The fact that you found some level of comfort in the stark brightness of the lights in the examination rooms was probably a very bad sign, but nobody had the time to unpack that just yet.

You were still muzzled and strapped to the gurney for 'your own safety' as much as Anza's. You'd heard Doug give her a lengthy warning list about your behaviors, least of all your biting habits and just how dense your hands and paws were.

Now that you were alone with her, something deep in your wires said that she was way more dangerous than you by a mile.

Anza took the white thing Nala had given you and tucked it underneath the gurney before leaning over you, with flashlight in hand as she watched your pupils dilate. She kept muttering into a little tape recorder pinned to her front pocket, and making little excited observations as she snapped her gloved fingers near your ears and watched them swivel away on reflex.

You felt strangely numb and you weren't sure if that was from the sedatives in your system, or if the shock of what had just happened was finally starting to sink in.

"They really put you through the ringer, ey Conejito?" She held your mostly detached foot up by a toe, it had finally stopped sparking. "We'll have to see about getting you a new one."

‘We'? Who the fuck was 'we'?

"Don't look at me like that, I did you a favor and now you're going to do me a favor." She found the release button in your calf and popped your damaged foot off, chucking it into the biohazard bin with a thunk. "I'm down a specimen and you just happened to be the right age, I promise that whatever I've got planned for you is a hundred times better than what was waiting for you in the back of that truck.

…plus Doug hates you and that automatically makes you my best friend, and best friends don't let each other get shipped off to God knows where." She took off her gloves and cracked her knuckles, "My name is Anza, actually it's Extravaganza but that's a mouthful so almost nobody uses it."

You stared at her blankly, unblinking, unmoving. She didn't squirm like Doug would have, and she didn't avoid your eyes like the other scientists either. "Did you know that your eyes are gray? I've never seen someone with blond hair, gray eyes and your skin tone before. Supposedly there's an entire indigenous culture who look like you but something tells me that the resemblance is only coincidental."

You kept staring and wished this weird lady would just shut up and leave you alone or kill you or whatever. Anything was better than just hearing her talk and talk and talk. Your disdain must have shown on your face because she shifted uncomfortably and cleared her throat before changing the subject entirely.

"Doug told me that you can't talk, but Doctor Phipps taught you how to sign, is that correct?" Anza prodded.

You squinted at her in suspicion.

"You're not going to get in trouble, Conejito, I just need to be able to understand you." She offered you a smile, a real one, not the barely disguised malice she'd shown Doug earlier.

You decided right then that you didn't like smiles, but you nodded anyway.

Anza clapped her hands together. "Excellent! Alright, I have a friend outside who can interpret for you while we talk but be mindful that this is only temporary and we'll have to find a better solution later on." She got up and ushered in a chubby intern that you'd never seen before, neither he nor Anza introduced him by name or even number and that made you uncomfortable for some reason.

The interpreter stood next to you, eyes dissecting you more efficiently than any blade. It made what little skin you had left crawl and squirm with discomfort.

Anza removed the first of your restraints, allowing you to sit up on the gurney. She bent to retrieve the fluffy thing and suddenly squawked with disgust.

"Ohmigod why is it WARM!?"

She held the thing with only two fingers, lifting it off of the ground by a single fuzzy limb and dropping it onto your lap quickly as if afraid it might bite.

It was a teddy bear, without ears or a face. Soft white fur and rounded limbs. Despite sitting on cold metal for however long it was still very warm to the touch, but not like it had been heated, like there was meat beneath the fabric and fluff that made its outer shell.

And there was. You could hear tiny lungs and a heart working hard deep inside, but there was no rush of blood or the woosh of actual breath. It was so very strange, you picked the bear-thing up and examined it before pressing an ear to its chest and just listening for a long moment.

Anza's eyebrows raised, face contorted with discomfort, "Doug was right, you are a little freak aren't you?"

You just shrugged in response and hugged your bear-thing to your chest. It still smelled like Nala.

"O…kay… you have a mild concussion from getting thrown around earlier, plenty of bruising, lots of scrapes, but nothing life threatening." Anza nodded appreciatively. "You got lucky, kid."

You didn't respond, choosing to bury your face into your bear instead. The ba-thump ba-thump of its heartbeat soothed your raw nerves and aching skull. Nobody spoke for several minutes.

"It wouldn't have worked, you know," Anza said, finally breaking the silence. "Your escape plan, I watched the security tapes.

You wouldn't have made it past the fence, it's on a completely different circuit from the compound. So, even if you'd managed to cut the power to this place… somehow, you'd still have to find AND shut off the generator for the fence and even then the grass around this place is full of things that make those dogs you played with look cute."

You were winding up to sign something rude but the interpreter interrupted you. "Ok but… why are you telling him this? Now he'll just try to escape again," the interpreter said, eyeing you warily as if you were going to bolt for the door right that second, mild concussion and missing foot be damned.

Anza pinched her fingers together in the 'quiet coyote' gesture and the interpreter shut his mouth. You'd seen staff members use it to silence the younger specimens when they were being too loud, but you'd never seen it used on an adult before though.

"Until this conversation is done, you are not a person with opinions my friend, you are his mouthpiece, you tell me what he says and nothing more." She gave the interpreter a look so sharp and cold it made you flinch. Anza patted your knee and muttered something soothing in Spanish before turning back to the interpreter. "Do we have an understanding?"

The interpreter could only nod, back stiff, teeth clenched. He looked very much like he would rather take his chances with the fence and the stuff in the grass, instead of being anywhere near Anza.

Anza turned to you, "I'm going to take your muzzle off, ok?"

You stiffened, ears back and eyes narrowed. Hadn't she heard Doug? Hadn't she seen the big fuck-off red sticker on your file warning everyone that you'd bite? Your legs were still pinned to the gurney, so you couldn't run away, there was nothing you could do except sit there while that woman fiddled with the straps to your muzzle until it eventually came loose.

You immediately tried to bite her, but Anza was much faster than you anticipated. She had your jaw gripped tightly in one hand before you could fully open your mouth, nails leaving little crescent impressions in your skin. Time seemed to stop entirely.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

"Now listen to me kid, bite me if you want to but understand that I'm the only thing keeping you alive right now and the second I stop wanting to do that is the second you're in a truck following your friends to wherever they are," Her brown eyes looked black at this distance, deep and all encompassing. They reminded you of the Nameless Thing in your dreams, for you saw the End of all things in their depths. "Do we have an understanding, Conejito?"

You set your bear to the side and let your hands do the talking, "Fuck you, I'm not dying here or anywhere else."

She laughed at that, a full belly laugh that made her double over, cheeks red and eyes full of tears. "Oh I was right to pick you Conejito, you've got a spark that I love. You're a little survivor aren't you? But guess what…" Her voice dropped to a dramatic whisper, lips against the shell of your ear. "I'm a survivor too, so let's be friends and make sure that we both get out of this alive, ey?"

After your examination Anza had you cleaned, dressed, and fitted for a loaner foot. She took you somewhere amongst the lower floors of the Facility, one of the few places you had never been before.

Everything was white and pristine, with soft rounded edges and bright spots of color that broke up the monotony just enough. It was full of children, ones you'd never seen before, talking and playing amongst themselves on soft pastel furniture shaped like clouds and rainbows.

They were all dressed in the exact same outfit as you, a white cotton jumpsuit with numbers on the back and a pair of slip-on shoes. You weren't wearing any shoes of course, your paws didn't really fit most sizes very well, plus you just hated socks with a passion.

Anza cleared her throat, made the quiet coyote sign again, and waited for the children to fall silent. They all watched her with a hundred wide and curious eyes, their stillness and quiet anticipation reminded you of the dogs waiting to tear you apart.

You clutched your bear a little closer and tried to find comfort in its warmth again, but to no avail. Your vision went yellow-green at the edges and you flinched when Anza rested her hand on your head. "Easy Conejito," she whispered, "unlike you, this lot doesn't bite.”

Anza cleared her throat again and gave her audience a vibrant smile. "Hello again children, I know today has been very busy and that you're all probably very hungry, but I have one more surprise for you all before we break for dinner, ok?"

"Ok!" The children said in unison. Anza nodded proudly.

"Good, good, this is my new friend," she made a show of ruffling your ears, "he's going to come live with us from now on, so be nice to him, ok?"

"We will!" The children replied, again in that eerie unison, it muddled the colors of their voices until you couldn't tell any of them apart and that frightened you. You needed that distinction, you didn't know why you needed it but you did. You needed it like you needed air to breathe.

Anza seemed satisfied with that and scooted you towards the mass of kids. You didn't budge, but that didn't dissuade her at all. She just scooped you up by the armpits and deposited you on a nearby bean bag chair.

You sat there, frozen with your bear in your arms and your eyes wide with fear. The dogs had been preferable to this, sure they had tried to kill you but there had only been two of them.

Anza left the room without another word and the weight of her absence drove the breath from your lungs. The horde of strange children all turned their eyes on you, surging forward like a single organism until you were completely surrounded.

There were no adults in sight and you couldn't hear any signs of one over the multichromatic noise that the children were making. Your eyes darted from face to face, unable to focus on anything, yellow-green suddenly dominating the nauseating rainbow until it was all you could see.

Too much noise, too many eyes. You wished that you'd taken your chances with the electrified fence or that Anza had just let them load you onto the truck with the others because literally anything else could have been better than this.

You tried to squeeze your bear for comfort and found your arms completely empty.

Time stopped.

The noise was blotted out by your own heartbeat as shock and fear nestled deep in your guts and turned the entire world icy.

You looked down at your empty arms, then up at the jabbering crowd.

Every movement, no matter how small, felt molasses-slow.

A girl, or something vaguely girl-shaped, had your bear in her mouth. She was standing on all four limbs like a dog, and you noticed that her arms and legs were all the same length. She also had a strangely shaped neck and a very long, very thick tail that made her look a little bit like a dinosaur. Her tail had no fur so it looked naked and pink like a rat's, it was also wagging at inadvisable speeds.

The girl growled and barked, play-bowing and shaking your bear around with reckless abandon, sending ropes of drool flying as she did.

You were on your feet before you could even register the movement. The dog girl wagged her tail even faster, smiling around your bear. Every tooth in her mouth was dagger sharp.

Nobody moved.

Not you.

Not the girl.

Not the crowd of onlookers.

Had your vision not been tunneling at that moment, you might have seen the sly and sneaky grins spreading across the faces of the other kids. This had been planned.

You lunged for the dog girl, and she took off like a shot.

The dog girl cackled madly as she hurdled furniture and ran literal circles around you. She was faster than you by a long shot, and even if you had both feet intact you still wouldn't have caught up to her regardless.

Laughter.

Sharp and cruel and all encompassing.

You weren't sure how you hadn't noticed it earlier, but everyone was laughing at you. Watching you hobble after the dog girl and your toy, like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon.

Heat spread from your neck and up to the tips of your ears, you skidded to a halt and just stood there. Hands balled into fists at your sides, head down. Tears stung in the corners of your eyes, but you refused to let them fall because after all you'd been through in the last twenty-four hours you weren't about to give this pack of drooling hyenas anything else to laugh at.

The dog girl barked and wagged and made a show of parading your bear around like a trophy, the crowd hooted and hollered with more horrible laughter but you did your best to ignore them. You picked a direction, ANY direction that wasn't full of sneering little assholes, and limped away in embarrassment.

"Nobody said you could leave." A voice called at your back. Not the dog girl's, a different person, a boy. A boy that looked a lot like you might have if you weren't wires and circuits and spite.

Brown skin, brown eyes, shaved black hair. He had his jumpsuit open and tied around his waist, showing off a filthy Pokémon tee-shirt that had seen better days. He was taller than you by at least a head, and used it as an opportunity to look down his nose at you.

You stared blankly at him for a heartbeat before going back to what you were originally doing. He grabbed your wrist hard and pulled you off balance, you fell to the ground with a surprised "Oof!" And gazed up at him with confusion.

"Didn't you hear me? Nobody said you could leave, we're not done with you yet."

You yanked your arm free of his hold and stood up. The dog girl came over and gave the boy your bear, he looked at it with disgust and held it up at arm's length over your head. Ribbons of spit trailed down towards the ground and plopped onto your bare scalp.

The dog girl peeked around his legs and snickered, proud of her work.

The boy just smiled. He was already missing a few of his front teeth and every fiber optic of your being told you that he'd look even better if he lost a few more. "You want this? Come and get it." He said with such profound malice that the taste of it settled in the back of your throat.

He expected you to reach for the toy.

He did not expect you to tackle him to the ground with all of your weight and to put your sharp little knees against his sternum. Your hands were just as ill-fitting as your feet, a little too big for your age. Some of the adults found it cute, but you just found it useful.

You grabbed the boy's wrist, the one that held your bear, and squeezed until he screamed and let it go. Before you could grab the toy, the dog girl was back again, snapping it up in her jaws.

You were not in the mood to play another game of keep-away and grabbed her by the ankle before she could get out of reach. She slipped and hit the ground with a yelp. The other kids were backing away now, a few of them taking hesitant stances with fists raised.

Despite everything, you were not a good fighter, but you knew how to flail just right and just enough to get most things to leave you alone. Something told you that that tactic wouldn't work this time, so you picked up your soggy bear and stood and you screamed.

A horrible artificial sound, like a machine being murdered. A computer crying out for help. You did not stop screaming until the adults arrived, until Anza was kneeling in front of you and cupping your face in her hands.

"Hey hey, Conejito it's ok!" She searched your face for the cause of your distress. Then the hiccups started, and the tears came back, you didn't fight them this time, you just threw yourself into Anza's arms and bawled like you'd never bawled before.

You peeked over her shoulder and saw your attackers being led away by nameless interns, they glared daggers at you, but all you could do was smile.