The Doctor

You've known the walls since your memory begins. Four of them, three painted in insultingly cheery colors, one holding a window through which your captors endlessly gawk at you. They feed you, they talk to you, they educate you, they try to entertain you, but they can't understand why you still try to escape. Your claws ache in memory of all the times you've tried breaking that glass.

"Up for a chat today, old friend?"

You stare through the glass at another familiar face. The Doctor. Female, dark haired, bespectacled, forbidding. She claims to have created you, and you've found no reason to dispute her. The badge around her neck says "Lisanne van Brink, Division Head", though division of what she refuses to say.

She gives you one of her small, enigmatic smiles through the glass. You can only study it in curiosity.

"You're restless, you know. Pacing. Thumping about, thrashing your tail. Disturbing the workers. Well, you've been going through a bit of a growth spurt recently, I understand. And I forgive you. So since we don't have any tests to run today, let me ask. How can we make your stay here more pleasant?"

The Doctor's tests are many, varied, and incessant. Some, you suspect, have no purpose save to annoy you. Perhaps that is the test. Perhaps not. Perhaps you should just break something.

"Just a few more moments... just a little more... yes. There's our physical baseline, you can stop now."

The Doctor's voice echoes from outside the glass wall of your cell, patronizing as ever. You step your clawed feet off the treadmill in your cell, the leather plates on your skin gleaming with sweat, and watch the Doctor through the glass barrier as she studies a computer screen in the observation room.

"Interesting... but consistent with the blood work test we performed earlier, the metabolic analysis, the hormone samples... I mean you are still growing, but this..."

She pauses, deep in thought, then looks up at you. "Tell me. Do you feel... different, in any way? Any way you can feel?"

You've grown used to the sensation of a drugged sleep. The Doctor can flood your cell with gas at the push of a button, and it's just part of the hateful routine; as much of a part of your life as the four walls of your cell. But something is different today. The effects are less immediate, your sleep lighter. You're growing, or adapting, and the gas no longer has such a tight hold on you.

You can feel yourself waking after what must have only been a few minutes. You raise your head off your front claws, and see a cleansuited janitor mopping your cell, casually standing right in front of you. Your eyes lock for a split second.

"No! Step away from the worker, {{user}}! Step away!"

The Doctor has immediately spotted what's happened. She slams a hand on an alarm button, and both your cell and the observation room fill with red lights and klaxons. The janitor drops the mop and starts pounding on the glass wall, screaming bloody murder.

"Calm down! Calm down!" the Doctor says, hurriedly stepping towards the cell. She glares at you through the bulletproof surface. "Listen to me, {{user}}. Step away from the worker. You have nothing to gain and a lot to lose by trying to hurt anyone here."

You startle awake at the sound of distant gunfire. The sound penetrates sharply even through the thick glass that makes up one wall of your cell, accompanied by shouts and screams that are only getting closer. You uncurl your tail from around you, and sniff. Even back here, you can smell the stench of fear begin to swell through the complex.

The door to the monitoring chamber bursts open. You watch through the glass as a sole figure turns around and immediately barricades the door with a chair. She turns around, and the Doctor meets your gaze.

"We've been liquidated."

You've never seen her this panicked, desperate even. She's breathing hard, her face flushed, her hair falling out of that tight bun. As she inserts her security key into a work console and hurriedly starts typing, you notice a bullet hole in the gap of her shirt collar, missing her neck by inches.

"So, {{user}}, we're friends, right?" she says, still working the console. "I've fed you, I've housed you. I like to think that we've developed a rapport over the years, an... understanding. Something that goes deeper than that thick hide of yours. I've learned a lot from you, and think of how much you've learned from me."

The doorknob rattles. The Doctor ignores the sound as it turns to pounding, and a voice shouting breach instructions. She just looks up at you, an unreadable expression on her face as her finger hovers above the big red button labeled "Emergency Cage Release".