"Can you speak?"

A garbled sound filled the room. It was jumbled, unintelligible. The creature strapped to the table contorted its features like it was confused; the foreign action it was being asked to do was completely frustrating to try.

"Can you say, 'hello?'"

It opened its snout, trembling as it did, and tried to form the word. "He..he...llo," The noise was small and frail.

The scientist standing over the table smiled at the success, scribbling something on the clipboard he held. The man turned around to stare into the glass wall that separated him and the experiment from the viewing room.

"That'll be all for today."

The voice came over the intercom and with a nod the scientist left the room. Meanwhile, in the viewing room was a young girl and her father.

The girl, a young Terran, had her hands splayed out on the glass and her face smushed against it, looking at the experiment with sad eyes. When a delicate hand stroked her blonde hair she looked up and met eyes with her father. "He looks so sad…" She mumbled.

"Oh? Why do you think so?" The father questioned with curiosity.

She averted her eyes from him as she thought. "Well...he sounded sad...and he screams a lot…"

The man chuckled and picked up the girl. With one arm supporting her, he used his other free hand to turn her chin so she had to directly look him in the eyes. "Don't fret, that thing doesn't have feelings. It's just another one of my experiments. If it fails it'll be discarded soon enough so don't go getting attached."

Even with that said, she still lingered on her previous thoughts. "But father-"

"Uh-uh! Now, time for your shots."

She squirmed at the thought. "But I hateee shots!"

With a stern voice the father said, "Maia. What have I said about whining?"

Maia immediately shut her mouth and bowed her head. "I'm sorry, father."

Her father smiled and she received a pat on the head before being set down. "Good girl, now let's go."

Maia accepted the hand being held out to her and was led out of the room. But before she left, she managed to catch a glimpse of the experiment laying strapped to the table in the other room.

— 3 ʏᴇᴀʀs ʟᴀᴛᴇʀ —

During my free time I liked to visit my father's experiments. He had created the most interesting things. One was an animal from Terra, a lion mixed with Orloni from Morag. The product was strange; it had a orloni-like tail and made the same cries of the species. It still had the wonderful mane and claws from a lion. The only thing that was disturbing about it was its face. It was completely deformed, mangled and twisted. It was like it couldn't decide if the thing wanted to have the face of an orloni or a lion so it settled for both.

It couldn't speak. I'd tried talking to it a few times but was met with silence. Out of everything here the only one who could really talk was someone special. My friend, Rocket. Now him being my friend had nothing to do with the fact that he could talk. I guessed he was just more advanced than the other experiments my father made. When Rocket wasn't being tested on he was kept in a small cage. I once asked my father to give him a bigger one but the request was denied.

"Hey," I greeted Rocket. He perked up at my arrival, moving to sit closer to the bars of the cage. "I brought you this, hope you like cake." I reached in my pocket and pulled out a crumpled napkin. Inside was a small slice of vanilla cake, it's color was a light pink and frosting a sugary white.

Rocket took it. "Where'd you get it?" He asked as he dug in, making a mess on himself and dropping crumbs on the cage beneath.

I shrugged. "It was my birthday today."

This drew Rocket's attention up from the cake. "Ah, happy birthday. Did...did your old man attend?"

I looked over at Rocket in surprise. Speaking about my father was one of those you don't have to say don't talk about it to not talk about it. It was an unsaid forbidden subject. Rocket deeply detests my father for creating him and everything after. And I might even hate him a bit for everything he put Rocket through, and all the other experiments. Despite how amazing they might appear I always think back to hearing Rocket's shrill screams and wonders if everything else went through the same pain.

Back to Rocket's question…

I shook my head no. "He had an attendant give me a card saying he was sorry he couldn't be there and how happy he was that I was growing up…"

Rocket scoffed. "He's so full of shit."

"I don't know, he has been busy lately."

"Yeah busy torturing us!" Rocket snapped. 'Us', as in the other experiments.

The two of you locked eyes for a full minute. My brown eyes wide, I'd heard Rocket snap a few times and the few times he did it'd catch me off guard.

Rocket was giving me a hard stare through slitted eyes. It didn't seem like either one would blink until Rocket sighed falling back onto his cage's floor. "You have to see Maia. Your Pops isn't all what he makes himself out to be. What you think he does to us, the good things don't exist. The bad things? You can't even begin to imagine how bad they are."

A heavy silence was produced from his words. It was broken when a beeping sound came from my watch. The two of you glanced at it.

I stood, my short height reaching maybe a head above the cage. "I have to go get my shots." Rocket waved a goodbye and I was off.