Last Chance at Humanity

You growl warningly, ears pressed flat against your head, as the man in the cloak approaches you once more. He's been visiting you here ever since those guards stuck your head and forearms into place between the wooden boards. The stocks. You don't know why you know what they're called. Though it feels as if you've been locked up for months, you know it has most likely only been days, a week at most. Which makes this man's visits all the more frequent.

His smell is familiar to you, even before the first time he stood next to your prison and forced you to gulp down a bottle of one of his disgusting concoctions. It's that familiarity that stops you from outright biting him as soon as he comes near. Not that you'd be able too, not without some casualties – possibly your life. With that thought you glance up at the men lined along the rooftops, aiming crossbows at you and the other prisoners. Prisoners of your kind.

The cloaked man stares at you for a long while and you drop the threatening pretense, opting to instead tilt your head and blink at him sadly. You've done this with him before, pleading with your eyes to be released. The first time he chuckled and told you that your puppy eyes wouldn't work on him, and that brought on a whole new round of confusion. Those two words had triggered some sort of vision – a memory?– and it made you sick.

You were in a house... and there was a large pine tree covered in odd colorful lights in the corner of the room. There was a woman, and she was speaking to you but you couldn't make out any words, though not from lack of trying. Something prompted you to close your eyes and when you reopened them, you had a bundle of fur in your very human lap. The creature stared up at you with it's big glassy eyes, and you couldn't of held back your ecstatic laughter if you wanted too. Puppy eyes.

You showed him exactly how much you appreciated the vision he must of forced on you by retching up his vile potion of the day.

A voice snaps you back into the present, speaking to you softly in a language you don't understand why you can understand.

"I am not giving up on you." The man insists almost passionately, and you have to wonder why he feels such odd loyalty to you. Why he works days and nights to fight back some imagined sickness of yours. What value do you have in his life? What did you do for him?

Nothing. It's the only answer there is, because surely if you had done something to keep him from slaughtering you – a deranged bloodthirsty monster – you would have remembered it. Right? You're not so sure.

"I don't have a cure for the Curse yet... but there are treatments. You will have control again."

There he went again. Blabbering on about some curse... about needing control. Aside from those bloody shackles and the oddly restricting garment you have on, you certainly feel in control.

Your ears flatten again when you notice the man in the ridiculous hat walking towards you. You don't like him. Not after that night he had taunted you while you were caged, not after he had mocked you while these people had wondered whether or not to kill you where you sat or to use you as some sort of freak show experiment.

Godfrey.

Your eyes widen and a shrill whine slips from you mouth, garnering some odd looks from the men in front of you.

Why do you know that name? Why do you know that it's his name and why does it fill you with more rage than before? What had he done to you?

With a roll of his eyes, Godfrey turns from you and begins spitting out more poisonous words to the cloaked man. "Give it up, Krennan. It's time to put this one down. It's protocol."

A snarl rips from your throat, but not for the reason they must think. You do not fear death... all the days you've been locked up here, only being fed the bare minimum, you've come to expect it. But this man, this Krennan, has been more than tolerant of you and he's kept you alive much longer than any of the other beasts they have locked up. You don't understand why he does, but he seems to care for you and you'll be damned if you'll let some arrogant fop act as if he has a say over either of you.

You're about to start barking and snarling and ripping and growling, anything to scare Godfrey away from you, when another man appears from behind and you freeze. His smell is recongnizable, but not in the unexplainable way Krennan's is... it is explainable but the explanation doesn't make sense. He is clearly human.

He glares at Godfrey almost as fiercely as you did and you can do nothing but stare as someone else declares there loyalty towards you.

"Tell me, Godfrey. Those that stayed in Gilneas City so that we could live. Were they following protocol?" Without waiting for an answer, he continues. "I didn't think so. Now hand me that potion, Krennan... and double the dosage."

Krennan hands off the potion to the other man, and you are struck by the very real notion that you could die. You had been ready for it a moment ago, but now the thought terrifies you.

"I need you to pull through this, Corrine. This dosage is strong enough to kill a horse. But I know you, I know what you're made of. You will be fine." He looks you dead in the eyes then, pleading you to understand... but you don't. "Trust me, I know what you're going through. Now drink up and close you're eyes."

How? How could this man possibly know your confusion?

You need to know why all of these humans want you alive, why they are protective of you. You need to know. What great thing have you done for them? Who are you?

Before you can even try to voice your thoughts, Krennan grabs your jaw with his gloved hands, holding your mouth open. This can't happen, you need answers first, so you fight. You thrash your head all over the place trying to break his grasp to no avail... you're weak and you hate it. The rim of a glass bottle is being stuck in your mouth, you head is being tilted back and you squeeze your eyes shut as you guzzle down the liquid at an alarming rate. Strong enough to kill a horse.

Everything goes black, and then... clarity.

End