Breathing

I ran out of ideas for chapter names. >~<

"Help!" Lily cried out in a mortified voice. The inky blackness of the laboratory was all she could see.

A single light pierced the dark.

"What are you screaming about? The lights should come on in a few seconds." Kazoo said calmly and professionally. It didn't seem like him, being so formal. Even though they had just met, he seemed to be the type that was very hard to formalize. 

Slowly, as if the lights had a thing for theatrics, the lights in the entrance corridor came on. The light farthest away from them came first. One by one, the lights displayed subjects. Dozens and dozens of them. They sat in cages with iron bars, their wings of all colors resting against their backs. Their gazes stared straight ahead blankly. "What... What..." Lily began to stutter as she realized that she might be in danger. Kazoo smiled warmly, despite his cold demeanor at the time, and told her to follow him. Lily decided to follow, as she had tried the doors. They hadn't budged. 

She slowly followed Kazoo down the corridor, stopping only to shape shift into a cat, as her owl form was too slow. Kazoo kept up his breakneck pace all the way to the small, unnoticeable door. He didn't even seem to note the door, and he just flung it open. Behind the door was a vast room, with a couple more cages. Some were small this time, though. Inside the smaller ones, there were mice and rats, birds and lizards, cats and dogs, and all other assortment of small animals. Nearby was a metal door leading to an adjoined, glass-walled observation room. Most notable, however, was the chair in the center of the room. On it sat a human-like creature. It was around the size of a human, but it was covered in fur. It also had ears, paws, a tail, and other feline features. As they entered the room, its ears turned toward the sound of their soft footsteps. It stood silently, revealing a set of cream wings resting on its back. It took one look at Kazoo, being followed by a nerve-racked Lily, and pointed to yet another corridor. Kazoo nodded and walked to the corridor. 

He pointed to a restroom, and said, "Go change. My master wishes to speak with you." He attempted to turn and go back to the room, when Lily grabbed- Well, pawed- his cat shoulder and his leg fell from under him. As he stood back up, he said, "What's the big idea? I have to get back to my master and I can't-" Lily put her paw on his mouth, and he quickly shut up. Her barrier of silence suddenly broke, and all of her questions and anger spilled out. "What's the big idea? The big idea is that you get all buddy-buddy with me and then bring me to a trap, without even telling me! Your personality flipped the instant you flew through the door! I don't know what to believe-" Her angry rant was suddenly cut off as Kazoo stood up, looked her dead in the eye and said, "Look, I act like this so that my master thinks that I'm all perfect. If he thinks I'm perfect, he sends me out on missions so that his few other agents can do the fighting, and I do the recruiting. With the recent experiment he's been doing, I'll soon be replaced and have to fight on the front lines, just let him tell you. I don't like being this serious, trust me..." Lily nodded and went into the restroom and shifted into her human form, putting on her clothes afterward. She took a deep breath, and entered the room once again.

Author's Note

Sorry that the descriptions are long, this is just a really vital part of the story.