"It's a matter of choice."

He wondered at those words, staring at a collapsing ceiling, not so much an illusion of decay as one of escape.

What did they mean by that? Where was his choice? In existence, perhaps. Was it supposed to be his choice to continue to exist, because that might be true. He did continue to exist, largely by his own will. Sometimes he died on the operating table and they would revive him, but should he set his mind to it, he would have no trouble claiming his own life. It wouldn't be hard. His war lines could come and go at his will (not that he told them that) and their power would easily be enough to spill his own blood and end the torment that was his life. That, he supposed, was a choice. 

"You choose to be this way."

What way? So far as he knew, he was quite benevolent. Didn't kill for sport, didn't threaten any race to extinction, never caged anything, make it to suffer more than need be. His appearance, then? True, one form looked more human than some of his others, but he would think that would be something these scientists and researchers should like to use to understand him. But then, he had never known their agendas and was far from grasping the subtleties of their machinations. He didn't want to know what they had him for. 

"This is your own fault."

For falling into a human trap, he supposed it was. He was stupid in following the too-perfect tracks, for trying to take an easy kill and had wound up here. He did not think that such a rookie mistake deserved this, though. Nothing deserved something like this. 

They had set him in a maze, told him to wander it and find something. What was unknown, but he had no shock collar and no time limit so perhaps they were simply looking to exercise him. After all, he had not been born here and he was far from docile. Pliant, maybe, but restless as only a wild, caged animal can be. 

He knew they were watching him - beady mechanical eyes, through a colourless lens, were steady on him and he could hear the click, buzz, humm of its motors straining to catch all of him. They wanted to know how he worked, what he thought, why he moved as he did through the interpretation of his body alone and should they have asked, he might have answered their questions. 

He thought quite deeply, felt just as sincerely. As he wandered, he pondered the choices and changes that lead him here, wondered if Goddess had some plan for him by getting him trapped here. Was there something worth all of this? Was there something worth the strain and torment of an endless cycled life of needles, surgeons and sawblades? He felt that there was. He had always been favoured by Goddess, but She had no favourite that could not pass her test of pain and he was nothing if not a champion. 

Their little maze had mirrors, something he had always been fond of. There were many chances for him to reflect on his mental self, but so little opportunity to look at his physicality. How could one come to terms with all of themselves if the essence of their body is kept from them?

He never directly looked at the mirrors, lest the researchers think they know something they don't, but he observed himself with his senses, tendrils reaching out to caress the frigid, glass surface and come to terms with himself. 

His hair and fur were cream, shades away from white, his eyes the golden haze of burning sulfur rimmed in brimstone black and his skin a heaven-polished bronze. He was well aware of the leather braces along his torso, strapped to him in order to monitor movement, vitals and trace his movement. He could tear them off, but then they would be replaced, tighter than before, and these ones fit the most comfortably. They had also recently added braces to his furred arm under the pretense of seeing if the vitals match - though both parties know that's bull - and truthfully trying to stop him from using whatever ability is hidden within the impenetrable hide. They could not get under the fur, could not slice that apart, and he knew that drove them more crazy than anything. 

Lost in the concrete nightmare of the maze, he wondered if there would ever be a time he would know air free to breathe and not full of the noxious poisons they were trying to kill him with today.