Life in the ESA Facility

	The door opened to the grimy cell, letting in a cold light that was only seen during feeding time, which occurred once every two weeks.  A pair of platinum-scaled eyelids opened, revealing the red-and-yellow irises beneath.  They blinked drearily in the sudden brightness of the dungeon, then focused coldly on the door.
	The figure, standing silhouetted in the light, reached into a large bin on wheels and flung a rotting animal’s leg into the room.  The meat hit the floor and rolled, picking up dirt and filth.
	The man in the doorway slammed the door shut, locked it, and proceeded down the hall with the bin noisily rolling along.  Neox waited until he heard the man round the corner at the end of the hall, then painfully stood up.
	He rose to his feet, stretched, and proceeded to the raw food in front of him.  He picked up the morsel of meat, and blew as much of the dirt off as he could.  The rest of the grit he tried to wipe off with his hand, but the leg was still moist, amazingly, and retained much of the unwanted seasoning.  Figuring he could do no more for it, he opened his maw and breathed.  Incredibly hot flames shot from his slightly-opened jaws, and cooked the red meat until whatever liquid left in the leg began to drip on to the floor with a hiss.  Neox snapped his jaws shut and eyed the food he held in his clawed, platinum-scaled hand.
	“They must’ve finally decided to kill me.”  He said to himself.  “Killing me by thirst.  Good strategy, eh Willard?”
	Neox turned to a corpse lying in the corner of the concrete prison cell.  There were horrible gashes across the human’s jugular, and his mouth lay open with coagulated blood all over his chin and neck.
	“Too bad they don’t know about you, yet,” Neox said in his cold, teenage-dragon voice.  “Your body is filled with enough blood to last me a week’s worth of water content.  That is, if I should store it correctly.”  He added with a twisted laugh.
	Neox took a huge bite out of the not-so-gourmet flesh, his glimmering silver tail twitching in disgust.  After chewing on the tacky meat, for far too long in his opinion, he swallowed, wincing as the dirt eroded his throat like sandpaper.  Once it had gone all the way to his stomach, he gagged and threw the morsel at the wall.  His large bite had left nothing on the bone, which he would probably end up eating later.
	His large grey wings unfolded slightly, and he flapped them gently to unkink his shoulders.  He had been sleeping with his back against the wall, and he was sore.
	Neox had been in the facility for a year, his life not differing from a concentration camp.  Those were a hundred years ago, back in the 1940's.
	But in this age of human corruption, things were different: the torment was a little more refined, the techniques bit more gruesome, and the names of human corporations added a stroke of hatred to the hearts of the Otherkin.  Neox looked hatefully at the phrase he had carved in the concrete wall with his claw.
	Welcome to the ESA, Satan’s sandbox.  Bring a shovel?

	ESA.  Neox hissed at the acronym.  Evolutionary Science Association: a worldwide gathering for biologist-Nazis who had nothing better to do than experiment on Otherkin and lesser humans.  This particular installment was partnered with the CF, Canadian Forces, and was trying to create a biological weapon for their use in the War of the Veil.  The CF wanted a weapon that would put an end to the multinational war, a crater in the U.S., and them in place as the most powerful country.  The ESA just wanted to make life worse than a living hell for their anthro-dragon guinea pigs.
	Back when Neox was still four, he had befriended a human called Tony Riccz.  They were the best of friends, and founded the Rogues: a two-person rebellion in the 2039 war.  Their strategy was to infiltrate the governing systems of the armies, and cause them to rot from the inside out by using different aliases and multiple controversy-spawning tactics.  During one of the missions, Tony joined the CF, but was never seen again by Neox.
	Neox was captured at the age of five, a very vulnerable age for any dragon on two legs.  The ESA needed specimens to grow quickly with their experimentation, and a young dragon with his hormones spiking during puberty was ideal.  Neox, who was just reaching that point in his life, was captured without any means of defending himself effectively.
	The next year was filled with mixed emotions that very quickly turned to raw hatred.  At first, he had hopes of being stronger, more powerful, a quick learner in the field of magick and other arts.  But the road to his enhancements were unbearable, and the experiments came up short; all of them had failed.
	The first few weeks were spent in a cylindrical glass tube filled with irradiated mineral liquids, and connected to life support with every blood vessel and breathing passage.  Neox was asleep for majority of this, but when he was awake, it was only to convulse in pain that he can now barely believe existed in Mortal Age.  
	The next eight months were spent in a clean, sterilized chamber with light, food, and heat.  But those were the only enjoyable aspects of his life in the entire facility.  The experiments were horribly worse than the glass tube.
	Every day, he was strapped to a table in a hospital-like room.  He was already tired and muzzled, so persuading him to do so wasn’t usually difficult.  The electric radiation they passed through his brain was enough to knock him out after his painful twitches and muffled screaming.  However, the things he really hated were the needles.
	For this, three other draconians held him down while the doctor administrated the syringe.  They were punctured into his sides; and the needles were so large, they made a sickening crunch as they penetrated his scales and the flesh underneath.  Everything involved radiation, for the cells needed to mutate for the changes to take place, and these hypodermic syringes were filled with a fluid that, to Neox, simulated boiling-blood.  But Neox was an extremely resilient platinum anthro, and the only thing that changed was his morale.  He was truly amazed that he hadn’t died in the experimentation or committed suicide.  Now he was dark and hateful, and the scientists were wondering what to do with him.
	“He’s withstood everything we could throw at him,” The first scientist said.  “If you ask me, I’d say he’s already enough of a weapon without our help.”
	“Yes,” replied his colleague.  “But your mind irradiation has failed to put him under anyone’s commands.  Even if he is the most powerful of all the Otherkin, as you seem to believe, he’s still not under the CF’s control.”
	“What do you suggest we do?”  The first man asked.
	“Governor General Louis has told us to kill him.”
	“How do we manage that if the experiments were supposed to be fatal if they failed?”
	The doctor’s colleague emitted an exasperated growl.  
	“He’s not a god, dumbass.  He’s not invincible, and his brain has been irradiated; how could he possibly even think?  His IQ is probably less than that of a dung beetle!”

	“I wouldn’t be so certain.”  The first man defended.  “I heard him speaking with the human guard from inside his cell on one of the intercom channels.  I also think I heard a scuffle, and I assume that Willard Lull is dead.”
	“Nonsense!”  The second scientist denied.  “Willard is a formidable guard!  He can’t be killed by an abomination of our experiments!”
	“Mr. Lull hasn’t reported from his shift for hours!”  The doctor snapped.  “It is easy to think that Neox has disabled or killed him!”
	“Bull!”
	“If you really think so, why don’t you check?  Take a weapon if you’re smart enough to hope to defend yourself!”
	The doctor handed his colleague a security rifle from under the desk.
	“And if you’re wrong, Doctor, I’ll be back to shove this thing up your-”
	“Just go.” Dismissed the first man.  “You’re wasting my time.”
	The angry scientist left, leaving the doctor by himself.  The doctor then proceeded over to the intercom station on the wall and hit the emergency button.
	“Control, there has been an incident in cell block B.  Please send an E.R.T. ASAP.”
	The doctor had enrolled in the CF long ago, not realizing his stupid brother was the general.  He had planned to use his genetic knowledge for the good of the Otherkin race who had unexpectedly appeared upon this planet when the Veil fell; his brother had other plans.
	He stepped away from the intercom, took off his lab coat, and walked over to the locker on the other side of the room.
	After inputting the combination for the lock, he flipped the door open, revealing an array of firepower, and a gleam lit up in Dr. Tony Riccz’s cold grey eyes.
	
	Neox cupped his hand beside the open wound on the dead guard’s head, letting the blood pool into his palm.  He brought the crimson liquid to his snout and sniffed the sweet aroma.
	“Mmm.  You’ve been getting a lot of iron, my friend.”  He muttered to the corpse.
	He brought his hand to his mouth and drained the blood down his throat.  It was nice and cool, as opposed to being warm and sticky (though equally delicious) when fresh.  He savoured the taste, and allowed the blood to trickle down his chin.
	The cell door suddenly flung open, and the awestruck man brought his rifle to bear.  Seeing Neox sitting back on his knees and drinking the blood of the most trusted guard in the facility was the last thing the scientist expected to see.  Neox was facing away from the door, and tilted his head back in the ecstacy that the blood provided.  The scientist could see the crimson dripping down the dragon’s chin and down his neck, and panicked.
	“What the hell have you done?!”  He screamed.  The rifle loaded with the tell-tale double clicking sound, and the man poised his finger on the trigger.
	“I was wondering when someone would show up.”  Neox cooly replied, turning his nearly soulless eyes upon the insulting human standing at the door.  “He made quite the gurgling noise with all that blood caught in his throat.  I’m surprised nobody heard.”
	“You bastard!”  
	The scientist let loose with a flurry of repeating rounds, and fired blindly into the dungeon.  Neox rolled to his side and kicked off from the wall when he reached the cold, vertical concrete.  The kick-off got him airborne, and he pounced on the scientist.
	The man screamed as the six-foot tall dragon clamped his hydraulic-strength jaws on his neck.  As Neox’s grip on the scientist’s larynx tightened, he began to gurgle as blood filled up his trachea and lungs.
	The rifle stopped firing and fell to the floor with the human’s feeble attempts to pry Neox’s maw loose.  Neox was now in control of his victim, and held him until the man’s final attempts to escape died away into small movements.
	Neox kneeled and rested the body on the floor.  He released his deathgrip on the man’s neck.
	“I’m jealous of you.”  Neox whispered in his ear.  The scientist was barely alive to hear him.  “I wish I could have died long ago.  Now, all you’ve done, is given humanity something else to worry about.  I thank you for that.  And you should thank me that you won’t live to see the apocalypse that I will spawn!”
	Neox licked his lips, clearing off the excess blood, and stood up, leaving the wide-eyed corpse to bleed-out on the floor.
	He heard panicked voices down the hall, and stepped out of the dungeon for the first time in weeks.  The bright fluorescent light caused his eyes to slide out of focus, but he quickly regained his vision.
	“Down there!  Oh my God!  There’s blood everywhere!”
	The draconian in the group stepped forward from the crew.  His black snout lifted in the air to pick up Neox’s scent, who was nowhere to be seen.  Then, without warning, the lights went out, and the crew of five gasped.
	Infrared ocular implants automatically engaged in the eyes of the crew, and they cowered in their compact group with their rifles raised.  The draconian continued to sniff the air while he too grasped a rifle.
	One of the men fired blindly into the dark, hitting nothing.  He fired again, still nothing.
	“Cut it out, asshole!  Save your am-AHH!”  
	The soldier had turned his head toward the man firing his rifle, and in doing so exposed his unawareness.  He was cut short when he turned back to see Neox, eyes darkened and teeth bared.
	The soldier had no time to react; Neox had stolen a five-inch knife from the deceased Willard Lull, and drove it through his temple.
	By the time the three remaining men and the draconian reacted, Neox had already snapped the neck of a second man with his tail.
	The draconian, being a dragon bred in human captivity and raised as such, had senses sharper than a human, but not as strong as a free-born dragon.  He rounded on Neox with claws of his own, and tore a gaping rip in his left shoulder with a wide swing.
	Neox roared, more in surprise than pain.  He shot a white beam of pure energy from his wide-open maw, dispatching of the second-last human.  He decided it would be easier to kill the draconian if all the human soldiers were dead, so he lashed out viciously with his tail and hit the draconian in the snout to keep him at bay.
	 The remaining soldier had obviously trained in the art of the Samurai, for he held a long, skinny blade that gently curved upward...also known as a Katana.  Neox could easily tell that the soldier was frightened, for the blade shook terribly.
	He dodged a wide swing made by the Samurai, and came up inside the attack, closing in on the soldier.  The man screamed and reached for his sidearm, but was too late.  Neox broke his neck with his jaws clamped around the man’s face, and a simple flick of his own neck while holding his prey’s shoulders.
	Before the man hit the ground, Neox quickly grabbed the blade and turned to the 
draconian.
	The black dragon hybrid had a more archaic blade out and held it up to Neox’s face.  Neox smashed it easily out of the way and kicked the draconian’s knee.  There was a loud pop and the draconian stumbled back onto his other knee.
	“Bastard!”  He said aloud, and held his sword up to parry a slash made by Neox.  The sword was hit out of the draconian’s hand and clattered against the wall.
	Neox rocked the sword in his claws.  It was well balanced, and felt good to use.  He pondered over this for a second before putting a gash in the draconian’s thick neck that went all the way to nick his spine.
	The lights in the hallway turned on, and began flashing red.
	“Disturbance detected in cell block B.  Requesting immediate action.”  The female voice droned over the intercom.  The message repeated over and over again as the alarm lights blinked red.  Neox decided this was his time to leave, and bolted down the hallway.
	He had been through this facility against his own will, and knew where several possible exits were; however, none were very close to his position.  As he skidded to a halt, he decided to make his own by throwing a blue ball of magick-energy at the ceiling and blowing a hole to the sky.
	Neox unfolded his great wings and gave their first great beat in a long time.  The one gust alone was enough to propel his body off the ground, mostly due to his particular Dragon Magick.  He kicked off and flew through the hole in the ceiling into a sky with a setting sun.
	He hovered there for a moment to get his bearings straight, then used a small amount of speed to propel himself like a bullet to the sunset.
	Neox had many things on his mind as he flew over the Canadian countryside.  He would most likely enroll in Zesher’s Academy of Swordcraft and Martial Arts, and possibly apply for a school of magick in Europe, maybe even visit a few nice, female dragons in Japan.  
	But most of all, he wanted to find and reunite with his long-lost friend, Tony Riccz.