Barks, yelps, whines and ungodly screeches that sounded like human screams echoed in the endless darkness of the shed.
{Help!} {Food!} {Hate hate hate} {It hurts, it hurts!} {Help...} {I’m so afraid} {Don’t want to die}
Radek shivered all over, as if his soul was about to escape his skin. He couldn’t move, trapped in this hell his father had passed on to him as a family heirloom. The source of their wealth.
The cages crept ever closer, the walls grew taller, and he shrank, shuddering as the world around him hummed like a machine created to cause suffering. The ache in his bones was intense, as if invisible hands stabbed him with needles from every direction. He swallowed a cry, gasping for fresh air in a place that only had miasma.
A tremor ran through his body, squeezing him in half so rapidly he couldn’t keep down the contents of his stomach. He vomited over and over, until all he had in him was bile, and he rolled to the side, frantic as all those glistening eyes stared.
He could have prevented all of this but hadn’t even bothered to step foot in here once.
Pain squeezed around his head like an iron helmet, and his entire body was soon engulfed in the torturous sensation too. Time after time, invisible forces were kicking his ribs in, until he was so small his clothes felt like weighted blankets holding him down in the dirt.
He shivered and didn’t dare open his eyes, too overwhelmed by the never-ending avalanche of screams.
{Help!} {Food!} {Hate hate hate} {It hurts, it hurts!} {Help...} {I’m so afraid}
{He understands!} {Don’t approach!} {Help, please, help} {Who is that?} {Who is he?} {I know that smell} {Where did he go?} {I’m so scared}
Delirious, he heaved under the weight of fabric. Yev must have fed him something, given him drugs. Nothing else made sense.
The screams around him wouldn’t stop, and for a moment he was surrounded by darkness so thick he feared he might have gone blind. But no. He was under a heavy… comforter? Could this have been a nightmare? Impossible. The smell around him was still rot, fur, and death.
His limbs felt weirdly stiff when he pushed away the fabric, and finally looked out.
For half a second, dozens of shining fox eyes settled on him in silence. Then, the shed exploded with deafening noise. He couldn’t understand it anymore, but knew the mayhem was a cacophony of rage, fear, and pain.
Why couldn’t he get up? Why was he still on the floor? The pain was gone, at least, but the choking odor he’d smelled from the moment he’d stepped into the building had somehow gotten more intense, the voices more shrill. He swung around, and his body moved without restriction, as if the passage between the rows of cages wasn’t narrow at all.
And then he saw it—a red tail.
Choking up with panic, he moved again, only to once more see the plush fur.
No.
How.
What?
But when he focused on his body and felt, there was no denying the change, no matter how unbelievable it was. He wasn’t on hands and knees. All four of his feet were on the ground.
The tail was his. And he couldn’t stand any higher, because he was already on his toes.
This had to be a bad dream.
He looked around with a whimper.
{Help}, he tried to say, but there was no one there who could understand him… was there?
The black fox whimpered back at him, but the others raised their voices, rattling their cages as if they knew they could finally take revenge for all the suffering their kind endured here. They did understand him. Not to the extent of a human, but on a level different than speech. Some laughed at his fear, some urged him to run, others kept begging for help.
He glanced at the pile of clothes he’d left behind. Maybe if he went back to them…
The door swung open, revealing the imposing figure of Mr. Gawron. The cacophony of fox sounds died down, and they all cowered in the farthermost corners of their cages, but with no place to hide, they all froze as if fear had blown its cold breath straight inside.
Radek stilled too, his fur bristling even before the blinding beam of the flashlight shone straight into his eyes.
“You lil’ fucker! Get back in there!” Gawron roared and grabbed something from the wall, prompting a sense of cold dread that radiated off the other foxes and closed around Radek’s neck like a collar.
Radek tried to yell