They come for me one day.
It's been two days since I met Ferris properly. They open my cage, take me out, and carry me away. I don't struggle; I know my time is finally here.
None of us are going to make it out alive anyway.
The last thing I hear from the cages is Ferris's voice yelling my name.
Then I'm put on a table with a hand holding me down. I'm so petrified with fear that I probably wouldn't be able to run even if the hand wasn't holding me down.
Then a sharp needle is inserted into my side. I'm more concerned by the pain that's coming from the place where I was injected to worry about what they actually injected into me. My side seizes up and I can't feel my left arm or left leg.
Then the pain properly starts.
I yell aloud and my arms and legs scrabble, even my numb left ones, as the pain surges through me. It feels like I've been stung by a poisonous scorpion or something. It's just stinging, agonising pain surging through my whole body. I scream and cry as I feel my immune system trying to fight the pain. A minute later, it changes. It's now like I've been set on fire after having been stung by a poisonous scorpion.
Then it spreads to my lungs and I'm suddenly incredibly short of breath. The more I kick my legs and arms, the more pain shoots through my lungs, but that just makes me scrabble even harder, and it's just a vicious cycle.
I don't know how long the pain lasts, but I remember wishing I was dead. Not only would I get to see my parents again, but this pain would stop.
I want it to stop.
"Judy!" shouts a male voice.
Father? Am I in heaven? Am I dead? I feel dead.
"Jesus, kid…! You're looking terrible! What the hell did they do to you?"
That's not Father's voice. Father doesn't call me "kid". Father doesn't talk like that. That's…
"Judy, talk to me!" Ferris yells.
I'm lying back on the floor of my cage. I feel quite dead, but some of the aftershocks of the pain are there: I can feel that my limbs are stiff and I'm very breathless.
I gingerly roll onto my front and look up at Ferris, who's clutching the bars in horror. It looks like he's been crying.
"Jesus, kid!" Ferris gasps again. "Don't give a guy a heart attack like that! I thought you were dead!"
"I feel dead," I mutter, checking my body for any scars.
There's one. It's on my side, where I was injected. I have to raise my arm and twist my head to see it, but it's there. It looks like a freckle, except it's red and twice the size, though it has the same uneven shape.
"What did they do to you?" Ferris demands.
"There was a needle," I recall. "And they-there was so much pain…I-I wanted to die…."
"Well, you didn't." Ferris sounds half-admiring, half-scared. "Whatever they did to you, you didn't die. You're resilient. You might just survive this place."
"I might survive?"
"Sure. While you were out, I heard some humans talking about releasing the capybara back into the wild, and they came and took him away, so I assume that's what they did. If you survive enough times, you might be let go."
I could survive…
"I wouldn't be able to survive without you, Ferris," I say, smiling at my friend. "I'm glad you're with me."
Ferris gives a half-smile back. "Me too, kid. I like you."
