In case it wasn't clear, platypus years = human years x2. Example: a platypus who is nine years old is eighteen in human years.
…
Mother is looking at me. Smiling. "Judy," she whispers. Just my name.
"Hey, Matthew. Judy's awake."
Father comes over. Like Mother, he has olive green fur. Like me.
"Do you remember what happened, Judy?" Father asks. "You hit your head."
"I remember you," I say aloud. "Mother and Father."
"Do you remember anything else?" Mother asks.
I shake my head.
"Well, that's okay," Father says optimistically. "We can work on that."
I look around. I'm in an alley. It's light. There are three dumpsters along the side of it.
"What can we do to jog her memory, Mandy?" Father asks Mother.
"I don't know, Matthew. What should we try and help her remember?"
There's someone approaching as they talk. It's a man. I give a squeak but Mother and Father see him too late. He grabs all three of us by our tails and picks us up. Mother and Father struggle, but since I am only five years old, I do not have the strength.
He throws us into separate cages in the back of a van. Mother and Father are together but I am on my own. Everything goes dark. I shrink into the back of the cage as I feel the van start up.
We drive for hours. Mother sings to me and Father keeps touching my shoulder but I'm terrified. It's too dark and too cramped. I feel like I'm about to stop breathing at any minute.
When we arrive at wherever it is we are, the guy brings us out. That's when I see that we are not alone. About a dozen animals of various species are with us in other cages. I catch the eye of a black rabbit, but before we can talk, I'm taken away from my parents and carried towards a massive building. There's a giant dog paw print carved in stone over the doorway.
"Where am I?" I whimper, but nobody around me speaks platypus so they don't know what I said.
They take me inside. Everything looks all technologically advanced and futuristic-y. I'm taken to a row of cages. Other animals from chickens to mice fill them. I'm thrown into a thin yet tall cell with nothing in there except a bowl of water and an empty bowl. I press myself against the wall, hyperventilating in terror, but the guy simply closes the barred cell and leaves. I cautiously sip the water because I'm thirsty, and I end up finishing it all.
Five minutes later, my parents are thrown in with me.
"Judy!" Mother cries.
They keep hugging me over and over. I can't stop shivering in terror. I don't know where I am. I've lived for all five years of my life in that alley. It's horrible being here because it's unfamiliar with unfamiliar people and no idea what they're going to do to us.
A loud noise suddenly starts up, sounding like a chainsaw. I begin screaming in terror, eyes tightly closed. Mother and Father are holding me tightly between them and I can feel Mother crying.
It doesn't end…
It's never going to end…
