Leave me

-Chapter 5-

The illusion of freedom was quickly shattered. Dr. Thorne produced heavy metal shackles and chains.

With an unsettling cheerfulness, she fastened one shackle around Yams' ankle and another around Raven's, connecting them with a short, heavy chain. The other end of the chain was bolted to the floor in a large, sparsely furnished room.

"There!" Dr. Thorne exclaimed, clapping her hands together. "Now you have plenty of room to move about! Consider it... supervised freedom."

Her tone shifted, losing some of its earlier enthusiasm. "But," she added, her eyes narrowing slightly, "if you try to escape, even for a moment, you will be sent back to the facility immediately. And trust me," her smile returned, but it didn't reach her eyes, "you don't want that."

Yams and Raven looked at the chains that bound them, the cold metal a stark reminder of their continued captivity.

The spaciousness of the room offered little comfort, overshadowed by the heavy weight of their shackles and the chillingly cheerful warning of their new caretaker.

They were no longer in a sterile cell, but they were far from free. They were simply prisoners in a gilded cage, under the watchful eye of a woman whose fascination felt more like obsession.

Days turned into weeks under Dr. Thorne's care, and her initial unsettling enthusiasm morphed into something even more disturbing.

She began to shower Yams and Raven with effusive pronouncements of affection. "Oh, you two are just the most precious things!" she would coo, her voice saccharine sweet. "So unique, so special. I just love having you here."

Her expressions of "love" felt suffocating and insincere. She would attempt to groom them, trying to brush Yams' smooth, synthetic hair and the soft hair Raven's face. Both recoiled from her touch.

Yams would stiffen, his artificial eyes fixed on some distant point, while Raven would whimper and try to pull away, its small body trembling.

Dr. Thorne, however, was insistent. "Nonsense, my darlings," she would say, her smile unwavering. "It's just a little love. You need to be presentable."

If either Yams or Raven resisted, her cheerful demeanor would vanish, replaced by a cold, hard edge. "Don't be ungrateful," she would snap, her voice losing its sweetness. "You are privileged to be here. Disobedience will not be tolerated."
Punishments were swift and unpleasant.

A harsh, high-pitched sonic frequency would emit from a device she carried, causing Yams' internal systems to resonate uncomfortably and making Raven whimper and clutch its ears.

Sometimes, she would simply isolate them, separating them within the large room, leaving them alone in the echoing silence with the heavy chains a constant reminder of their confinement.

Despite their shared captivity, Yams and Raven found a fragile solace in each other's presence.

They would often sit close together, the short chain allowing them a small circle of shared space. Yams, though still emotionally withdrawn, seemed to offer a silent, stoic comfort to the frightened Raven, who would often nuzzle against his leg.

They communicated in quiet whimpers and soft mechanical whirs, a language born of shared trauma and captivity.

Dr. Thorne, in her twisted perception, saw their quiet interactions as evidence of her "loving" care fostering a bond. She would watch them with a possessive gleam in her eyes. "See? You're becoming friends," she would say, her voice cloying. "And it's all thanks to me."

The forced affection, the unwanted touch, the ever-present threat of punishment – it created a suffocating atmosphere of fear and resentment.

Yams and Raven were not loved; they were possessions, objects of Dr. Thorne's unsettling fascination, their every action dictated by her warped sense of care.