Experimental Failure

Chapter 2: Freedom at Last

I woke up disoriented and... warm? I snapped out of my groggy state and sat up quickly, startling the woman next to me into alertness. I fell off the bed in shock seeing her right next to me and scrambled to get up and away. Seeing my shock and fear the woman, who now that I've got a better look at has mousey brown hair and bright green eyes that seemed to shimmer in the light, slowly backed off and left the room, returning a few minutes later with food and water in her hands. She slowly walked towards me and sensing no evil intent, I let her. She set the food on the bedside table, and helped me get up and onto the bed again.

"My name is Iris," she said with a kind smile. "What's your name?"

I thought hard for a few moments, then replied with, "I've never been given one, I've only ever been called 82M9 by the scientists."

"Scientists? 82M9?" she asked confused. Whoops, I thought: a bit too late might I add. She looked at me weirdly; and I guess that she's just now noticing the ears and tail, because she looks kind of shocked to say the least, especially when they started to twitch the longer that she looked at me.

"Uhhh..." she says, right before her eyes roll back in her head and she faints. I stare at her for a few moments, confused, and then I walk up to her, pick her up and place her gently on the bed, struggling a bit, and cover her with a blanket. I figure that I should hang around, figure out where I am, as well as more things about the outside world before I go running off again. I walk out of the room and into a dimly lit hallway, with 3 other doors and a window on one of the walls, showing a quickly darkening sky. I don't really think that I should be exploring the other rooms, so I walk around the hall, and see a staircase leading downstairs. I decide to wander downstairs and see what all there is in the house while Iris is passed out.

I wander down the big staircase with a wide banister, and think, what if I sat on the banister to get down? And with an impish grin that invited trouble, I decided to ride the banister the rest of the way down the stairs, laughing and giggling as I got nearer to the base of the stairs. When I reached the base, I was laughing so hard that instead of landing on my feet, I fell off and landed on my face. As I laid there I realized that I should probably be quieter, because I didn't know if Iris lived with anyone else, or if she lived alone, in this (from what I can tell is) big house.

I stilled my tail and let my ears swivel around to see if I could hear anyone else in the house other than Iris, and I didn't really hear anyone else, so I let my ears and body relax. I walk around the downstairs, keeping in mind the way back to the stairs and the room I woke up in.

After a while of I exploring, my stomach gave a loud grumble and I realized that I'd never eaten the food that she'd gotten for me. I decided to cut exploring short in favor of food, and I made my way back upstairs.

When I got to the room, Iris was sitting up and rubbing her eyes groggily, she looked at me confused, "Oh, so it wasn't a dream after all." she stated. I walked past her to where I remembered her putting the food earlier, grabbed it and sat on the floor, eating the food. She looked at me weirdly again, "How long've I been out?" she asked.

"I dunno, but it's dark out now."

"So a few hours then," she thought for a moment, "Isn't the food cold by now? I could warm it up for you."

"Nah, I'm good," I replied from my position on the floor.

"Alright," she said, while I'm pretty sure she was weirded out. Man, I thought, this food is really good. I subconsciously began to eat faster. All too quickly, the food was gone. I looked up at Iris, who was watching me as I ate. I held my bowl up to her, as in, I want more food.

"Come with me," she said as soon as I'd finished my food, she led me downstairs and to the kitchen, letting me sit on one of the chairs by the counter. She took my bowl and brought it over to the bowl thing that fills up with water, I've seen one in the labs before but I've never used one, until I explored Iris's house of course. She turned the water on and rinsed out the bowl, and went to a big silver bowl that had a cover on it, taking a giant spoon and putting some of the delicious smelling stuff out of it and putting it in the bowl, before she brought it over to where I was sitting on the counter. "Here," she said with a smile, I immediately picked up the bowl and started to slurp the soup, "but be careful it's hot," she said as I burned my tongue. Doesn't really help me now, I thought semi-bitterly. As soon as the food cooled down I began to eat again, this time way slower however.

"Mind telling me what you were doing passed out in the woods?" she asked me.

I was contemplating on whether or not I should tell her of my situation, I mean she got over the ears thing pretty quickly. "Will you swear not to tell anybody?" I asked her.

She sighed and replied with, "I swear I won't tell anyone."

Thus began my telling of my past, with only a few interruptions from Iris.

"So I'm assuming you have nowhere to stay then." she responded a short while after I finished my tale.

"Nope," I replied, popping the p.

"If you wanted, I could let you stay here. Nobody but me has lived here in a while, and we're far enough out that you could run around and explore outside without having to hide your ears and tail." she offered.

I thought over Iris's offer in my mind, "Will you teach me about the outside world too?"

"Of course," she replied, holding her hand out for me to shake. Looking into her eyes I sensed no malicious intent, so I shook her hand, sealing our pact.

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