The itch was so bad.
I wanted to tear my skin out, it was so bad. I'd had this pain for my entire life. I was an experiment, a failed one. At one point I had been just the beging for a new generation of human/snake hybrids, but now I was just another waster, waiting for termination.
Sometimes it felt like my whole back, covered in scales, was on fire. I've never felt fire,or seen it. But I have heard things from older experiments that escaped at some point, or from the occasional scientist.
I rubbed my back against the cold bars of the cage, being careful not to rip my scales out. That hurt even more than the hot wire experiment when I was about 7.
Suddenly, the door swung open. A young, skinny whitecoat came in carrying a clipboard. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and then turned down Row D, Reptiles, making a beeline for my small dog cage.
It was obvious he didnt like it - he was sweating, the kids in cages making him nervous. He was probably new, fresh from college. The new ones were always like this. He fumbled with his keys as he struggled to undo my door. Stupid whitecoat. Absentmindedly, I imagined the silver key fitting into the hole of the lock, and turning smoothly and opening with a loud click.
It did.
The whitecoat wasnt touching it.
The door swung open with a sqeak.
There was no time to think about my newly discovered really cool power - Suddenly I jerked into action and flung myself at the whitecoat. He collapsed with a small, his head smashing back into glass of the small barred window near my cage shattered, setting the wailing alarm off, a sound I had heard only three times before in my entire life.
Darn!
There were shouts of encouragement, and some of anger as I paused a second - to take a (hopefully) last look at Storage Room 4. I couldn't save anyone else, they knew it and I knew it - there wasn't time. I quickly managed to squeeze out through the window and broke into a clumsy run. I'd run before, yes, but only ever run on treadmills, for experiments. I'd never run on bumpy ground , let alone experienced the rain, coming down in buckets, drenching me quickly to the bone.
A roar of anger alerted me to a pack of young erasers. No! They were not going to keep me this time. I sprinted to the outer barbed wire fence and scrambled over it, and, determinedly ignoring the burning pain on my back, the judder of an electric fence and the large scratches on my legs I ran off into the forest, hoping that the erasers would abandon their chase.
For a moment, I forgot the pain on my skin, and I smiled, the taste of freedom on my lips.
Thank you for reading!