Cold, sad, why…
She sat, huddled in a feathery ball on the middle of the cage, rubbing her arms frantically. Teeth gritted, she wrapped her only slightly warmer wings tighter around herself. The downy feathers kept heat in, but not much. The poor thing was dressed in a shabby hospital gown; barely enough to cover her, let alone keep her warm.
The room never got really cold like this, being kept at a moderate temperature. But now it dropped steadily with each minute.
Was this another sick test that those madmen performed on helpless screw ups like her?
Actually, just this screw up.
They were very interested in the question of, "Could she survive, or function in colder climates?"
Well, she wasn't part polar bear, was she?
They dropped the number on the thermostat, leaving it around 45 degrees Fahrenheit. Just warmer than freezing.
The cold was starting to hurt, in her chest, in her feet. Her body felt like a cold desert, dry and dead. Her icy lips mumbled gibberish, straying herself away from bursting out in pained tears.
No, cold, please…
Please…
She formed the sound of the word in her mouth. P-L-E-A-S-E. Please.
It sounded good. It rolled on her tongue easily.
Next thing she could render, that word was streaming from her lips, shouting at the ceiling, over and over again. And it was the first real word she had ever spoken.
"PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!" The girl screamed, rocking back and forth. This was completely new to her, petty as it may seem. The pleas for mercy echoed off the stone walls, the voice rough and scratchy.
Voice, good, should, stop…
The word thing had seemed to click in the fifteen year olds mind. Something had fit in.
"PLEASE STOP COLD!"
Her somewhat developed brain was spinning with different ways she could say it, the way she moved her tongue, and how it affected the word.
She still was freezing her ass off.
"Stop cold!" She rattled on, feeling her throat clench up from shouting so much. Why couldn't they see she was not built for extreme weather?
Not freaking inch of "polar bearity" on the poor thing.
"Subject 54, test over."
And like that, the warm was back.
The girl was startled by the heat, for it was so sudden. But as the air flowed, and her muscles slowly relaxed, she felt less dry and dead.
"Ahh..." She sighed, rubbing her still stiff arms. The great mahogany wings unfurled from around the girl, stretching out to their full length of thirteen feet, if a bit smaller than should be. She marveled the sense of joy as the -just- as -stiff muscles relinquished. Thank goodness her cage was very big.
Feels…nice…act-ually.
The tests were so routine; you would have thought she was used to it by now. Nope. Every test brought a new dilemma, a new kind of pain. And they stuck. Think of it as slapping a giant wad of chewing gum on a half done oil painting.
Yeah, that would fit.
She shook her head, letting the mangled up, knotted hair swish back and forth across her shoulders and down her back.
No…more…tests…
She was about to sigh again, when the clickety clack of shoes made her ears prick and the hair on her neck stand up.
Danger…
She went impulsively into battle mode, as she always had done. The girl zipped to the back of the cage in a flash.
The clickety clack got very close.
She heard the faint scratching, and mumbled whispers of somewhat recognizable words.
"She can talk. Not a skill." A gravelly voice mumbled.
"Well, what might we do with her?"
"That was the last test. We have no apparent use for her."
The other assistant nodded quickly, and wrote in big letters across the top of the paper, Subject 54: To Be Executed.