We Were Trapped

Short Story

I was taken from my mother at birth and held hostage to the people who look nothing like me. They don't look like my mother, they don't look like the father that I'll never get to meet, and they most definitely don't look like the strangers standing next to me. They speak a different language that none of us can comprehend, expect the words that get us killed. You see, we live our lives on the thinnest line, one wrong step and you're sliced in the neck, or shot with a gun, or whipped senseless, or stabbed with a needle you'll never wake up from. That was my story, but I wanted a different one. 

Shoulder to shoulder rubbing skin to skin creating callouses of our naked bodies in constant contact. There was no room for your own space, the people surrounding you, were like glue attached to your body, themselves also attached to the person next to them like a tragic puzzle game. I was next to the edge so when others pushed into me I was slammed harshly into the roughness of the bars. I was trapped here waiting for something to happen. Waiting for the day I would be able to leave like the others.

When somebody got to leave, they never came back but I think it's for a good reason. I rather go anywhere else, then share such an enclosed space with no room for myself. They shoved forty of us into a space meant to fit ten. My neck was sore from looking down, my shoulders ached, and my legs were cramped from standing up for days. We were covered in our own messes, nowhere else to go but on the floor underneath us, everyone was left to stand in it, smell it, and feel it crawling on their backs.

We all tried to escape this place, climbing over each other, stepping on heads to get over the bars but it was no use. We were trapped.

I began to despise the people on the other side of the bars who looked nothing like the rest of us trapped in here. I was never taught how to hate and even now I still don't hate these people but I don't understand how they can just abuse us for their own benefit.

I had yet to find out the real reason for my being here and frankly, I don't think I'd like to know the truth either. I don't think the truth would make this feel okay.

We were fed once a day and our food looked like what we were constantly stepping in. The people around me were getting sick to their stomachs and illness spread rapidly. It was tortuous hours of non-stop suffocation. We weren't breathing oxygen anymore. The air was filled with disease and heartbreak.

These conditions were horrific to live in. Yet, I still wanted to live.

The best of us get to leave. The pretty, strong, and quiet ones get an escape from these bars. So, I never mutter a word and I eat what they give me. I can't get too skinny or too weak or else they won't pick me to leave.

I plan on making it out of this place one day.

Still, apart of me has fears. I'm scared there's worse out there.

Where I am now feels like rock bottom like nothing could get worse but what if death waits for me on the other side? I've heard the rumors from the others who've lost hope and only wish for the relief of sweet death. The others are convinced that they're waiting for us to become adults so that they can kill us when the time comes. The others believe they're just keeping us behind bars as children so that we can't get away. They need us for something that we will never be able to comprehend.

I think the others have lost their minds.

There just has to be something better on the other side of these bars, right?

Although, I can't help but question my entire existence.

What did we do to deserve this? Why did everyone that looked like me have to be trapped in here and why did the people who looked like them get to keep us locked up? When did we become less than them? Who gave them the right to enslave us, kill us, and abuse us? Why hasn't anyone come to save us?

I don't know how much time has passed but I can't even rest my head on the person next to me to go to sleep because the smell of feces burns my nostrils. My legs will soon give out but I can't allow that to happen or my legs will dip itself into the mess of others and I have to stay looking perfect. I don't know how much longer I must wait to be chosen but I hear the rustle of keys and the others begin to thrash around. I stay in place, quiet as ever. The people that do not look like us come with a restraining device. When they come in with this device, it means some people get to leave. I perk up, stand up straight, and wait to be chosen.

I'm ready to go onto a better life. I did my time here.

They walk in my direction and I close my eyes and wait. Their hands are on me and I don't move a muscle in fear that they will change their minds and inject a needle in me that will kill me instantly. I watch the others as I am lifted up from the hells of my confines. Some fear for my life and some are envious of me.

I finally get to find out what's beyond these bars that enslave me.

I was wrong, though.

It's not better on the other side.

It's worse.

The humans are leading me to my death. They hang me upside down on a conveyor belt, strip me of my fur, and slice my insides open while I'm still conscious.

Millions of us are lead to our deaths everyday for them.

We have no control, no say.

I didn't want to die.

I wanted to live.