Waiting for Amber Skyy

Chapter 11

Weeks passed, and every day I was either running on a treadmill with electrodes taped to me or thrown into a tank for hours. It was gut wrenching, especially because they didn't hydrate me enough. I only got water after each test, and it was only a liter of water a day. Food was an issue too. It felt like I could eat three buffalo after each test. I was hungry enough to eat one of those wolf guys, and that's saying something.

Now, I was chomping down on some brown apples they threw into my cage. Sweat dripped from my body from the running, and my heart was racing like mad. They rolled me back to my spot next to Leon and Speck. I nicknamed the girl next to us Speck because she had spots all over her. She couldn't speak, from what I determined, but could make audible noises every now and again. She was probably only three, or four.

Once they jarred my cage by setting me down, she popped up and cooed at me. I waited until the big guy left before handing her a piece of apple. Her eyes widened to the size of dinner plates as she savored each bite. I looked over to Leon but he wasn't there.

And when I mean he wasn't there, his cage was empty.

Huh?

I stopped mid-chew and stared around me. Most of cages contained kids, except a few were empty as well. What the hell?

I heard Speck cooing again and I glanced at her. She reached out her skinny arm towards me, but she couldn't reach the bars of my cage. "What?" I whispered.

She grunted and waved her hand like she needed something else. I showed her my empty hands and she waved at them. What did she want? I leaned closer towards her and noticed that her eyes were glistening. Usually she cried out loud, but this was different.

Before I could say anything the door slammed open to reveal a couple wolf men with carts. They started at the far edge of the room, and once they got closer I noticed what they were doing. They were collecting empty cages. Once they got to our aisle I stared up at them, "Hey!"

They ignored me until I lowly growled and tried to grab one of their ankles. The guy seethed and kicked my cage, "Shut up, mutant."

"Hey! What's happening?" I shouted, trying to keep the guy nearby. Speck curled up in a corner far from them.

The guy walked off and I heard a couple of them chuckling. What is their deal? I want to know! Did we always have to be left in the dark? Glancing over at Speck, she was crying again and I had a feeling she already knew, but I couldn't ask her.

"You should know by now," a guy said nearby. He grabbed Leon's cage and stacked it on top of the other cage on his cart. He grabbed a smaller cage and stuck it in the one on top. "Housekeeping means retirement." He grinned and rolled away. That would mean...

Oh god.

Oh no.

I stared around and noticed a couple other kids sighing in relief or whimpering slightly. Speck kept crying and I felt tears well up in my eyes as well.

This can't be.

No. Oh god. Not him. Anybody but him.

And those other kids.

Just "merchandise."

Just "things."

But they were human... more or less. And they were gone. Gone forever. I rubbed my tears off my cheeks, feeling a stabbing pain in my chest. Leon was gone. And he looked healthy enough... unless he was just nothing.

Just another experiment.

It made me sick just thinking about it. Their intentions, their ideas, everything. They wanted to create creatures like us, experiment on us, use us to test things, test us, what was our use in the end? Just to fulfill their psycho wishes to see how a mutated kid ticked? What was the bigger picture? Is there a bigger picture?

Speck's sobs echoed through the room as the wolf men left, letting the doors slam behind them. The sound reverberated in me, making my stomach churn. I wanted to say it was impossible, but it was. We all had our dates, our ends, and we were spending our time cooped up here waiting for that.

I reached over and put my hand on Speck's, feeling her small fingers wrap around my thumb. We had no choice. We were stuck here.

No.

I wasn't going to let that happen. Not to me at least.

I eyed the young girl as she crawled over and rested her head on my hand. I gently brushed her stringy hair out of her eyes. She closed her eyes and I thought, well, if I did get out of here, I was taking this girl with me. But what about the others? They were all there, and I couldn't just let them all go, and take care of all of them.

I rested my head on the bars and sniffed. Was their life more important than mine? Or should I just try to save myself? I sniffed again, letting the tears roll down my cheeks, wishing that this never happened to me.