1
Volt rocked irritably back and forth. Where was Max?! What happened?! Blood? Why was there-
"Ppst, hey kiddo, you feelin' alright?" A mouse sat beside him, tilting her head "I mean, besides the pain from your bullet wound.". From the stories he had been told, he thought the witch would have torn him in two by now. But she didn't seem very threatening in the slightest, she didn't even have a sharp or snappy tone with him. A charm on her hat constantly clacked together, as far as he could tell it was supposed to be a shooting star, with little bells at the end that would clack and ring even when she wasn't in motion. That's what kept him awake, the consistent rhythmic jingling.
"Do you hear me?" She waved her hand in front of his face "Hey, You okay?"
Volt didn't have enough energy to respond, searing pain mixed with his ongoing starvation made it hard to do anything without hurting himself. He was hungry. He was tired. He was scared. He was hurting, both physically and emotionally, even if he couldn't fully comprehend what had occurred. This was worse than the pitchfork. Worse than anything he imagined.
Volt coiled himself into a ball, making sure not to make quick movements.
"Hey, What happened to you? Who hurt you?"
"I-I-I j-just f-f-fell" He managed to spill out. That was his usual excuse for the pitchfork, he hadn't really been thinking and just kind of spilled out the first thing that came to mind.
"Fell on what? A gun? Just went bang whenever you hit the ground? No kid. You don't need to be afraid of them anymore. You can tell me who they are. They aren't going to jump out of the medicine cabinet and attack you if you speak of them." The witch sounded sympathetic but her words were clearly annoyed. Don't tell her. You can't tell her. He'll find her. He'll kill her. Just like Max.
"I-I don't k-know w-what you a-are t-t-talking a-about"
"Look, kid, we already know what happened. We know who did this to you. That bullet wound isn't the only thing we saw, all the puncture wounds from something with 3 prongs..sadly, we've seen this before. We just want you to tell us the truth."
Volt was taken aback, They had already searched his body?! When had they had the time?! What was 3? They already knew?! Who has this happened to before?! All the questions filled his head but the only thing that dumped out his mouth was "W-wha.."
"So..let me be more specific, did Simon do this?"
"I-I-I don't w-want t-to t-t-talk a-about this a-anymore.."
"Okay. We don't have to." She dropped the topic as soon as he said no. That's..weird. No one had ever done that. Usually they would press him for answers or..or..Zap Zap.
A dark figure, not much taller than the witch, walked into the doorway.
"Hey mom, uh- I was wondering if-.." The thing walked into the light, not looking up from their clipboard until they had stopped. A black sphynx with a medic jacket anxiously twitched once they had seen Volt.
"M-mom?" They gestured to him, almost sounding scared.
"Oh yes, so Ezra this is Volt."
"W-why is he-?"
"He was shot, and some other stuff that he doesn't wanna talk about."
Ezra stood there, blank expression, the only thing expressing his emotion was his clipboard slipping out of his hand from how much he was shaking.
"Volt, this is Ezra. He's one of our medics here, he's gone through the same experiences you have had, and—" the witch paused, moving closer to her child, the bells ringing their charming tune "Ezra? Kiddo? What's wrong?", he guessed she had noticed the quivering too.
He said nothing, only tightening his grip on the clipboard in an attempt to control his tremble. Ezra stared directly at Volt, sending shivers up his spine. What had he done wrong? Did he do something to upset him? How? He hasn't even spoken since he's been in here?
It finally began to click. Volt himself had been scared to look at his reflection at his worst points, all he could see was his father, the one who had hurt him for whoever knows how long. All of his markings the same, fur color the same, even the long fur had come from his dad. He looked exactly like him. It honestly made him sick. If Ezra had also been through the physical and emotional pain of theтри pronged hell, he would most definitely be reminded of the sick and twisted being his father was.
Volt tried to seem less threatening, though in this state he couldn't understand why Ezra would even see him as threatening. He slouched down in his bed to seem smaller, and made sure to complain about his wounds to remind him he can't do much like this.
He seemed to lower his shoulders, and stop shaking too much, breathing lightly.
"I-I..I need to go. You know there's other patients I need to see" He quickly fumbled out of the room.
"Huh..well sorry about that, I'm sure you'll get to talk later, or at least I HOPE you will and he won't try to AVOID you all day" she stressed those last two words a lot, so Ezra could hear her "Anywho, I should get you some food"
"N-no, I-I'm Fine." Cat food, food sounded tempting, but he didn't want to make her feel like she had too, it was her choice if he deserved food or not. He had already burdened her enough with taking up space in their infirmary and her having to take care of him, he probably wouldn't give himself anything to eat if he was in her place.
"Do you think we didn't do anything on you to see if there was something else wrong? Kid. You're malnourished. You need to eat."
"B-but- I-I-I didn't d-do anything t-to deserve f-food."
"What?! No! You don't need to do stuff to get food! You eat when you're hungry, people can't choose that!"
He was too weak and too hungry to question what she was going on about ¨O-k-k-kay.¨
The witch shook her head and sighed, a long, thoughtful sigh.
"What would you like, kiddo?"
Nothing really came to mind, the thought of any type of food making his mouth water "U-uh,,a-a-anything"
"Alrighty then, on my way", and she went off to, most likely, the cafeteria. The long silence rang in his ears, every second passing by like hours, left with the constant annoying chatter in his mind,
Where was he? What happened? Why did it hurt so much? When had he gotten here? Why hadn't the mice already killed him? Was she going to poison his food? That had to be it. No one was ever nice unless they wanted something and she wanted him dead. Volt closed his eyes. Shut up, please. Be quiet. Calm down. It's going to be okay..
She hasn't done anything yet. You're fine.
The witch appeared back in the doorway, holding an arm full of food "Uh-I got whatever i could find in there..i hope this is okay"
Everything was good. He would eat his own leg if he could move without yelping in pain. As soon as she placed it down in front of him he practically shoved the pile into his mouth.
"Hey, slow down. If you eat it all that fast you'll puke."
"W-Why?" Volt stuttered between mouth fulls
"Well, since you haven't eaten in so long, your tiny body has gotten use to no food, so, your stomach ain't gonna like you too much if you shove food into it after making it run on empty."
He was so tempted to talk back to her about how it's not 'ain't', it's 'isn't', but the thousands of rules he'd made for himself prevented him from it.
"Refeeding syndrome", she continued, "think that's what it's called. My memory ain't the best."
He could only nod, not understanding in the slightest what she was talking about, too busy eating everything in sight.
¨So, uh..¨ she began once again, ¨i guess i haven't introduced myself yet, have I? My name's Willow, i told you when you were half way out of it but i'm guessing you don't remember it"
Somehow, through all the things people had gone on about, they never had said the witch's name. It was just "the witch" and that was about it.
"I-It's n-n-nice t-to meet y-you, M-Miss W-willow. S-sorry to b-bother y-your community."
"Ah, you ain't botherin' nobody. You were hurt so we took ya', it's obvious you weren't gonna get fixed at that ol' cat camp." Willow gave a sympathetic glance "I'm sorry you've been hurt like that. Ya' know, i've never been electrocuted with hundreds of volts, but i'm sure it don't feel too good."
Volt shrugged "I-It's fine i-I g-guess."
"Anywho...How old are you, kiddo?"
"Одиннадцать"
"What?"
Could she not understand him? Volt reached over for a sheet of something that looked like paper and a pen, maybe a clipboard left by a nurse, and drew out tallies that equaled 11. She tilted her head, something clicking in her mind that made her angry.
"I-I'm s-sorry did..d-did i s-say s-something wrong?"
"No, kid. That just makes me a bit mad they would let you become a two stripe when you're under aged. That's stupid, when had they become so desperate?! Maybe that's a good thing, but not, because that hurt you, I'm sure. I'm sorry, again"
"i-It's okay. R-really, i-i'm fine"
Willow looked him up and down "Yeah, no. You're starving, you are bleeding, you've been tortured for who knows how long, I could continue but I'd be finished by sun-down. I've heard this tune before."
Volt was stuck. All the excuses he would tell she already knew were lies, no matter how many times he tried to convince her. There's no point in hiding the truth like he had done thousands of times before, but it felt wrong to finally open up the overflowing bottle that managed to stay closed all this time.
"Well, now that everything's calmed down a bit, would you like to talk about it?"
Oh no. The small glass bottle began to crack.
"I won't be mad if you say no"
Crack
"And i won't tell anybody else if it embarrasses you"
Crack
"Hey, are you alright? Your eyes are a bit watery–"
And into a million darkly colored shards it went.
Volt began to spill out every little dark and twisted part of his childhood, not even a single happy memory he listed to her, not one, because, sadly, he had none to tell of. The early days of being a 2 stripe, the first battle, the pressure to kill others, the deadly training, every single bitter sting that pitchfork brought, every time he was hit, every time he was punished for something he didn't understand, every time he didn't sleep or eat for weeks on end, per his father's request. Before Volt knew it, the old grandfather clock chimed the hourly tune три times before he had ended his story.
Willow was flabbergasted, the три hours he blabbered on about his problems she didn't say a word, just quietly stood by his side.
"A-and..y-yeah. I-I think t-that's I-it." He finally concluded, twitching from the electricity he's been exposed to so many times. She still kept quiet, covering her mouth. Apparently this was more 'extreme' than Ezra's case. She wrapped her arms around him, her eyes beginning to water. He expected her to reach over and scratch him, lecture him on how he was being a brat, how he should've stayed with the cats, but she only squeezed him with what felt like all her might. Maybe this was punishment?
"I'm so, so sorry that happened to you. I know no matter how much I apologize it won't change a thing. I'm still sorry though."
"W-what? S-sorry? Y-you didn't d-do anything?"
"I know. I'm just sorry it hurt you like this."
Volt bit hard on his tongue, it's the only thing that stopped him from sobbing his eyes out. He wasn't supposed to cry, he wasn't supposed to show emotion period. If he did, he was weak. He would be punished for such a thing.
He must have sniffled, maybe whimpered too loudly, something, because Willow had seemed to notice, letting go of him and wiping her face. Oh Cat food. Stop. Stop. Be quieter. You're fine.
"I-I-I'm s-sorry i-i'll stop-" Volt sputtered out, covering his face so she couldn't see him. Willow tilted her head sympathetically, lightly grabbing his muzzle so he'd be looking at her.
"It's okay to cry, kiddo"
