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Description
I lie awake on my cot listening for a noise, any noise that will confirm there are still people living outside my prison. I hear none. If I don't get out I probably won't hear anything but cars and shouts of training 'Ments. But for now I lie absently stroking the inside of my left forearm, with the numbers tattoo-ed: 2269, property of X-laboratory. Gender: Female. Type: Avian/human. Description: speckled light gold wings and hair, silver lilac eyes. Height: 5 foot 3 inches. Have always hated the coldness of it, how it makes me feel like an animal, like a chicken or cow raised for slaughter with a stamped number to show identification. As if we're all the same, us 'Ments. Chris had told me how he'd seen a girl with extremely long ears who had been created with Red deer DNA. All of us, he'd guessed, were based off different animals. At least I know there are others like me here.
It's been five hours since I heard the watchmen come in for a drink, so I cautiously push the door open. I wait, and back away when I hear the hiss of liquid filling the air. Alarmed, I sniff suspiciously, and choke on it. It burns my lungs. My heart beats faster, as realization and fear rise in my mind.
Thoughts race through my mind,
They know. They know what I've planned. They're going to kill me with some kind of gas.
No! Not this time. No more deaths, I must escape, for myself and my brother.
Carefully, I rip a piece off my pillow into a mask, tying it around my mouth and nose. Stepping out into the corridor, I shiver. The corridor seems too quiet, no guards patrolling, or Experimentalists visiting for inspection. It's deserted. Breaking into a run, I look for the big red Exit signs I've seen often when taken out of my cell. Seeing the nearest doors, I charge through them. The door leads into a stairwell. My lungs are burning, the stuff filling the air stings my skin, putting cold fire into me, worming its way deeper to a more painful spot. I have to get out of here. But as I start down the stairs, some strange new instinct takes over and I turn around, going up. My brain flares into bright spots now, a horrible fizzing bringing white sparks into my eyes, and my muscles begin to seize up.
Keep running! You're almost there! Is the one desperate thought I cling onto, as my vision starts to blur. Ahead I can just make out the sign reading: Rooftop. I need to get out, need pure air. I stumble to the door, push it open. The wind tears in, cold and fierce and I breathe in the first taste of freedom. Outside it's pitch black, from the doorway I stand in, my silhouette is framed, dark against the light flooding out. I look back, one last glance at the place I'd lived for all of my life. And I step out into the dark.

Description
I lie awake on my cot listening for a noise, any noise that will confirm there are still people living outside my prison. I hear none. If I don't get out I probably won't hear anything but cars and shouts of training 'Ments. But for now I lie absently stroking the inside of my left forearm, with the numbers tattoo-ed: 2269, property of X-laboratory. Gender: Female. Type: Avian/human. Description: speckled light gold wings and hair, silver lilac eyes. Height: 5 foot 3 inches. Have always hated the coldness of it, how it makes me feel like an animal, like a chicken or cow raised for slaughter with a stamped number to show identification. As if we're all the same, us 'Ments. Chris had told me how he'd seen a girl with extremely long ears who had been created with Red deer DNA. All of us, he'd guessed, were based off different animals. At least I know there are others like me here.
It's been five hours since I heard the watchmen come in for a drink, so I cautiously push the door open. I wait, and back away when I hear the hiss of liquid filling the air. Alarmed, I sniff suspiciously, and choke on it. It burns my lungs. My heart beats faster, as realization and fear rise in my mind.
Thoughts race through my mind,
They know. They know what I've planned. They're going to kill me with some kind of gas.
No! Not this time. No more deaths, I must escape, for myself and my brother.
Carefully, I rip a piece off my pillow into a mask, tying it around my mouth and nose. Stepping out into the corridor, I shiver. The corridor seems too quiet, no guards patrolling, or Experimentalists visiting for inspection. It's deserted. Breaking into a run, I look for the big red Exit signs I've seen often when taken out of my cell. Seeing the nearest doors, I charge through them. The door leads into a stairwell. My lungs are burning, the stuff filling the air stings my skin, putting cold fire into me, worming its way deeper to a more painful spot. I have to get out of here. But as I start down the stairs, some strange new instinct takes over and I turn around, going up. My brain flares into bright spots now, a horrible fizzing bringing white sparks into my eyes, and my muscles begin to seize up.
Keep running! You're almost there! Is the one desperate thought I cling onto, as my vision starts to blur. Ahead I can just make out the sign reading: Rooftop. I need to get out, need pure air. I stumble to the door, push it open. The wind tears in, cold and fierce and I breathe in the first taste of freedom. Outside it's pitch black, from the doorway I stand in, my silhouette is framed, dark against the light flooding out. I look back, one last glance at the place I'd lived for all of my life. And I step out into the dark.