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This place is dark...so very dark...and...
With a florish she was awake and aware. Something had happened in a moment of time- and she was now alive. She was within another life. There was another life within this life...and...
It was changing- the dark place was changing and falling apart around her and she was being dragged into the world with the other life- a brother life. First of the litter she was strongest, awake and strong.
Dumped out from the larger life, she and her brother were now being leered at from all sides. They were on a hard, slick surface. She looked at her brother, her brother who looked unlike any of them in the room. They who were leaning over and looking and speaking and....
She found she could understand their words, and knew that her brother could too...
"Twins!" One of the big lives jumped back in surprise. "But one is-"
"Get them apart, quickly! If they grow too fond of one another it can ruin everything!"
"God, it's a monster..."
"But the girl is entirely human, we have at least partial success."
"Not quite." A large life lunged forward and she dodged, but it caught her and held her up under her arms. She growled in her throat, a soft mewling sound because of her age. "The eyes are different again."
"Damn, why does this keep happening?"
"Perhaps we're using too pure a strain of DNA..."
"Well THAT much is obvious from the other creature!"
Cast down, she isntinctively landed on all fours next to her brother, her brother that they were speaking of darkly. He wasn't misshapen to her eyes- to her eyes he was perfectly normal. His sinewy body was young and covered in a soft black fur, tawny yellow streaks along his paws and face. They would darken with age into a gold, she knew somehow. He was on his feet too, his ears backed and growling.
One of the larger lives inclined its head a little. They were bald faced creatures with long arms that stood wrong. She didn't like them. "She's acting more animal than human as well..."
"The proper training can correct even that," snapped another voice. "Take away the creature for study and place her with the others. We'll solve this problem soon enough."
Hands came now from the big lives and tore them away from one another. Yelping and clawing with her weak hands, she refused to go. She bit, but her mouth had no teeth and only pink gums. She could see her brother doing likewise...but they were so small...and...
Ta Bahata...
The voice awoke her from her bunk, a strange voice that she knew from somewhere. She looked around in the dark...a dark filled with other beds and others like her. Human but not Human. She did not care what she was, survival was her only goal. Not so much even a goal as a drive. She could speak now, with some difficulty, and walk on her hind legs, but she remained inwardly an animal. She had no emotions other than survival at the moment. And the voice disturbed her.
"Aslilin is awake," a voice hissed in the dark. There was movement. The other beings were turning in their beds, peering over at her in the dark, taking it up like a chant. "Aslilin is awake."
Eyes glowed and shimmered in the room, the main seperation physically from they and their Human creators. Slitted eyes, flashing eyes, changing eyes. Aslilin did not like mirrors but knew from what others said her eyes too were different. They were green, but a strange green. A moving green. A demonic green.
The bodies writhed over one another in the dark like hellspawn in a den, each one grabbing for a hand or foothold to see her. She was different from them and they could sense it from the day she had been brought in to them.
"Aslilin hears her Ta Bahata," Some of the voices mingled into the chant. "Aslilin is awake, Aslilin is awake."
The creatures like her had somehow created a mingled language- one that their creators were working to beat out of them. Ta Bahata- it had so many meanings that were unclear. Friend, sibling, father, mother, soul, spirit, creator, half...Aslilin did not understand which of these was calling her in the dark.
"Listen, listen! Aslilin hears her Ta Bahata!" some of the voices became frantic yipping and creatures jumped up and down in their bunks. Aslilin stood with feline grace and glared about her, past all these gibbering things at the source of the voice in her mind...it spoke again.
Ta Bahata, where are you?
It was more clear and Human than the voices of these creatures. Coming from behind walls and doors now, she could tell it was speaking to her. Taking steps forward, she lifted her nose to the air...a feeble human-shaped nose with a feeble sense....but it was good enough. She could smell something like herself...something...like...
"Dark Brother," She spoke in monotone, glaring forward and began to walk in the dark. The other creatures were going wild now, throwing themselves across the room at her movement and speech. She paid them no heed and approuched the thick metal door that kept them inside their cell-like room.
Ta Bahata, I hear you! The voice was stronger and on the other side of the door. Help me, Ta Bahata!
The voice was important. It should not have been, but it was. Glaring at the lock on the inside of the door, Aslilin lifted her hand to it and glared. The room grew cold as a strange wind swept through it. With a blast, the door flew open. The other creatures screamed and tore at their bedsheets, ranting and raving.
"ASLILIN IS AWAKE! ASLILIN IS AWAKE! ASLILIN HEARS HER TA BAHATA!" The screaming chant echoed out into the hallways. Steping past their screams, Aslilin, three years old with jet black hair and pale skin, set off in search of the strange voice.
