Saturday 28 January 2012

After some abstinence more of my work

I am sorry it has been so long, but finally here is more from my latest book. Please don't be shy and let me know what you think. Every comment is welcome.

Floodgates of the Heavens

Yesterday's flashbacks wakened me. I was still in my burrow, lying on soft moss and grass in one of my nests. I slowly raised my head and sniffed the air. The smell of fresh earth filled the tunnels. There was no other scent. I slowly got up and hopped to the nearest exit hole. Carefully I poked my head outside, put up my ears and sniffed the air once more. There was still no sign of anything else. There was only a fresh breeze blowing over the clearing.

I decided to have breakfast and with a couple of hops I was out in the open. I started to graze and dug up a couple of delicious roots. The digging helped me get the sleep out of my joints. A quick stretch and a thorough clean also helped.

 After the little exercise I was awake, bright and fresh. The nightmares of the previous days had become a silent echo, barely audible. I was looking around and appreciated the beauty of my new surroundings. I could start a new life here, refresh and recharge before I went back to solving the secrets that my mind was keeping from me. I had too much to explore, too many other things to think about. It was time for me to take a break from the tortures I had endured and instead concentrate on this beautiful place, this paradise.
I didn't know how long it would be until I was caught again and put away. I knew that all of this was simply too good to be true, that the wood, which was surrounding the clearing on all sides, was hiding something from me. I knew that something had happened to me, that my head had been tempered with. I was certain that some sort of experiment had been conducted on me, but I simply couldn't let this opportunity of pure enjoyment and relaxation go to waste – nothing should spoil it for me for once.

I lay down on the grass and stretched out. It was wonderful. The warm sun was shining on my pelt and I lowered my ears in complete relaxation. I slowly dozed off into a gentle dream, only now and again opening my eyes to check my surroundings very quickly, then closing them again and continuing my snooze.

 Eventually I woke up. I must have been asleep for several hours, because the sun was high up in the sky now. I was lying in the middle of the lawn, out in the open, but I was so confident that nothing would happen to me here that I had ignored my natural instincts and had relaxed and fallen asleep. I felt refreshed and recharged, ready for more adventures.

I quickly cleaned myself and then started to dig a little – just for fun. The soil was so nice and fresh, it was such a pleasure to burrow my paws into it and feel the dirt between my claws and smell the fresh grass.
Then, all of a sudden, out of nowhere came this flash of memory. For a split second I saw what had been done to me. The image returned and this time stayed a little longer. The image itself didn't hurt me, but the memories it dragged up out of the deepest recesses of my brain were terribly painful. Memories of being fed some sort of powder which invoked severe stomach pains, incredible spasms which lasted for hours and in the end made me faint with exhaustion. Memories of creams being rubbed into my eyes, making them painfully sore and swollen, usually so bad that I couldn't see properly for days afterwards. Some sort of solutions had been sprayed onto my coat, into my mouth and into my eyes, making me smell horribly and burning my skin down to the flesh, making it impossible for me to eat, drink or move.

Every experiment felt like it was going to kill me, but somehow I always survived and was nursed back to health, just to endure the next set of tests, every one more painful and more severe than the last. Neither my body nor my mind was given a chance to fully relax and forget what had happened. I had just recovered when I was exposed to another potion and more pain.

During every experiment there had been two people in white coats who administered the substances to me. A man and a woman with rubber gloves, test tubes and all sorts of instruments. They used saws to open my skull and inspect my brain functions. Even though they didn't give me any anaesthetic I managed not to faint.
I had never worked out what this experimentation was for or what it tried to prove. There clearly was no relationship between those cruel people and me. There were hardly any parts of my anatomy or physiology that were similar to theirs. I was a herbivore and they were omnivores; I had a fur coat, they were wearing white coats; I had whiskers and the man had a beard. Where was the connection?

But my mind dragged up more of what had happened. It wasn't only the daily experiments and treatments that I suddenly remembered. There was more, something about this terrible experiment had changed me completely and fundamentally. I had suppressed these feelings for such a long time, and it was only now that my brain finally decided it was time to remind me.

I suddenly knew what they had done to me.

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