Taken

Chapter 6: Overly Drugged

Three months later

I somehow managed to let out a hellish snarl as I was returned to my slot. I was stiff from an injection filled with God-knows-what and the skin around the injection site at my right shoulder tingled uncomfortably. Oh yeah, and I was drenched and tripping hard core. Apparently, Mr. Fat Glasses had been informed by another scientist that they just hosed the other Kludde down with ten gallons of freezing water and laced its food with a combination of high percentage THC oil and two and a half (sometimes three) grams of dried hallucinogenic mushrooms that had been ground into a fine powder in order to keep it calm and unable to activate its fire to use in case it somehow did manage to focus long enough to try to attack. Being forcefully and heavily drugged then doused in freezing cold water daily for the past three months obviously didn't make me love the researchers any more than I had during my first day. If anything, it made me hate them even more... well, for the two or so waking hours that I was sober each morning before I was fed, anyway. After I had eaten (often reluctantly, as I knew that my food was now being drugged), my brain would turn to figurative mush and it was game over for me for pretty much the rest of the day.

The amount of creatures in this room was constantly changing. Currently, there were seventy-two of us here. Last month, the scientists had taken Megan and and three others (two Caladrius', and a very angry sand-colored Kitsune with five white-tipped tails and green eyes) were taken out of the room by Ginger and several of her colleagues and were never seen again. The month before, it had been Kaden and Aileen who were taken, along with a solid black Enfield, a small sand-colored Enfield with large, bat-like ears, and a solid orange Phoenix with disproportionally small wings and coal black eyes. After those individuals were removed, the public mind link had become saturated with different theories of why they were removed and what could've happened to them. Theories ranged from military training or some sort of breeding program to them being put down for being deemed 'defective' for some reason and to make room for more genetically engineered creatures.

Today, I was definitely tripping harder than usual. They must've upped the shroom dosage. I thought with an uncontrollable giggle that sounded more like a series of pain-filled wheezes. Everything I looked at was very wavy and the brighter colors around me looked like they had been run through some sort of color enhancing filter on Snapchat or Instagram and had an almost yellow-ish green tint to them. Everything's so... pretty. I thought as I began pacing in a circle in my cage on very unsteady legs.

"Uh, hey. Are you okay?" A male voice asked me after I had bumped into one of the glass walls of my cage for what had to be the third time as I got the feeling of the speaker's concern for me through an individual mind link.

I swung my head over to the right to see my newest neighbor who was watching me with concern and a hint of interest in his ebony black eyes. He was a yellow Phoenix with red primary feathers and tail feathers who had hatched about a month after I had emerged from my gestation case, whose name escaped me at the moment. I blinked at him slowly in acknowledgment before I went back to staring at the things in front of me through half-closed eyes that were most likely bloodshot, glazed over, and probably contained massively dilated pupils.

"The walls are alive. They're breathinggggg." I slurred in response as I stopped moving and just allowed my body to sway where it stood to the musical rhythm that was playing in my head. "Dude, colors are fascinating. Life is a miracle."

"I'm... I'm just gonna take that as a 'no'. What are they doing to you?"

"Feel-good chemicals to make me feel good."

"They're probably drugging her to make her less combative. She's kind of earned herself a reputation among the scientists as being difficult to deal with." A new voice interjected.