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He didn’t really know what was going on.
There were people crowded around him, he could tell that much. They were talking in low tones, too quiet for him to hear all the words.
Occasionally, someone would turn towards him and talk louder. The words were probably directed at him, meant for him to hear. But the world was too distant for him to find the strength to provide any reaction.
“Are you ready to go to the house, Tommy?” A man, with straw-blonde hair who’s name he hadn’t caught was speaking. “Mate? Are you okay?”
He just blinked, staring at the concrete floor underneath his black ‘tennis shoes’ as someone had called them. He didn’t think he’d ever worn shoes that weren’t far too small, made of tough leather, and didn’t cause blisters to form on his ankles after only one day of wear.
The light in the room was buzzing in a way that was, at least, somewhat familiar. Lots of the lights back home made that noise when they were on.
There wasn’t much else in this room that was even slightly familiar though.
The raccoon hybrid squeezed his eyes shut, wishing everything would stop being so confusing. He didn’t want to think about how wrong it all was. He wished he could go back in time to yesterday, before this happened.
Yesterday, he’d woken up in his room like he always did. Resting on his cot, beside the iron-barred door. His trainer had led him outside, given him food, and told him ‘today is a big day, fifty-four. It’ll be your biggest fight yet.’
He hadn’t understood what his trainer meant until he was entering the big room and there was a large lion hybrid on the other side. Until there were crowds cheering as the other hybrid surged forward, towards him.
Until he’d been desperately dodging blow after blow, put onto defensive immediately. It was normal, he was used to having to make a comeback at the last minute. It was part of being underestimated in the arena, since he was only a raccoon hybrid.
He remembered using speed to his advantage, leaping on top of the lion and clawing out his fucking eyes. The other hybrid had fallen to his knees, screaming as blood ran down his face.
The people in the stands had cheered and he’d leaped off his defeated opponent with a quiet, victorious chittering noise.
His trainer had come out and congratulated him, in the way she rarely did. ‘Good job, fifty-four! You’re such a good fighter, one of our best.’
Everything had been perfect. He’d done a good job.
And then there were more people in the arena. And they were carrying guns. And his trainer was ripped away from him and everyone was screaming and there was an explosion and he was hurting and-
He woke up in a white room with people surrounding him, talking to him, and he didn’t understand. It was all so fuzzy, so distant. There’d been machines beeping next to him and writing on a weird, shiny white wall next to him. He’d tried to chitter a question, but nobody had replied.
Then he was brought into this concrete room with a group of hybrids both talking to him and not at the same time. He didn’t understand.
“Hello? What’s going on, Tommy?” The blonde man, a bird hybrid with dark wings, was asking.
He shuddered. He didn’t want to talk, he didn’t know if he even could. His trainer always said ‘words are for people, not hybrids.’ So he never talked and never bothered to learn to understand many words either.
There was no need for talking when all he ever needed to do was win. When all that was asked of him was to kill or be killed.
For the first time in his life though, he began to wish that he’d learned. If he had, maybe he’d know what was happening.
“He’s not going to respond, Phil.” The pink haired pig hybrid said. “The doctors told me he hasn’t spoken at all since he was rescued.”
The bird hybrid’s expression became something incredibly sad. “Oh… does he even understand us?”
“I don’t know.” The pig hybrid replied. “Apparently, he’s reacted a few times to speech in general but he never reacts to his name.” He paused and sighed. “At best, he’s in too much shock to understand. At worst, considering where he came from, he barely knows any words at all.”
The bird hybrid didn’t reply to his friend, but he did turn back to the raccoon. “Okay, let’s go then.” He held out a taloned hand, presumably for the raccoon to take.
Hesitantly, he placed his hand in the bird’s. He’d held hands with his trainer before, whenever she wanted to drag him off to somewhere specific. Her grip was always harsh, nearly bruising, but he was used to it.
The bird hybrid’s grip was gentle though, nowhere near painful. He wasn’t sure what to make of that. He couldn’t remember someone touching him without intending to hurt him.
“You’ll like our house, I promise. You’ll have your own room, all to yourself and all the things you could ever want. We’ll never let you go hungry or get hurt again.” The blonde bird was rambling. “Doesn’t that sound nice, Tommy?”
He didn’t reply. The world was a bit less distant now, but most of the words still meant nothing to him. He just let the hybrids lead him away from the concrete room.
He had no idea where they were going, but it wasn’t like he could ask. All he could do was follow and hope that they went somewhere where things finally made sense.
———
It’s been a few days since he was taken… here.
Wherever here is.
He’s pretty sure whatever building they’re keeping him in is called a house. It’s weird, with lots of different rooms all interconnected in a way that makes his head spin whenever he has to go anywhere.
Back in the arena, there was only one hallway. All the rooms where the hybrids, the numbers, were kept followed the hallway until it reached the singular door leading to the arena. There was usually very little confusion on where he needed to go. There were only two directions to move in, afterall. Back or forward.
In the house though, there are a lot more doors and a lot more halls.
There’s the front door, the one he was led through when he arrived, which leads outside to a strip of pavement where they keep their terrifying metal boxes they use for transportation. He… didn’t want to think about the metal box. It was scary and very confusing.
The house has a hallway leading from the front door to the kitchen, where all the food seems to come from, and the living room, where the hybrids just sit around and do nothing. There’s also the dining room, right next to the kitchen, and an office right by the living room.
He still isn’t sure what the entire purpose of having so many rooms is, but it’s not like he can ask. And it’s not like they’re the most confusing part of this building either.
Right next to the front door is the stairs. When he arrived, he’d been led up them- while stumbling like an idiot because he’d never seen stairs before- and he’d been taken to the bedrooms.
They reminded him of his sleeping cell. Except instead of only containing a cot, the bedrooms had beds, clothes, trinkets, and other things spread throughout them. They didn’t look empty, dull, or lifeless. They looked like spaces an entire life had been lived in.
Although, the bedroom he was given was still fairly barren. But based on the way everyone kept talking to him, he had a feeling they wanted that to change.
It was weird. The ways these hybrids kept giving him things, like food and clothes, completely for free. They weren’t making him fight for any of them.
Which leads him to now.
The bird hybrid, who he learned was named Phil, had opened the door to his bedroom. Warm light from the hallway shined into the bedroom, reflecting off the light blue painted walls and large window facing the rather huge backyard.
“Hey, Tommy. You ready to come eat with us?” Phil asked, standing politely in the doorway.
He didn’t really know what Phil wanted him to answer with. Phil kept doing this, asking him questions before giving up and moving on. It was like Phil was convinced he could somehow magically understand every word, which was literally impossible.
After a few beats of silence, Phil sighed and motioned for the raccoon hybrid to follow him.
He complied, following Phil down the stairs, through the downstairs hall, and into the dining room.
The table was already set with a multitude of weird utensils he had no idea how to use and the plates were stacked with yet another unfamiliar form of food he’d never seen before.
His trainer had only fed him the same unidentifiable mush for years. He hadn’t even known any other foods existed.
Techno, the muscular pig hybrid, was sitting down, looking down at his phone as he waited for them. Techno put his phone away as soon as he noticed them entering the room. “That took awhile.”
Phil sighed. “I just… I really wanted to see if I could finally get him to respond, Techno.”
“Phil, you and I both know he’s not going to say anything this early on. The kid clearly doesn’t know how.” Techno said, shaking his head slowly.
“You’re right. I shouldn’t get too hopeful yet.” Phil agreed, taking a seat in his usual chair.
The raccoon hybrid took that as his cue to sit down where he normally did- across from Techno and next to Phil.
Dinner was a quiet affair, at least for him. Phil and Techno chatted, as they always did, but he understood practically none of it. It made him feel a little left out. He didn’t know why, he never felt bad before when the trainers would talk around him.
He bit his lip and focused on the food. He didn’t want to think about his trainer or any of the others.
The food here was much nicer than the mush they fed the hybrids in the arena. He could actually chew it and none of it tastes exactly the same. It was more variety than he thought he had ever had before.
Eventually, dinner was finished and he found himself wandering back upstairs to his bedroom.
It wasn’t late yet, but he still felt tired anyway. The days always felt long when nothing made any sense and every second was to unfamiliar to him.
He layed down underneath the dark blue blankets Phil and Techno gave him. They were soft, unlike the singular, thin sheet he had on his cot back in the arena. These blankets trapped warmth, rather than leeching it away.
He couldn’t help but snuggle further into them with a content chirping noise. He wasn’t allowed to make any hybrids noises in the arena either, not unless he was being good and he won a fight. But Phil and Techno made noises all the time and they seemed to like it when the raccoon hybrid did too.
There were so many things here that didn’t make sense. It made his head spin.
He turned onto his side, staring out the window that took up most of the wall on the right side of the room. He could see the half-moon shining brightly beyond the branches of an oak tree. The stars twinkled softly, spreading gentle yellow light into the dark blue sky.
It was rare that he got to see the sky. The hybrids only went outside once a year, to be hosed down and cleaned of dirt and dust. It was always cold, it always made him shiver uncontrollably for at least an hour afterward.
The sky here didn’t remind him of cold water though. It felt nicer, like the fluffy blankets surrounding him. A kind reassurance that everything would be okay.
Gradually, he felt tears begin to gather in his eyes. He blinked, trying to get them to go away, but that only made it worse.
He had never felt so comfortable before. He had never had as much freedom as he had here. He could go between rooms as he pleases, nothing was ever locked and he had so many of his own things. Nobody took them away or made him do anything to earn them.
He rubbed at his face as he sniffled, tears now streaming down his cheeks, past his trembling whiskers.
The hybrids weren’t allowed to cry in the arena.
The trainers would beat them, throwing punches onto their vulnerable forms as they screamed and sobbed, trying to get away. The trainers would shout at the hybrids, slapping them across the face, holding them down as they kicked them repeatedly in the ribs.
They’d be beaten until they stopped moving, until the tears couldn’t escape anymore.
The raccoon hybrid used to cry a lot, when he arrived in the arena. He didn’t understand that the trainers were only trying to help. No decent arena fighter would ever cry. Good fighters were quiet, followed instructions without question, and never showed any emotion unless they won a fight.
He couldn’t help but feel pathetic as he layed in bed and tried to stifle another sob.
Everything was wrong. Half of him wanted it to stop and the other half of him wanted to stay here forever.
He cried until he couldn’t anymore, until his eyes stung and his lungs ached. He felt exhausted, entirely defeated in a way he didn’t think he’d ever been before.
He closed his eyes, feeling his tears already drying on his cheeks. He was far from content, but he was tired.
Slowly, he fell asleep with confusion and fear still swirling in his mind.
———
Another few days sluggishly passed.
He had slowly begun learning some of the words in their language. Many of them came to him easily, almost as if he might’ve known them once, in some far away memory. But he quickly dismissed the idea. There was no way he’d ever been good at speaking.
Either way, the sentences were beginning to make a little more sense. He was horribly bored, so the only thing he really could do was learn.
That was another thing.
There was practically nothing to do. Phil and Techno hadn’t had him fight anyone, not even one of them. They didn’t have him even train or go on a run down the hallways. They only had him eat with them, sit in the living room sometimes, and sleep in his bedroom.
It was horribly boring. It was unusual.
Phil and Techno never fought either, even though the raccoon hybrid had been taught that all hybrids fought. It was their only true use in society, after all.
But all Phil did was sit in is office in the mornings, doing things on a big device he called a computer. He’d sit in the living room and read in the evenings and occasionally leave the house in the terrifying metal machine called a car.
And Techno would disappear into his bedroom a lot, for hours at a time. He’d go in the office sometimes too, but only in the afternoon, and then he’d make dinner in the evenings before going to bed early. He left the house sometimes, but not as often as Phil did.
The raccoon hybrid thought it was weird. Not entirely a bad kind of weird though. Just confusing.
It was also strange how Phil and Techno always seemed really happy whenever the raccoon hybrid reacted to what they were saying.
He could understand enough words now to know when they wanted his attention and when they asked a question. He never spoke or directly replied. But he would flick an ear to let them know he heard.
The trainers never liked it when the hybrids reacted much to their speech. But Phil and Techno wanted to encourage the raccoon hybrid to reply.
Again, it was strange. But it wasn’t a bad kind of strange either. It was just odd.
It left a really unfamiliar, warm feeling in his chest whenever they’d smile at him or give him praise for simply giving them his attention.
Sometimes, it made the raccoon hybrid want to smile back. But he couldn’t remember how.
———
’There was someone in their den. He didn’t know who they were.
His mother was curled up with him in their closet. Her hand was over his mouth and she looked scared. He’d never seen her look so terrified before.
He wanted to ask what was wrong but he knew better. She’d told him to be quiet. There were bad people here, she said, people who wanted to take them away. So he stayed completely silent.
Footsteps made their way closer, thumping over the wooden floorboards of the tiny home. Someone was speaking, their voice was low and rough, nothing like his mother’s high, soft voice.
The footsteps got closer. His mother tensed, she held on tighter to him.
The door was flung open. His mother was torn away from him.
She screamed as someone- only a shadow against the moonlight coming in from the hallway window- held a gun to her head. She was crying, trying to escape.
The raccoon hybrid felt himself, distantly, be tugged further away from her by harsh hands locked around his chest. He screamed for her, he didn’t want her to be gone.
It didn’t matter. The gun was fired and-
She went limp. He screamed again, tears running down his face as he made desperate, animalistic sounds.
He was young, too young to remember her. But he still knew she was dead.
She was dead and now he was alone and there were mean people taking him away and they were slapping him across the face and they were telling him to shut up and she was dead and-‘
He woke up with a sob. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, bolting into an upright position in his bed. His ears were pressed back against his skull, his tail was limp behind him but the fur was standing on end.
He hated this. He never remembered any of that before. He didn’t know why he remembered it now, when it was all so long ago.
His chest hurt. His head hurt. Everything hurt. He just wanted his mother.
But she wasn’t here. She wasn’t anywhere at all.
Distantly, he could hear the door to the bedroom open. He could hear footsteps coming towards the bed, the sound of fabric shuffling as someone sat at the end of the mattress.
Through a blur of tears, he could see dark wings and a green shirt. It was Phil, looking concerned as ever, like he kind of wanted to cry too.
“Oh, Tommy.” Phil said. “I’m so sorry.”
The raccoon hybrid just cried harder. He was glad he wasn’t alone, he really didn’t want to be by himself anymore. But his chest still hurt and the tears wouldn’t stop.
He remembered, distantly, what his mother used to do when he was scared or sad. She’d wrap her arms around him, pull him close, and wouldn’t let him go until he was okay again. He thought she might’ve called it a hug.
He didn’t know how to tell Phil that this wasn’t enough. He wasn’t going to stop hurting if all Phil did was sit there and say words he couldn’t understand.
The raccoon hybrid hadn’t spoken in a long time. He thought he used to, before the arena, but it had been so long now that he didn’t remember.
He didn’t know how else to make Phil understand though. To tell Phil that he didn’t want to be alone.
Through the sound of another sob, the raccoon hybrid looked up and met Phil’s eyes. He took a deep, shuddering breath that didn’t do much to ease the strain on his lungs.
“Ph-Phil!” The raccoon hybrid stammered, chittering a desperate noise, meaning something between scared and come-closer. His voice was shaky, cracking and breaking from disuse and the word was horribly slurred. But it was still recognizable.
Immediately, Phil’s eyes widened. “Tommy?” Phil replied uncertainly.
The raccoon hybrid made a frustrated noise. Phil still didn’t understand. Phil was asking more questions he couldn’t answer.
“Phil!” The raccoon hybrid exclaimed, making the same chittering noise after.
Finally, Phil seemed to understand. With shock remaining evident in his expression, he surged forward and warm arms and dark wings encircled the raccoon hybrid.
He sobbed into Phil’s shirt, clinging as tightly as he could. The hug made everything better and worse at the same time. It reminded him of his mother and the feeling of being comforted, but it also reminded him of her death.
It was more good than it was bad though and slowly, he felt his tears begin to subside. And suddenly, he could hear more of the reassurances Phil was saying.
“You’re okay, Tommy.” Phil whispered. “I’ve got you. You’re going to be okay.”
As the raccoon hybrid listened to Phil repeating the same sentences over and over, he realized something.
Phil and Techno both kept saying Tommy whenever they said something directed at him. It didn’t sound like a normal word though. It sounded like a name.
He thought he used to have a name before the arena, when he lived with his mother. But he didn’t remember it, the word long lost to time. But he knows his mother had screamed something to him before she died, something that was meant to refer to him and him alone.
The trainers had taken his name away when he went to the arena. Hybrids didn’t have names, they said. The hybrids were only numbers, given once they survived their first fight.
His own trainer had rewarded him with his number when he won; fifty-four. That was the only way she ever referred to him. He was a number and that was normal. Hybrids weren’t supposed to have names.
But Phil and Techno had names. He was pretty sure the people he saw in the concrete room did too and nobody seemed to have a problem with it.
Did Phil and Techno give him a name?
“Nothing bad is going to happen to you here, Tommy. I’ve got you.” Phil was saying, oblivious to the intense thoughts racing through the raccoon hybrid’s head.
Slowly, he raised his head and met Phil’s eyes. Ice blue stared into sky blue and Phil tried to smile at him, but it was slightly shaky.
“Tommy?” Phil asked.
The raccoon hybrid hesitantly gave Phil a slight nod. It was a test of sorts, to see if it really was a name or not.
Based on the way Phil’s eyes instantly widened, he had a feeling it really was a name.
Which meant… the raccoon hybrid wasn’t just a number anymore. He was Tommy.
He wasn’t sure what to think of that. But Tommy thought it was a good thing. He liked having a name, it felt better than not having one.
Phil was saying something, but Tommy wasn’t listening. He just hugged Phil tighter and lowered his gaze again.
Nothing made any sense, as usual. But Tommy decided he liked this house a lot better than the arena.
———
More time passed, slowly in the way it had since Tommy had arrived at the house.
Phil and Techno still kept trying to get him to speak. It was even more common now that he’d said Phil’s name. It was like they knew he understood more words than when he arrived without him even telling them.
Tommy couldn’t blame them. He had unintentionally reacted more than a few times when they’d said things he knew the meaning of. Especially since, now that he knew his name, he knew when they were talking about him.
He did kind of want to talk to them, to join in on their conversations. But Tommy was nervous, he couldn’t remember speaking at all since his mother died. And even his memories of talking to her were blurry and not all there.
It felt like a daunting task, to open his mouth and make any noise that didn’t belong to a raccoon.
It came to head a one day, when Tommy accidentally hit his hand on the corner of the dining table.
He’d been eating lunch with Techno- Phil was, presumably, out doing something. They were eating dish that Techno had called pasta. It was pretty good, in Tommy’s opinion. But that wasn’t the point.
The point was, when he stood up to put his plate in the sink, his hand slammed into the corner of the table.
He hissed and gritted his teeth at the pain, immediately putting his plate back on the table. Tommy looked down and hissed again when he saw a fairly good sized cut on the back of his right hand, bleeding sluggishly.
Techno had already left the room, slipping into the kitchen to clean up all the pots and pans he’d cooked with. But at the sound of Tommy’s pain, he stuck his head back into the room.
“Are you okay, Tommy?” Techno asked, concern lacing his usually monotone voice.
Tommy paused. It took him a moment to realize… he understood the entire sentence. Not a single word of it was nonsense to him.
Usually, even if he did understand some words, there’d always be at least one or two that made no sense. But this was different.
For a brief second, all Tommy did was stare at Techno with wide, surprised eyes. It was long enough for Techno to grow even more concerned, now fully stepping into the room.
“Tommy?” Techno pushed, steadily coming closer to where Tommy stood, frozen beside his chair.
Tommy took a deep breath. He… made a choice, it was now or never.
“Yeah… I-I’m okay.” Tommy stammered. The words felt strange in his mouth. They were slurred but thankfully not entirely incomprehensible.
It was Techno’s turn to be shocked, his red eyes comically wide in a rare display of obvious emotion.
For a solid minute, they were both frozen where they stood, neither of them knowing quite how to react.
Then, Techno practically raced forward and pulled Tommy into a hug.
Nothing else was said as Techno held Tommy tightly to his chest. But Tommy didn’t mind, if anything, it sort of made him want to cry. Not out of sadness, but just because for one of the first times since the arena, he genuinely felt happy. Tommy was probably the happiest he’d ever been before.
Suddenly, the front door swung open and then was quickly shut again.
There were footsteps and then, out of the corner of his eye, Tommy could see Phil entering the room.
“Techno? Tommy?” Phil questioned, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Is everything alright?”
Tommy couldn’t help but smile when he realized he understood what Phil was saying too. It felt weird to smile, he hadn’t smiled in a long time, not even when he won fights in the arena. Hybrids weren’t allowed to smile there.
It felt weird, but it felt good at the same time. Especially when Phil noticed Tommy’s smile and looked shocked for a moment, before he schooled his expression and smiled back.
“We’re okay.” Tommy said, feeling giddy at the fact that he was speaking. And nobody was telling him he couldn’t.
Phil’s smile only widened and suddenly he was joining the hug. “Oh my god.” He said in disbelief.
Techno laughed. “I guess you can talk now, huh?”
Tommy knew the question was directed at him, but he was too overwhelmed to reply. He’d never felt so happy, so entirely light and unbothered in his entire memory.
He’d never lived somewhere where he didn’t have to be scared and he didn’t have to fight all the time. He’d never lived anywhere where he had good food all the time and a really comfy room all to himself.
Tommy had never lived in a house like this, where everyone was happy and everything was perfect.
He finally had a home again. Tommy finally had a family again.
Not everything made sense yet, but he knew it would eventually, now that he was home.
That was all that mattered.