Red Sector A
All that we can do is just survive...
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive...
I can still remember those days of freedom we enjoyed before we were taken, all kinds of species to these inhumane camps. We lived in peace and harmony, still having our complaints but nothing like this. The day the aliens came promising hope for a more just governance was a terrible one for the Species of this world. Their idealism should have raised red flags. Instead, the nations of the world bent their knees and welcomed our green-skinned extraterrestrial hosts with open arms. And in response, the canids and felines, mustelids and ursines were all thrown into work camps, many of them to be overworked to death. A few were taken into camps whose sole purpose was to liquidate as many of us as possible- already, millions of us have fallen and I am afraid that the aliens will completely wipe the Species out of this world and take it over themselves.
I can remember my rights being taken away in humiliating ways before we were rounded up and delivered to these camps, as cattle to the slaughter. First, we could not buy or sell anything, then we could not leave our cities, and then we were enslaved, forced to wear the Golden Badges and shipped off to be killed. If we had only known our coming annihilation, then the Species of the world would have put aside their petty differences and blasted the invaders right off this peaceful planet. We should never have listened to them at all.
Where before we had the flowers and trees, the beauty of nature, and the blue of the skies and the oceans, today the world has become tri-chromatic. There is only the gray of our prison uniforms, the red blood of our fallen friends, and the black of our own impending doom. Too many times already in this prison, I have seen the skeletons of other prisoners- they were killed not mercifully by the guns of the guards but slowly and torturously by starvation, overwork, and thirst. I am in such a miserable condition that I am nothing more than a walking skeleton, my fur has become ragged and patches of flesh can be seen as a result of malnourishment, and to me the thought of suicide either by deliberately upsetting the guards or by stealing one of their guns for my own destruction has become attractive. Perhaps being killed by that method would be the lucky way to go in a miserable place forsaken by the gods such as this. Whereas yesterday we had conversations, music, and dialogue, today we have nothing but screams, harsh words, and threats of torture levied against us. The brutal orders of the alien guards and the sound of smoking gun are our constant companions.
In my limited time outdoors, I often look outside the concertina wire to the tantalizing free ground outside the camps. Whether I get killed by the guards is of little consequence to me- life is miserable, and death would be sweet release from this hostile environment. I would clutch the metal fence until my paws would run red with blood. I know these scars and wounds that the aliens have inflicted will never be healed- even with a thousand years to recover, there will never be closure or recovery of any kind. The wounds are just too great and damaging to heal.. Yet our hearts beg for mercy, up unto our dying days. In my prison cell with several lions, and a fox I see the red pawprints, colored by the blood of the dead (the "paint" they use is sadly never in short supply) upon the walls. They are placed on their sides consecutively to form a crimson-colored butterfly, a gruesome reminder of one of the joys we had before our imprisonment. I hope someday this waking nightmare will end and someday we will be all free, just like those butterflies and with hope, it could happen tomorrow.
Even for those who entered the prison camps in prime condition such as myself, the conditions here are so brutal that no reminder of our once-athletic frames still exists. We are starved to death by our hated green foes to the point where anything looks appetizing and we have become wretched- all sick with some form of disease. But this is not some sickness that we knew before- the sicknesses we had before had some hope of clearing up, of returning to a bright and sunlit world, to the company of our friends. No, accompanying our illness is the insanity of never knowing if we will ever be free- from the illness, from the pain, from the torture, from the fear which has been with us since the day we entered these camps. The people of the many countries who have fallen to the aliens brought their religions with them but it seems our prayers are as nothing before these unwelcome invaders. So many have turned away from the gods and now curse the heavens without respite for these awful circumstances. No one remembers when exactly our last day of freedom was- days, weeks, months, perhaps even years have come and gone and still no release or even hope of release. We no longer feel the hunger and the pain and we no longer have the strength to even cry. (And even if we did, crying is an offense punishable by summary execution.)
Are we the last ones left alive?
Are we the only members of our species left to survive?
Oftentimes, I hear the sounds of gunfire beyond the prison gate. Perhaps they are brave soldiers from countries still free come to liberate us and set us free. However, the more likely explanation for the gunfire is that the guards have executed more prisoners outside the gates once the crematoria here have become too full. The victims' bodies would then be left in the mass graves then to rot in the sun, being eaten by the birds. I am torn between hoping for a future release, and the fear of knowing that I will die within these walls at the hands of the cruel alien tormentors. My father and my brother have already succumbed to this fate and outside of strangers, the only friend I have remaining is my dearest mother who has been tortured and yet still is surviving. I can't keep her alive myself. Please, if anyone is out there save us from this awful place.
All that we can do is just survive...
All that we can do to help ourselves is stay alive...