In Search of Home

Chapter 15

They all, very creatively, decided as one collective to name the pink alien Pink. Some of the others suggested Fuchsia or even Rose, but ultimately, they settled on the simpler option. A few humans, namely Zach and Skylar, who hadn't really seen Lilac's sporadic compassion for Viktor, insisted on calling her 'that alien' instead. Viktor couldn't really blame them. All they knew was that these aliens would beat the shit out of Viktor whenever the humans didn't cooperate. Hell, that's almost all Viktor knew, too.

Even Lilac's touch, which had been filled with kind intentions, had been extremely painful. He wondered what she was up to. He sort of hoped she didn't get thrown in jail as the others had. If they even had been.

But the vets had all been rather kind. They didn't grab Viktor by the collar roughly or hit him with leashes. Their ointment didn't cause agonizing amounts of pain. Plus, they had good food.

This pet store also had good food. Viktor was slowly but surely putting on some more weight. Even with the extra food, though, he was still pretty short, especially compared to everyone else. Near constant fighting and poor nutrition had really put a stunt on his growth. Not that was really going to be getting much taller. His growth spurts throughout his youth haven't garnered him more than a few inches at a time. He was still a rather short 5'6. His father had encouraged him, slapping him on the back and telling him that he had only shot up when he was eighteen. He told Viktor not to worry too much. It was easy for him to say, he towered over Viktor.

He felt a twinge of loss and grief in his chest, so fierce that he wanted to throw up. He needed to stop thinking about his dad. Plus, he was getting off track.

Pink had yet to yell at them or punish them at all. It had been a little over a day since they had gotten here. Viktor and the others, finally glad to be out of a small cage, had scoured nearly every inch of the small room they were in. Even if they were technically still in a cage, it was much better than any other one they had been in before, that was for damn sure. They had also decided to test their limits with the new alien. She seemed to be the sole owner of this place, despite it being so large. They hadn't seen any other aliens wandering around.

Currently, they were waiting for Pink to open the shop. The white sun was slowly creeping into the yellow sky, just breaking the horizon. Despite the comfort that was the humans' makeshift blanket fort (and really, it was only a blanket fort for Viktor. Sharing the blankets with all the others tended to leave a bit of a wide space of air for him in between them), they were all still hardwired to wake as soon as the sun rose. The arena always had odd hours, but they were always fed at dawn despite that. Lilac had never been the ones to feed them that early in the day, and as they all soon found out, the aliens that did feed them took a sick pleasure in banging on the cage doors to startle them awake. None of them had enjoyed that, so they started waking up at dawn.

They didn't have to wait for Pink long, as she soon bustled in through the front door, locking it behind her. She yawned loudly, standing still for a moment. One of the other animals, Viktor thought he heard the tell-tale hiss of one of those freaky club-tailed animals, yammered at her, and she startled into action.

Viktor was pressed up against the chain-link fence gate, along with Aiko and Ezekiel, peering out to watch. Truth be told, Viktor was only over here because he was starving. He groaned when he saw that she was tending to the other animals first. They seemed happy to see her, letting her pat their heads joyfully. He couldn't quite see all of the other half-walled rooms with animals, but he heard at least four doors open. That made their room number five.

Ezekiel groaned dramatically, watching Pink walk into another room. He had his arm resting on Viktor as if he were some human armrest. Every time Viktor managed to slap his arm off, the bigger man just put it back on. Viktor decided to pick and choose his battles, knowing that he'd definitely lose this one.