It's only been three days since I lost my parents. I'm curled up by the bars of the cage. I've refused water and food, and I'm slowly parching. But I don't care. They've killed Mother and Father, so if I die, I'll be with them again. That's all I want.
The cage door opens a little and a dual bowl of food and water is pushed in. As the cage door closes, I give the bowl a weak kick. I don't want anything from them. They took away my parents.
"If you don't eat, you're gonna die," says a male voice from opposite me.
I peer through the bars and see the black rabbit that I had seen on the truck on the first day. He's sitting next to the bars of his own cell that's opposite mine, with his back against the wall.
"I don't care," I say miserably. "They took Mother and Father."
"Look, kid, we've all had bad days."
"It wasn't just a bad day!" I yell. "Mother and Father are gone forever! My whole life is bad!"
"Bad days don't make bad lives," the rabbit told me.
I turn my back to him. "Whatever."
"How old are you, kid?"
I look over my shoulder at him. I don't really want to answer but he's the first person to talk to me here apart from my parents. "Five."
"What's your name?"
"Judy."
"I'm Ferris," says the rabbit. "I've been here for two years."
I stare at him through the bars of my cage. "I thought I saw you on the truck a few days ago?"
Ferris chuckles. "I thought that was you I saw. I was just testing. So you were brought with your parents?"
"…yes."
Ferris sighs. "Look, kid, I know you miss your parents a lot, but starving yourself isn't going to do anyone any good. It's all about survival here."
I uncurl myself and go over to the bowl. I have a couple of sips of the water and two mouthfuls of food, and my stomach thanks me profoundly. I do feel a little better.
"There ya go, kid," says Ferris approvingly. "Feel better?"
I nod. "Thank you."
"I know how rough it is to lose your parents," Ferris says sympathetically. "I also know that grief can be a killer. So I'm just glad I saved another from death."
I pause, digesting this information. "Were your parents killed?"
Ferris nods sadly. "Yeah. Few days before I was brought here, actually. We all lived in an alley in Danville somewhere. My brother, Curtis, was closer to them than I was. When they died after being hit by a car, he starved himself just like you did. Only I didn't know that. I thought he was just grieving and that he'd get better within a few days, but he parched to death because he refused to drink."
"I'm so sorry…"
"It's fine…it's just that he was the last family I had left. I didn't have anywhere else. I guess it's kind of lucky I got brought here or I'd have starved too."
"But they're going to kill all of us at some point or another, aren't they?" I ask.
"Not necessarily." Ferris jerks his thumb in the direction of one of the cages to our left. "There's a capybara or something in one of those cages who's been taken out loads of times and put back. Depends what you're made of."
I look confusedly down at myself. "Isn't everyone made of fur and bones and blood?"
Ferris also looks confused for a minute, before he chuckles. "Sorry. You talk so sophisticated that I forgot you're only five."
"So is there a way out?" I ask.
Ferris sighs. "No. Like you said, everyone in here's going to die at some point. None of us are going to make it out alive."
None of us are going to make it out alive.
That single thought paralyses me with fear.
I'm not going to make it out alive.
