VOICELESS

Humans call us voiceless. No more!

I want to tell you a story and I’ll start with my name - Anil. I’m a creature of shadow and instinct. Yet, I’m here trapped in a palace of light. Not because I cannot make sound, but because to them, my screams are merely data points. My protests are "vocalizations." My agony is a "reaction to stimulus."

I huddle in this foul-smelling corner of my enclosure. The air is recycled and thin, as it carries the metallic tang of blood and the musk of a hundred other terrified souls. The wall, painted white is so bright it feels “Nazi-like." A clinical perfection that is meant to erase anything organic within 12-24 months or so.

But, I have my window.

High above, the sun shines thru glass and hits my face. For a few minutes each day, I'm no longer a specimen and the gloom within my soul fades away - I’m a king, I’m free. As I close my eyes; I’m miles away. I remember as a child, running through the jagged, irresistible labyrinth of Manhattan to eat the discarded pizza crusts that is. thrown away in alleyways. I see myself darting between the legs of a wealthy woman stepping off a horse-drawn carriage near Central Park, reveling their sharp, high-pitched gasp of terror. I imagine myself slipping into a Broadway theater, or seeing ballerinas dance as I sit high in the rafters, which are the best seats in the house, listening to the sounds that would take your breath away.

Then, the sun moves away from my cage. Reality returns with the force of a blow to the gut.

It’s been almost 2 years here.

I learned to counted every rotation of the Earth from inside this invisible cage. They think I’m a simple organism, that I am not! I’m a "remarkable breed" of biological machinery. They study me because I mirror them. My genetics, my biological responses, the way my heart hammers against my ribs—it all resembles them too closely for their comfort. They use me because I’m like them, yet they treat me as if I’m nothing. Just a paradox of human cruelty.

I watch my counterparts in the neighboring units. Some are drugged into a stupor. Their eyes rolled back as chemicals course through their veins in order to make some distant socialite look younger or some soldier more lethal. I pity the humans, truly because they don’t appreciate who they truly are. But my hate them is for their soullessness since they do not care for my kind. To live without a soul is like a ghost wandering while still breathing.

They think they are the masters of the earth, but they forget their history. They forget that my ancestors, the small and the overlooked, once brought humans to their knees. In 1347, we carried the bubonic plague called “Black Death” which wiped out a third of Europe. At that time my kind gathered not out of malice, but because they were the correction.

"I'm not your lab rat nor your financial gain!,” as I whisper into the cold air. But, I have a plan.

The Plan

For months, I have watched the charts on the wall and memorized the rotation of the technicians. I know that Technician Miller leaves his keycard on the desk when he goes to the break room at 5:15 a.m. I know that the ventilation grate in the "Luxury Pet & Human Lavatory" (a sick joke for a room where technicians test cross-species hygiene products) has a loose screw.

My kind are adaptable, I am adaptable. Meaning, I can squeeze through a hole half the size of my body. My bones are determined while the plan is set in motion like iron. The pitter-patter grows louder. The door swishes open. The smell of coffee—bitter and burnt—enters the room. It’s Miller. He’s tired. He’s human. He’s imperfection. He sets his clipboard down and sighs, leaning against the desk where the "Angel of Death" usually sits—the tray of syringes. He looks at me for a quick second. He doesn't have a conscious; he sees a task. He sees a 5:30 a.m. appointment with a scalpel.

"Almost done with you, 7-Beta," he mutters.

He turns his back to check the thermostat. That was his first mistake. His second mistake is leaving the cage latch unlocked after the midnight feeding. He thinks I am broken. He thinks 21 months of darkness has extinguished my spark. This is just the beginning. It’s now or never.

The Breach

My heart lingers. I can’t take everyone with me. Go! Now move!

I am a blur of fur and focused rage. I don't make a sound—I’m voiceless, after all. I flow out of the cage like spilled ink. My feet hit the cold tile, but I don't stop to enjoy the sensation. I dive under the shadow of the heavy steel desk just as Miller turns around.

"What the...?"

He looks at the empty cage. He doesn't scream yet. He thinks I’m still inside, hiding under the bedding. He reaches in. I don't waste time. I scramble up the back of the computer terminal, my claws clicking against the plastic. I leap. Not for the door, but for the ventilation duct above the lavatory entrance.

"Hey! Security! We have a breach in Lab 4!" Miller’s voice finally finds its volume.

More rats come out the cage like a waterfall. The alarms begin to wail. A harsh, strobing red light replaces the sterile white. It is beautiful. The red light in the lab looks like the hell which it truly is. Smoke fills the room killing what I’ve known. I reach the grate. I wedge my narrow skull into the gap and push. The metal groans. My muscles ache, the legacy of months of a cramped confinement, but the adrenaline floods my veins. The screw pops. I slide into the dark, as dusts fills my throat of the building.

The Descent

The vents are a labyrinth of invigorating steel. I can hear security below me—heavy boots, shouting, the frantic clatter of "containment protocols."

“Lock down the sector!” “Don’t let it reach the atrium!”

They are scared as they should be. I’m not just an escapee; I am a carrier of the truth they tried to manufacture - the bacterium Yersinia pestis, another form of the Black Plague and this time, there are no fleas involved. I follow the scent of the outside world. It’s faint. I can smell it: buried under layers of smells from food, street music, cars and people’s wondrous perfumes. The damp earth, the exhaust of the city, the freedom of the New York morning. I navigate by instinct, turning left where the air feels cooler, dropping down shafts where the gravity beckons. I reach the final fan. The blades are still spinning a silver blur of certain death. But I have observed the maintenance cycles. Every hour, on the hour, the system resets for sixty seconds to prevent overheating. I wait, but I can smell the deadly chemicals security uses to capture their escapees. My heart beats like a runaway train.

The smoke is getting near. One. Two. Three.

The hum dies and the blades slow down. I don't wait for the blades to stop. I jump thru the sharp blades with the momentum of a ticking clock. The sharp edge of one of the blades grazes my flank, drawing a thin line of red.

I tumble outward and the adrenaline causes me to keep going.

The Sky

I don't hit the floor. I hit a trash heap in a damp alleyway. The impact knocks the wind from my lungs, but the smell... oh, the smell is glorious. It is the scent of decay, of rain, of old grease and discarded dreams. It’s Manhattan. I scramble out of the bin and hit the pavement. For the first time in 21 months, I feel the “grass"— or at least the moss growing between the cracks of my tiny paws.

The sun is fully up now. The city is waking. People are walking by, their eyes fixed on their cell phones, or their minds on their morning coffee. They don't see the "monster" emerging from the shadows of the lab's exhaust vent or the creature they spent millions to "perfect" and "subdue."

I look back at the building. It’s a monolith of glass and ego. I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror. I look different. Older. Wiser. Yet, there’s a flutter of revenge that’s embedded within me. They wanted to use my kind to change the world for their profit. They wanted to harness the power of this plague-bearers for their own "superiority."

I tell myself take a deep breath. You are not voiceless anymore Anil. I know my presence will be felt. Therefore, I begin to run. I become this shadow darting toward Central Park where I was told to go only for emergencies.

These are indeed dark times not for me, but for the humans.

For the first time in a long time, the darkness finally belongs to me. Why, you ask? Because now, I surround with my kind. Not in a container. Not drugged up. There are thousands of rats, on ledges, waiting to hear what humans have put me through. I detest human ignorance. And now, I have the power to wipe them out with the chemical I carry from within because of them.