i am forgotten {paris series}

They take me back to the lab sometimes. I am their pet, their favorite pet, seated on cheap plastic as they shove needles into veins hidden so deep beneath the skin that they can only get precious few drops before moving to scar another. Salt and Pepper sits in a corner of the room, arms crossed in front of his chest as lips pull themselves tightly across his cheeks, impatience at their leisurely pace placing itself deep within his eye sockets. But even Salt and Pepper is scared of them, the men and women in white coats that buzz about and leave bloodied footprints upon the white tile, so he does not rush them. He waits and he burns loathing into the back of my neck because that is what he does best.

I shouldn't be alive. That is all I can muster from the hushed whispers floating around my ears like the flies do in the basement. I don't fit into their status-quo, my mind is perfectly in tact (as far as they can tell, I certainly haven't told them any different.) and I am not dead therefore I am wrong. I am broken.

They walk me around the cages because they know it hurts me. I hear their cries, high pitched squeals of children damned as we make our way around, scientist's nails dug so tightly into my flesh that she draws blood but I don't think she cares or she's trying to do that anyway. I really don't understand why they wish to scar my skin even more, the puffy red welts they left on me had only just begun to fade. And my name, the number branded into my skin. 723. 723. 723. The reminder of my inhumanity and all that I represent, that will never fade.

If I were a better man, I would think that my parents did not want this life for me. I would think that I was stolen from a crib laid with gold and copper in the dead of night and that my parents tirelessly search for the son they never knew. I would think that they loved me.

But I was probably sold for ten dollars worth of crack and a bottle of liquor and my parents are dead or they don't miss me and I can't find it in me to care about them either. I have no friends. I've never had friends. The princess is sweet, she calls me by my name and she cares for me after her father has ruined my flesh again and again and again. She is not my friend. I do not have friends. Friends require touch and love and affection. All those things that have never existed in my world.

Friends are useless in cold, dark worlds like this.

I used to dream of love, back in my early cage days. I did not need to be told of it, I knew what love was. It was warmth, it was gentle kisses on the lips and the cheeks, it was being held in strong arms and being protected. I wanted to find love, all of those good warm feelings that I craved. There were strong boys in my dreams, ones that held me and loved me and everything was right in the world. Everything was so right until I woke up and they cut my skin and they made me scream until my throat bled.

No strong boy ever came to save me and so I knew love did not exist. I saved myself, or perhaps killed myself in my determination to see the light of day. To see the sun shrouded in blue like with white clouds crawling across the horizon. I wanted to see the moon and the stars and to feel the wind on my face. But I still have not seen them. Not in their entirety. My precious few moments outside of the lab or Salt and Pepper's mansion are spent blindfolded and shackled, led to one of the other in a brisk, impatient manner. The sun and the moon are seen through dingy, basement windows. In sixteen years I have only moved into a slightly bigger cage. I am the same broken bird singing the same broken song.

"He's all done." The Scientists never address me, I am but the air in front of them as they press my wrists together, biding them with thick rope and folding black cloth over my eyes. I know that it is Salt and Pepper's hand around my throat. I remember the feeling of his nails digging into the front of my throat, gentle whistle sounds every inhale I take. He pulls me by the throat, I can feel the sun upon my face for a mere moment before I am plunged into darkness once more.

--

I am drowning, needles tearing at my throat as I thrash and I beg, I scream but no sound dare leave me. It has hidden beneath my tongue for more than eight years now. I swing through the rapids, back and forth and back and forth, suspended by a piece of thread. I am drowning but there is no water, I am drowning- choking on the air. Please let me breathe. Please let me live. I don't want to die. I don't-

Salt and Pepper releases me, throwing me upon a dusty floor and leaving my ears ringing and my eyes swimming. I do not look at him as he turns, heavy breaths echoing upon my prison's walls as I force myself to my knees. And my lungs scream loudly, crackling and ringing and sobbing although I cannot. Their volume is almost ear piercing but they are not loud enough to stop the chilling click of a lock sliding into place.

And I am so overcome by hopelessness that it squeezes the life from me.

--

He has not fed me. I don't know what I've done wrong but hunger claws at my insides, leaving them bloody and raw. It's been two days and I should be used to this but I am so weak and so scared and I want to eat so badly that I pound at the wooden door with all the strength left in my bones, but they do not hear me and they do not care. He doesn't care.

I want to ask Princess for something. For scraps. For the food that has fallen on the floor or been thrown away but my tongue is dry and dead and it is sewn to the roof of my mouth.

I am going to die here. I am going to die here if I don't do something soon.

I have to run. I have to run and run and I have to never look back.

I'm going to escape or I'm going to die trying. (Because at this point, I wouldn't mind either one.)