Work Text:
You know you must have had a life before this. You cannot have always lived this way. All you know is the performance. Forced onto the stage, a cacophony of colours and sounds that makes your fur stand on end and your skin crawl. Your nights are dark in the cage that you call home, and sometimes you feel a rustle of wind. That makes you want to remember.
There are plenty of people in the hell that you are trapped in, a rotation of torments and lights and noises. You don’t pay attention, you don’t care. Your energy focuses on the dance, on staying alive.
Then, she visits you. Wearing the bright red jacket of a knife thrower, and her face twists upwards like the audience member. She hands you something soft and sweet. You wish, for the first time, that you could speak. You want to thank her, to let her know.
She sees you every evening, when she can. You live for more than just life, you live for her. A plan forms, she whispers of escape, of freedom. Of a life outside of the cage, off of the stage.
One day, she doesn’t come. It isn’t too uncommon, some days she cannot sneak into your hole. She doesn’t come again, or again. You forget the taste of the sweetness, the beauty of companionship. An ache replaces the hope that was once there.
You forget about the world outside. You have to perform.