Luis

Maybe I should talk about my relationship to Luis at this point. At first he kept his distance. I think we were quite similar. He grew up without his family, spent his youth running around doing illegal things. He hung around with ”wrong” people. He grew up to be a runner, but later on, when he did some good jobs, he decided to quit. He had enough money and fame so he got himself a small shop selling guns. He was a fixer and a mercenary. He loved the action so he could never quit completely. He was hired to do the most difficult jobs. He wasn't cheap, but he was good. Runners wanted his support. He had his own team he helped out of the goodness of his heart, as he once told me. I was allowed on his teams jobs, but he didn't want me on his more professional jobs. He said I was too impulsive. I understood. I had other things to do as well. I studied.

After one, longer job, we went home exhausted. We showered and then he asked me to go to bed with him. He taught me about sex. It was enjoyable, and after that we spent many nights together. I read about sex and its power on men. I was a bit concerned about pregnancy, but after all I had read about shapeshifters, and what Luis told me he believed, I trusted not to become pregnant. I think my immune system is too strong. I don’t know if shapeshifters are able to have offspring at all, but I don’t even care. Sometimes I think about it. Can I get pregnant to a leopard? Can I get pregnant to a shapeshifter? Does the shapeshifter have to be leopard, or can it be for example a wolf? Or a tiger? If I get pregnant do I need to be in human-form or leopard-form? Can I even get pregnant in the human-form?

I don’t think my relationship with Luis as a romantic kind. It was a physical relationship. I don’t even know if I can feel the thing people call love. I would have been sad if I had lost Luis, but it wouldn't have devastated me. Death is a part of life. So is pain and suffering. I have noticed that people with sheltered lives don’t understand this. They don’t understand that life can be suffering, and every life ends at some point. They will be shocked when they find out.

The Training

In the morning I woke up when the shiny-aura- man walked into the room. He was carrying a bowl of water and another bowl of food. He put them on the floor and sat on a chair. He watched me eat. ”I’ll teach you how to transform”, he promised.

It took me a couple of weeks to master the transformation completely. At first, when I managed to do it, it was by accident. After I had done it a few times I started doing it by accident. Whenever I was startled I transformed. I broke quite a few clothes in those couple of weeks. All this time those two men were there for me. The one who also transformed, he was a tiger. Larger and stronger than me. He was called Stephan. The other man was a mercenary called Luis. We were at a hide-out of Luis. Actually Luis wasn’t part of Stephan’s team, he was a good friend. He had apparently taught lots of things about humans to Stephan. Stephan was also from a zoo, but Luis and his friends spotted him first and stole him. They told me that the zoo had quite a lot shapeshifters born in there compared to other zoos. It still wasn’t very common. Sometimes, about once or twice in ten years, they heard about magical animals being born there.

They told me that I was stolen from the zoo by some runners. They sold me to a collector, who wanted me as a status-symbol. Other party of runners broke in, found me and sold me to a laboratory. After that they heard that the laboratory had magical animals in there. They did their jobs well; Stephan said that they didn’t get any money from that job. Everyone wanted to help. I had spent eleven months in the lab. At that point I was a bit over two years old. I wasn’t quite an adult yet, but I wasn’t a baby either.

When I had mastered the transformation completely, Stephan left. He wished me best of luck and said that he needed to keep going. His team had already left the area, and he had to go back home. He promised that Luis would take care of me and teach me about life amongst humans. I said goodbye to Stephan. That was the last time we met. I would actually love to know how he is, or is he even alive anymore. Maybe someday I will find out what happened to him.

My life consisted of studying English so that I could communicate better, and fighting-skills. Luis taught me to read and write. He also taught me unarmed combat, sword-fighting and etiquette. English was hard to learn to read and write. I had learned English by listening, and talking was a challenge for me at first.

Luis had some jobs to take care of every once in a while. I stayed behind, studied about paranormal animals, explosives and survival. I took off sometimes, I went to the woods as a leopard, learned to hunt on my own, learned to survive in the wild.

After I had become stronger in my human-body and were capable of protecting myself Luis started to take me on his jobs as well. Mostly I sneaked around, protected my post and planted explosives. I had fun, I liked to fight, I enjoyed the excitement and the killing. Other people of the team were a bit scared of me. They didn't trust me completely, or at least that’s the impression I got. They didn't speak English, so I got my instructions directly from Luis.

I believe it was my vicious fighting that scared them. I didn’t hesitate to kill. I jumped into situations head-on, killed with smile on my face and laughed at suffering victims. I don’t even know if I have a gentle side. It was also startling to the team when I transformed in the middle of the job, in the middle of the fight. Every time I felt like I needed more strength I transformed and attacked. As a leopard in the fight I tend to be even more vicious. Blood tastes sweet when I lick it off my claws. I imagined killing my torturers when I fought.

I never gained Luis’s teams trust. Not even when I killed a huge elemental in my leopard-form. They were losing the battle, because the elemental was made by a strong mage and was immune to their weapons. I jumped in to save them. My claws are magical weapons, and I strike hard. My claws made the difference, I killed the elemental. We got the job done. Still they were afraid of me. I didn’t care. Luis was the only one I wanted to help; he was the reason why I jumped in to save them

Tiger

There I was, trying to think the best way to fight back, when I saw a new animal brought in. It was bigger than me. It had stripes, and it was asleep. I saw its aura from the small holes. The glass in my cage prevented me from seeing auras, but I had learned to look the right way to see from the holes. The other animals’ aura shined brightly. I thought that it was similar to me. I growled, but it was still asleep.

During the first night with the other animal there I heard strange voices. Then someone spoke. I recognized the language; it was the same one the people there spoke. I growled. The voice spoke for a while, and suddenly the language was familiar. It was English. ”I know you are different. Don’t worry; we will take you away from here. Be patient, and you will be saved” it said to me. I didn't know how to respond. ”I’m the one that was brought in today. I don’t know if you saw me, but I can smell you in my other form. I can’t believe you have been here for such a long time. I can’t believe how much you have suffered. Can you change forms?” the voice was a male voice. He sounded concerned, compassionate. Not at all like the people in lab coats. I tried to respond, but it was very difficult. I couldn't produce sounds needed for speaking. I didn't understand how he was able to do that. Then he said something I couldn't believe. ”You should transform into human. Then we could talk more. I know you haven’t done that here. Growl if you have done it before”. I was silent, a bit shocked. ” OK, so you have never transformed. It’s not easy to explain, it should come to you naturally. I just picture myself as a human, I focus and then it happens. You can try it now, but if you haven’t mastered it I would advise you to stay in your current form. It’s easier for us. Don’t worry, it’ll take a few days, but they will help us” he explained. I stayed silent, thinking about what I had heard.

A few days later, when the lights had switched off, I felt a presence. I peeked from the holes and saw an aura. It flew across the room, I assumed. Then I heard clacking, and suddenly a naked man was in front of my cage. He opened my cage, told me to follow him and moved to open the door. I followed. In the aura-world I saw his true nature. He wasn't shaped as a human, he was shaped as a feline, and he glowed, just like me. I was weak from not moving in months, so I struggled to walk. My muscles hurt, but I kept on going. Suddenly he stopped. Then he looked at me and ran quietly to a door. He opened it and made a mark that I should follow. I heard walking, so I followed. I noticed that the glowing aura had followed us. ”Hide us”, the man said, and suddenly the aura materialized. There was human-formed creature, still glowing in the aura-world. It did something to us. Our auras got something more, and there was shiny threads going to the creature. We heard walking outside the door, and then someone opened the door. We had tried to hide, but I was sure we were found. I saw the night guard to look at all of us, shut the door and keep going. We moved quietly outside the laboratory. There were some people waiting. They gave a jacket to the man and then we left with them. I was puzzled about all of this action, it was all new to me. I followed these people to a car, jumped in and watched from the back window. I watched as the laboratory went out of sight, and I kept watching. It felt like a dream.

The people took me to a house. It had taken couple of hours to drive there. I had listened to those people talking. They didn't speak English. The man with the glowing aura sat next to me. He didn't speak; he just looked at me with pity in his eyes. He reached his hand to me and petted me. I didn't like his touch and moved away, as far as I could in that small car. He didn't try to touch me after that.

When we arrived to the house only the man with the glowing aura got off. He asked me to follow him, and I did. He walked to the house and opened the door with a key. The lights were on inside the house, even though it was still night. I noticed another man there. He greeted us, and then they spoke about something. ”I believe you need some sleep, please, follow me” the man who had been in the house said. His aura was normal, it didn't glow like mine. I followed him to a room with a big bed. He said that I could sleep there, and left me alone. He left the door open. I walked to the bed and jumped on it. It felt very soft and pleasant. I curled up and closed my eyes. I was so tired.

Black and White

I’m not going to go through all the things they did to me. I’m going to tell about the one, most horrific thing they did to me.

I had already lost the track of time. I didn't know how many days or weeks I had spent there. There was a clock on the wall I saw. I knew that when it was 7 a.m., they got in. Before 8 a.m. they took me from my cage to the other room. They brought me back to my cage at 5 p.m. I counted minutes and seconds on the table. It distracted me. Smaller pains I tried to ignore. But the day they destroyed some of my sight, that I couldn't ignore.

They took me to the examination room just like always. They had decided to examine my brain, apparently. My body was tied motionless. The first time they cut my head open was terrible. I tried to scream, I tried to get away. The wound closed quickly, but they did it again and did something that it would stay open. I couldn't move or fight. The pain was indescribable. I closed my eyes. Then I opened them. The red hot pain had blinded me. I saw the people there, staring at my eyes. I could felt the other people doing something in my head. They poked around. They talked constantly. The people I saw nodded. I stared at their eyes. Their mouths and noses were covered, so I could only try to memorize their eyes. I decided, at that moment, that if I ever got free, if I ever left the place alive, I would return. I would return and make these people suffer.

It had taken a lot of time. I had lost consciousness several times during the procedure, so I wasn't sure how long it had taken. The same people kept my eyes open, showed light to my eyes and made notes. Then, suddenly, something happened. The people yelled something, I felt something snap inside my skull, and the colors faded. I couldn't see colors anymore. The world had changed into black and white and shades of grey. The pain was enormous. I tried to scream again. I couldn't move. People seemed agitated. I felt the pain more than ever. They removed their things from my head, and I felt the wound close. The pain stayed. It didn't fade away like normally. They put me to sleep again, and I woke up in my cage. The pain in my head was overwhelming. I couldn't stand, I lay down. I let my head touch the floor between my paws, I closed my eyes and wished I was dead.

They didn't do anything to me the next day. I got to be on my own for four days. The pain was still there, when they took me back to the room. They examined me and took me back to the cage. I was weak. I couldn't fight or attack, I just wanted to sleep. The pain in my head made me want to die. It was different. I didn't have any wounds, I didn't bleed. They had broken something in my head, because I didn't see the colors anymore.

After two weeks the pain was just a faded memory. They examined me daily, but didn't cause any more pain. I still felt something strange in my head, but it was just a shadow of the red hot pain I had felt earlier. I had memorized the peoples eyes. I would know them anywhere. All the small details, all the shades of gray. I also memorized their voices. I wasn't sure which words meant their names, but I recognized the voices rooms away. I knew I was going to die in the laboratory. I wasn't ready to go alone. I decided to try to wait for a right moment to attack. I was weak, but my spirit was strong, still. They could take away my freedom, but they could never take away my spirit.

Laboratory

After a few months things changed yet again. Some people broke into the house. I saw them killing the person who ”owned” me, because he tried to call the police and call for help. They grabbed lots of things from the house. Then they came to me. They had a person with them who glowed. She was clearly visible in the bluish world as well, just like me. She did something, and suddenly I fell asleep. I woke up, fell asleep again, and this happened quite a few times. Then I think I was unconscious for a longer time, because the next time I woke up I was in a small cage. I tried to clear my head and think what had happened. Apparently the people who broke in had transferred me to this cage. I heard voices of animals there, moving around. They were all around me. I couldn't see any auras in front of me. I tried, and I realized that the cage I was in wasn't only made of metal bars. I was also surrounded by glass, or plastic. There were holes on the corners.

I waited for hours for something to happen. It was dark in there, so I assumed it was still night-time. After several hours something finally happened. Lights went on, and I heard talking. It wasn't familiar language. They spoke some strange language, and got closer. A door opened, and four people stepped in wearing lab coats. They stared at me, wrote something in pads and had a conversation. I guess they were talking about me. I growled at them.

After this it was almost constant pain for months. Now I know I was taken to a laboratory. They examined me. Then I realized my healing-powers. They cut me open more times I can count, and the wounds healed immediately. And I couldn't understand them. It would've been a bit easier if I knew what they were doing next, but they didn't speak English. It made me angry, afraid and somewhat unresponsive.

I spent my time in a tiny cage. I couldn't turn around, walk or stretch my aching muscles. I got food and water, but that was it. They moved me to another room nearly every day to do ”research”. It was torture for me. It wasn't easy for them to take me away from my small cage, but they managed to invent a way to do it without danger for them. I had managed to hurt one or two of them at the beginning. They put me to sleep every time they took me from the cage, and when I woke up I had been tied to the table. I wasn't as flexible or agile as I was before, so it was difficult to fight back.

I have been wondering why they didn't keep me asleep while they were doing their things and hurting me, but now I think I understand, at least a part of it. I think it’s expensive to try and keep quickly-healing leopard asleep. They would need constant supply of the med. It wasn't a priority to them. They didn't care I was hurting. I wasn't a human to them, I was just an animal.