Was my name ever written down?
Good Morning, my name is Cat. Yes, it’s a stupid name I know, but it’s what the doctor had called me and honestly, it’s a fine enough place-holder until I remember my real name. I can’t remember anything about my life before I got here. The doctor told me I was living on the streets before he took me in. It seemed reasonable enough, but then why couldn’t I remember? It’s been a couple years since then, I had done my best to repay the doctor’s kindness, but sometimes he still scared me. I happen to also be a cat.
The doctor recently captured an enemy of his, a hedgehog named Sonic. I had been tasked with the security of the newcomer’s prison as well as interrogation. The doctor wanted to know where the rest of the chaos emeralds were. I don’t exactly know what chaos emeralds are or why they are so important but I was never brave enough to ask. Nevertheless, I took good care of Sonic. I made sure he was given enough food and water to survive comfortably and I didn’t allow anyone other than myself to interrogate him. I didn’t call my interrogations anything more than talks. That’s really all that they were to me. I finally had someone there that was my age, someone that is of my nature, to talk to. Someone to finally relate to. I knew I shouldn’t have thought of Sonic as a friend, but I often wished that he would just switch sides and work alongside me. I had often tried to persuade him to do so.
The doctor wanted me to be more forceful in my interrogations but I just didn’t have it in me. He wanted me to start using torture and I staunchly refused. I had never made refusals before. I was always too afraid to say anything contrary. Talking with Sonic had changed me for the better. In my conversations with him, I was never talked at, but always spoken to. We were equals.
One day I had been called into the doctor’s office, I almost never saw him in person at that point so it meant the reason for the meeting was important. It made me nervous to say the least. It was a fair bet to assume he would take Sonic away from me. He said I had been “catching an attitude” ever since Sonic arrived. But it hadn’t been an attitude, I tried to be respectful but there were some things that he’d asked me to do that are too much for me to go through with. On my way to the office, I approached my least favorite door. The facility was very large, and I had been in every room except for that one. I was not allowed in that room, its door was always locked and just looking at it sent shivers down my spine. There was something eerily familiar about it and yet I couldn’t understand why. Sometimes if I stared at it long enough, I got echoes of memories and a voice in the back of my mind telling me to run. I tried not to look at it as I passed by.
Upon entering the office, I was greeted by the old man himself, he asked me to take a seat. This was bad. Just as I had suspected, he was taking Sonic away. He said Sonic had been a bad influence on my behavior and that he would be taking Sonic into his charge instead. This twisted my stomach in a knot, even though the doctor had been generous with me, I knew he wouldn’t be so forgiving to Sonic. I did my best to promise more information if he just gave me more time to work with. I promised I would work harder to get what he needed but then he stopped me cold.
“You’ve done enough! Just shut up and let me work!”
That turned my blood to ice. I had heard that before, long ago in a much scarier part of my life. Without a word I walked out of his office and retired early. This encounter had shaken me to my core. I couldn’t do anything but sit on my cot and think about what he had said, why it affected me so much, where those feelings came from and what exactly was behind that door I hated so much.
When I finally gave up on trying to sleep, I checked the clock, it was 3 AM. It was time to find out at least one answer to my many questions. In the hallway I had walked through many times, the mystery door was locked as always. It only took a three-digit code to open it and I happened to know of one already, I had to use it if I ever wanted to open the fridge after 8 PM. I worked many late hours, so this was an often occasion. I punched in 366 and the door opened to a room full of cold, stale air. I didn’t know what I was expecting, for the longest time I just stood there in the open doorway, wondering whether I should go in. After a deep breath, I stepped inside and immediately had my breath stolen from me. Even in the dark I could recognize what was a picture of myself on the counter. It was paper-clipped to a file. I opened to read the contents and was greeted with the picture of a human woman about my age stapled to a lab report. She looked… Familiar. My hands were inexplicably shaking, and my mind kept repeating I shouldn’t be in here!
I made the mistake of switching on the lights so to could read the report. As soon as the lights flickered on, I got a view of the testing chamber beyond the desk. Memories flooded back to me, memories of being in this room, being tied down to the operating table. The burning underneath my skin and the feeling of my bones breaking and knocking back together all on their own. With the old memories returning so vividly my vision started to darken around the edges, everything was shaking now. My head was spinning and the air that was so cold was now pressing in and suffocating me. It was hard to breathe. It was hard to stand. Slowly, I collapsed and rested on the ground. I may have blacked out at that point.
After a while, I was able to piece myself back together. At least enough so I could make it back to my room while doing my best not to make any noise or to cry out; there was nothing I could do to stop the tears streaming out. My room had always been a safe place for me to breathe out and release some of the tensions I felt on the job. But even now, there was nothing this safety could do for me. After lying in bed for about an hour or so, I looked at the file that I had mistakenly taken with me. My hand had such a tight grip on it, but I couldn’t bring myself to read the report. I remembered I was human, I had a home, he took me from my home. I was made… into this. Was my name ever written down? There was a sticky note on the outside of the file: “Possibility of repeated result in reverse”
He was going to do this to Sonic!
Part 2 to follow soon, let me know what you all think.
annaxmalina
jacobvanloon
janainaart
stormborns
germansingergirl
