4. Lost Freedom
It was early morning and Red had begun to stir. He'd fallen into a deep uneasy sleep the previous day after finding himself trapped inside a strange earth. Unbeknown to Red his situation had in fact got much worse while he slept. During the afternoon and night following his imprisonment he had been found and moved by those responsible for setting the trap.
Two humans had arrived at the earth in the early hours of the night. They had lifted the wooden plank expecting their trap to be empty as usual, but were ecstatic to find that this wasn't the case. Inside was a fox, a black coated fox to be exact. Neither had seen such an animal before or knew if it was possible to ever see one. What they did know though, was that their buyer would pay handsomely for such a specimen. They quickly removed the cage from the ground and loaded the unknowing Red into their truck. With their job complete they set off into the night, transporting Red to his new home.
Red slowly opened his eyes and raised his head. He felt terrible, his head was pounding and his vision spun. Something was wrong, he felt ill, very ill, and cold too. His vision finally stopped spinning long enough that he could take in his surroundings. He was no longer in the earth he went to sleep in that was for sure. The cage still surrounded him but outside of it was what seemed like a large cave. It was odd for a cave though, the walls were straight and flat. Likewise were the floor and ceiling, everything seemed so artificial. To his left and right were other cages, rows and rows of them, all lined up. Inside were sleeping animals of all descriptions. Most of them were small animals, mice, rats, rabbits, voles, the list went on and on. There was one other large animal besides himself present though, another fox was in a cage one along from his. It was an old, decrepit looking male who twitched and fidgeted as he slept. Red suddenly became aware of a pair of eyes watching him through the gloom. He stared back, trying his best not to let the fear building in the pit of his stomach show on his face.
"So, you've finally decided to wake up, eh?" said a squawking voice that came from the direction of the eyes.
"Who are you, and what do you mean?" asked Red.
"Your eyes aren't very good are they?" replied the voice "very well seen as you can't come to me, I'll have to come to you."
There was a flutter of wings and a clang. A large bird had swooped down and alighted on top of Red's cage. It was the single oddest bird Red had ever seen. It was bright red with yellow and blue wings. The bird was huge, its bright white face stared down at him.
"What are you?" stammered Red.
"What's the matter never seen a parrot before, eh?" replied the bird.
"A parrot?" Red said looking confused.
"A Scarlet Macaw to be exact, name's Macaw," said the bird.
"Now you know my name it's only fair I know yours," continued Macaw.
"It's...it's..." Red began. He stared into the distance, it was gone, he couldn't remember his own name!
"I don't know, I can't remember," he finished.
"Ho-ho-ho so they've started already have they?" laughed Macaw
"Who's started what exactly? Stop speaking in riddles, give me some straight answers" said Red gaining his composure.
"The humans...this place, they do tests here, experiments if you will," Macaw tried to explain "and the animals here are their test subjects, which is bad news for you I'm afraid."
"So, I'm inside one of those human dens then, what kind of tests do they do here?" asked Red.
"Well having never experienced them first-hand I can't tell you much, but what I can tell you about is the aftereffects, I've witnessed plenty of them!" said Macaw. "The first sign is memory loss as you've experienced, then depending on the severity of the tests, blindness, deafness, sickness, loss of consciousness, muscle spasms, hallucinations, rapid aging, or if you're really lucky just straight death," Macaw elaborated.
"Great, getting caught by the hunt would have been preferable to this," Red said to himself looking dejected. "If they perform these tests on all the animals in this room, why not you? Why aren't you in a cage?" Red inquired.
"An acceptable question, but easily answered" said the parrot "Do I look wild to you? I'm what is referred to as domesticated, the humans look after me."
"I don't understand, why do they look after you and not us?" Red said bewildered.
"Who knows, humans never make much sense," Macaw joked "they give with one hand and take away with the other, it's always the way with them, I've seen it time and time again all my long life."
"You don't seem very old to me," said Red with a hint of disbelief in his voice.
"And you seem pretty ignorant to me, humph, a minute ago you didn't even know what a parrot was and now you're an expert eh?" Macaw replied, "I'll have you know I've seen at least 30 winters, I stopped counting after they locked me in here come to think of it, but anyway it's still a lot longer than you'll ever see."
"That's unbelievable, you're ancient!" exclaimed Red.
"Excuse me!" bellowed Macaw "I'm not ancient, I'm middle aged at most thank you very much...the youth these days, no manners at all."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend you," apologized Red "so what's likely to happen to me today?"
"Nothing if you're lucky, if not..." Macaw trailed off and turned to face the door. A set of footsteps were clearly audible just outside the room. "I think you're about to find out, good luck and I hope we get the chance to talk some more!"
With that Macaw flew back to his perch in the corner of the room.
It took another few moments before the door to the room opened, letting light from the corridor outside stream in, two men stepped through. The first man into the room proceeded directly from one cage to the next filling each animals' food and water dishes. The second man however walked directly along the row of cages containing Red. This was the top row about six feet off the ground on the doors left hand side. He had some sort of stick in his hand that he was dragging along the front of each cage, waking every animal in turn. Red backed up as far as he could to the rear of his cage. The man stopped once he came to the cage next to Red's, it contained the ragged looking male fox Red had noticed when he woke up. The man seemed annoyed by the fact that the fox hadn't been woken up by all the racket he had been making and so proceeded to bang on the door with his fist. Eventually the fox woke but didn't move, he merely stared the man directly in the eyes, a sadistic looking smile entered the man's lips. Suddenly and without warning the man took a step to his side, positioning himself directly in front of reds cage. Red could feel the man's gaze piercing his fur as he stood there in judgment. Red was ready though, if this human was going to try anything he'd get far more than he bargained for, Red was going to make sure of that. The man looked for a second longer then unclipped a key from his belt and opened Red's cage, Red began to growl and hiss. As soon as the inevitable hand began to reach in, he'd pounce on it, and make them all regret capturing him. But it never came, instead the man thrust the stick he was holding in through the cage door, it turned out not to be just a stick. At a flick of the man's wrist a noose of wire extended from its tip. Before Red knew what was happening the noose was around his neck and he was yanked to the front of the cage. The wire was so tight around Red's neck that he couldn't breathe and he began to gasp for air. Meanwhile the man had pulled two other instruments from his pocket. The first looked like some kind of gun, which he brought around to the back of Red's head. There was a clicking sound and Red felt a searing pain in his right ear, he would have yelped out in pain if his breathing wasn't so restricted. The human then took hold of the second instrument, it was clear with a long thin tip and looked to contain some form of liquid. This he stuck into one of Red's front legs. Red began to feel dizzy again, his world started to spin and his whole body felt like stone, finally he blacked out.
Red awoke to the flutter of wings, Macaw had once again landed on top of his cage. It was evening and all was quiet.
"So, still alive then? Good...good," began Macaw.
Red sluggishly raised his head to greet his new friend. "Just about I think, really thought that was it for a moment though, probably would have been better if it was!" replied Red.
"No doubt...I must say though, you had quite some luck yesterday," said Macaw gesturing at Red's right ear.
Red raised a paw to his ear, some kind of tag was fastened to it.
"What is it, I can't get it out!" Red said desperately.
"Calm down, calm down, it's just an identification tag nothing more, it's green too, that's good news," Macaw said in a calming voice.
"How so?" Red replied a little confused.
"Means you've been picked as important, they won't do anything too risky with you, they want to keep you alive," explained Macaw "a young vixen got the same treatment a few years back, she remained practically untouched for months...up until the last few sad days of her life."
"So basically, I've got a few months breathing space to try and find a way out of this prison?" summed up Red.
"Ho-ho-ho, escape? Now this should be interesting!" laughed Macaw "But I doubt you'll get very far on an empty stomach mind you." Macaw pointed a wing at Reds food bowl.
Looking down at the bowl made Red realise just how hungry he was. It had been over two days since he had last eaten. Without hesitating Red got up and wolfed down every last bit of food and water in his cage. During this time Macaw, sensing the conversation was over had slipped away back to his perch to rest. Once Red had finished eating he lay down nose to tail and started to think. There's got to be a way out of this place!