I tried to slowly peel my eyes open, but it felt like they were sewn shut. After a long and hard battle, I finally won and opened my eyes.

I was still drugged, I knew that much. I could feel the effects of the really bad ones that didn't put you to sleep but made you a total zombie. Everything was slow when you were put on those.

I heard the cell doors open and struggled to get out of my bed. I dragged my feet out of the cell, keeping my eyes down at the floor while walking out for breakfast. I forgot my tray at the food station and sat down without anything in front of me. No bother, I was too high to eat anyways. It didn't exactly feel bad, to be perfectly honest. Everything was slowed down, making it look like a film shot in slow-motion. There was nothing. No feelings, no emotions. I couldn't even feel the tips of my fingers.

I looked down at my hands resting on the table and started poking my thumbs with my pointing fingers. Someone sat down across from me, and I looked up to meet the hard gaze of C59.

"How're you feeling?" he asked. I blinked incredibly slowly and wasn't sure how to talk. He pushed my forgotten tray in front of me. I looked down at it and was confused as to what I was supposed to do with it.

"Eat."

Someone sat down next to me, and I slowly turned my head. It was one of the other cats. He was a lot bigger than me and regarded me with a reserved look.

"He is high as a kite," the big one said and looked over at C59.

"Well observed," C59 growled back, his tone icy.

I looked down at my tray again and remembered the function of a spoon. I slowly wrapped my fingers around it and lifted it from the tray. I sighed loudly and looked down again. I must have looked brain-damaged or something.

"What a show yesterday, huh?" somebody behind me said. "Thanks for that, C41, we'll remember not to hurt your little feelings, or you'll just shift on us."

I think I was the only one getting called by number here. Mainly because I hadn't given my name to anybody.

"Don't you have somebody's ass you need to smell?" C59 growled back.

"Did they give him too much catnip? He looks high as balls."

Some clarity started to return to my head, and I clenched my fist around the spoon. I slowly turned around in my seat and faced the dog who was yelling out shit. He was a lot bigger than me, but a lot of people were.

"Why... Don't... You come... Over... Here and say... That... Again... Bitch?" I asked, my words incredibly slurred by the drugs. The big cat next to me snorted and patted my shoulder.

"The fuck did you just say to me?" the dog said and rose from his seat. I very slowly got on my feet too.

"Cub, sit the fuck down," C59 said coolly.

The big cat clasped his hand down on my shoulder and pushed me down in my seat again. I slowly lifted the spoon and showed it to the dog.

"Bye-bye, eye," I sang in a happy tune, gently hitting the spoon against my temple and turned back around again. More cats had joined our table, and they looked amused at me.

"They should drug him more often," one of them said and snorted. Even C59 was smiling.

"Well, back in Ireland he did stab a kid in the eye with a pencil so I wouldn't laugh if I was that doggie over there," a bird from the table next to ours said.

I recognised B34. He had been in Ireland with me and C59. I just slowly nodded at him and went to war with porridge. I kept the spoon when I dragged myself out of the food court.

I had gotten yard privileges back, but I was still on drugs. Not as much as before though, so I could actually function a bit like a normal human being now. I had kept myself out of trouble for an entire week, which was a personal record. Maybe it was because as long as I was this drugged, C59 made sure I was never alone.

The drugs also worked; I didn't shift at night anymore. Instead, I was awake all night with a tingling in my hands that wouldn't stop until the sun came up. So the drugs weren't the only reason why I walked around like a zombie. I mean, even if I was jumped by somebody, I would probably welcome the knock-out and maybe actually get some sleep.

I was sitting outside in the early summer sun and staring at a red rock on the ground. It wasn't because the rock was particularly interesting, but I just couldn't pull myself out of staring at it.

That was until somebody walked by and kicked it. I looked up and recognised the dog from the other day. I didn't even hesitate. I just slammed into him, knocking him over, and jammed the stolen spoon into his eye. He screamed and tried to shake his head, but it only made it worse. I was going to show Birdie just how feral I was.

I twisted the spoon, blood spilling out of the dog's eye-socket. Two cats grabbed my arms and pulled me off the dog. I spat at him and smiled when his healthy eye looked madly at me.

"Enjoy the show yet?" I asked and winked at him.

No more yard time for me. Birdie told me that much at our next meeting. And they had decided to take me off the meds since they only seemed to make me more aggressive. So, I guess me poking the eye out of the dog was a good thing. For me anyways. I was stoked to get off the drugs.

"Another miscommunication in the yard?" Birdie asked, looking very tired. I fought down a smile and just shrugged. "What were you trying to prove?"

For once he didn't have my file in front of him. He just had a notepad and was once again twirling the pen around his fingers. He sighed loudly at my silence.

"Well, since you have been here a month you get assigned to a task. Your task is to clean toilets with your block-mate inmate B13, Che Flannigan."

I just nodded at that. It could be worse, I guess.

"Do you get along with him? Or should we start making sure you don't steal a fork next time?"

I snorted and leaned back in the chair, stretching my legs out under the table.

"So you're done stealing cutlery?"

"It's hardly stealing," I replied and folded my arms over my chest.

"Come on. Why did you do it? You had finally not been in trouble for several days," Birdie said flatly.

"I don't want to talk about that anymore," I replied coolly.

"Do you want to talk about your shifting disorder?"

"No."

"Too bad, because I do. Are you shifting at night again, now that you're off the drugs?"

My expression was more than enough answer for him. He had gotten pretty good at reading me lately, which was bothering me. I liked to think I was blank as a wall, but with Birdie, all my emotions could be read as easily as if they were written down. Well, easy for anybody who could actually read.

And yes, I was back to shifting every night, by the way.

"And you still don't know why you do it?"

I started cracking my jaw. This was dangerous waters we were treading, and I didn't want to talk about it. Why was this so hard for him to understand?

"Answer my question, Nathan."

I slammed my hands down on the table and shot him an angry look. "Enough with the questions, Birdie! I am not talking about it, it's feral behaviour to talk about it. I know you're just trying to get me into more trouble!"

"Is that what you think I am here for? To torment you into what? More time to serve here?"

"Isn't that exactly what you're doing?" I growled angrily.

"No. I am trying to figure out if you're right for the American soldier programme or not."

I raised my eyebrows and was feeling pretty stunned. "What?"

"You heard me. I am trying to get you out of here, Nathan, but you're not making it very easy for me."

This had to be a trick. No feral was ever let out of prison. They would rather kill us.

"Honestly, what else did you think I was here for?" It really didn't look like he was lying. But why? I... I was nobody, right? They would never let me out, right?

Cleaning duty wasn't that bad. It got me out of my cell. And Che wasn't a bad cleaning-mate. Even though he was very English. He didn't complain, and he did most of the talking, which seemed to suit him fine.

He would tell me of his home back in England. He had lived in a smaller village in the north. He had spent all his nights outside with his brothers ever since he was little. They were all owls too, so they all had difficulties staying inside during the night. It was obvious he missed the forests surrounding his childhood home, though he tried to hide it under his smirks. The way he talked about it made even me long for a forest, though I had never been in one.

"Where did you live before you went to jail?" he asked and leaned against his mop.

"I don't remember," I replied truthfully. I didn't ever see a reason to lie to him.

"You don't remember anything from outside?"

I shook my head and dipped the mop into the bucket, lifting it and letting the water drip from it before slapping it down on the floor again.

"So everything you know is from prison?" He cocked his head slightly to the side and frowned a bit at me.

"Yes."

He broke into a smile and shook his head. "Criminal through and through then." He went back to mopping the floor.

I guess I was a criminal through and through. Everything I did, I did to survive in here. To assert dominance or play submissive at the right times. I didn't know if the others respected me more or less because of how long I had been in prison. I was pretty ignorant about a lot of things, especially when it came to the outside world. But nobody knew prison as well as I did. Even though I was small and skinny, I knew how to fight, and after my little run-in with the dogs, nobody dared to come close to me.

The dog who had cut me had come back from the sickbay, telling everybody I didn't feel pain. C59 was loving it. Our reputation for being ruthless was making people pay up right away. Nobody had been late on payments since the eye incident. He lost it, by the way, the eye. The doctors couldn't save it.

Ha-ha. Asshole.