"I know that I am inadequate, but, please... let me help. I know there might not be much I can do, but I have to do something! I can't just sit here like some porcelain doll while all of you risk your lives, I... I just can't." I choked out, eyes starting to water as tears of frustration threatened to spill over my cheeks. "I may have been a weak child when you first found me, but I've trained. I am strong, and I can fight. Please, give me a chance and let me help!" I begged, casting my sight right into the eyes of my family, the ones who had saved me all those years ago and yet still coddle me as if I am still that tiny broken child who was teetering over the edge only to be pulled back in the nick of time by some kindred soul.
I can't breathe, did they want to try suffocating me to death again? How long has it been since the fight? Two, maybe three months? I thought my family would come, not leave me here to rot. They finally let me join their ranks and fight alongside them, but the only thing that such a victory brought me was more pain than I ever wanted to experience again. Every old wound and scar have been literally and figuratively opened once again.
I know I'm not human, but, not even one of my kind can handle this. They are slowly breaking me, crumbling my trust and hope of my family rescuing me cut by cut as they slice apart my flesh only to gleefully watch it regenerate. Their own private game, filled with actions full of twisted intentions. One day it's simply reopening the layers of discoloured and mismatched flesh, the next leaving their own marks and even brands. Labelling and calling me theirs, as if I was a toy or a piece of livestock that will eventually be sent to the butcher and be put down in my own slaughterhouse.
I kept my hope for so long, but now? I am simply lost... I've even forgotten myself a couple of times now. How long has it been now? A couple of months? A year? I've lost all sense of time, it's been drowned by the pain. Honestly, the pain was drowned out everything, I can't hear a thing nor does a single sound now fall from my lips. That strange word that echoes in my head is the only thing that keeps me going, 'family', what is that word? What is a family? What are they to me? Is actually more outside of these four stone walls? And if so, why aren't I allowed to go see those things that are beyond my current reach?
I once asked my master that question in a state of delirium after he once again tested his newest product on me. He simply said that a thing like me was never allowed out before turning on his heel and leaving soon after. He must have thought that when he stated such that the matter was no more. That I would never utter another word that even remotely related to my freedom. But him answering that time with no punishment? All it had done was simply reopen the gates of my urges for freedom, for the 'sea', whatever that may be.
Eventually, even my memories started to flow back, and the struggling recommenced. I would fight as much as I could, and I would free myself, 'family' or no. I am human!
They're done with me, the drugs have damaged me so much that I am no longer able to operate properly. I guess in the end I won't get my freedom nor discover who my family was. As I am lead to my slaughterhouse those fuzzy faces comfort me; the tall blond who smells of lilac, the brunet who fed me such delicious foods, the obsidian haired one who I would sit and simply chat with, then the black-maned one whose smiles radiated like the sun itself. Then the giant figure, the only one who I could place a name to; Pops. I would die without remembering them fully... but I had gotten so far. I came back from the edge! My feathers had regrown and even though I would never fly with them again I would still be able to finally fly free.
And fly free I did, I flew once they finally came. It might have been too late, but they were there now. My family had come and with them every single memory! Marco, Thatch, Izou, and Ace... Pops! They were all here! I didn't care that I wasn't going to make it, I was simply happy that they remembered. That they came. In the end, I could smile, smile, as I was impaled on a stake and as my family, walked by without another look... no... NO! THEY FINALLY CAME! WHY ARE THEY LEAVING! WHY WON'T THEY HELP ME!
"Pops?..." I whispered, succumbing to the dark tendrils that slowly swallowed my vision and numbed why pulsing body. I succumbed to death, leaving without my wish coming true, leaving behind my family with my memories of them and yet without their memories of me.