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He wakes up in a cage big enough for him to crouch low. He's muzzled, his hands tightly bound.
The truck bumps along the road, the drivers up front uncaring. The radio is on low, singing about things in a low enough tune that it was near impossible to grasp the words.
What was his name? Why was he here?
A particularly harsh bump causes him to hit his head harshly against the top of the cage. He growls.
"Shut up back there." One of the drivers say.
'Who are you?' he wanted to ask them, 'why am I here? Who am I?'
Instead all that comes out is garbled, muffled words. The drivers seem not to notice his attempt to speak, though, merely going about the way they were a second ago - the driver absently tapping their fingers against the steering wheel to the beat, and the passenger taking another swig of his drink.
He looks to the bindings on his hands - they're glowing a light blue.
In fact, he's glowing, too. Just not blue. He was glowing a very faint white.
Why was he glowing? Why were the bindings glowing?
He sighs as another bump in the road has him hitting his head against the bars, twisting his arm awkwardly. That was going to bruise.
The rest of the truck was empty save for various things surrounding his cage - things that reminded him of old machinery parts. Maybe it would go to an RV?
...What was an RV? How did he know what machinery was?
His head hurt.
He attempts to lean to the side, taking in the back of the truck with mild curiosity. A lot of the junk back here looked like old gun parts - maybe gun parts, anyway. Some of it was stuff that'd go to a vehicle.
He didn't know what a gun was, but he quickly remembered that a vehicle was something like the truck he was in.
Having remembered that was a relief, at least.
The drivers are bickering about something, now, and he sighs yet again.
Looking up, he catches a glimpse of something weird -
- It was large, and scary. He couldn't help but try to recoil back in fear of it.
But the strange thing didn't so much as twitch. In fact, it seemed like it was sleeping.
It was blue - kind of like the blue glow from the bindings on his hands - and it looked odd. Some large part of him wondered why it wasn't green. It was supposed to be green.
It was wrong - why wasn't it green? Why was it blue? Did someone make it angry?
"See the sky, ghost?" One of the drivers - the one from before - said, turning around to look at him with a sneer, "take a nice long look. That's the last time you're ever going to see it."
He looks to the driver, away from the blue monster. He makes a noise in question, shifts a leg in discomfort.
"The sky," the other driver - the one who hasn't spoken until now - clarifies. Her voice was soft compared to her partner, almost soothing, if just a bit sad, "just look up. Keep looking up, okay?"
He didn't know why, but the way she said that made him follow her order without hesitation. He looked up, out of the back window.
He looked up to the sky.
The blue reminded him of comfort - of food on the table, of laughter, of emotions he couldn't name.
It reminded him of late nights playing with friends, having fun.
Of a messy lair; a half-made nest of pillows and blankets ready for him to come and flop himself as hard as he could into it, ready for him to come back and burrow as far down in the pillowy mess as he could.
Of walls covered with stars that shine far into the night, always there, always a comforting sight after a long day.
The sky reminded him of home.
Perhaps, he thinks to himself, as they prepare to load his cage into another truck, the sky is his home.
The fact that it was the first and last time he saw home didn't matter.
The sky is home.
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