-And that's why I decided to do my report on the unjustified testing of animals." Ever finished her essay, looking up behind the four-paged packet and scanned the classroom around her. Most of the students were uninterested, drawing on their essays or just staring off into space in a place remotely close to where she was. Anger built up inside of her, irritated by how unenthusiastic everyone was about the safety of animals.

She looked towards her teacher, Mr. Martin, expecting some look of praise and admiration for all her hard work and weeks of studying and preparation; but he simply gave her a glance and motioned with his pencil for her to take her seat. "Very well, Ms. Winters, alright! Now up next is…"

The school bell rang, signaling the end of the last period for the High Schoolers, and as the teenagers flooded out of their classrooms to get to their lockers and leave to the busses, two girls walked very slowly behind the crowd.

"He completely ignored me!" Exclaimed Emma White, Ever Winter's best friend. Her short-brown hair was frizzed up, as if stressed, and flailed her hands in wild motions as she spoke. "I don't know what I have to do to get his attention!"

"Me too!" Ever exclaimed angrily. "I spent two weeks on that paper in Social Studies and what do I get? A bored teacher and some stupid gawks from the other students!" Emma gave Ever a long look, finally rolling her eyes and gave a loud sigh of irritation. "Why am I stuck with the only girl who doesn't notice the hot guys?"

Ever laughed. "I don't have time for men, or anybody, for that matter. How is the world going to get better if I'm stuck with some guy chasing his tail and jumping through hoops just to get my attention?" "I'm assuming you're speaking of Thomas." Emma replied.
"Of course I'm talking about Thomas! At least he has an open mind," Ever rolled her shoulders and took out her backpack. "now if you excuse me, I have blocks to walk."

Ever walked down the streets, cars passing by in random patterns. She glanced around, eyeing the random patches of grass in the dull dirt beside the sidewalk and the cracks in the ground. Usually, she'd have to walk by a few people or cross a road, so she'd quickly pay more attention to her position and remain cautious about her surroundings.

As Ever walked, she began to notice that the stores that usually had costumers were a bit empty, and that people were walking into an odd-looking shop. As she passed by, Ever took the time to read the sign on the see-through window.

PAUL KRAFT'S FREAKSHOW
Have you heard of the new pet showcases?

If not, we HIGHLY suggest you come in and test it out yourself, who knows…

You may find everything you've been looking for.

Ever quickly felt like she needed to step into the 'Freakshow'. Pet showcases? She immediately felt offended; how dare they! She could only guess the horrible things they'd do to those poor animals, maybe they even had the rare cases of the body-conjoined cat twins, or two-headed calves, or even a dog born with two legs. She quickly felt sick to her stomach, the idea of someone making a showcase for people to laugh at poor animals with disabilities made her angry and confused. There was nothing different from a mentally disabled child and a physically disabled animal.

She walked in without a moment to waste, and realized with a start that the room was filled with ten, maybe eleven people. They were all in groups of either two or three, and the moment she walked in two of the men started chatting her up. From the looks of it, they both worked there.

"Sorry, We're not open to Middle Schoolers." "I'm not in Middle School." Ever shot back, noticing how the man had a tight black suit and the other had a lean, old looking gray suit. "We're not open to anyone under age." The gray-suited man tried. "I'm 18." Ever said back.

The man gave each other a short glance, then asked, "What're you here for?" "I saw the sign."
Immediately, the men got a brighter appearance. "That's what you're here for? Well, follow us then. First-Timers get in for the first time for free, the Boss thinks it rounds them in." Ever scrunched up her face in disgust. "We'll just see about that."

As she followed the men, she tightly gripped her backpack, ready to swing it and hit them with her heavy books if they tried anything. As they walked behind the counter and into the door, Ever insisted they go first (which they did so, thankfully) and followed in behind them. As she walked in, Ever immediately smelt the familiar stench of alcohol, and the tinge of over-used air freshener.

Ever looked around cautiously, fully aware that the whole place seemed to be full of over-dress women and men, although some men seemed to be dressed up like they've lived in the shadows their whole lives.

Ever walked ahead of the suited workers when they motioned her to go on, wanting to get a better look around. This place looked completely high-class, and she felt a tad out of place wearing a short-sleeved shirt with jean shorts. Picking a spot to stand at, Ever glanced around. Almost everybody was in a group, the shady people seemed anti-social, and she could hear whispers. But the amount of whispers cancelled each other out, making it impossible to even pick out simple phrases or a word.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! Please settle down and pay close attention to the contestants!"

Ever's eyes narrowed, staring at the direction the voice came from. A large crowd began to form in front of a large stage, and she quickly rushed to stand in front of everybody else, wanting to get a good sight at what helpless animals they had locked up. At the first chance she'd get, she'd call the police and do everything in her power to get those defenseless animals away from these sick people.

She stared accusingly at the man that walked onto the stage, swinging a cane around for show and finally tapped it on the floor and leaned on it. "Well, isn't this interesting? We got all ages in this crowd!" Ever noticed that the man's eyes locked on her for a moment, then went to look around farther.
Disgust filled her from top to bottom, and she tightened her grip on her backpack.

"Of course, I would like to remind everyone who wants to buy the contestants"-Ever quickly realized contestants probably meant the "freaks"-" to pay upfront or not at all. Remember, we all have a 10 minute wait so I'd hurry and pay up after the explanations." His eyes went to Ever for a second, as if expecting her to swoon and smile at him; but all she did was glare.

He got a cocky smile, and finally pointed his cane toward the left of Ever. She followed the direction the cane was pointed at, and eyed a large square-shaped object with a red blanket over it that was pushed out (Ever guessed the box had wheels at the bottom.)

"The first contestant we have today is very unnatural, found him creeping along the borders of the forest, and had quiet the fight in him; although with time, and enough bindings, we got him to calm down." The man said, leaning against his cane again and brushed off his shoulder. Ever took notice to how brightly coloured the man was, he wore a bright blue suit with a white tie and black buttons. She bit back the snort and sarcastic bark she longed to throw at him.

"He has quiet the complexion, gray skin, auburn hair,"- Hair? Ever thought. -"and the highest tolerance to pain!" The man in the blue suit then walked forward, tapped the box with his cane to make a few ting sounds, and flung the red blanket aside.

Her mouth dropped almost instantly, and her eyes widen. There sat a boy in a cage. Not an animal, but a human being. Freakshow suddenly went up in her mind, and she finally realized what type of… auction this was. The sound of oohs and ahs filled her ears, but the only thing she could process was how scared he looked. His skin was gray, and his auburn hair was kinked up in multiple directions, he had thick eyebrows and his mouth was torn at the right, looking as though a dog took a clean bite out of it.

"Now come to me in an orderly fashion, people, I don't have the ability to remember everything!" The man said, walking off the stage while the whole crowd barged past Ever to keep up with him; obviously wanting to ask him all sorts of questions and bid.

The boy glanced around rapidly, gripping the bars and pulled, starting to jerk his body about in distress; it was clear to Ever that he was scared and didn't know how to deal with being cornered. She glanced towards the crowd of people, then around herself; no one was paying attention to her or the boy in the cage.
She didn't wait another second.

Ever took out her heaviest book from her backpack, ran to the cage, and located the lock. She and the boy had a short moment of eye contact, and the only thing she could muster was; "This might fire back."

Ever raised the book above her head and brought it down on the lock, the lock gave a loud CHANG but didn't budge. The boy finally realized what she was doing, and quickly got to the far back of the cage and waited for Ever to bring the book down on the lock for the second time, wanting to ram the door to apply more brute force. Ever took the chance she had, knowing that it wouldn't be too long before people realized what she was doing. She raised the book, and knocked it back down on the lock; this time the boy rammed into the door at the same time.

Ever yelped as her body was smashed into by the boy's, and soon after loud screams and yells were ringing in her ears. The boy got up, grabbed her wrist, and ran. He kept exclaiming things, incoherent things, and he ran fast. Ever had dropped her book, and sooner-or-later they had barged their way out of the auction shop, and booked it. Finally, the boy had yelled something that Ever could understand… a little bit. "My master is going to be so mad- Oh Tim will get a kick out of this!"

"Who's- Who's Tim?" Ever asked, realizing her legs were weak and brittle and she was too scared and so shocked that she had the courage to save somebody from being sold to freaks!

"Doesn't matter," He said back, letting go of her wrist and whipped around to grab her shoulders so that she was facing him directly- which was a tad hard because of the height difference. She realized that he had a jacket, a striped jacket, a black turtle neck, and jeans. "You helped me." He seemed absolutely baffled by her act of kindness; although he had the largest grin Ever had seen.

"I saw you, but… I thought you were with them…" He continued. "Never." Ever said quickly, the look of disgust following. "They're sick." She added.

"…Thanks." He said finally, letting go of her shoulders and ran. Ever guessed he had ran back to the forest where he was found, or where-ever. As Ever looked around, she found out that she was right in front of her apartment building, where she stayed and paid rent. She quickly glanced behind herself, wanting to make sure the men didn't follow her or… whoever he was.

Ever quickly rummaged through her backpack, took out her room key, and walked inside the building to find her room.

Ever looked herself down, deciding it was okay to go out like this for a cloudy day like this. She was wearing a blue long-sleeved sweater with a white tang-top underneath and gray sweat pants. She had tried to comb her short brown hair(with bright ginger tips), but it wouldn't stay in place so finally she just let her hair go and do whatever it so pleased, which was block almost every part of her vision. She had tanned skin, and perfect, short nails. Her vibrant green eyes were almost completely covered by her hair, which made her wonder if she should cut her hair into bangs. Although, Ever didn't think she would look good in bangs so she dismissed the idea.

It had been nine days sense she had saved the boy, and somehow, someone had went to her school and given back her school book she used to break the lock. She was extremely grateful for that, but it worried her to an extent. Her name was inside the book, and her signature was also inside it.

She had also decided to take a longer route to her apartment, never wanting to see that auction shop ever again.