a bright red light blinks overhead, bathing my concrete cell in a deep crimson glow and searing through my eyelids that i kept desperately shut. it’d been this way for weeks, a constant switching between pitch black and the scorching brightness battering at my tired mind. it was incessant. it took me forever to stop begging for it to be changed. i would've taken constant darkness over the terrible flickering, but my pleas were never answered and the light stayed. i slumped in the little wooden cot my captor blessed me with, it was so small i had to curl into a fetal position to sleep but it was infinitely better than the freezing cold floor. i had to sleep there the first week. every time i woke my skin would be covered in dark marks and i'd shiver like a motherfucker. the things i had to do to earn this cot... i pray i never have to recount them.

my disassociation is broken by the sound of hard banging from the outside of my cell, the telltale sign of my captor’s return. footsteps trail through the rest of the house above me almost mockingly loud, reaching the thick metal door that holds me. a lock unlatches, followed by another, and another, and another, and the door finally swings open with an echoing thud. her towering figure looms over my huddling body from the doorway, a dark silhouette so domineering i can't help but quake in fear. she moves forward in one snap movement, wrapping my wrist tightly in her hand and tugging me up out of bed. i fall to my knees, painfully scraping against the grating concrete as she pulls me closer.

her hand grips my chin and i cower instinctually, snarling like a dog at this disgusting slight. i wouldn't submit, no matter what she tried, even if these sycacorp fucks were known for their brutality and creativity. there's been a lot of testimonials from 'reformed' anti-corpo rebels posted nearly everywhere online. thankfully, i'd dug into their systems and found what they did to those poor people, and have braced myself for every act they may do to me.

a glob of spit strikes my face while i am incapable of moving it, and she attempts to push me down onto all fours. although i may not be happy, i know fighting won't change a thing, i can see the various syringes of anaesthetics and other drugs hanging from her belt purposefully being shown off. i get onto all fours with enraged obedience, and she pulls me through the doors and up the stairs. it's the first time i've been out in… a week, i think? time truly means nothing when you're stuck in captivity, i’ve found. no lights, no windows, no clocks, it's all one moment of inescapable blank space.

i follow her guiding hand through the dark narrow halls of what i assume to be her house, passing room after room until we finally stop in front of a large white metal door, like that you'd see at a hospital. she turns back and smiles at me wordlessly before opening the door slowly, revealing to me a large steel operating table, and innumerous trays filled with various tools and sharp objects. i can already assume somewhat of what she may do, so without a second’s thought, i bolt. my brain yells at me reminding me of all the training i had done, you know running only makes it worse for their captives, stop. what the fuck are you doing? but my physical instincts override everything else. i'm actually gonna make it, i can see the door i was first dragged through, just a few more steps, just a few more and- she grabs the scruff of my neck out of nowhere, pulling me back to a stop in one tug. her strength is terrifying, and i can practically hear the grin on her face. i kick wildly and scream my lungs out as she drags me back, yelling for help as loud as i can but we both know there will be no response. somewhere in the scuffle i manage to land a punch right into her crotch, and for a terrifying second, she stops. she's just reeling in pain, surely that must've hurt her, right? then a sharp pain hits my neck, and in less than a second my limbs are slumped, and no matter how hard i try to move them i can't make them budge an inch. she scoffs with a chuckle and throws me onto the operating table, and in the deepest voice i've ever heard she breaks the silence. "should've been good, roach" she pulls two leather straps from the bottom of the table up and wraps them over my stomach, "and to think i was even going to let you sleep through this. oh well." she reaches down away from sight, and when she comes up in her hand is a large circular saw, like one you'd use to cut through wood. she grins at me with sadistic glee and with the flick of a switch the saw is moving. i have no clue what she's gonna do to me, and that's the most terrifying thing of all. there were never any victims on operating tables in the files.. no surgeries, no saws, nothing like that! "i suppose you're wondering why this treatment huh? did you seriously think we'd just leave out evidence like that? god you poors are pathetic." she scoffs. "we had your location the minute you plugged in that usb. every second you dug through our files, every little 'firewall' you thought you broke through, was letting us find out more and more of your worthless little life. it's okay though, i'm gonna give you a life worth living, much better than the lives you roaches choose to live.

while i'm focused on her moving lips, the saw breaks through the flesh of my shoulder in my peripherals. whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhatthefuck, my brain is on overdrive, it cant make sense of anything it sees. why can't i feel this? oh god was that a chunk of bone- fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck. little bits of my flesh fly everywhere. i hear my bones snapping, blood pouring and pooling on the table around me, tainting my skin in my own fluids. suddenly the saw pulls away, and i am once again entirely confused. until i see her holding my right arm in her own, and she waves it at me like this is some cruel joke. i want to spit on her, i want to kill her, i want to fucking rip her heart out with my teeth. i growl at her, and it's like she can read my mind. she stares into my very soul and for the first time, for some reason, gives me a tiny, approving nod. while i'm staring into her eyes with fiery hatred, i don't even notice she's started on my other arm, until it's already detached, sliding off the table with a disgusting slap.

she picks up my lost limb, and chucks it into a bucket labelled 'disposal' like she's playing basketball. god she's disgusting, what a fucking wretch. i want nothing more than to end this glorious- fuck, i mean horrible- woman's life right here. i thrash my body with all my strength, my arms should be flailing, but they're not there. my legs should be kicking, but they're- they just won't. they won't even tremble, they only lay there traitorously like they're offering themselves, and i fucking hate them for it. she sighs, like this is some tedious ordeal for her, and brings her saw into the spot where my leg begins. i can finally get a good view, and now i really wish i couldn't. she pushes it back and forth, helping its teeth dig through my flesh. blood spurts out from me like a broken faucet, flesh and bone chips spraying about. it looks like i'm being tossed in a woodchipper with how much gore is escaping my body. i hear my bone crack in two, and she slowly pulls it away, lifting it up and forcing me to stare directly at my detached leg and into my own snapped bone.

she's broken me, she has to have. i can't take it, i try to beg over and over but my mouth won't move, i try to scream and cry and plead but nothing comes out except silent tears endlessly streaming down my face. she shushes me. she has to know i'm spent now, as she moves through the next leg quickly, letting the saw do its work digging into the cavities of my limb and slicing it off in a cut so cleanly straight it's surreal. i gasp, at least in my head, as my mouth will not produce the noises i know i am making. is it over? is this all she wanted? to leave me limbless? helpless? she tssks, again as if she can predict my every thought. i am demoralised, i failed. i failed all the victims before me, i failed everyone doing the same work as me, and most pathetically, i failed myself.

i hear loud clicking by my side, along with various metallic clunking and whirring as she rummages around for god knows what. her hand presses down on my chest for support. god, that hand... it's been so long since i felt human touch, the warmth... i want more. please, i silently beg, give me more. i can't take this. every part of me is screaming at myself, but i can't help but cherish this sweet, sweet warmth emanating from her. i'm broken from my entranced stupor by the sound of flesh squelching and robotic beeping, and i see her shoving something into the slot where my arm used to be. it's a robotic limb, a sycacorp classic. the thing that really got them going, honestly. i'm struck with memories of when they first came out. i was still a child then, it was supposed to be a miracle, an ingenious revolution in prosthetics. the cybernetics linked perfectly with every system in your body and worked perfectly like a human limb, it didn't even need to be removed. it couldn't be removed, even. and for a while it *was* a miracle, but 10 years later when they'd gotten sufficient political power, the shit behind the miracle was revealed. the corp had a direct link into every single limb ever implanted in a human body. they could override its functions with the flick of a switch, and you would have no control over your own parts. most struck up terribly shit contracts working for syca in return for usage back, but some fought back, and for those, it just so happened that most of theirs 'malfunctioned', leaving them either dead or too severely injured to live a normal life ever again.

there’s something shamefully comforting about this attachment of a limb, like i’m... being repaired, like my shell is finally being fixed. yet i’ll still try to hate her no matter what, even through the haze of my broken will. she moves onto the next arm, clicking it in comfortably with a snap and the beeps of sensors coming online. the limbs are a sleek black metal, like if latex was a tough, nearly unbreaking material. all i can think of is how badly i wanted one of these as a kid, before i realized how fucked this whole thing really is. the metal was so 'badass', like one of those cyborgs from old sci-fi movies. just to see, i try to move the new limbs, and in response they scream at me with a terrible sound, piercing my ears like a dog whistle. my captor turns to me holding a large, muscular leg in her arms, the animalistic variant. i remember those flying off the shelves even for non-amputees when they first came out. i still wonder why that is. "don't worry about trying to move. you haven't been signed up as an admin for these, only a sycacorp official can program em' now" noticing the paws on the leg she drags over to me, i frantically look at my dangling arms. and there it is. the arms are the animalistic variant too, is she trying to make me some kind of fucked up art piece? i've seen videos and i know these things have no practical purposes, you can't even manipulate objects when you have them attached. she smiles at my obvious panic shining through my eyes, before sliding both legs into place. a shock runs up my body, a tingling forcing my limp body to convulse shortly as the connected limbs all interface with each other, and connect into my spine with a loud ding. "interfacing [successful]. welcome- {Mutt}!" a choppy, detached robotic lady’s voice sounds out, coming from somewhere deep inside me. oh fuck. my new limbs spring into action, sending me flying off the operating table with enough strength to snap the straps keeping me down right off, and landing on the floor on all fours. my handler- captor, reaches down and examines my limbs, appearing happy with their placement. from her pocket she pulls out a little gun-shaped thing, and presses it into my neck, firing a sharp jolt of electricity through my veins and through every inch of my remaining flesh. i growl at her and- huh. why *am* i growling at her? my body feels woozy, like i'm disassociating yet still fully present. i look and she's staring down at me expectantly, i've never seen her from this angle before, she's so... tall. i feel shorter now, even with my canine attachments. she looks so wonderful, i wish i could die for her. what? why did i say that, i- suddenly i am rocked by the memories of the feeling of her hand on my chest, of the warmth that enveloped my entire body, the fuzziness that corrupted my mind. without even thinking i reach my head closer to her leg, and she drops her hand into my fur- i am in utter heaven. "hey mutt, you're gonna be good for me now right?" she barks. i don't know how else to respond. yes. yes. a million times yes. i will kill and die for you and act out your every wish. i nod profusely, not even attempting to speak. "oh you sweet pathetic thing, i fixed your speech with that chip, try it out." my vocal cords strain, but i manage what should be a "yes", what comes out however, is "bark!" i want to cry. i am so overwhelmed with every emotion i can possibly imagine. my limbs move me closer, finally an action i wanted. she reaches under my chin just like before, and stares deep into my swollen watery eyes. she leans back, and i prepare for spit to strike my face, but it never does.

she pulls a cigarette from her pocket and lights up, taking a long drag and blowing the smoke into my face. "none of my coworkers thought i'd be able to turn a lowlife roach into one of our own." she mutters, "but look at this. now i have a perfect little guard dog to join me" she finishes her cigarette and throws it on the ground, grinding it down with her boot. "lets go mutt, we have other scum to catch" and like a good dog, i follow.