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The collar around his neck itches, and if he twists painfully, he can slip a single claw underneath it. His wings are useless against the collar, resigning him to either pain, or discomfort. A few more of his feathers sadly drop to the floor of his cheap pet store cage. He screeches. No one comes. He regrets turning into a canary.
Maybe if he'd turned into a falcon he could use sharp talons to scratch at the bars. If he'd turned into a bug he'd have an easier time slipping through. But no. He transformed into a canary without thinking. And when Slade slipped the collar on, he couldn't turn back. He woke up the next day as a pet, sold to the highest bidder.
There's a bottle of water on the side of the cage with a straw so he can drink. There's a bowl filled with seeds and fruit on the floor. Shredded newspaper lines the bottom, that his owner cleans daily. It's a humiliating replacement for a bathroom, but one appropriate for a bird.
There are toys to keep him occupied. Today, he nudges a ball around. It has a bell in it that sounds nice. He screeches again. Maybe someone's looking for him. Maybe no one noticed he was gone. Maybe someone will look through the window and notice a green canary. It's only been five days, he can't give up hope. He screeches again, beating his wings, and sending the ball flying.
The bell sounds oddly pleasing in his mind. He tries to ignore it. The fruit smells sweeter as time goes on. He gouges into it, screeching against his animal instincts. He wonders how long he has before his mind is gone. How long before the collar comes off and he's long forgotten that he isn't a bird.
He hopes somebody is looking for him.
There's a tree just outside the window. He's on the second floor. He watches a squirrel run across and flip onto the ledge. Show off. He screams. The squirrel looks at him with pity in its eyes for the caged creature. Then it turns and runs away.
“Take me with you!” He tries to scream. It comes out as a desperate squawk. The squirrel doesn't come back. He can’t sigh. He can’t speak either. He can normally speak, but now all he can do is screech and chirp and click his beak. Nothing resembles human speech.
The little girl bursts through the door, then runs to stand in front of him. He glares back at her. His owner’s daughter loves him, despite the fact he’s tried everything he can to make her leave. She laughed when he used his feet to throw shreddings at her. Laughed when he tried projectile pooping at her. And laughs when he sits there doing absolutely nothing.
He wants to kill her.
He shouldn’t want to kill a child.
He shudders wondering if Dayton ever felt this way about him. Probably.
It’s not the girl’s fault that her voice is high pitched and whiny, it’s not her fault that her laughter is too loud, that it rings in his ears for hours after she leaves. It’s not her fault that he’s here. This is her home. And she wasn’t the one that bought him.
Still. The obnoxious laugh fills him with rage.
He scratches at the collar. Tries to wriggle his way free. The laughs distract him, and make him angrier. He digs into his own skin, plucking out feathers around the band keeping him in this form. Blood spurts, dropping onto the floor of the cage.
The girl’s scream is shrill, somehow more annoying than her laughs. Her dad - his captor - comes running. They lock eyes. He scoops up the girl and leaves. Gar screeches angrily after them. He squawks and rattles and beats against the bars of the cage, until the man comes back.
Gar thinks, for a second, that the man is going to yell at him. “Say something!” He wants to scream. He hasn’t heard a human voice in days. The man turns, then takes a blanket and puts it over his cage. Gar screams until his breath runs out, then catches it and screams more.
He loses sense of time quickly. The blanket blots out all light. Whether the sun or moon is in the sky, he doesn’t know. Why is he even here? He screams, whenever he’s awake. Wherever he sleeps he dreams in muted colors and muddled sounds. Is there someone coming for him?
He had friends. They were with him not too long ago. There were people in his life that wouldn’t leave him like this. Where are they?
He stops screeching all the time. When the blanket comes off, he finds his mottled feathers covering the ground. His food seems unappealing, and his water even less so. But he drinks it, because his mind tells him to.
The girl comes and laughs. He doesn’t care. The man comes and glares. He doesn’t care. The squirrel jumps back on the ledge watching him, and he does nothing in return.