Innocence Undone

Chapter 1

    I looked back at the dark house behind me. The only light that remained lit was the bathroom light… my brother must have forgotten to turn it off when he went to bed, again. Could it really be the last time I would ever see that place? Could I really be leaving that hellhole of fighting and yelling? I certainly hoped it was. Now I was on my own. A 12-year-old is certainly perfectly capable of holding her own in the world, right? Right.

    That’s how I ended up in Zesshei’s laboratory. I was young; I was stupid; I misjudged the world and what it had in store for me. Of course I could hold my own… until I ran out of money! I traveled south for about a week before I wound up in the middle of a huge forest without a clue or a meal in sight. There I was, a young oarcat, out on my own in the middle of the woods with not a soul to help me, and what did I do? I found the first sentient being I could and asked for help. I’m sure every inch of my scrawny body and every strand of my matted blue fur all but screamed vulnerable, but I was hardly old enough to know what dangers might exist to such a vulnerable young girl, let alone comprehend that they were more than just some nightmare instilled into our minds to keep us inside at night. Needless to say, as soon as I spotted that glimpse of a blue tail and the sway of a dark cloak behind that little grove of bushes, I instantly assumed the best and rushed to the figure I had already prematurely identified as my savior.
    He was built like a green bean, lean but strong, and he wore a pair of dark pants and heavy boots, as well as a dark cape, black on the outside and lined inside with a deep forest green, that covered his hefty, aqua-blue shoulders. He was quite similar to myself, really, with catlike features and primarily blue fur. His eyes were a piercing gray, though, and black lightning bolt stripes trailed down from the corner of each eye, as well as across the sides of his shirtless body. Atop his head were two thin antennae, tipped with differently colored tufts of fur, one black and one the same teal blue as the rest of his body. I quickly identified him to be an irril, a kind of antennaed cat unique to our tiny continent, just as oarcats are. When I approached him, he turned around and looked at me, stopping to stare at the child who had run to him, desperate for something. He stared with a sort of blank look, but after a moment, the corners of his mouth rose into a smile, although by no means a sweet or gentle smile, and he held his hand out to me.
    I took that hand like a fish taking bait, and his smile grew. It seemed oddly like a smirk to me, but I figured he must always smile like that or something. Silly me. I was right, in a way, but not in assuming that he meant to help me.
    It didn’t take long before we reached his house, or laboratory as the case may be, and along the way he started a bit of a conversation about what he was out doing. He showed me a basket of plants he had collected, and explained that he planned to do some experiments. Apparently he was a scientist.
    My theory that he was a scientist was reinforced by his “house,” which was a large, rectangular, cement building and appeared altogether undecorated and not at all pretty or home-like, but this irril, who introduced himself as Zesshei, surely planned to take care of me there, so I persuaded myself to ignore the cold exterior of the place and resolved to make myself at home there despite how uncomfortable it looked. It wasn’t the poor scientist’s fault that his house wasn’t set up for me. It was kind enough of him to take me in at all!
    I ended up staying there for quite some time. Zesshei seemed to have taken rather a liking to me, and even though his experiments and perpetual scowl made me a bit uneasy, I couldn’t help but be grateful for what he was doing for me, so I stayed around and let him tell me about all his new experiments and creations.
    One time he stayed up all night working on something in a giant freezer room. I sat outside and watched the window for a while, until I got tired and headed off to the bedroom he had prepared for me with a little cot that I put all my blankets and pillows on. I couldn’t see much through the window, but every once in a while, a flash of greenish light would reflect against the window, and that was enough to make me keep watching just in hopes of finding out what those green flashes were coming from.
    The next morning, Zesshei came up and asked me to come downstairs and see what he had created. When I came downstairs, a glowing green streak was darting about a big, open room, dashing so fast that I couldn’t quite see what it was, even. Zesshei reached out with some sort of magnetic loop, though, and as soon as the streak ran past it, it stopped abruptly and I saw that the dashing green light was in fact a dog! Floating around her were silvery looking things that Zesshei explained were “electrons” and “energy levels,” and he informed me that she was actually a radioactive ion, and that he had spent the entire night fusing a radioactive ion with the DNA of a greyhound, creating the dog I saw now. I thought she was cute, and asked if I could name her. He said yes and let me play with her while he took notes on her behavior. I decided to call her Miashi.
    A few days later, Miashi had been locked into a freezer in a storage room and I figured I would never see her again. Most of Zesshei’s experiments were like that.

    As time progressed, though, Zesshei started to act different. At first he was gentle with me, but after a while he started getting annoyed with me if I didn’t listen to him. I figured perhaps I had outstayed my welcome, but if I even suggested leaving the lab and letting him get back to his work, he would grab my chin and pull me closer to him, his claws digging into my jaw, and tell me not to worry a thing, that he enjoyed having his little assistant to help him out. I had to wonder a bit why he would be such a grump around someone he enjoyed so much, but I figured it must just be how he is, so I stayed. It wasn’t like I had anywhere else to go, anyways.
    Zesshei just kept getting worse, though. If I got up late, it was a handful of claws my ear received in the morning instead of an alarm. If I didn’t want to play with Zesshei’s latest creation for him to observe, I’d be dragged in by a bruised and bleeding shoulder and sit there with whatever it was anyways. It was just how Zesshei was, though. He cared about me, and it was awfully rude of me to stay in his house and not pull my half of the weight, so I stayed.
    By that time I was 13 years old and had been there for quite a few months. I had no real birthday celebration, but Zesshei wasn’t one for formalities, and I hadn’t told him it was coming up anyways, so how could he have prepared? It was kind enough of him just to let me stay with him; I could hardly expect him to go out of his way and give me a party or gifts. Besides, I had no one to invite to a party, and how could I expect him to give me more than what he already had provided?

    Then, one night, he told me he had a new experiment he wanted to try. I asked him what it was, and he said “You’ll see,” like he often did, so I sat down on my normal bench in his lab and prepared to wait and see, but this time he didn’t calmly turn around and start to work on his latest project without a second thought of his little assistant until it was time for him to test his creation out. Instead, he gave me his usual smile-smirk and held his hand out to me, almost like he had when I first met him, but this time there was something else in his eyes. The quiet, menacing words emitted from his lips, handcuffing me to him with the unspoken threat, “Come with me; I’ll be needing you for this.”
    Shaking, though for what reason I wasn’t entirely sure, I stood back up and let him take my thin arm in his clawed hand. I wasn’t misbehaving, but as we progressed down the darkened hall I felt a few drops of blood trickle into my hand from where his claws dug into my wrist. I tried to hold them back, but before long, tears were falling to the ground as if to join the melody of the blood dripping into my hand. Zesshei turned to me, letting go of my wrist and instead gripped my shoulders, digging his claws in until they pricked right through the sleeves of my shirt and tore into my skin. With a sort of nightmarish mock-gentleness, he cooed down at me his reassurance, “It’s alright, my dear, what are you crying for?” he swiped at my cheek with a claw as if to wipe my tears, and then continued, “I’m only asking a little favor of you. I need your help for this experiment of mine… it’s something I’ve dreamt of for a long time now, little Aquaerioul. You understand, don’t you? Helping me with this one little thing is the least you could do after all I’ve done for you, right?” I nodded, biting my lip as my salty tears began to mingle with the blood now trickling down my face. With that, he repositioned his stinging grip to my wrist again and we continued on towards wherever he intended for this experiment to be conducted.
    Finally, we reached our destination, a room I knew to be deep in the center of the laboratory building, far from any windows and barricaded by a heavy metal door. This was where Zesshei kept many of his experiments; it was one of the most secure rooms in the entire building. Zesshei unbarred the heavy door and opened it, roughly escorting me in and then shutting the door again with a hollow thump. With an effective sweep of his powerful hand, the door was dead bolted and we were confined within its impenetrable walls. Zesshei then turned his full attention to me, turning me towards himself and grabbing my other arm with his free hand. “Here we are,” he growled, still taunting me with that tone of mock tenderness, “Now it’s time for us to start our… investigation.”
    “W-what’s going on? Zesshei, why did you lock the door? What’re we doing here?” I stuttered. I hadn’t a clue what was going on, but I was terrified.
    “Oh, I apologize, little Aquaerioul,” he sneered, “Are you nervous? I don’t mean to scare you. Why don’t I calm your nerves a bit before we begin… My dear little lab assistant, would you like to dance?” With that, he pressed his huge, clawed hand against my back and jerked my body towards himself with a smirk.
    Startled, I put out my free hand to catch myself against his chest. When I tried to push away, his claws ripped into my back, and if I stayed in place, he would keep pulling me in until I was all but crushed against him. He was stronger than me, though, so he won, and I was soon pressed flat against his body, one hand pinned between us and the other gripped tighter than ever in Zesshei’s other hand as he smirked down at me, looking very pleased with himself. A little river of wet fur formed down each of my cheeks, flowing around the half-dried blood that had began to clot the fur under one of my eyes. I couldn’t speak, though, and I couldn’t sob, because the pain was too much and my lungs were crushed so much by Zesshei’s grip that simply getting a breath was enough of a chore, much less speaking.
    “What are all those tears, for, my dear?” inquired my aggressor, “I only want to dance with you a bit before we start our experiment. You like to dance, do you not?” It was true, he had seen me dancing about his lab and the forest clearings nearby many a time before. I always have loved to dance. This was no dance, though! This was torture! I kept my mouth shut, though, and winced at the pain of his claws digging deeper between my shoulder blades, ripping downwards a bit. I felt the back of my shirt tear a bit, and blood began to bubble up and trickle down my back, soaking through the tattered pink fabric.
    Zesshei leaned down and whispered cruelly into my ear, “Quit your crying, dear. I don’t want this to be so difficult.” There was a soft touch to my ear as his tongue touched it lightly and guided the edge into his mouth… then there was a sharp pain as his sharp canine teeth pierced straight through my ear, leaving two tiny punctures right along the top edge. I winced with pain, but pulling away would only tear my ear more, so I held perfectly still until I was again staring helplessly into his icy gray eyes as they glimmered with a sort of excitement I had never seen in him before.
    “So you don’t want to dance, eh?” he scoffed, “Well then, I guess we can start to work.” His vicious smirk grew, leaving a frightening sort of hunger in his eyes as he extended his claws a bit more and ripped deeper into my back, shredding into my shirt and ripping it away from me. I gasped, initially startled more by the pain and cold air hitting me than anything else, but upon realizing what was going on, my gasp turned into a sob of absolute terror. He removed his other hand from my wrist and  swiftly seized both of my shoulders in his hands and pulled me away from his body, paralyzing me with his grip and his stare and tearing into my skin until more blood seeped into my fur. My throat was frozen with panic, but tears streamed down my face and splattered to the floor faster than I could try and hold them back. An irrepressible shiver ran through my body, whether from fear or because of a draft hitting my exposed body I couldn’t be sure, but it forced Zesshei’s claws deeper into my already shreaded shoulder. The stab of the pain washed over me like the dizziness one might feel with a bad case of a stomach flu, and I had to hold my breath until the wave receded just to keep myself from throwing up.
    With another hasty sweep of his hand, Zesshei slid his cape off his shoulders and moved his excruciating grip to my side, and with his claws pressed close to my skin, he slid his hand slowly down and slid away my skirt. Any efforts I made at struggling were in vain, because he clenched my shoulder all the tighter with each movement I made, and once he had sufficiently undressed me, he leaned me backwards, laying me down until I hit the hard, tiled lab floor, smeared with blood and tears and scattered with clothing that should never have been removed, letting my head hit the ground and placing his free hand square in the middle of my chest to hold me down, crushing my ribs against the solid ground, as he reached down for his own pants with his other hand.
    “Are you ready, little Aquaerioul?” he sneered, “I’ve been waiting so long to try an experiment on crossbreeding. It’s been a dream of mine for such a long time. How very kind of you to volunteer to help me…”


 

Chapter 2

    Three months later, I lay curled up on my cot as the sun rose outside, unseen to me in my windowless bedroom, if you could even call it that. This place no longer felt like a home to me, but where was I to go? A wave of nausea coursed through my body again, reminding me in the most excruciating way possible of why I couldn’t leave now. Suppressing a gag, I sat up, hoping to calm my stomach a bit with a drink of water, but the movement must have disturbed my stomach. Before I could even reach for the glass of water on the floor beside my cot, my stomach expelled what little I had eaten in the last day and splashed it across my lap and the ground below. I made no move to clean up the mess, though. Instead, I just sat there, despondent, staring out at the concrete wall ahead of me. Was that really all there was to my future? Was I to live here in this prison for the rest of my time? What about… I placed a hand lightly across my stomach, feeling the slight bulge that had began to form itself there. A few tears welled in my eyes, and with a grimace, I tightened my hand until my claws dug into my stomach with a painful prick. I clenched my teeth and tightened my grip a bit more, the familiar feeling of claws sinking into my skin beginning to take effect and numb my mind… but then something else hit me, overwhelming the numbed pain. A wave of guilt washed through me, and my hand dropped free as tears began to flood down my face and drip their way into my already soaked lap. A small sob escaped my throat, and a tenderly wrapped my arms around my own middle as if to comfort whatever small creature I might have even thought about doing harm to.
    Suddenly, I was besieged by my guilt and fell into an uncontrollable bout of crying, curling up on my bed and burying my face in soiled blankets to muffle my sobs from Zesshei’s ears. I would clean up my mess later…

    Then came the footsteps. I sat bolt upright as Zesshei stepped into the room and stared down at me, speculating on his charge and her surroundings. Then he smirked, “Made a bit of a mess, now, have we?” He took a step in my direction, and I flinched backwards a bit, “What’s wrong? I’m going to help you clean it up, Aquaerioul,” he grinned cruelly and took another stride towards me, “Do you not want my help?” I gulped, my heartbeat quickening as I stared up at him, “Well? Do you?!” I braced myself. He took another step, “Come on, now, talk to me…” Step. “If you want help, you should say something…” Step. “Before I get over there.”
    I was too slow. “I guess you want to clean it up yourself, then!” There was a rush of air and sound and fur and claws, and before I knew what had happened, I was half-laying on the cold cement ground in a puddle of my own vomit with a throbbing bruise just below my eye and fresh blood welling up from a gash across my collarbone, soaking rapidly into my ruffled fur and now torn shirt. I looked up, and the last thing I saw before passing out in a heap on the sullied floor was Zesshei sauntering away smugly and tossing a small, tattered rag back at me on his way out.


 

Chapter 3

    I panted, gulping for air as I lay on my back, my legs spread as I willed the tiny, painful thing inside me to leave me in peace. Or perhaps it was the creature standing beside the bed, now, with a hideously malicious smirk on his face who I was willing to leave me be, I couldn’t be sure. The pain had overtaken my ability to think. Either way, I wanted this all to be over. The misery had surpassed what I could bear, and I feared what was to come as soon as I was free of my precious burden… Zesshei dared not harm his prized experiment, so for the time being he remained comparatively gentle with me, but what would become of me if something went wrong with his experiment? Another wave of pain struck me, and I shoved my worries out of my mind to focus on pushing…

    I’m not sure if it was moments or hours later, but at last, with a final heave on my part, a tiny, soggy, whimpering being entered the world into the cruel hands of his father. Relieved of my efforts, my muscles slackened and I fell into a half-conscious doze on the bloody, wet bed, panting to regain some of my breath so I could meet the tiny being that I could hardly believe was, could I bear to say it… my son.
    Out of the corner of my foggy vision, I glimpsed Zesshei as he lifted the tiny creature and peered at it before grunting without emotion, “Male,” and jotting something down on a sheet of paper on his lab table. He then turned to me, his child gripped roughly in his hand, “I’ll take this. You go take care of yourself, clean up or something,” he waved me away with a flip of his hand and turned away to leave.
    “B-but…” I stammered with as much energy as I could muster, which wasn’t much, and propping myself up on my elbow to look at him more clearly, “Zesshei, he needs a name! Please, he’s your son, he needs a name!”
    The cold scientist grunted and turned to me, “Fine then. Zesshei the Second.” He strode away, leaving me alone as my tears flowed into my eyes, culminating at my eyelids for a moment before drizzling down my face and leaving little wet tracks wherever they ran. I sat up and picked up a change of clothes that was sitting beside the bed for me to put on. Standing up weakly, my face still streaked with tears and my body wracking with suppressed sobs, I pushed myself to change into the clean clothes before I tramped sullenly of to my room, trailing my tears along the cement as I walked.
    Finally, I reached my makeshift safe haven and set myself roughly down on my bed, near the point of explosion with my suppressed emotion, but I didn’t dare release it with tears, for fear that my petulant oppressor might find issue with my distress, so instead, I held my breath and let the tears run silently down my face as I clenched my fists until the sting of my claws digging into my palms became soothingly numb and calmed me enough to allow me to take a few deep, panting gulps of air and glance around my room. That’s when I spotted a glimpse of the pocket knife hooked onto my bag from when I ran away from home… I must have brought it along in hopes of fending for myself out in the wild. Such a silly notion, now… But, what if…
    I unclenched my fists long enough to lean over and unhook the keyring pocket-knife from the zipper of my bag, and then I sat back up straight, staring down at the small, plastic-encased knife in my hand. I pinched it between two fingers and, carefully with the other hand, clicked out the sparkling blade, virtually unused and glaringly sharp. Tears still streaked my cheeks, but I was no longer crying. Now I was mesmerized, silenced by the hypnotic shine of the knife I held in my hand. Slowly, calmly, I shifted my hands so that the blade rested lightly against my wrist. I was still entranced. Eyes wide, their rims caked with the salt of dried tears, I stared in blank fascination as the knifed pressed deeper into my flesh and began to slip to the side as if the hand holding it had taken on a life of its own. I felt the dull, soothing sting as the blood welled up in a neat and tidy line before trickling down like the tears I couldn’t cry. The harder I pressed, the more blood trickled down and the number I became to the stinging pain until it became a subdued, comforting tingling. When the cut could get no deeper, I lifted the knife and set it down again, a little higher on my arm, and slipped it across my wrist once more, this time faster, enriched with more experience. Then again… and again… until my arm dripped with the blood of myriad incisions, each adding to the overpowering sting that numbed my arm and my mind alike. Once I was satisfiably mollified, I lay down on my cot and watched vacantly as the blood matted into my fur while I mused on my situation. I would have to tend to my arm later, but for now, I had to lay and think clearly while I could, now that my veins had been cleared of their roadblocks of unreleasable emotion.


 

Chapter 4

    I stepped carefully around the doorway, slipping into Zesshei’s room and instinctively adjusting the strips of bloodied cloth I had taken to wrapping around my wrists here of late. It seemed like a good enough use for all the bloodstained outfits I couldn’t wear any longer.
    “There you are,” grunted my host, looking up from the tiny blue creature lying in his lap. The little fellow was almost a month old, now. Zesshei gazed in my direction for a moment, then beckoned me towards himself with a flick of his clawed finger, “You. Come here…” I stepped cautiously in his direction, clasping my hands meekly behind my back, “You know how to take care of it, yes?” He interrogated. I cocked my head in affronted confusion, and he clarified by motioning towards the “thing,” his son, before continuing with his request, “So, do you? It’s been keeping me awake at night, and I don’t particularly wish to spend my nights feeding the little mongrel and waste all the energy I could be using to observe it during the day. Besides, I want it to be drinking its mother’s milk… it makes the experiment more accurate.” I gulped, a mix of hope and fear darting through my veins. He picked the tiny creature up roughly, standing up as he removed the burden from his lap, and held it out to me distastefully, “So I want you to take care of it at night, alright?” He shoved the child into my arms, cast one last smirk in my direction, and trotted out of the room with a sweep of his cloak, leaving me to stand there, dazed and bewildered, holding my own son for the first time in my life. The child squealed almost gleefully and batted playfully at my chin with a tiny paw. I looked down at him with the tiniest hint of a smile, my heart beating a hundred times faster than I thought it could, and let out a sort of distressed chuckle, “Zesshei the Second? Goodness, what a name for such a tiny fellow…” I ran a hand across his soft forehead, a couple tears coming to my eyes and my smile grew, “I think I’ll call you Zee.”


 

Chapter 5

    I took a gulp of air, trying to hold back an inevitable flood of tears as I dug frantically through my bag for my knife, untying and tearing away the tattered pink cloth around my left wrist with my teeth while I searched. How could this happen? How could whoever created this world, this place, this entire blasted situation, be any crueler than this? Angelman’s syndrome! Mute! He’ll never surpass the mentality of an infant… the poor child would’ve been better off stillborn! No, I cursed myself for thinking such a thing… and then I found my knife. With a sigh of relief, I sat back down on my bed and took a deep breath, flicking open the blade and hastily licking it across my wrist a couple times without a second thought. Then the catharsis began. I was no longer trapped in the vortex of my thoughts and emotions, swirling around and tearing at me like a deadly whirlpool. Now I was numbed to my pain by the familiar sting, removed from my fears by the river of blood as it rushed me away.
    As the initial numbness faded, clarity set in and my thoughts slowly slipped their way back. Now I was ready for them, though. They trickled in like a cool, refreshing fountain of lucidity, soothing my throbbing mind and washing me with the shower of quiet tears I could now cry with no fear of bursting. Now, breathe…
    My son had been diagnosed with a terrible disorder that would leave him at the intellectual level of an infant for the rest of his life. A birth defect, no doubt… Zesshei said it was probably a result of the crossbreeding. Darn him! Wait, don’t get angry… Poor little baby. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Over the last year, that tiny child of mine had become my only joy in life, despite the sorrow he carried with him, and now I could hardly bear to look into his future. What would become of him? Would Zesshei discard him, now, or would he continue forevermore to poke and prod at his own child’s life, as if he were a specimen? …which would be worse? The numbness was starting to fade… I glanced at my knife, dropped it onto the table beside me, and dismally curled up on my cot to let the emotions rush back and flood out my brief but blissful moments of catharsis. Now there were no tears, just a suffocating emptiness. Perhaps I’d feel better if I took a nap…


 

Chapter 6

    The slightest hint of a change affected the air behind me, as if something was blocking the flow of the room’s air conditioning. I shot a wary glance over my shoulder, taking my gaze away from my sleeping son. It was Zesshei, of course. I suppressed a sigh as best I could and slowly turned around to face him, staring up into his piercing grey eyes with a submissive, questioning look.
    “He’s asleep,” cooed the shadowy irril. There was something more in his voice, but I opted to disregard it and play the innocent fool.
    “Yes, he’s been sleeping very nicely, lately…” I murmured passively, sidestepping discreetly in hopes of slipping past him and making it to my own bed without further disturbance. No such luck.
    “Where are you going?” he asked, surprisingly calm, as he caught my arm gently in his hand before I could take another step.
    “I was… My feet were getting tired.”
    “Were you really thinking of going to bed so early? You must not be feeling well, if you’re ready to sleep at only eight thirty…” he crooned, “Or do you simply want away from me? I won’t hurt you, you know,” he pulled my compliant body a bit closer and ran a clawed finger softly up my neck, lifting my chin until my eyes were perfectly in line with his own. I stared blearily ahead, with hardly the strength to blink.
    His gentleness confused me, but I didn’t care to think about it. My body was limp; my mind was his slave. He dropped my chin and adjusted his grip to lead my yielding form out of the room. Before I had time to let what was happening sink in, I was backed against the edge of a bed, a real bed… Zesshei’s bed. I let my shoulders slump and looked piteously up at my assailant, not a drop of resistance still left in my body as began effortlessly to remove the clothing from my listless form. The edges of my consciousness felt him lay me down, and the back of my mind remembers the prickling warmth of his fur brushing against my stomach…
    “Good girl,” his voice echoed in my ears, “If you behaved this well the last time, it would have been so much easier on the both of us. Now, isn’t this nice? It doesn’t hurt if you don’t struggle. Purely for science, my dear, purely for science… You have to understand. No experiment can be accurately recorded with only… one… try…”
    I sat bolt upright, a strange, desperate new energy coursing through my weary body. Suddenly, I cared. Suddenly, I feared, and I wasn’t about to let this whole cycle start itself all over again. This time I would give my all to save that poor, unconceived life before it ever had the opportunity to fall into the hands of a father who had no right to such an exalting title.
    Zesshei fell backwards a bit, a look of surprise on his face, but only for a split moment. Before I had time to stand and retrieve my clothes, he was on me with a rush of claws and anger. I struggled, desperate to catch my breath and free myself, but with every thrash of my body, it seemed his claws achieved a new degree of sharpness as they dug into my back, my shoulders, my face… With a victorious sweep of my elbow, I managed to free myself and tumble to the floor to grab my clothes, but before I had managed to get more than halfway dressed, he was back on his feet. I caught a glimpse of his clawed hand, primed for a swat to my face, and just before the blow struck, I ducked and slid to the side, my claws scratching across the linoleum floor as his arm swung straight across where I had been standing moments before. I managed to scramble behind the bed to slip on my shirt, but before I knew it, his glaring silver eyes glowered in at me and I dodged another blow by hastily half-rolling out from under the bed and sidestepping my assailant as he dove for my feet. I hopped about, in a fatal dance of dodging and defending as I nimbly slipped on my skirt a bit more with each step of my dance, never able to stay still long enough to fully pull up the garment. Then, with a last tug and a skipping sidestep, my skirt fell into place comfortably around my waist, and a large, claw-spiked hand finally made contact with the side of my face, hitting me square across the side of the head and sending me sliding across the slippery floor until my head and the back of my neck hit the solid concrete of the opposite wall with a heavy thud and the grooves between the tiles on the floor began to fill with a trickle of blood…
    Weakly, I raised myself into a half-sitting position with a shaking arm, and stared defiantly up at Zesshei as he strode over to me across the smooth, blood-streaked linoleum. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity to my hazy, pain-struck mind, he came to a stop just short of where I was lying and smirked devilishly down at me, his shadow looming over my upper body. Panting, I stared up at him for a moment longer, trying to reclaim my strength, and then, with the last burst of energy I could muster, I bolted. I ran, too fast for him to catch me, too fast for him to even register that I was no longer there at his feet… I couldn’t stop, now. I couldn’t stop until I was gone, far away from that nightmare, far away from the danger, far away from the pain… There was no stopping, no turning back. I was leaving everything behind without a second thought. If I even so much as paused to catch my breath or grab my belongings, I feared I would collapse from the pain and exhaustion that overwhelmed my entire being and threatened to take me out before I could reach safety… I couldn’t let that happen… I couldn’t do that to a poor, unborn child who I hoped would never have reason to come into this terrible world… And so I ran.