Can we get any insight into Ashtray's conditioning/training, or maybe Mistress trying many different types of cigarettes to compare the taste (and how they burn him differently)? He's my new favorite little guy :)
congrats, you unlocked some lore! i hope you enjoy the little hints about who ashtray used to be :)
A Step Towards Ashtray
[masterlist]
CW: isolation, captivity, emotional distress, cigarette burn, implied pet whump
Behind the heavy, metal door there is a young man, though legally that description would be wrong. Behind the door, there is a future companion object, handpicked to satisfy his potential buyers in any way possible. But then again, right now he is barely at the start of his journey to becoming a perfect companion object, so Eskil Thorn just calls him a trainee, his trainee.
It had been quite the odyssey over the past two weeks or so, watching the trainee scream and claw at the door, sobbing a certain name. Of course, that did nothing to help him. Eskil knows the recipe to the perfect start is letting the trainees simmer in isolation for a bit before introducing them to their future purpose. Now that the screaming has finally stopped, maybe from exhaustion or his voice giving out, it’s a sign for Eskil to start the process.
Stepping inside, he takes in the sight before him. The trainee is curled on the floor –like a feral dog– staring at him with red-rimmed but beautifully big blue eyes. Bits of ripped-out hair lay around him and Eskil makes a mental note to nip that behaviour in the bud. His golden-blond hair is one of the trainee's assets, which will eventually put him in a high price range and Eskil can’t let him ruin that.
“Are you ready for your lesson?”
The trainee nods frantically.
“Please, sir, anything! I– I can’t– please!” he rasps, inching forward to Eskil.
If he were any other designation, Eskil would love the begging. It’s always a sweet surprise when the trainees exhibit these behaviours early on. Unfortunately however, that won’t be a necessary skill for him, though it is undeniably a promising start.
With shaking hands, the trainee grasps onto Eskil’s pants, his eyes shining with tears. “Don’t leave me alone, sir, please!”
Perfect.
“Sure, I’ll stay with you for a while. But you have to do something for me first.”
See, where the other handlers try to force it, Eskil lets his trainees take their first steps on their own. And to get them motivated, isolation works wonders.
The trainee is basically vibrating with desperation. It’s not his first lesson. He doesn’t beg to be let out anymore, not since they shocked his signature out of him, and he’s given up on insisting on “his name”. Instead, it is a sort of resigned despair that makes him perfectly malleable.
“Wh-what do you want me to do?”
With a smile, Eskil pulls out a cigarette and a lighter from his pocket. Something warm prickles in his chest as he looks at the lighter, a gift from his wife, decorated with small doodles. Slowly, he lights the cigarette and takes a single drag, watching smoke fill the room.
He sits down, his legs crossed, and lets himself be warily watched by the trainee. They stay like that in silence, Eskil sitting patiently, the trainee kneeling on all fours before him like a dog, seemingly undecided between wanting to lean away in suspicion and throwing himself in Eskil’s lap.
Then, he holds out the burning cigarette, inching it closer to the trainee, who just blinks uncomprehendingly. Maybe his future purpose is still beyond his understanding, Eskil supposes.
“Come on, give me your arm, will you.”
The trainee flinches and gawks at him with those big blue eyes, his lip twitching as he suppresses a cough.
“Why?” he whispers, his eyes fixating on the cigarette. Still, he doesn’t move away from Eskil’s vicinity.
“Oh,” Eskil chuckles, “I think you know exactly what for. Now, don’t you want to be a good boy? It’ll be worth it, it’ll all be worth it in the end, I promise.”
Eskil just watches the trainee’s shocked expression morph between conflicting emotions. The promised touch is like a drug in his starved and isolated state. Until eventually, the trainee nods, defeated. He holds out his arm as if he could choose.
Deliberately, Eskil moves the cigarette bud closer and closer to his shoulder. The trainee only tenses up, flinching away from the heat, but makes no move to flee.
The cigarette makes contact with his skin and he lets out a strangled yelp, eyes flitting to Eskil’s face, as if trying to figure out if this noise would be enough to make Eskil leave.
Ash spreads over the trainee’s pale skin. There is barely a mark beneath it yet, but it will come in time—his first burn blister of hopefully many.
Satisfied, Eskil flicks the extinguished cigarette to the side and opens his arms. After a breath of hesitation Eskil pretends not to notice, the trainee flings himself into his embrace, his chest hitching with silent sobs.
He claws into Eskil’s shirt with a feral need that goes beyond the two weeks of isolation, beyond the acclimation period after the walk-in. Maybe he sees something in him, some sort of figure he lost and whose comfort he secretly grieved. It is all out in the open now, the trainee’s soul ripped fresh open for the world to see. A brief burst of vulnerability, soon to be replaced by perfect obedience.
Suddenly, hesitantly, the trainee raises his head from Eskil’s shoulder, catching his gaze with immense sorrow.
“Sir? What… what will happen to my little brother? N-now that he’s all alone and he’s never been alone, I’ve always been there for him and he’s–”
Eskil shushes him softly, laying one hand on the back of the trainee’s head.
“There’s no my for you anymore, never forget that. But I’m sure he’ll manage.”
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The Last Lab Rat #9: Alone - part 1
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content: lab whump, captivity, nightmare (italicized), parent death mention, isolation, fear of abandonment and death, sensory deprivation, starvation, emotional whump, claustrophobia, escape attempt, needle mention, winged whumpee
sorry this took so long i’ve been busy irl but hopefully i’ll be back posting weekly chapters soon. also today is Dew’s birthday!! i’m gonna draw something but i might post that a bit late but happy birthday Dew!! silly guy
—
Dew woke up sprawled out among his pile of blankets on his bed. He yawned and sat up, stretching out his wings with a sigh of contentment. He sleepily rubbed his eyes and flopped back on the bed. That was the best sleep he’s had since…
Wait.
Dew’s eyes shot open, remembering last night and the days before. But when he expected to see the scientist standing over him with needles and knives, he saw nothing. Literally nothing. Dew sat up in bed, still groggy from his rest, and looked around. His eyes were open, and they were working— looking out the window, he could see the faint red glow of a few digital clocks and other machines— but the light was off. All of the lights were off, and the scientist was nowhere to be seen.
This had never happened before. Anton had always arrived super early in the mornings to check on his favorite little lab rat. Even if he wasn’t in his room waiting for Dew to wake up, he was still working in the lab on other things Dew couldn’t comprehend. The lights were always on, usually dimmed in the mornings before the experiments began, but the only time the lights were all completely off was at night. But it wasn’t night.
Dew looked out at the glowing digital clock: 8:12AM. Anton always woke Dew up at 7. He was late.
Whatever was going on this morning, Dew was too tired to do anything about it. He flopped down into bed and snuggled under the covers. He’d take advantage of this strange start to a day. A bit of extra comfort now would make up for hours of painful experimentation that would surely happen later. Dew closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep.
. . .
Dew woke up. He was sleeping in a bed, but the blankets were fluffier, and green and brown… not white like the ones on his bed in the lab. He sat up, bumping his head against the… ceiling? Where was he?
Dew opened his eyes. His gaze fell to his old minecraft themed bedspread he had as a kid. On the walls were posters for his and his roommates favorite shows and bands and video games. The light was off, but the sun was shining through the windows, and he basked in the warmth on his skin. He was home.
But how? Dew spread his wings and glided off of the top bunk, feeling the soft carpet under his feet. He took a look around. Everything was almost the same as he left it, but his friends were nowhere to be seen, and neither was their cat Sir Bonkles. But that didn’t matter right now. Dew could cry. He was back.
Dew ran though his old house– no, his home. Anton’s lab wasn’t his home and it never would be. He ran to the living room and saw Layla sitting on the couch with Sir Bonkles purring in her lap. Mars’s enclosure sat on a table against the wall, the ball python curled up inside. Dew caught the smell of something cooking, and looked in the kitchen to see Hayden and Sawyer painstakingly trying to make breakfast for everyone. Wait, Sawyer was here?
“Hey,” Dew said.
“Oh, hey Dewdrop!” Layla exclaimed, pausing her show.
“Where’ve you been?” Hayden asked. “We missed you.”
“I… I um, I was…” Dew’s mind flashed with memories he’d rather forget. Memories of fear and pain, of being kept in a room, trapped in a lab, memories of failed escape attempts and needles. So, so many needles. Memories of his captor taunting him about how nobody was coming to rescue him. Dew tried blinking away the tears forming in the corner of his eyes, but they fell anyway. “Weren’t you looking for me?”
“Of course we were!” Sawyer said. “I didn’t stop looking. I’m happy you’re back, Dewey.”
“W-wait, how’d I get h–”
“Oh!” Layla exclaimed, looking out the window. “Scooby Dew, your parents are here!”
Dew’s heart skipped a beat. All his strange excitement for being back immediately vanished and was replaced with a sense of dread oozing through his body. This wasn’t right. “W-what…?”
The door opened, and Dew’s mom and dad walked in, holding bundles of balloons. They looked just like Dew remembered them… not from the funeral, but back when they were alive. They looked happy. They were smiling. They were alive.
Oh. It was a dream.
This was all just a dream.
“Everyone’s so happy you’re back, Dew!” Hayden said, bringing Dew a plate of chocolate chip pancakes. “We have to celebrate, you’ve been gone such a long time.”
Of course it was a dream.
“Yeah, we have a whole season of our show to catch up on!” Layla exclaimed, patting the spot next to her on the couch. Dew sat down. “And I’ve gotta show the progress I’ve made on the game we’ve been working on. I can only code so much, you’re the writer Dew, you gotta help us!”
Of course he wasn’t actually out.
“Oh! Dew,” Hayden said. “That new video game you’ve been waiting for was released! You missed it, we were gonna play it together, remember?”
“Hey Dew,” Sawyer said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “I wanted to say I forgive you for what you said to me a few months ago. I know we haven’t talked, but I would still like to be your friend.”
No. He wouldn’t say that!
“Stop!” Dew exclaimed, jumping from the couch and flaring his wings out. Everybody stopped and stared. It was eerily silent.
“Th-this isn’t real! This is just a dream! It’s just a fucking dream!”
He heard his parents talking. He couldn’t understand what they were saying to him, their words were jumbled and their voices didn’t sound quite right. Dew tried to look away, tried to squeeze his eyes shut but he couldn’t help but glance up at them. From a distance they looked familiar. A distant memory, nostalgic, a blurry photograph taken from far away. But up close they were blank, their faces jumbled and unrecognizable. Dew rarely made eye contact with people, he always had trouble remembering faces and after his parents died, he avoided looking at photos of them because it was too painful. A constant reminder of what he would never see again. That was five years ago. They only haunted his dreams now.
“N-no… you’re not real. J-Just leave me alone!”
Everybody disappeared. The room was empty, and Dew was alone again.
“Fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!” Dew cried. He opened the front door and looked at the sky. It was weird. Not a normal sky. But he didn’t care.
Dew took off. He flew through the air at a speed that felt faster than light itself. He felt the wind blowing through his feathers and a flock of birds surrounding them as if he was one of their own. The trees were tall, never ending as they stretched up into the sky with him. But he eventually flew higher than those too.
But it wasn’t real. Dew wasn’t flying through the sky and clouds and air like he’d always wanted, he was having a dream in Anton’s lab. And he knew this.
But he didn’t care. He flew and flew and planned to fly forever, higher and higher and higher. It felt so real, he hoped he would never wake up. That way, everyone would get what they wanted. Dew could fly forever, and Anton could use his body as a test subject, unable to resist.
But after a while, the more he spiralled, the more the sky turned colors and his flesh warped around him, the more the birds started talking to him in human words, and his nonexistent watch displayed numbers that didn’t exist, the more this fucked up reality faded away.
The last thing he saw before he woke up, was a little mouse in his hands, telling him the words, “I’m sorry.”
. . .
Dew gasped awake. “Dammit!” He screamed into his hands as tears flowed down his cheeks. It was just a dream. It was just a fucking dream.
Dew grabbed the blanket and yanked it over his head, curling into a ball and squeezing his eyes shut. Anton had to be in his room now, watching him, mocking him. He had another bad dream that was almost making him burst into tears, how pathetic was that? But it was too hot under the blanket, too suffocating. Dew threw it off of him, almost falling off of the bed by the force of his throw. If Anton was there, he would’ve laughed… Wait, he still wasn’t there?
Dew wasn’t expecting the lights to still be off in his room. He wasn’t expecting all of the lights to be still off. It was pitch dark in the lab. Dew blinked a couple times, maybe his eyes hadn’t adjusted to the dark yet? No… nothing had changed. Dew looked out the window to the glow of the clocks. 11:24AM.
Okay. This was fine. Anton was over three hours late. He had probably just slept in from being woken up last night. This was fine. Dew couldn’t see anything, not even his hands frantically waving in front of his face. This was fine.
Maybe the power went out? No, that wouldn’t explain how the clocks were still working, or why Anton was nowhere to be found.
Dew looked up towards the door, at where the camera would be. If Anton wasn’t in the lab, he would surely be watching him through that, right? That was how he found out about Dew’s nightmare last night, after all.
Oh shit– Dew cringed. How could he have been so stupid? Asking Anton to stay with him last night? What was he thinking?
Dew hated Anton. He hated him! He’d always hated him and sometimes the thoughts of killing him and escaping were the only thoughts that got him through this hell. But thinking about what had happened last night, it wouldn’t make any sense for Anton to just abandon him like this. The scientist wasn’t the type of person to just forget, or sleep in, or decide to take a random day off. He had a rigid schedule that he stuck to, and he seemed to never want to spend too much time away from his test subject if he didn’t need to.
Dew was his test subject though. Thinking about it like that made him want to cry, but at the moment, stuck in Anton’s lab, it was true. He was a test subject, and the scientist controlled every part of his life. Dew needed Anton if he was going to survive here. Anton knew he needed him. Dew didn’t want to die, but he surely would if Anton didn’t take care of him. As much as Dew didn’t want to admit it, didn’t want to need Anton, he did.
“H-Hey!” Dew yelled, hoping the camera also had a microphone. “Why are all the lights off? I’m- I’m hungry!” Dew felt silly screaming into the air at nothing, but what else could he do?
“...I know you’re watching me!” Dew lied. “Stop ignoring me!” Nothing happened. “If- if this is some trick or- or experiment, like if you wanna see how I react to isolation or something, well, your cover's blown! I know what you’re planning now so you might as well come feed me!”
Silence.
Dark, suffocating, eerie silence.
“...Anton!” Dew shouted, not even at the camera anymore. He ran to the wall that looked over the lab and banged on the glass. “Anton! Anton! Anton?…” His screams died down after a little while, when he was sure he wouldn’t get a response.
“Just fucking great,” Dew sighed to himself. He stood in his room, suddenly feeling claustrophobic in this dark void. It was a small room, and there was almost nothing to do but wait until whenever Anton showed up. Dew didn’t understand what was happening, why, of all days, Anton just… Wasn’t here. But it was fine, he supposed, it meant he’d be free from pain for a little while.
Even if Dew did have something to do, it was impossible to see anything. He didn’t want to just go back to sleep though, after two terrible dreams in a row. And besides, he’d gotten a lot of sleep by now. He was wide awake.
Dew paced his room, trying to calm down. He was hungry, but he could go a few more hours without food, it was fine. Dew held his arms out in front of him, feeling the walls for the bathroom door. Dew was thankful Anton had removed that chain from his ankle a few weeks prior, at least now he wouldn’t have to worry about tripping over it in the dark.
Brushing his teeth was easy in the dark, and so was showering. It was a routine, a pattern. Not being able to see didn’t change anything. And Dew liked the dark, he’d always loved being in small, dark spaces, it had always been a comfort to him.
It was only until recently that he first felt the creeping fear of the dark, a cold chill go crawl up his spine whenever it was too dark to see what was lurking behind him. It didn’t make sense; Anton was the only other person here. But still, Dew hated the constant feeling that he was being watched, even in the darkness.
It was only until recently that he had grown to hate confined spaces. His growing wings needed to stretch out, and Dew was forced to spend his time out in the open. Yet another thing his captor took from him.
But that was fine. That didn’t even matter. There were so many more things that were more important than not being able to have slumber parties with his friends in the tiny room under the stairs anymore, or listening to music in his dark closet.
The shower helped Dew’s racing heart, but did nothing to get him out of this… situation. It was strange, wanting the things that hurt him; the too bright lights to turn on and Anton to walk through the door. It meant pain, most likely, and fear… but it also meant he wasn’t alone.
Dew almost hated being alone more than being with Anton.
And he hated that.
Dew didn’t have any dishes, so he cupped his hands under the cool sink water and sipped it from there. At least he knew he wouldn’t die from dehydration. But he still had no food.
He checked the clock. 13:23. He learned how to read a 24 hour clock at this point, it was a little over 1pm. Anton was over six hours late.
This wasn’t fine anymore. Of course it wasn’t. Where could Anton possibly be? Dew thought of all the things that could've happened to his captor to keep him from coming down here, and it just didn’t make sense. Anton hadn’t left Dew’s side for almost two months straight, why had he suddenly abandoned him?
Maybe he got caught? Maybe Dew’s friends or the authorities finally found him and locked him up… but then why weren’t they coming to Dew’s rescue? Did Anton destroy the keys to the lab? Was Dew now stuck here forever, his friends on the other side of the door, waiting for some miracle to open it?
Dew shook those thoughts away. Of course they weren’t. Of course, they must still be looking for him, but he’d know if they found him by now. They wouldn’t need a key to open a door when they could just kick it down.
So what was it then? Where the fuck was Anton? Was he in trouble? Did something happen? Dew supposed the worst possible thing would be if something bad did happen to Anton, and he wasn’t around to help Dew. At all. That thought, that feeling of sheer abandonment and knowing that if Anton disappeared, nobody would ever find your body, deep underground in the secret lab.
Dew laid down on his stomach, resting his head in his arms while his wings fidgeted nervously above him. He felt his stomach growl with hunger and he wished he had his music to listen to… If not that, then humming his favorite songs until Anton showed up would have to do.
Because he would show up, and Dew would have the slight comfort of knowing he wouldn’t die here, at least not abandoned and all alone.
. . .
Dew couldn’t take it anymore. How long had it been? It was 6PM already. Eleven hours after Anton was supposed to wake him up. He’d hummed the lyrics to probably 100 songs by now, all of them jumbling together as the minutes slowly ticked by. He felt like he was going insane, there was absolutely nothing to do. There was nothing to see, to hear, taste, smell… it was torture.
Dew wished he’d asked for a notebook, or a book to read, or anything to make his time here less boring. But he’d usually spend time with Anton in the lab during the day, and resting during the night, too tired from the experiments to do anything else. So he never bothered to ask for things to keep him entertained. How he wished he did now… even if it was too dark to see it.
The only sound he could hear besides his rapidly beating heart and racing thoughts was the air conditioning start up every hour. The white noise drowned out some of his spiral, but it was no use.
Eventually Dew decided to take another shower, to feel the warm water turn freezing cold and smile as Anton’s water bill went up. But that got boring quickly too. He kept the water on though, the silence he onced loved turning suffocating.
Dew stared at the clock. 19:45. It’d been over 12 hours. He’d stopped trying to sleep a while ago. Dew was curled up in a ball on the floor in the corner of his room. He stared at the camera with hatred in his eyes.
“I bet you think this is funny, huh,” Dew spat. “You found out last night I hate being alone, so you thought you’d leave me all alone in the dark today, huh? With no food? Or stimulation, o-or company? You just wanna torture me now, is that it?” Dew wrung his hands through his hair, squeezing his eyes shut at an attempt to hold back tears.
“You think– that maybe being ‘nice’ isn’t working, it’s not making me want to stay here willingly… So you decided to abandon me, make me see how much I need you and d-depend on you. S-so that when you come back and feed me, I-I’ll want to stay because I can’t stand being alone– all fucking alone in this cage! You wanna see me break, is that it?! You want me to be compliant and obedient while you fucking experiment on me like some animal?!
“I’m not an animal… I’m a person, Anton! I’m a person and I know you know that! I know you have this strange fucking– perception of me and sometimes you treat me nice but the other times you treat me like I don’t even have a fucking mind! You don’t make any sense! I don’t understand you!
“But if this– if all this is some trick to get me to willingly take part as a test subject like you want– It’s not working! I won’t fall for any of your fucking tricks again! Go fuck youself! Go fuck yourself and go die! I’ll kill you, you hear me!? When I get out of here I will fucking rip you apart!”
Dew hadn’t realized he stood up, but he found himself standing in front of the door, staring at the camera as tears flowed down his cheeks– he hadn’t noticed he started crying either. Dew grabbed the camera and yanked it from the wall, throwing it to the floor and laughing as it smashed into pieces.
“Fuck. Fuck!” Dew collapsed to the ground and cried in a ball. Anton wouldn’t be happy about him breaking that. But the scientist couldn’t even see him now. He wasn’t watching him anymore.
He wasn’t watching him anymore.
Dew’s breath hitched at his sudden realization. He was alone. He wasn't being watched. If Anton had been watching through the surveillance camera, he’d surely come down to see what happened to it. But if he wasn’t… He wouldn’t know it was even broken.
Dew’s heart sped up. He uncurled himself from the floor and stood on trembling legs. He was alone. He wasn’t being watched. Nobody was here to stop him. He could escape.
Dew frantically started to try and open the door, kicking it and banging on it. He moved his hands and felt along the walls, as if he’d push a brick in and unlock a secret entranceway. He knew it didn’t make sense, nothing did right now. He was starving, he felt like a feral animal, proving the scientist right as he picked up the chair and threw it at the door. When that did nothing, he then threw it at the glass wall, but that too, was too strong. Dew tried picking up his entire bed frame, but he wasn’t strong enough. He hadn’t eaten all day. He was starving and weak and exhausted.
The air conditioner started up again, signifying the endless passing of time that never seemed to stop. The sound of cool air flowing through his room just reminded him how trapped he was—
Wait a fucking minute.
Dew looked up to the corner of his ceiling, above his bed and to the left. Of course he saw nothing, the room was still dark. But he knew what was there. He knew what’d always been there since day one but the thought never even occurred to him to try and open it. He was too short, too weak to pry open the metal hinges. Especially not with Anton watching through the camera or being in the lab all the time. But now… he was all alone. He could reach the vents now. He could. He could go through them and the scientist would never know because he wasn’t here.
Dew’s wings fluttered in anticipation. Excitement. Suspense. Hope. This wasn’t like the other times he’d tried to escape. He didn’t randomly decide one morning that today would be the day, he didn’t impulsively decide to escape and run and be chased and get hurt. This was controlled. This time, he was alone. He was by himself and Anton was nowhere to stop him or mind control him or hurt him. Dew could escape and there was nothing Anton could do about it because he was gone.
And at this point, Dew didn’t care where Anton went. He was done waiting around for his captor to come back. He had a plan now. This was the chance he’d been waiting for.
Dew waited another half hour, making sure he truly was alone. Maybe a part of himself tried to talk him out of it, told him he’d just be hurt more, worse than before for escaping. But he ignored that part of himself, the part that tried to keep him safe, the part that saw himself as just a test subject.
He couldn’t wait any longer and let that part of himself win. He took a glance at the clock– 20:16, 8PM– before he hopped up on his bed with nervous, shaking legs. He was too short to reach the vents with his arms, so he grabbed the chair in the corner and stacked it on his nightstand and climbed on top of that. If he fell from there, it would hurt, but not as bad as what Anton would do if he caught him escaping.
Dew took one last look towards the direction of the window, down where the door to the lab would be. If it opened now, he could just hop down and pretend everything was normal. He could wait until Anton arrived like the good test subject he was, but Dew knew that wasn’t gonna happen. Fuck that shit. This was it, no going back now.
Dew’s wings fluttered as he jumped in the air and grabbed the bars of the vents with his hands. His legs kicked out and knocked over the chair, having nothing to step on, but that was fine. His wings kicked into action and despite his room being so small, and despite not being able to see where the walls began, he was flying. He positioned himself upside down, hands gripping the vent, feet placed on the ceiling, on either side of it, and pulled with all his strength.
The vent suddenly swung open, causing Dew to fall backwards, but he expected that to happen and he was ready. His wings flapped rapidly as he lunged himself upward, through the hole in the ceiling, and into the unknown.
He collapsed in the small, cold, metal space. He closed the latch back up, covering his tracks, and began to crawl through the tight tunnels. It wasn’t as a tight space as Dew was expecting, which he was thankful for. There was enough room to sit up and turn around if he needed to. It was still dark, and he had to hold his arms in front of him to not bump into a wall, or fall down a sudden turn.
Despite the high stakes situation, Dew couldn’t help but smile. Crawling through the vents like he was in a heist movie was something Dew had always wanted to do. He just hoped it would end with him making it to the surface.
He was crawling for a few moments until he found his first turn, his sense of direction was abysmal so he had no idea what way to go, so he just chose a direction and kept crawling.
A sudden, terrifying thought occurred to him. The lab was located underground, deep, deep underground. If Dew never found an exit, if Anton never got him out of the air ducts, Dew would just die here.
He gulped that thought away. He couldn’t think like that, he wasn’t going to die.
After more twists and turns, he found an opening. He couldn’t see what was out the other side, as the lights were still off, but he didn’t want to be in the vents anymore. So, with the bit of strength he had left, he kicked it open and jumped down, his wings softening the landing.
Dew was out. Dew was out of his room and even though he was hungry, that didn’t matter anymore— nothing mattered now except escaping the lab.
Dew looked around frantically, recognising the familiar feeling of the tiles on the floor, and noticing the glow of the clocks closer to him. He was in the lab. Alone.
It was around 9PM. Dew didn’t think anymore, not about his hunger, not about Anton, not about what would happen to him later, only about finding a way out. He ran to where the clock was, that was a good start. He tripped over some boxes on the floor but regained his footing quickly, fueled solely on adrenaline.
He made it to Anton’s desk, and felt around for anything. He opened drawers until he found a flashlight. It clicked on and Dew let out a sigh of relief. Finally, he could see.
First thing first was finding out what fucking day it was. Dew tried to keep count, but only had a rough estimation at this point. He shined his flashlight over Anton’s desk, picking up a small bag and stuffing it with papers, files, tape recorders, any evidence that would be helpful once he gets out of here. He found a small blank notepad, and a pen, and stuff that into his pants pocket as well. And then his eyes landed on a calendar.
Dew looked at the calendar. All the days that had passed were marked with an ‘X’, except today: October 3rd. It was October already? Dew realized in horror.
Dew flipped through the calendar a few pages until he got to August. Some of the days had writing over them, important events Anton was waiting for, Dew supposed. One of the days was circled with a blue marker. “New test subject day!” it read. Dew felt sick. Anton had planned it, written the day he was gonna kidnap him down on his calendar like it was any other special event.
Dew had been taken around the beginning of August, and it was already October. Dew felt numb. How had he let eight weeks pass like it was nothing? How could– How hasn’t anybody found him yet? Surely people have been looking, right?
Dew crumpled up the calendar in his hands, tears freely falling down onto it. He’d been here so long, he only just realized his birthday was already two weeks away.
Dew missed out on seven consecutive gamenights with his roommates. He missed over 40 days of work. He missed feeding Hayden’s snake every Wednesday. He missed sitting on the couch with Layla to watch a new episode of her favorite show every Friday, with Sir Bonkles purring on his lap. He missed out on long nights awake playing video games with Sawyer. He missed playing with Sawyer’s dog. He missed Sawyer.
“C-calm down,” Dew told himself. Breaking down wouldn’t help his situation now, he had to focus.
He’d see Sawyer, and Hayden and Layla and all their pets later. He’d reunite with his best friends and confess his most likely unrequited love to them later. Now was not the time to think about all this.
Dew stood up on shaking legs, forgetting about the half-assed bag of evidence he made, and pointed his flashlight towards the direction of the door. He was hungry, he hadn’t eaten in a full 24 hours, but Anton was gone. He was so close, he could just leave if he got the door open.
He shined the flashlight to a nearby shelf, jump scaring himself at the sight of needles, but he shook that fear away. He didn’t have time for fear. Dew took a deep breath and looked over the various strange tools and weapons, any of these outta get that door open.
Just as Dew was heading towards the door with a crowbar in hand, the lights suddenly turned on, briefly blinding him. Dew stopped in his tracks, dread pooling in his stomach, acutely aware of the situation he was in. He hadn’t felt this sense of pure terror before, almost animalistic, this deep sense of dread that made a chill crawl up his spine and his entire body tremble in terror.
He was caught.
Anton was back.
—
:)
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