bodies moving in retrograde [tom]

Training was something that Stitch never thought he would do.

Mostly because he spent most of his days in the shop trying to recreate whatever his mother wanted him to make.

Sometimes what she came up with was beautiful, but other times, they were nightmares waiting to come to fruition.

Stitch tried to steer clear of anything that he did not find favorable but he couldn’t always escape what his mother wanted from him. There would be days where she would threaten him with no food if he did not complete the work that she wanted.

Some days Stitch went without food, and somedays he didn’t. It just depended on how he felt that day.

---

There were days that Stitch felt like he was hero for himself. He could do anything that he put his mind too, and he wasn’t afraid of anyone telling him differently.

And then there were days where he retreated back to his room with his tail between his legs.

As much as he wanted to show people that he was strong, he knew that wasn’t always the case.

He was good when he wanted to be, and bad the other times.

And while people tried to stay on the good side of things, it didn’t help that Stitch could be a little shit when he wanted too.

There were days where he told his mother off, and there were days where he ran away as long as he could.

Those days he would spend them with Connor, and he prayed that one day he would be able to save him from whatever hell he was placed in for that day.

But Connor could only do so much, and he always had to go back home because there was always someone looking for him. His mother couldn’t stay mad at him because she knew that he was the only reason why she was so successful.

She always conceded to Stitch at the end of the story, but she still found ways to terrorize him into whatever she wanted.

It was an unhealthy relationship that he was happy to never be a part of ever again.

But no one would know that, because no one knew Stitch here.

---

And so he moved around the training center to see what could have been useful for him to learn while he was here.

Nothing too out of the ordinary for him, except for maybe the strength and self-defense stations.

He moved around with quiet feet while he observed the people that he would be in the arena with soon enough.

None of them looked like they wanted to be here, just like Stitch. However, Stitch was sure that none of them were happy to be away from home like he was. As much as Stitch hated to admit it, he was ready to move on from this life, and if this was going to be the freedom that was offered to him at the end of the tunnel, then so be it.

It would be as freeing as running away anyway.

---

He came up to the rope wall and wondered what could have been so hard about something like this.

An arm reached up and clutched onto the first rung, and then a leg lifted below. His footing was firm, and his grip could be rivaled with a mother holding onto her baby for dear life.

Stitch wondered what have might been scary about something like this. Nothing.

There was nothing that was scary about this place, and that was something that was becoming more apparent the more time he spent here.

It was a liaison to their deaths, if anything.

What they did here would reflect on them in the arena.

Stitch kept climbing until he reached the top, pulling himself up like he did back in eight when he climbed his tree. He perched himself on the top, his feet hanging off the platform and he took a good look at what was going on around him.

As much as Stitch saw the depravity of a place like he, he knew that he needed to find the beauty as well.

Then Stitch could make peace with his impending death.