5 September 2012
I'd been shaking for so long, it no longer felt as though every breath was a trial.
I had grown accustomed to the unnatural high-speed lope of my heartbeat.
I no longer looked down, upon my skin, and shrunk away from the ivy-green lines twining their way alongside my veins.
There was no revulsion, any more, when I saw the reflection of myself in the mirror.
My hair had long since been replaced with the creamy leaves of ivy.
My eyelashes? Twig-like in appearance.
I knew I was hideous, and I had come to grips with it.
As the siren sounded, meal time, I raised myself from the platform in my cage. Raised myself into my hind legs and reached out to the bars.
They were electric.
I had come to terms, unwillingly, with that too.
Meal times were always interesting.
I could hear the others in their cells, whooping or simply eating - loudly. It was comforting to know that I wasn't the only monster in the lab.
It was a cruel comfort to know that sometimes the whitecoats went after others, and left me alone.
I flicked my fingers and vines reached down to me, comfortingly, holding me in their loving embrace.
The plants were the only company I had.
I was Experiment 009 and I was The Girl Of Ivy.
The Girl Of Ivy. • Opuss № I