hand, I pull the hood from my head. Metal bars surround me on three sides. On the fourth side is a smooth metal wall, and overhead looms a low metal ceiling.
Someone sucks in a deep breath. I look toward the sound and yelp. Forgetting the pain in my hand I scramble to my feet and crack my head on the low ceiling before falling back into a crouch. And then I see the bars separating us and sigh.
A girl, probably my age, squats in the cage beside mine. She looks human enough, except she has her narrow face pressed against the bars of my cage, her dilated eyes are devouring me, and drool drips from her chin.
She reaches one of her sinewy-strong arms through the slotted bars and swipes at me with jagged yellow nails of all different lengths. I freeze as air swishes against my face. When her reach falls short, she hisses and tries again, jamming her body against the bars to get her hand as close to me as possible. Her nail teases my hair and I whimper.
Never taking my eyes from her, I inch my way to the other side of the cage and press my shoulder blades against the bars. The female howls and slams herself against the bars separating us, making my cage rattle.
Behind me something stirs and groans. I look over my shoulder and stop breathing, stop moving.
In the cage on my other side is another beast, curled up in fetal position with his back to me. He is a broad-shouldered male, his skin covered with scabs and bruises and half-moon teeth marks. He whimpers and jolts, his hands and feet paddling the air like a dog dreaming about running. I scoot to the middle of my cage and sit with my back pressed against the metal wall. If I sit in the cage’s exact center, neither beast will be able to reach me. Hopefully.
Stiff and rigid as granite, face forward, I breath shallow wisps of air that hardly make my rib cage move. The female beast lurches for me, her hand mere inches from my shoulder. After a few minutes she gives up.
Slowly, with the passage of time, I notice the throbbing pain in my hand again. Without moving my head, I look at it and whimper. At the sound of my voice, the female beast snarls and rams her body against the bars separating her cage from mine. She does it a second time, making the bars shudder. I scoot an inch toward the male beast on my left and close my eyes, cradling my swollen, deformed pinky to my chest, trying to ignore the panting coming from the female beast.
Minutes or hours pass. I don’t know which. But my finger has doubled in size and turned purple, and the female beast has drooled a pool of saliva into my cage. And I smell food.
From the corner of my eye I see the beast to my left stir. He stretches his long, lean body and sits, staring out the front of his cage. Feet thump on the ground and something squeaks. For the first time I take a good look around, moving my eyes without turning my head. The room is long and narrow and lined with cages—like an animal shelter—and most cages are occupied. But instead of holding stray dogs and cats, they hold beasts and Fecs. The cage across from me houses a slack, bony form with short, chopped hair, wearing my old shorts. Arrin.
A man pushing a cart with a squeaky wheel walks slowly in front of the cages, pausing before each to slide a plate under the two-inch gap beneath the door before dumping its contents onto the cage floor. When he gets to Arrin’s cage, she doesn’t move. Even when the man slides a pile of slop into her cage and dumps it onto the floor by her head.
One by one, he feeds all the caged things on the opposite side of the room and then starts on my side. He slowly makes his way toward me and pauses at the cage beside mine—the female beast’s cage. Cautiously, he slides a plate under the cage, dumps the contents onto the floor, and then yanks the plate back lightning fast. The female beast sniffs but doesn’t move from her position, staring at me like I’m dinner.
He comes to my cage and pauses, peering at me through the bars. Then he slides the plate under, dumping a heap