I didn’t remember falling asleep. I never did. I remembered the wails that kept me awake though. I wasn’t the only test subject in the lab, but I had been around the longest. And so far, I was the most successful. I had survived. I was the strongest.

I woke up, clawing at the sheets. Just a dream. It was just a dream. I thought to myself. I looked around, silently searching the dark lab room. “Dr. Lenning.” I said, once I saw her. She was nothing more than a shadowy figure near the door. Whatever they had done to my eyes was working though.

“Good morning, dear.” She responded in an overly sugary sweet voice that made me want to puke. “How are you feeling?”

The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Something was wrong. She only asked me how I was when they were planning something.

My eyes narrowed. “You only ask me that when something’s going on.” I snarled. “What are you plotting? My death?”

Dr. Lenning chuckled. “Why are you so paranoid? I’m asking because I care about you.”

I glared at her. I trusted her more than the others, but that changed nothing. She was still a crazy scientist who had taken me from my mother and turned me into a freak. She had been the one to punish me when I was younger, she had left scars that would never heal. She didn’t care about me at all.

She sighed. “Miu, I just want you to be happy. You can trust me.”

Can I? Can I really? I thought viciously. Because I don’t think I can.

Dr. Lenning brushed a few stray strands of hair away from her face. She undid it, then put it back into it’s traditional brown bun. I stared at her eyes. They were the same color as the chocolates that she used to give me when I was little. She looked up and reached forward. She tucked some of my wavy, blond hair behind my ear. My cat ear. My white one.

“How are your wings doing?” She asked.

In response, I unfurled and stretched my light grey wings. I swished my tail, just because it was numb.

“Time for the check.” She said, standing up.

I stood as well, my wings out. I blinked and my ears perked up. What was that noise?

“Ears?” Dr. Lenning started.

I went through the motions. “Feeling fine.” I pressed my cat ears back, flat against my head to stretch them.

“Tail?”

I swished it through the air. “Good.”

“Claws?”

I flexed my claws. It was smart of the doctors to make them retractable, it got them out of the way when I didn’t need them.

“Wings?”

Grand finale. I lept into the air, flapping smoothly. I stayed just below the ceiling so my feathers wouldn’t hit it. I did a flip and circled around the room a couple times. A few more flips and I came down.

Dr. Lenning smiled. “I’m going to take that as a ‘they’re fine and I want out.’”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

Her eyes gave her away. “Nothing, nothing at all.”

I glared at her. “There’s something going on. I know there is.”

She sighed again. “They’re putting you into a ‘dogfight’ with one of other test subjects.”

My ears perked up. “What? A dogfight? As in, a fight to the death?”

She nodded.

“Why?” I asked. I would never kill anyone, not unless I had to. But this wasn’t one of those situations, not one of those times when killing was absolutely necessary.

“They want to make sure that you can defend yourself.” Dr. Lenning explained.

I glared at her. “I can defend myself. Does someone really have to die for me to prove that?”

“Dr. Perkins thinks so.”

“Dr. Perkins is an idiot!”

“You wouldn’t be alive if it weren’t for him.” Dr. Lenning muttered.

“Why do you always defend him?” I hissed. “If it weren’t for him, I would be normal. I wouldn’t be a freak!”

Right then, the accursed man walked in. He stared at me.

“Is that really what you think?” Dr. Perkins asked.

I didn’t respond. I wanted to see how long I could stay silent before he got mad.

“Time to get ready.” He said, clapping his hands together. “We picked a test subject who will present a challenge to you.”

If looks could kill, they both would’ve been dead. I stood up anyway and allowed them to lead me to the cage. That was the name some of the other test subjects and I had given the arena where the ‘dogfights’ took place when we were younger.

“Good luck.” Dr. Perkins told me in a mocking tone. He hated children and teenagers, and yet, all of his test subjects were in that age group. The door slammed shut and I turned. The doctors and other test subjects were sitting around the arena. The kids were forced to be there, the adults came for the entertainment. They loved bloodshed.

The gong rang out and I darted forward. My opponent was a tall male. Fangs overlapped his bottom lip, claws replaced nails on his fingers and reptilian scales covered his body. He sized me up, as I had done to him. He lunged at me, I spun out of the way and leapt into the air. He swiped at my feet and tail tip. I waved it teasingly above his head.

I came down on his head and flipped him to the floor. In a second, I had him pinned with a clawed hand at his throat. His eyes widened in fear. I blinked and stood up, leaving him, choking on the ground. I looked up at the doctors and test subjects.

“I will not kill him.” I said. “I’m not going to sink to your level. I’m not a monster like you.” I pointed accusingly at Dr. Perkins. “I am not going to be the cause of someone else’s death. I am not going to be like you.” With that, I ran toward the door; broke through it and sprinted toward my room. The dying wail of my opponent echoed in my ears as they killed him for me.

I slammed the door, and curled into a ball in the corner. I knew what was going to happen next. Dr. Lenning stormed in. Her brown eyes were filled with anger and disappointment. The syringe in her hand scared me more than the knife in her other one. 

She didn’t say anything, she didn’t have to. She was holding the knife so tightly that her knuckles were turning white.

“I’m not scared of you.” I said. “And I don’t care what you do.”

“Miu, you know how things around here work. Someone in that arena had to die.”

“Someone did die. Apparently, that’s all you people want around here. Bloodshed.” I hissed, my eyes narrowing to slits. They’re like the gamemakers for the hunger games.

She shook her head. “You don’t understand, he was a burden. He didn’t turn out how he was supposed to. We had to get rid of him. It was easy, really. Like getting water out of a bucket by turning it over.”

“So, you killed him. What does that accomplish?”

Dr. Lenning slashed at my face with the knife. I felt blood start to drip down my cheek. She stepped closer and stabbed at me with the syringe. I felt the tip pierce my neck, and blacked out.

I woke up coughing the next day. She had left me on the floor, where I’d fallen after she’d injected me. Of course she would. I sat up, and thought about my life for a while. 16 years of living in a science lab. It definitely could’ve been better. I wondered if my birth mother had even wanted me. From what Dr. Lenning had told me, she was pretty young when I was born. That’s why she had given me up, as far as I knew.

I pondered all the events that had led up to this point so far. I squeezed my eyes shut and stayed like that for over an hour. My eyes flew open and I looked up. I knew what I had to do. I stood up and walked out of the room.

Dr. Lenning came down the hallway as I walked out. She stopped and stared at me. She opened her mouth to say something. I snapped and shoved her up against the wall, holding a clawed hand to her throat.

“Miu, listen to me.” She started. I tightened my grip and she stopped. My hand jerked slightly as my claws punctured her skin and blood began running down her neck and onto my hand.

“No, you listen to me.” I hissed. “My entire has been one science experiment. You never cared about me, I was just another test subject for you to kill when I got a mind of my own.” I tore her throat out. Blood sprayed from the wound, decorating the floor, wall and my hand with crimson splatters.

I stared at it for awhile. My hand, the wall. The blood. “You deserved it.” I said finally, talking mostly to Dr. Lenning’s mangled body. I walked down the hallway. Now just to find the others.

One of the other doctors, whom I seldom ever saw, turned the corner. He stopped and stared at me. He saw the blood on my hand and looked past my shoulder. His eyes widened in terror. Without thinking, I lunged forward and brought my elbow to his face. His nose cracked and blood flowed from it. I tore through the flesh on his neck, bringing forth more blood as the veins within ruptured.

Guilt washed over me as he died. He hadn’t deserved to die. I hadn’t even known his name. “I’m sorry.” I whispered. “You didn’t deserve any of this.”

I stood and walked toward Dr. Perkins’s office. I passed some of the other test subjects, who took one look at my bloodied hands and turned away.  I wondered what they were thinking. I suddenly got extremely tired. I ran back to my room, and huddled under a blanket. Just try to sleep. I thought and I did.

Dr. Lenning and the random doctor plagued my dreams. I kept reliving the kills, kept watching over and over again as they died.  When I woke up, it was dark and raining. I pulled the curtain back and looked out the window. I was getting out of this place. Today. And no one would stop me.

I grabbed a backpack and started going through the room, trying to find everything I would need. I changed out of my bloodstained pajamas  and slipped into a pair of dark blue jeans, a camouflage t-shirt and a black hoodie. I threw  another change of clothes, a couple books, my sketchbook, some notebooks and pencils into the backpack.  I pawed through some things until I found a few items. I pulled the black, heart shaped rock I’d bought during a rare trip to a museum out of the pile, along with a jacket that was a mixture of rabbit fur and silk, and shoved them in the bag too. I quietly cut the drywall open to get the cache of money and food I’d built up over the years.

I tested my wings to see if I could still use them. I could, they were comfortable and I could move them with the hoodie and backpack on. Mainly because the hoodie had hidden slits for my wings and the backpack was designed to fit between them. This would be essential in my escape. I put my hair in a ponytail, and snatched my chapstick and a broken necklace chain off the table and shoved them in my pockets. They wouldn’t do me any good, but it was better than leaving with nothing. If nothing else, I supposed I could fix the necklace and sell it to some poor sucker in the street. Maybe I could become a mercenary.

Time to go. I sprinted out the door and down the hallway, stopping at Dr. Perkins office. He was insanely smart. It had been his idea to take me and destroy me. The more I thought about it though, the less I saw myself as being a freak.  

I forced the door open. Dr. Perkins looked up. He didn’t have time to say anything though. I had him against the wall with a clawed hand at his throat in a second.  “Tell me why.” 

“Because you deserved better than what you had with her.”  Perkins choked a couple times. “She didn’t understand, I was trying to help you. I only wanted what was best for you.”

“Why would you want what was best for me?” I asked through gritted teeth.

“Because I’m your father. And I love you.”

The world shattered into a million pieces. “What?”

“Your mother never understood why I ran off with you. I brought you back to her once, and she cried, saying that I had ruined you. Just as you thought.” Dr. Perkins  muttered.

My breathing became quicker. “You’re lying. My father is dead. My mother never wanted me.”

He shook his head. “Not true. Your mother wanted to keep you. I’m not dead.”

I gulped. My eyes widened. Was it true? Had my mother really wanted to keep me? Was my father really alive? Dr. Perkins couldn’t  be my father. He didn’t even look like me at all.

Damn it, now I feel like Luke Skywalker! I hated those movies!

“You’re lying.” I repeated and tore through his throat. Blood ran down his neck, and onto the floor. I gulped again and walked out and toward the cages and cells the other test subjects were being kept in.

They shrank away from me in fear. I couldn’t blame them.  “Hey, you can trust me.” I said quietly. I broke the locks on the cages and doors, adrenaline coursing through my veins. The others rushed past me to the door. I pushed through the flock that had gathered there and forced it open.

They streamed past me. I could feel their bodies pressing against mine as they passed. One tugged my sleeve and I followed them out into the rain. By the time, I blinked for what felt like the first time since waking up, they were gone. I was alone. Again. But I didn’t mind. I wasn’t a freak, I was a human being, one who had a gift.

I walked to a sign. For some reason, there was a map on it. I looked at it, trying to decide where to go. It had to be somewhere far away from here, away from the deaths I had caused, away from my past.

Rain ran down my back and soaked my hair. I continued looking at the map and smiled when I found my destination.

“Canada.”