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Post By Manga Shoggoth Thu May 26, 2005 at 11:13:12 am EDT |
Subject
"The Proper Care and Handling of Small Pets" - not the usual offering from the Manga Shoggoth | |
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Weak. So weak.
They have placed me in a cage. Or a succession of cages - I can't tell which. I can see the bars, and feel the floor moving under me. Too much light. Too much hunger.
Weak.
The cage has stopped moving. There are creatures outside the cage, looking in. Every so often, one of reaches inside the cage and prods me.
I can smell food nearby. They have placed some form of vat in the cage with me.
Still too much light.
Night has fallen. At last.
Now that the light is down to bearable levels I am able to look around me. I am in a vast cage, many times my height, with bars the thickness of several of my claws. The base of the cage is made of some red material that I cannot identify.
The floor of the cage is littered with wooden fragments. Attached to the bars, poking in from the outside, is a metal pipe, joined to a large reservoir. Water is very slowly dripping from the end.
Near the pipe is a circular artefact made out of the same materials as the base of the cage. Next to this is a strange box, filled with something like down, and the vat I saw being placed in the cage.
The vat is made out of some form of stone. It contains seeds, nuts and some form of vegetation. I assume it is supposed to be food - and I guess I can live on it - but there is no meat.
There is the husk of some strange gourd in the middle of the cage. It smells faintly of food.
The cage itself is in some form of cavern - clearly a constructed thing as the walls, floor and roof are all squared. At the far end are two openings. One is narrow and tall, blocked by some form of panel; the other is smaller and wider, and appears to be open, although there is no sign of a breeze from outside.
I can just see the outside. The stars are visible, and the moon is rising; a thin crescent in what little I can see from my imprisonment.
The night has passed.
I have hidden in the box whilst the day passes. I can doze there, mostly unaffected by the light.
The creatures that have captured me appear to be diurnal rather than nocturnal. At least, I have heard them shuffling around outside for most of the day.
Sticking my nose out of the box, I have managed to spy out my captors. They are vast bipedal creatures - possibly primates, and appear to be some form of predator - at least, they seem to have binocular vision. It is hard to tell relative scale, but they appear to be a family group of two adults and two immature offspring - one of each sex.
Several days have passed.
I think I have discovered what the circular artefact is for. It is held to the bars of the cage by some form of pivot, allowing it to spin around its axis. If you balance yourself in the artefact and start running, it spins quite freely. It is obviously some form of exercise device.
I have been watching my captors carefully. The two adults remain largely aloof, although the female occasionally changes the down in the box or the wood chippings on the floor.
The immature female takes more of an interest in me. She seems to be in charge of changing the contents of the food bowl and the water reservoir. She also spends a great deal of time just outside the cage, watching.
On the occasions that I am up and about while she is awake she spends her time trying to communicate with me. She also has a habit of lifting me out of the cage and allowing me to run around the main part of the cavern. Her handling is not gentle, but that appears to be more because she does not understand her own strength, rather than any form of malice.
The immature male, on the other hand, appears to be both ungentle and malicious. He appears to enjoy jabbing at me with some form of stick and forcing me to run. The jabs are quite painful. He was caught doing this by his sibling, which touched off some form of fight. In the distraction I nearly made it to the cavern exit, by was prevented from leaving by something I could not see. The elder female recaptured me and put me back in the cage.
He is a little more circumspect about his activities now, but is still a vicious brute. I have seen him picking fights with his sibling - rather more that you would expect from the normal dominance activity.
At least the nights are quiet. As the moon waxes, I can see the outside more and more clearly.
My strength is returning.
A week has passed.
As things go, my current captivity has much to recommend it. The husk in my cage is wonderful for gnawing, the food is fresh and there are no dangerous predators around.
Well, with the exception of the immature male. He is orchestrating a relentless campaign against his sibling, with me to provide an occasional diversion. The adults are obviously keeping an eye on me as they seem to appear just as his "games" start to turn nasty.
The lack of meat in my diet is a nuisance, of course, but I managed to give the immature male a good bite when he was trying to lift me out of the cage this evening. It got me thrown across the cage, of course, and he managed to make a couple of swipes at me before the adults intervened, but on balance it was worth it just for the taste of meat in my mouth.
The immature female didn't get me out of the cage this evening, but she loaded the food vat a little higher and spent the evening making what I assume were sympathetic noises to me.
I can see the outside, bathed in the silvery glow of the gibbous moon. On balance, this is not a bad place to be - much safer than the outside.
And my strength has almost returned.
The immature male has started making nocturnal visits to my cage, presumably when the others are asleep. He obviously feels freer to indulge in his cruel games under those conditions. I think he finds these moonlit sessions exciting - at least, his cruelties are getting worse.
I can see him now, clearly illuminated by the light of a full silvery moon. This time he has brought one of the sharp blades that these creatures use in lieu of teeth. This is not going to be pleasant.
His sibling has come into the room as well. She has obviously heard him moving around and become suspicious.
She has seen the blade, and is screaming.
He has struck her with the blade. Blood...
This is not to be borne!
The moonlight shines in through the remains of the window, the shattered remains of frame and glass littering the street outside. The light glistens off a trail of blood that leads back to the shredded corpse of a young boy. Next to this, his sister is curled into a ball, sobbing and holding her injured arm.
Scattered about the room are the wood chippings from a cage. The cage has been rent asunder from the inside.
And in the distance can be heard the cries of some wild beast.
As is always the case with my writing, please feel free to comment.
I welcome both positive and negative criticism of my work, although I cannot promise to enjoy the negative. Both are essential.
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