The Wall

The Thin Ice

He was met first with hesitant fascination from his direct cellmate. The youthful rabbit propped up by a cluster of ill-fitting legs, metallic and singularly jointed, resolving their lack of finer motor function through quantity alone. Her mouth was similarly bastardized, an oversized metallic grille latched through her skin onto her skull in replacement for a proper jaw. It lacked all proper functionalities, save for consumption and respiration, and as a result, her voice resonated from a device in her mouth, neurologically linked through the spine to her frontal lobe by a series of impossibly thin wires within her skull proper.

In the cell adjacent rested two more experiments. The larger of the two looked as a misshapen lump of ambiguous biological matter, onto which an ill-fitted covering of darkly colored flesh was haphazardly strewn. Its lower half was propped up by a duo of wheels, allowing it inferior capabilities of self-ambulation in comparison to its companions, though with the phenomenally unique build this creature sported, the raccoon could sparsely imagine its anatomy prior to any surgeries. Its eyes were forced open by a pair of small metallic rings, glass discs placed within to provide protection from microscopic debris that would irritate the conjunctiva.

Last of the three, the only one to remain bipedal, was a brown-furred mammal. Her gaunt body maintained a confident, reassuring posture as she approached the dividing bars between their cages. Her face, untouched by prosthetic tampering, held an affectionate smile, and her bright, unbroken eyes were eager to meet those of her frightened companion, providing what little comfort she could to the desperate, cowering raccoon. Her arms were the only externally modified portion of her body, indicating that much of her experimentation was internal, or that she was spared the same rigorous regimen as the other batch members.

Regardless, she reached her arms through the bars confining them, slowly, tentatively reaching out to her new companion with welcoming arms. A part of the raccoon urged him to recoil from the new creatures, another wished to enjoy their embrace and return it in kind, though neither could overcome the paralysis brought on by the traumatizing pain resonating through his body. Her hands, though comprised of a vaguely palm-like shape and similarly metallic adjoining fingers, were soft against his cheeks as they made contact.

Her body was pressed up against the dividing bars, though she gave no indication of discomfort, only elation at the introduction of a new family member. The raccoon's breaths were weighted and shaky, halted momentarily as he felt the otter's soothing touch, and continuing with a far more steady exhale as his facial tension relaxed into her open hands. His eyes were wide and unblinking since leaving the surgery room, his overstimulated mind searching ceaselessly for unseen threats and sources of danger. Though, finally, they closed in relaxation at the motherly touch of the woman in the adjacent cell.

Much of the raccoon's fur was matted down by his own dried blood, though a few small patches of the fluid were merely caught by the contours of his body. Upon his relaxation, some of this blood flowed from atop his stitched skull and down his forehead, creating a distinctly reflective, crimson line that caught the otter's eye. She wetted a rag with her saliva and cleaned the wound as best she could.

The gesture did nothing to alleviate the agony, but there was a newfound comfort in such an action. This consolation made his reality noticeably more bearable. He had far more wounds to treat, far more than even he knew, and far more than the otter could aid with, though the impassioned, caring touch soothed the flares of pain through her tender warmth.

Her commiseration bore an unfamiliar sense of belonging in the raccoon. They, like him, were victims of fate and the machinations of their creators, and yet they remained unbroken. Their gazes seemed curious and eager, rather than bearing the empty despair his eyes maintained. He couldn't divine why or how they maintained such willpower in these merciless conditions, and while his newfound capability of verbal communication was untested, the artificial connections stitched into his mind by immeasurably complex neural surgeries acted as a medium from thought to language.