In Mocha’s hands sits a crisp white envelope, his name and address neatly written in black ink. There’s no return address.
Who do we know that writes like that? It’s too familiar.
I do not file away handwriting.
I don’t even know what that means!
He sighs before biting his lip in thought, slapping the unopened letter against his palm.
The writing is familiar. But we’re unsure why. There’s no return address. It smells…
He lifts the envelope briefly to their nose
….like something that’s been passed through a lot of hands to be mailed. Alright, then.
Smelling the inside will give you what you want. Not the outside, songbird.
He sits down in the nest, the boys not far away playing with stuffed animals, and contemplates the letter again before shrugging and sliding a claw under the seam.
The envelope cuts easily, as expected, and Mocha reaches inside and grasps the letter it contains. Pulling it out causes several pictures to fall to the blankets on the nest floor. Curiously, he glances over them, but can’t make sense of the blurry blue shapes most of them contain.
She turns their attention to the letter.
I would firstly like to open this by giving you an apology, the first of many to come in this letter. I should have done better. I should have tried harder. I saw the way you suffered, the injuries you sustained, the torture you went through…for years. Since you were just a baby. And I did…nothing.
Mocha freezes, and the careful, looped letters suddenly click in their familiarity.
They’d seen this handwriting their entire life.
On medical charts, on treatment plans, vaccination records, nutrition assessments and death certificates.
…on little, special sticky notes hidden carefully in pockets and sneakily given inside bottles of pain killers. Handwriting that hid care and worry underneath detached professionalism, because speaking was always forbidden.
The letter was from his doctor. His doctor. From the arena.
I should have left the minute I realized what kind of man I was working for. I should have…I should have left and taken you and every other kid he had his hands on..but I didn’t. I never did, even years later. Helping you escape that first time was not atonement enough for my sins. It didn’t wash away the blood of hundreds of children from my hands. Even after he died I…kept working.
The arena…it’s gone, but not forgotten. It has a legacy. I can’t remember when it began, but the benefactor began growing bored of what humans could do. He was fascinated by those with abilities, and those who were non-human. He wanted to take the creatures that bored him, that bored the arena crowd, and turn them into something worth watching.
…there’s no way to put it lightly. It was human experimentation. IS. Human experimentation. And…
When you were recaptured, during your exam.. god, I still remember how out of it you were.. your DNA was..kept. And your cell neighbor, the telekinetic fire-starter, hers too. You were…still are really, the best the Arena ever had. You and her. And he wanted the ultimate arena fighter, a Gladiator who would dominate every battle with the flick of their hand. So he…took your DNA, well. He had ME take your DNA, (i’m so, so sorry) during checkups, after battles, and he..
Mocha’s eyes widened and his breath caught as he read, re-read, and re-re-read the next sentence.
He had a child made from it. Had the growth accelerated. She’s…remarkable, from a scientific standpoint. I believe her body and mind equate to that of a three year old toddler.
For the first time in a long time, Mocha’s head was dead silent.
She can Shapeshift, the opposite of you really…it’s either all of her body or nothing, all must be from the same animal, and they’re all tinted blue, like her hair. There’s…a lot really, that she’s capable of, and I’m sorry. I am so sorry for taking part in this, for not stopping it, for not telling you sooner..but I’m changing that. Now. I took as many pictures as I could…I apologize for the blur, it was not easy to get by unnoticed…and sent them with this letter. Below, you’ll find the address of the scientific facility she and others are being held in.
I’m sorry, kid. For everything.
Shakily, Mocha picks up the pictures again, and really studies them. There’s no noise in his head, just deafening silence.
The first one, a blurry blue smudge. Small, clearly running fast past the camera frame.
The second, a bigger blur, more identifiable, a shape resembling that of a baby rhino, surrounded by destroyed laboratory equipment.
The third, a tiny- tiny tiny so small what the hell -hand in the corner of the frame, the main focus a drawing of a stick figure dog.
The fourth picture shatters him. It’s the clearest yet. A small toddler grinning up at whoever is holding the camera, presumably the doctor. She’s dressed in a child’s hospital gown decorated with lions and giraffes, sitting on the floor. On her back sit two itty bitty downy covered baby wings. Her eyes sparkle, the color eerily similar to the ones that stare back at Mocha every day through his mirror. But the final nail in the coffin is her hair. Tightly coiled curls reminiscent of his own, but the color is one he’s recognize anywhere…it’s the exact same gorgeous blue color of the woman he loves.