Chapter Text
Enot lay slumped against the walls of the superstructure, or at least a room inside of it, contemplating everything that’s happened since they were created. Everything that’s happened in their whole entire life. They weren’t sure what they were created for. Spare parts? Failed design? Whatever they were built for, it certainly wasn’t for being happy.
Then they had another thought. Was their purpose simply to serve as a verbal (and very rarely physical) punching bag for their creator, Sliver of Straw? The possibility was definitely seeming to dawn on Enot, causing them to grow uneasy. They had to leave, they had to get out of here, they had to be free. They had never seen life outside of this boxed-in prison, Merely glimpses of it from the (very limited) screen time they had per day. Oh, to watch the sun rise and set, to watch and feel the cool rain fall and the clouds clear, to take in the sights and sounds and smells. Maybe they could even find a mate….
Who were they kidding. Enot knew they would never find a mate, even if they did get out, Sliver of Straw berated Enot every time they caught them so much as entertaining the idea, even if they were just mumbling to themself. The multicoloured slugcat was ‘far too ugly’, according to Straw. Enot didn’t believe her when she first started saying it, but after some time, it was difficult to think much else.
So there Enot sat against the wall, thoughts swirling through his head like a cyclone, coming and going at speeds that could make a train lizard envious. Almost all the thoughts had one thing in common.
“..I need to get out of here.” Enot whispered.
So they began to think. They had been living here for roughly 17 years, they had to have subconsciously picked up on some sort of routine, right? Racking their brain, trying their hardest to focus their thoughts, the slugcat sat, holding a paw to their head.
Sliver of Straw had a strict routine, they knew that. Every day at some time, she would look at some projection for hours on end, Enot didn’t care what she was looking at, but she had zero gravity on in her room during that time. Nowhere else in the structure was affected though, strangely enough. If they were just able to make their way from one end of the room to the other, then they could travel down the superstructure’s leg and everything would be good from there.
However, Enot had to wait for that time to arrive, so they sat there, thinking about their nonexistent future mate.
Oh, how safe and comfortable they would feel, waking up in the early morning in the arms of whoever their mate would be. Feeling the warm rays of sun as they would share food. It couldn’t be any worse than the gravel and horrid tea that Straw would force down Enot’s throat. That tea tasted like some sort of dish soap, it made them want to throw up just thinking about it.
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A couple hours of sitting, fantasizing and lamenting, Enot stood up to check if their creator was distracted. The only issue was that the slugcat had a habit of sitting as far away from the puppet as possible, so they were on the other side of the structure. Letting out a huff, they pushed themself to their feet, setting out on the journey through the superstructure. Jogging past barely used organism-building rooms, as well as a couple other larger rooms that Inv didn’t quite know the purpose of. Still, those rooms came and went as Enot jogged, not too fast, not too slow.
Once they were close enough to the puppet chamber, the slugcat slowed down, practically tiptoeing, making their way toward the pipe leading inside, placing one of their ears to the pipe.
Enot heard the all-too-familiar sound of their “caregiver” hard at work. That sound being the sound of absolute silence, except for a few ambient beeps and boops of whatever holographic image she was fiddling with this time. Enot carefully slid inside of the pipe, being sent over to the other side, trying to go as slow as possible. Once they arrived at the other side, feeling almost completely weightless, they stuck their head out and got a look around, seeing Straw (or her puppet at least) lethargically moving around her can.
Just about as Enot thought they were in the clear, the cold, mechanical puppet turned to look at them.
“What are you doing in here this time, you worm? Leave THIS INSTANT OR I WILL HAVE YOU RECYCLED FOR PARTS!” Sliver of Straw yelled at the runaway slugcat, quickly disabling anti gravity.The words echoed hauntingly throughs the pipe Enot had just squirmed out of, making them run even faster than they already were. They continued to run and run, no matter how sore their poor little legs were becoming, nothing else mattered to them in those moments. After what seemed to Enot like hours of running, they finally made it to a room at the end of the hallway with a strange looking pipe at the top of the room, it had a faint sort of glow to it.
Without much time to think, Enot frantically scrambled up the pole leading to the pipe, slithering in as soon as possible, quickly arriving in an environment they had never seen before, with alien-looking projections that soared around the room dizzyingly. And these strange flying things that flashed multicolour. Was this really still part of the person, no, the THING that Enot had grown to resent? There was no time to dwell on the thought. Chain reactions of synapses and impulses prompted the slugcat to peer over the edge of the artificial cliff. They saw strange, organic rope-like organisms connected from one side of the wall to the other. Enot hesitated to jump, but remembered that if they didn’t get out of here as soon as they could, they would be punished. Punishment likely involving unanesthetized surgery (not like Straw would have put them under during the procedure anyways) or just straight up being brain blasted.
With nothing to lose, the multibluecoloured slugcat leapt down the vertical hallway, tightly shutting their eyes and holding their paws out as they fell, feeling the uncomfortably humid air brush past their skin. Then their paws fell onto something, causing them to instinctively grasp at it. Not even a moment later they felt as if their arms were being ripped off, the sensation left as quickly as it came. Enot opened their eyes to investigate, finding out they had just grabbed onto one of those same red things they were looking at before. Their head now craning as they look below their feet. There were dozens of red organisms, just like the one Enot was holding onto right now. Though they didn’t hold on for long as they began to use the organisms as if they were rungs of a ladder, a repeating motion of letting go and grabbing the next one.
Eventually, after minutes of grabbing and releasing, Enot made it to the ground, littered with grey, dried out squidlike organisms, like the colourful, glowing ones they saw above. The slugcat took a moment to catch their breath. Surely Sliver of Straw would do something about their sudden escape. Enot had overheard Sliver of Straw discussing with another iterator the possibility to detach from their umbilicals and use some sort of technology they never elaborated about to resume functions. The thought of their abuser sprinting through the halls and blasting them in half sent a shudder down Enot’s spine, and they swore they could hear angry yelling echoing throughout the place, clashing with the ambient humming of the superstructure. Full of dread, Enot slipped down the pipe at their feet.