Last chapter!

"Judy? Can you hear me? Please wake up! The vet said you might not ever wake up but I need you, I really do! Please, Judy!"

It's Perry's voice.

Perry…

Perry…!

PERRY!

I have a mate and I know his name and I can picture him! Perry!

My eyes open and immediately I see white. It's a ceiling. I'm lying on my back on a soft-ish surface that doesn't quite feel like a bed. There's a dull ache everywhere in my body.

"Judy!"

I turn my head and see my teal-coloured mate sitting beside me. His face is pale but he looks relieved when he sees I'm awake.

"Oh my goodness…I thought you were dead! You almost WERE dead!"

"I got hit by a car," I rasp, my voice feeling dry and unused.

"Don't speak," Perry says immediately. "You were out there for almost a day and you've been in the vets for nearly a week now. In and out of surgery."

"Am I okay?" I croak worriedly.

Perry nods. "There aren't any lasting injuries. Your left arm and right leg will both have to be in casts for a while, but otherwise you're fine."

I lean my head back and close my eyes again. Perry's voice drifts into my ear: "When I saw you were gone, I wasn't too scared at first. I mean, you've been on walks before and I've found you okay after a while. But when I couldn't find you in the forest or the immediately vicinity of the house, I was so terrified. I thought I'd lost you forever."

I feel guilty about wanting to die. I mean, I couldn't have left Perry like that. He would have been heartbroken. We wouldn't have even got the chance to say goodbye.

At least Ferris and I got to say goodbye to each other…

"I wanted to walk," I explain hoarsely. "I wanted the memories to go away. I-I wanted to die."

Perry sucks in a sharp breath.

"I didn't want to remember all my pain. I thought it was too much. Then I got hit by the car. I still wanted to die but my inner voice persuaded me to get up. Then I…I forgot who you were."

"Oh, Judy…!"

"I was so scared. I thought I didn't have a home anymore."

"Oh, Judy," Perry says again, putting his arms around me. "You will always have a home."

Two days later, I'm back at home. Sure enough, I have a cast on my leg and a cast on my wrist but all things considered it could have been a lot worse.

I'm learning to live with my memories now. I've accepted how bad it feels and I've moved on. I still think about my parents but for some reason their loss didn't affect me as much as Ferris's did. That's probably bad but I can't help it. I know Mother and Father gave life to me, but Ferris saved mine when I was grieving for them. Without him, I would have never met Perry. I would never have made it out of the life of a lab animal.

My name is Judy the Platypus. I had depression, anxiety, periods of memory loss, and some condition called Asperger's. I still have all of them but they are not as strong or frequent now. My mate Perry loves me a lot and I love him too. I would never have survived this without him. I've never been able to recall my past before, but flashes of seemingly random events have given me all I need to find out who I am. With Perry's help, I have pieced together where I came from. I know why I am the way I am now. I'm a former test subject who survived through my own willpower and the sacrifices of others.

And I'm going to make Ferris proud of the life he gave me.