The Thing With the Fins
My eyes fluttered open.
I was in a brightly lit room with stainless steel walls, and I could not move. There was an antiseptic aroma in the air with a tinge of chlorine, or slightly briny...it stung the inside of my nostrils. The inability to move did not frighten me so much as I would have expected, but the oddly familiar scent of this unfamiliar room gave me a small feeling of dread. Something was wrong.
Upon realizing this I convulsed slightly on the platform on which I rested. In my mental haze I attempted to survey my surroundings but I could not figure out whether I was on an operating table or a bed. All my thoughts seemed to meet a wall at the end of their fruition, such that the true nature of my ("captivity" was the word that sprung to mind, clearer than the other thoughts, but just as soon washed away on a wave of comfortable apathy)... situation. From somewhere deep within my mind came an alert that my convulsion had engaged unnatural muscles, but I could no sooner think about the ramifications of that signal than could I hop on a unicorn that would take me to the end of the rainbow.
Back pain seared unexpectedly. I gasped "Gabriel" and returned to blissful unconsciousness.
- Several months earlier*****************
"Look at this poor guy, Gabe. He doesn't deserve to be held like this." I turned to my boyfriend, who was intently watching the graceful movements of the orca whale, popularly known as Nakaki.
Nakaki had become somewhat of a celebrity in recent years, being the star of the aquarium-slash-amusement park known as Poseidonia. People travelled from across the country to see Nakaki perform simple tricks in which he was fed fish in exchange for jumping through hoops. I, personally, found it degrading and wrong to see a fellow mammal treated in such a manner. Nakaki belonged out in the sea, not the putrid confines of a small pool, commanded to "ask" "how high" when the trainers said "jump". It had come to light that Poseidonia was being investigated on charges of animal abuse when its star was not in the public eye.
"We must do something."
Gabe turned and looked at me. There was a mischevious glint in his normally calm green eyes. He leaned in, his breath hot on my shoulder as he said, "I have just the plan."