Caged - A pet-girl's story

Childhood's End

Alex didn't know what to think, not while her pet groomed and prepared her for school, nor when she wished her a good day. The brunette was completely in shock and out of herself. The way she had been treated for three hours that morning was just too much for her young mind to process.

Growing up at the Vance household, Alex had heard many many stories about the way pets were treated by the meanest owners while her parents discussed human cruelty during dinner, but it had always been the worst cases and she thought to herself that probably wasn't the norm. Also, her heart hoped those maniacs would be brought to justice somehow. That concept brought her enough peace of mind to be able to sleep at night, even if it was just wishful thinking or a gentle teenager lying to herself so the ugly truths of the world wouldn't hurt her sensibilities.

Either way, Alex's knowledge of the way pets... No. What was that other forbidden ancient word Gipsy had used? Slaves. Despite Alex's knowlege of the way slaves were often mistreated and the few facts about the Pet Academy that had filtrated and reached her ears one way or another, the poor rich girl had never really imagined the actual situation, let alone even try to place herself mentally in the slave's place. Maybe that's why those long three hours that felt like an eternity, even longer than all the tiny everyday facts of her live put together, left her in such a state.

She was an automaton all the way to school. Her schoolmates, who usually ignored her because a girl without a pet couldn't possibly be interesting or fun, noticed her odd behavior enough as to ask if she was OK. At least, a few of them did, but they just walked away before hearing her answer, as often happened with unpopular people in high class schools, because no one really cared about her.

During lunch, she went to the School rooftop to be alone. Curled up behind the small shack that contained the stairs which had brough her up there, Alex felt her heart break and wept in silence, screaming inside her head until she could cry no more.

This time, she wasn't crying out of fear or desperation, as it had been the case while she was being "trained" that morning. She was crying for all the pets in the world, who had to undergo that horribly severe training for three entire years of their lives. It seemed more unfair than ever that those born with mental or physical defects —in other words, the weakest people of all society— had to be the ones who suffered the most... as if their own conditions didn't bring them enough pain. Alex was sure that, even as free people, they would have had to struggle because of the way they had been born, but making them suffer all kinds of torture and force them to live half a life as someone else's shadows... or rather toys, if she considered the way most of her classmates treted their own pets... was simply sadistic. There was even a School club for those who liked to make their pets fight those of their friends, for Heaven's sake!

Alex got up when the bell rang, but she didn't feel any better. Her head hurt because of all the crying and there was a metaphorical hole in her chest at the thought that, even as she walked silently to her next class, thusands... no, millions of pets were being "trained" all around the world. For a moment, she had thought of jumping of the rooftop. Five stories high, it would have given her a fair chance of breaking her neck, especially if Alex jumped head first as she had plotted while still curled up behind the stairs shack. However, she was smarter than that and knew that her tiny stupid death wouldn't make a difference. It would be just some random girl who couldn't adapt and was weird enough as to not have a pet of her own. In other words: someone who should have become a pet herself in the first place and ended up a free citicen by someone's mistake years ago, when she was barely a toddler at the Baby Facility.

Now alex wasn't a dreamer. She considered dreamers —her parents included— to be fools who didn't quite understand how reality worked. It would have been a little sumptuous or hypocritical of her if she weren't too innocent to really grasp reality, but she was just another fourteen year old who thought she knew all there was to know about the world and was unaware of just how puny she was.

Back to dreamers, she didn't pretend herself important enough to start a revolution, not even to plot one and instigate others to do the heavy lifting or even convince them to join. One needed to be influential or, at least, charismatic or good handling people to do that and she was none of those. She was the social pariah no one ever listened to.

If she had been born with Gipsy's looks and mind clarity, perhaps she would have been better suited for something like that, but still, it had never been Alex's intention to rebel against the system. Maybe she believed her parents were foolish for trying to change the world, but she was certain they were at least trying the right way: by trying to pass laws and make it all official. Poor innocent creature who didn't know a thing about corruption or how the sick system she lived in really worked!

Obviously, Alex didn't pay attention in class at all. The first half of the day, she spent feeling miserable for what had just happened to her and the second half, she just kept on counting the minutes to go back home, so she could go on with her "training". It was still a long road before her three months were up and she was sure that not even Gipsy's most creative tortures would be as bad as three years of the real thing. But Alex felt the need to experience it on her own flesh. She didn't know why at first, but, by the time her driver was taking her home, the girl had started to see the first glimpse of a plan in her mind.

Maybe there was a way to provide her stupid parents with the proof and testimonies they needed to turn the tide at the congress and impress the population enough to shake their foundations so that they, too, found the whole pet system sick. Like everything else in the life she knew: it was mere bureaucracy... but the cards had to be played right and she was absolutely sure that Gipsy would be dead set against it. The bad news was that it wasn't the sort of thing she could just do on her own. Gipsy's cooperation, as well as that of many other people in her condition, was needed and it wouldn't be easy... for her at least.

As she climbed the steps back to her chambers in the attic, Alex felt her pulse race again and a shiver shook her to the core, but she kept climbing and, when she opened the door, there was a proud determination in the girl's eyes, shared by all the pets in the world that had survived the hellish bootcamp. Those eyes said "I went through hell and back." "I'm strong, way stronger than my Trainers and no ammount of whiplashes can take that away from me."

The next moment, Gipsy was kneeling by her feet, behaving like the posterchild for well behaved pets again. "How was your day, Master?" The girl asked. The term "mistress" was an antique most people found sexist. How ironic! The very people who loved to have a dozen slaves doing their bidding found sexism to be bad.

This time it was Alex who flashed a half smile. "Just fine. Let's resume my training," she replied pulling her up to her full height by the hands. Their eyes met and, for a moment, there was a glimpse of complicity between the two of them that was hard to describe.