamon fur, and human-like features looking noble and brave, as she sat, watching over me. She was like a lion queen, protecting her pride, and I felt flush with pleasure at this.

It was nice to feel protected.

It was also nice to realise that we were still alive, even though we probably were never going back to the white room again. "Thirty-four?" I asked.

She looked down at me where I lay. "That's not my name," she said flatly.

"That's what they called you back in the white room."

"Yes," her tone was again, flat. "But I'm not a thirty-four. I'm a lion, and I want to choose my own name, so I'm not thirty-four."

"Alright," I said simply, hoping I did not make her angry at me. "What do you want to be called?"

She looked to her fur-covered body, then pulled some of her golden mane forward and looked at it. "I like this colour. Do you know what it's called?"

I shrugged. They didn't teach us very much in the last place we stayed, and it was mostly really basic stuff so we knew what to do when they told us to... But I do remember there was this traffic light thing they used. Green for go, Red for stop, and Amber-

"Amber?" I suggested. It was the closest colour I knew to her own skin.

Amber nodded, accepting the suggestion. "Yes. Amber."

"Can I have a name?" I asked.

Amber looked at me with a blank expression. "Yes. I'll call you..." I waited, while she looked me up and down. She took my arm, holding it out. "Stripes."

"Stripes?!" I asked, surprised, and then I hunched my shoulders, feeling shy. "You like my stripes?"

Amber gave me a soft smile as she sat back. "Yes. They're very nice."

In a world where people very rarely said nice things to cubs like me, Amber had just made my heart feel lighter.

My perspective changed, and I found myself in a similar scene, confronted by people I felt revulsion towards. This time, I was more mature, and years had passed.

"Where are they?" A human demanded of us. We were all sat in a small eating space, having just had some meat for our morning meal, and they wanted to know what Amber was doing, what she had taken, and where it was hiding now.

"I don't have any," she looked at them, shrugging. "The meat in them is stringy and I don't like it much."

"Someone had to have taken them," the human barked. "They didn't just vanish into thin air."

"Things don't vanish into thin air," Amber said, her expression confused. "Wouldn't that be, I don't know, magical?"

The human looked between me and Amber, shrugging. "If we find out you're lying..." then he walked off, leaving the threat vague.

Amber frowned as he walked away, then she turned to look at me. "What are they going to do, take away our rations?"

"They might," I suggested. "You know they don't like it when we take more than our fair share."

"Fair share?" Amber laughed. "They barely feed us enough in here to keep us upright. You know this like I do. They want us to be their pets, to do with as they want."

I thought about this. It didn't seem right to me, and I wanted to argue against it, but Amber shook her head as she caught my shift in mood.

"Why don't we just fight our way out of here?" I demanded.

"Keep it down, Stripes!" Amber hissed. "We're neither of us strong enough to do that. The only chance we have is to escape. To do that, we need them to think we're under their control."

"I don't understand," I complained, not knowing anything she was talking about. "What are you saying?"

Amber looked around for a moment, then she pulled her sleeve back to reveal a stack of dried meat strips, before pulling her sleeve down once more. "You need to learn how to lie better."

Lying really didn't sit right with me. I hated to be someone who lied to others. The humans always talked about trust and honour, a word I only learned the meaning of in recent days. Lying went against that. "They don't like it when we lie."

"No, they don't," Amber told me, huffing slightly, though her expression was resolute. "But sometimes, you have to lie to survive. I'm not going to starve just because they don't feed us enough."

I frowned at that, thinking about it for a while. "I guess you're right?" I finally admitted.

My perspective changed again.

Amber and I were sat in the same room, talking some more about what we had seen today. This was the first time I had ever met the blonde-haired man they called Andries, and to me, he was a mystery. I had never seen someone whose hair was so light, his eyes so blue and piercing, his body so tall and imposing, and yet the smile he gave me was disarming.

"Hello, my cubs," he greeted us all in a room earlier that day. "My name is Andries Van Der Meer, and I am going to be your friend."

Now, as we sat in our room for the night, Amber was telling me her own views on the man.

"I don't know if I like him," she said. "He says nice things, Stripes... But he puts out a really faint smell that I think is disturbing. It's almost as though he is trying to hide some nature of his."

I could not fault Amber for this view of hers. In the four years we had been here, she had been able to root out most people's tendencies just by scent alone, and she was very good at it. She could tell when someone was lying just by how afraid they might be if they got caught, and she could tell if someone was being ugly in their thoughts just by the strange smells that came off of them when they were looking at us.

She was also the bravest of all of us. More than once, they would tell her to do something, and say that if she didn't do it, they would take away her blankets, or not let her eat for the night, or something else that she would normally get to do, they wouldn't let her. They did this with me as well, but where I would feel fright, or sadness, or loneliness whenever they took something or someone away from me when I disobeyed, Amber always remained the same, noble, strong and calm girl she always was. Even on those few occasions where she did what they told her to do, she always did it with a look on her face that said "I do this because I choose to do it."

I always looked up to her for that.

My perspective shifted again.

We had been having regular sessions with Andries for maybe half a year by this point, and I could only feel confusion with what I was feeling. Andries always said nice things to me when in a group with the others, even though he also said them to other children in this place we were kept. And while he was doing so, I kept in mind what Amber had always told me.

"You'll know if he is being sincere when you pick up his scents."

"What type of scents?"

"Strong scents, almost overpowering scents," she told me. "I don't know how to describe them to you, Stripes. It's like... I don't know. I just know I don't like it."

Amber and I had also had time individually with Andries. Those times were different, and as I thought back on them now, I tried to remember carefully what it was like while we were there, and I began to see some signs of what Amber was talking about. While Andries and I were alone, he would talk about clothing choices, how to talk with humans, things of that nature. He would often refer to me as his kitten, saying that he liked it because I was "cute" and "cuddly".

"He does keep calling me his little kitten," I admitted to Amber, whose eyes narrowed.

"He keeps calling me that, as well."

Something felt strange about that, now I knew Amber also had the same cutesy name given to her.

My perspective shifted once again.

"Now you know that you need to be nice to anyone who comes through that door, don't you?" Andries said to me, standing tall above me, the same welcoming smile on his face.

"But why?" I asked, feeling petulant. "If they're always so mean to others?"

"Kitten, we already talked about this," Andries said once more, his tone now containing an edge of anger I didn't like. "When we have guests, we need to be nice to them, don't we?"

"You're not listening to me!" I yelled, wanting his validation of my opinion. "What if they're gross, like that big guy who came in last week? The one who was staring at my tail the whole time he was here? He was-"

"Thirty-seven, stop it!" Andries barked, his expression turning hard. "I am not here to listen to you, and you need to learn your place. It is not the time or the place for someone of your breeding to question me on what it is you must do. There are times when we must do what we are told, and you will do what you are told, or you will have to do without food and water for the next two days." Andries then stopped to take a breath. "Do I make myself clear?"

The words were like a yank to my tail, they hurt so much. "Yes," I mumbled, feeling sick, feeling unappreciated, feeling like I wasn't valued.

"Kitten," Andries then knelt down so that we were at eye level. "Don't you want to be good?" He then brushed the back of his hand on the inside of my thigh. It felt soft, gentle, fuzzy... Weird.

My perspective changed as my chaotic thoughts swam, a sense of revulsion at what I had just witnessed forcing me out of this experience. I suddenly snapped out of the memories I was seeing, feeling sick to my stomach...

As I found myself back in the room I stood in with Dani, and everything was spinning.

"Good fucking god, Dani, what in the hell did Ev suffer through?!" I felt dizzy, and I felt a wave of revulsion course through me that made me want to vomit. "She... I just..."

Words failed me, as my eyes started to blur, my throat tightening. Dani was by my side in an instant, as she helped me to the bunk and sat me down. "I'm sorry Rick," she said, her tone contrite, but her face resolute. "You need to see how bad things were for her, what she went through, if you're ever going to see why she's the way she is today."

My nanocloud had already released a series of chemicals into my brain to stabilise my mood, and was busy regulating the firing of my neurons to speed up the process. I soon felt calm again, and took a deep breath. "Was that it?"

Dani shook her head. "No, but that part of her life? I think you get the idea of what she had to go through."

"Fine," I sighed, rolling my neck and shaking my head. I decided that it might actually be a good idea to lie back in case I passed out or something, before continuing with this. "How do I continue this experience?"

"Everything I want you to see is already in your nanocloud's storage," Dani told me, rubbing my arm gently, giving it a squeeze, and then standing on her heels and stepping back. "Just tell it to continue."

I nodded, and then I commanded my nanocloud to resume where I'd left off.

My perspective shifted again, but instead of finding myself back in the room with Andries about to touch me again, I now found myself in my bunk room with Amber and Red. We had been talking about our experiences the last few months, and how they were affecting us.

"What if someone comes along and takes us away for conditioning?" The fox said quietly, sniffling, her eyes watering profusely.

Conditioning was what the humans were calling our time with people like Andries, who they would say was "conditioning" us to be compliant and helpful servants for our lives.

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I felt sorry for Red, but knew this was only going to make things worse if anyone came to check on us. "Keep it down!" I hissed, my tail starting to twitch.

"They might force us to imprint!" Red wailed, making me cringe in concern.

"That won't make any difference," Amber replied to her, the strength and poise emanating from the lion-girl giving us all hope. "Even if we are all forced to imprint, we can defeat the compulsion to do things if we just fight hard enough."

Where was Amber getting all of these words from? I didn't understand some of them, but I did get the idea she was telling us when I put together all the other words she used. "We don't have to do everything they say?"

Amber simply shook her head.

The door suddenly slammed open, and two humans stepped into the room, grabbing immediately for both Red and Amber. I scooted back onto one of the bunk beds, shivering in fright. Red screeched, and they grabbed her, roughly propelling her out of the room with such force, I recoiled in fear. Two of the remaining humans in the room now turned to Amber. "Time to go see your new friends, thirty-four."

Amber looked up, a momentary lapse on her features betraying her fear, before her face relaxed into a look of indifference. "My name is Amber," she told the humans.

They sneered. "It's thirty-four," they contradicted her, then reached for her. "Let's go."

Amber didn't resist, and I wondered why, as they dragged her out of the room to go see whoever it was they planned to introduce her to.

Now, I was alone.

For a while, I felt nervous, anxiety building up within me, and then I heard the first screams of pain, as Amber was being beaten. Terror seared my heart, as I started to tremble in fear, burying my face in between my knees. This was often the extreme punishment that was meted out for us, and one I had been subjected to a time or two myself. They would take us to a room that was soaked in dried blood and other stains, then they would beat us. In my case, they slapped me across the face, hard. Given these were grown humans, and I had been alive less than ten years, their hits hurt me, a lot. I remember cowering on the floor, crying out in pain and terror for them to stop.

Another scream, but this one sounded different. It was defiant. I couldn't help but listen in on their conversation.

"You know the punishment for disobedience, thirty-four," a male voice called out. "You know the punishment for continued disobedience."

"My name is Amber!" She screeched, defiant. "Nothing you do to me can make me do anything!"

"Don't you want to be with the nice man that came all this way to see you and say hello?" I heard another voice...

Andries.

"No," Amber retorted. "He likes to squeeze me from behind. I don't like it, and I don't like being touched by him, or by you!"

She sounded angry. Maybe she had a right to be? I didn't like it when Andries touched me either.

"Now, be careful, thirty-four-"

"AMBER!" the young lioness roared, causing a frisson of excitement to well up in me. She must have been terrified, but she refused to give in, and my heart soared. "Remember my name!"

There was a moment of silence, and I had no idea what happened in that moment.

"Mark this one for non-compliance and dispose of her," the first human voice I heard earlier spoke. "Contact the genetics teams and scrub this combination of traits. This is the fifth one in a month that refuses to comply."

I had no idea what those words meant, and I didn't care. All I knew was that Amber had stood up to these people after being sent for punishment, and she refused to give in.

Then there was another defiant scream as someone hit her, and I flinched as that scream was suddenly cut short, the silence deafening.

My perspective shifted once more.

Brave, gentle, fierce Amber. I wanted to be just like her.

They killed her for that.

I didn't see it, nor did any of the others, but given what I heard as she had been tortured in the punishment room, I couldn't see any way she would still be alive. I never saw her again.

Red didn't last long, either. She had collapsed from a heart attack, and not even her nanomachines could stop her from dying.

So now, it was just me, in a room alone... And that's how it stayed

The next time I got a visit, it was from Andries. He came in to the room and started talking to me about being a good girl, what would happen if I wasn't, and what I should do to avoid being punished. He always couched everything as though he wanted to avoid me getting into trouble with our masters.

I almost believed him.

But Amber's death hit me hard, and any world where people would let that happen to her? They didn't deserve anything from me.

Her death had broken whatever spell Andries had cast upon me when I saw him over the last months I'd been here. Amber had taught me much about how to survive when you were faced with overwhelming odds, and I realised that for all of her bravery, she had failed to heed the very advice she had given me many times since we had met. Learn how to pretend better, and don't let them know anything that's really going on in your mind.

I planned my escape for tonight, and they were either going to let me go, or they were going to have to accept that I would cause serious amounts of damage.

Later, I was taken to see someone who I had only ever met once. He would be brought in separately, and Andries had stepped out to get him.

Everyone else still alive was being so compliant, so subservient, that the humans in this disgusting place had all let their guard down, and now there were visitors all over. There was no-one expecting trouble, and no-one who was expected to know that escape was needed.

This was the perfect time for me to make a run for it.

We had all supposedly undergone something that the human handlers were calling "imprinting", and which Red was so afraid of. It frightened me, and I wanted no part of it, because it described being a slave to a master, one who probably didn't care about your safety or health, or any of that.

Ever since Amber was killed, I was frightened I'd be next, so I planned my escape carefully. It had to be done right, or I'd be dead as well.

The first thing I did, was heed Amber's advice, learning how to pretend better. While I'd made efforts to do this before Amber was killed, I redoubled my efforts in the weeks that had followed. Now, I could react somewhat positively, even when I hated the people stood in front of me.

There were limits, of course, because while it sounded like an easy thing, it was not. It was very hard. The hardest part was making people believe that you were all in favour of listening to them and following their instructions, when you were literally pissing yourself and desperate to escape their clutches. I remember the many times I'd sat with Andries, forced to listen to him speaking to me in an over-friendly voice, like he was someone who cared about me, when I'd overheard conversations he had with other humans that the only thing he liked about us was the idea that we would all grow up to be... What was it he said? Warm girls? I had no idea, but I could smell the stink off of him, and it was one I only ever smelled from humans, never from the other cubs I shared this place with.

Tonight, he was busy talking to two guys, one of which looked disgustingly thin, like he never ate anything. He stank as well. It was vile, and made me want to be sick. The other was much smaller, more normal looking, but he looked bored, as though he was only there to scratch his ears or whatever he did.

Some of the things the tall one and the blonde one were saying as well were weird.

"So, thirty-seven to your liking?" The blonde one had said.

"Oh yeah," the creepy tall guy replied, and the stink got much worse. I could smell it even a room away. "You know, if you want, I can take her off of your hands tonight. I like them young, you know."

The blonde one's stink dropped a little bit, which was a relief, but he didn't say anything hopeful. "Sure, if you wish. Don't you want to wait? It's possible she'll grow to be... Very alluring."

"Have you seen her? With that cute fluffy mane of golden hair and those tiger stripes? I don't need to wait for her to grow. She's fine the way she is now."

That alone was enough for me to want to get out. I had no idea what it was he kept saying, but it made me feel very uncomfortable.

It was as well that I already had a plan.

Getting out of the room was easy. I stole some paper clips from the old storage room weeks ago. My nanites were clever little helpers as well, giving me the clues I needed to unlock the door and open it from inside. Even better, the clever little things even told me which route to follow to get out of the dangerous place, and when there were people I needed to hide from.

Some of the conversations going on elsewhere were terrifying as well.

"Hey, little man," one voice was saying. "Do you like your new shirt? Papa can always get you more if you like this one..."

"I-I'd like that," a much younger voice said in reply.

"Good, that's how you do it," a third voice added.

I moved on, overhearing another voice.

"Hello again," another man spoke. "What's my name? Do you remember?"

"Tom," another young voice said. "Do you like me?"

That last comment seemed desperate for approval and validation.

"She's especially far along in her imprint now," a third voice, a woman, spoke. "This is the perfect time to establish the bond. Tell her, yes."

"Oh yes," the first voice said in a wheedling tone. "Tom is your friend."

I shivered in revulsion.

There were so many more conversations like that going on in this dark place, and all of them made me feel like I wanted to crawl out of my skin and curl up to hide somewhere. It was awful, and these others? Leaving them behind?

I hated the idea, but even though I was still young, I was old enough to know that there were some battles I just wasn't strong enough to win. Hopefully I could find other cubs like me that could come back to places like this and help me get them all out.

As I thought about all of these things, I stumbled through a rough patch of ground, fell and scraped my knee. It caused a flare-up of pain, and I barely held in my screech. Fearful that I'd been caught, I stopped and listened carefully.

Thankfully, I hadn't been spotted, and no-one came to investigate, so I pressed on, looking for a way out of these passages and out into open space.

Another perspective shift took me forward a few months.

I sat still for a while, dressed in this stupid little pair of shorts and a ridiculous t-shirt that felt too loose. My hair had been brushed that morning by some of the humans that ran this place, and I wanted to scratch their faces off for touching me without asking.

What was worse, all the cubs and the other beast children like me, were running around or lounging about the place as if they were happy to be here.

How could anyone be happy in a place like this?

I had been in this place now, for months. Ever since I escaped from that shit hole out in Amsterdam. I would have been happy if I just stayed out in the wilderness, hunting for food, stalking prey, keeping away from everything else. Unfortunately, I was found by humans when I hunted around the Oud Meer, and they brought me to this place in Eindhoven. It was boring, it was like a prison, and I really didn't like it.

I watched as all the other cubs ran around like they were out in the wilds, playing hunt the prey with each other, all watched over by humans.

Well, I was out there, doing real hunting, and I was getting good at it. Last time I was out there, I caught some real rabbit and ate it! Which of these cubs could say that?

"Stripes!" a squirrel-boy called out to me. "What's with the angry face?"

"Leave me alone, Sammy," I hissed at him, and that caught the attention of one of the human adults, a woman named Mila.

"What's going on over here?" She asked. "Sammy?"

The squirrel-kid shrugged his shoulders. "Stripes doesn't look happy! I just wanted to know why she was so angry all the time, that's all."

The look Mila gave me felt weird, so I tried to ignore it. She then turned back to Sammy. "Come on, young man. Let's go have a talk, yeah?"

Sammy reached up and took Mila's hand, immediately making my hackles rise. This was exactly the kind of thing I remembered happening back at the breeding place, and it gave me the creeps. I let out a hiss that I couldn't hold in, but they kept walking.

"Hello Stripes," another human woman said to me. This one, I remembered as Fenna. "Have you ever been introduced to the founders of our orphanage?"

I shrugged, remembering that today was a day where the founders of our little prison were due to visit, but I really didn't care. "No," I told her. "They're humans."

"I'm human, too," Fenna reminded me, as if I was an idiot.

"I hadn't noticed," I told her, bored with this conversation already.

Suddenly, as though they were always stood in front of me, a man and another woman in casual shirt and denim trousers appeared, beaming down at me with stupid looking grins that so many humans wore. I was embarrassed to admit that their sudden appearance caused me to flinch in fright, and the lack of stink that so many humans pumped out in the air when they saw someone like me? That confused me.

"You're smart," the man said. "We are humans."

"Humans hurt people like me," I said with a sneer.

The female of the two crouched down, a serious look on her face. "Sometimes, humans do terrible things," she agreed with me. "And people suffer."

"That's why we're here," the man said, crouching down to my level. "You're not the only beast person we have seen rescued. All of the cubs and beast children you see in this orphanage? They all used to be in breeding facilities like the one you escaped from."

Oh no, I thought with worry. These people knew I'd escaped from a facility? They would send me back! I had to get away. I found myself on my feet, looking about in panic. I needed to run. I had to get-

The next thing I knew, someone had touched my wrist, and my world went black.

My perspective shifted then, and it kept shifting through moments, like very brief highlights of a life lived long before today.

Meeting with Aline and Laurent for the first time, feelings of distrust and suspicion.

Meeting with fellow beast children in the local orphanage, children who were like Sammy and Amélie, enjoying their time before moving on to do other things.

Spending time in Laurent's huge house. Feeling lost inside it for a time.

The terrifying experience of imprinting, where I was overwhelmed by a full day of anxiety and dread, at the idea of the power that these two people, who I was growing to trust more, would do with me if they wished, now that they had imprinted me so thoroughly.

The wearying experience of finally coming through it on the other end, and the emotionally-overwhelming relief that came over me when all they did was ask me to be myself around them, to tell me any time I needed anything, or to just talk like a family would.

Aline and I were walking through the nearby orphanage when there were a few new arrivals. Two of them were beast folk like me, and one was human. All of them had been rescued from a breeding facility that had been discovered near Antwerp, and had been raided a few hours before.

The human was a mess. I could tell that just from looking at him. He had spent some time in the hands of people who were hurting him in various ways I could only guess at. There were cuts and bruises all across his face and what I could see of his arms. He was maybe ten years old, if that, and already he had a look of someone who had seen far too much. I could tell, as his eyes darted all around, as if looking for an escape route, and just like me, he said as little as he could get away with, clearly not ready to trust anyone.

The rabbit-girl was frightened of practically everything, which I guessed was only partly down to the fact that rabbits were prey-animals, and those flight-or-freeze instincts were part of their natures. She had been injured as well, but the injuries looked like torture, rather than straightforward beatings. I always tried to keep a distance from most people, but even I could see that the poor girl was so terrified, she was shaking.

Aline looked like she wanted to be sick.

Then there was the cat-boy. I knew he was dying the moment I saw him, and just from the way he carried himself, I knew that he had been severely weakened. Why he didn't get better, I don't know, because we all had nanites, and those were supposed to keep you healthy and make you feel better, weren't they?

I was confused. Worst of all, he could barely keep his head up, he was so weak.

By the time our visit was over, I was feeling completely depressed. It was awful, seeing cubs like that, and even the human's injuries and distrustful attitude had moved me, but what really got to me was what happened after we left, and we had made it back home. Aline and I were in the master bedroom, while Laurent was out dealing with the new arrivals. We were busy folding clothes and linens, when Aline stopped what she was doing and walked into the bathroom, closing but leaving the door ajar.

I had exceptional hearing, even at this age, so I could not miss the gulps, the sniffles or the muffled moan that came from beyond the door, and for the first time in my life, I did something I rarely did since.

I walked in to the bathroom, straight up to Aline, and I wrapped my arms around her waist.

"Oh," she let out a surprised exhale, wiping her face, attempting to act as though nothing was wrong, but I held tightly to her.

"It was awful," I said quietly. I wasn't sure if I meant what I saw at the orphanage or what I experienced in my own time in captivity, but then I realised it didn't matter. Both experiences were awful. "They need us to be strong for them," I continued, and unexpectedly, I felt a little sniffle of my own escape. "But it's just us now."

"Oh Stripes," Aline moaned, the compassion evident in her voice, as she turned around, lifted me from the floor, and held me tight. My arms wrapped around her neck, and I realised in that moment as I poured out all my grief for everything that had happened, both before and during today, that I had finally accepted her as someone I could trust.

The perspective changed again, as more brief moments of life flashed before me.

The day they asked me if I wanted a name for myself, one that wasn't a nickname, one that I could use anywhere I wished. The day I was only known as Stripes as a nickname, and I became Eveline. The day they asked me if they wished for me to become their daughter, a day that became so overwhelming, I would never forget it.

That day was the first day I cried tears of joy.

My experiences of being asked by my new parents if I wanted to learn how to defend myself and to fight back. The decision to take them up on their offer would lead me to being able to fight and to defend others, to be something I could never otherwise have become.

The day I found out my parents dedicated every resource at their disposal to rescue cubs from breeding facilities like the one I had escaped, as if I couldn't love them any more than I already did.

My first experience with adolescence, when I started to feel tensions that were unfamiliar to me, which I had trouble with, until a young fox-hybrid showed me what it was like to share myself with another. Though we never saw each other after he left, my experience left me feeling good, better than I had hoped.

A whole adolescence of conflicting emotions, from gratitude for my parents for giving me a life with purpose, to anger and outright fury at those who treated people like me, as second-class citizens.

My first time being given the responsibility of taking messages from one place to another, then as I earned other people's trust, being allowed to carry messages further, until I finally had the responsibility of travelling from one city to the next, much like our other message runners, men like Charles the wolf-hybrid, who was always so cheerful, even in the face of those who would be cruel to him just because he was a beast.

The day I met a human who was so pitifully incapable of defending himself, he needed my help to stay safe, but who my father and mother told me was critically important to the future of our world and our way of life.

I had just finished working with the cubs at the orphanage, spending time with them and seeing to their needs, comforting them when I could, ensuring they didn't become too excitable. It was a relaxing exercise for me, because it was one of the few occasions I didn't need to affect disdain in front of others. I could be playful, silly, and even pretend to be happier than I really was for a while. It wasn't the same as when I was alone with my parents; only they ever really got to see who I really was, and not even Amélie, for all she was kind and understanding with me, could ever see that much.

But my day was about to get worse. While I was outside, spending time with some of the tiger cubs, I heard my father calling for both me and Amélie. Feeling slightly irritated, I stood, brushed myself down, and told the cubs I would be back when I could. I'd hoped that dad wasn't going to ask me to stay too long. I had a sparring session coming up in about an hour, and I wanted time to go hunting before then.

My sparring sessions were a formality at this point. I had trained since my parents adopted me, so that had to have been almost two decades of daily sparring exercises and supplementary training on top of the initial year-long daily lessons in self-defence. My sparring partners tended to vary, but I was taught by the best, a cheetah who was fast, silent and unbelievably lethal in his attacks. I'd learned a lot over the years, to the point that I was now mentoring others, and occasionally, providing some protection for more vulnerable members of society.

Maybe that was what dad was calling me for? To watch over someone?

As I approached the group, I noticed that the unknown human was staring at me, like a cub who had seen something tasty but didn't know if it would be safe to eat. Accompanied with this impression of a person as dumb as a bag of hammers was the unmistakeable scent of sexual desire that immediately set me on edge. Who was this human, and why was he gawping at me so openly? Amélie, in typical cheery fashion, bounded over to them like a puppy going for her favourite treat.

"Hello," she greeted them all, giving me time to walk over to join them. I was in no hurry. "Glad you have visited us again, Monsieur Cuisset. And who is our guest?"

My father gave her his customary warm smile. While I liked Amélie, I was in no mood to be cordial right in the presence of someone I didn't know, so didn't appreciate the friendliness being exchanged. "Amélie, as always, it's wonderful to see you," he replied, bowing slightly. "This is Rick".

The wolf's eyelashes started to flutter almost imperceptibly, her eyes narrowing ever-so-slightly. She was ready to charm the human, I realised, almost amused. "Pleasure to meet you, Rick." She held out her paw, palm down with her knuckles facing him. "You may call me Amélie."

To my astonishment, he took hold of her hand, raised it to his lips and kissed the knuckles gently before releasing her. "Thank you Amélie, the pleasure is all mine," he said in a tone that I couldn't decide between slimy and genuine. By that moment, I had joined them, and I had tired of him gawping at me with his scent permeating the air. Looking briefly at Charles, I could tell he was as aware of it as I was, but he gave no overt sign, nor did Amélie. It annoyed me that they weren't reacting to such a strong scent.

Dad continued. "Eveline, this is Rick. Rick, this is my adopted daughter Eveline."

This 'Rick' character was busy giving me an appraisal of his own, and I could feel my fingers itching to let me extend my claws and scratch his face off. It took all I had to keep them sheathed and to avoid sneering at him, leaving me to fall back on my cool disdainful affect to keep him at arm's length. "Hello," he said, his voice cautious. At least he didn't try to sleazily charm me.

"Hello," I replied coolly, immediately dismissing him from consideration, turning to my father. "Mother?" I asked, hoping he knew where I would find her.

"She will be along shortly," he told me, before turning back to the human. "These two provide daytime care and guidance for our younger beast folk, as well as protection during the evenings and nights."

The human seemed to be a bit lost for anything to say, and it was getting tiresome. I decided to leave them all to it, heading inside while I waited for my mother to come back.