I want to apologise for the extreme drop in quality this story initially had. I hold myself to higher standards and refused to sleep until I was absolutely sure this was finished. It's 3:25 AM here now. Sleep time for Symbri.

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A routine inspection forces a family into an unthinkable decision.

(No-sex, cannibalism, underage, dehumanisation, enforced nudtity, power imbalance/authority)

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Audra Pike had worked within the System for nearly ten years. During that time she rotated through Processing Centres and support staff roles, spending extended periods in intake and habitation zones. She became familiar with Animals before their final stage, often assigned to guide them through early facility routines and, when required, to escort them to the Chamber.

Butchers noted that Animals arriving under her supervision were consistently stable. They did not require restraint. They followed instruction without repetition. Many remained conversational up to the threshold.

Staff described it as a calming presence.

In reports, it was recorded differently.

Low-resistance handling. High compliance retention.

The System valued that kind of efficiency. Audra Pike did not remain in intake roles for long. Her performance reviews were consistent. Escalations were rare. Animals under her supervision reached final stages without incident. She advanced through supervisory placements and was eventually reassigned to field oversight. Her current designation was Animal Welfare Inspector.

Her work covered several districts within her region. Assignments varied, but most involved unannounced inspections of Processing Centres. She moved through Habitation Zones, intake corridors, and staff areas without prior notice, observing conditions as they functioned without preparation. Her responsibility was balance. Animals were expected to be stable and compliant. Comfort supported that. Compliance supported process.

On several occasions she entered facilities without identification, observing staff behavior before formal inspection began. In some cases, she entered through Intake itself. There were records of her registering under temporary designation and proceeding through early-stage intake procedures alongside other Animals. These instances were not widely discussed outside internal channels. Those aware of them often asked the same question. How she tolerated it.

She answered consistently. “My role is to verify conditions. If I am unable to pass through intake without disruption, then the process is not functioning correctly.”

She did not frame the experience as unusual. Clothing removal was procedural. Physical handling was expected. Instruction-response patterns were standardized. None of it, in her view, constituted mistreatment.

“Animals are not harmed by correct handling,” she would say. “If the procedure is followed, dignity is maintained.”

Another part of her duties involved routine inspection of Companion Animals. These were Animals reclassified prior to final processing and transferred to separate facilities for conditioning and placement.

Audra Pike preferred these assignments. Companion households were stable. The Animals were typically calm, polite, and responsive. They followed instruction without hesitation and required little correction. Most were well kept and, in many cases, well liked.

They did not perceive themselves as Human. That distinction had already been resolved.

Within the household, they functioned simply.

As intended.

On this particular afternoon, she had been called out to conduct a final inspection of an adult Companion Animal. The household had submitted a private slaughter application and paid the additional fee to retain the remains for personal consumption. Approval was still pending. Her visit was procedural.

She moved up the path without pause, her pace even, unhurried. The house itself did not draw her attention first. Her gaze settled briefly on the yard, the condition of the ground, the boundaries of the property, the placement of objects within it. Only after that did she register the structure of the home, the windows, the entryway.

Audra Pike was dressed in neutral tones that did not shift with the light. A fitted blouse, sleeves ending cleanly at the wrist, and dark trousers cut straight without excess fabric. Her shoes made little sound against the paving stones. Nothing she wore required adjustment. Nothing interrupted movement.

Her hair was drawn back and secured tightly, each strand held in place. It did not move when she walked. There was no ornamentation, no visible effort beyond maintenance. Her face was composed in a way that suggested neither focus nor distraction, only readiness. She didn’t scan the surroundings in broad sweeps. Her attention moved in small, precise increments, taking in what was necessary and discarding the rest.

At the door, she stopped fully. No shift in weight, no settling. Stillness, complete and immediate.

Audra shifted her laptop bag slightly along her shoulder, freeing one hand. Then she reached forward and pressed the doorbell.

It was answered by a young girl in a school uniform.

“Hello, dear,” Audra said, her tone even. “I’m here to see Casper.”

The girl hesitated.

Not long. Not enough to draw attention in most circumstances. But it was there.

“He’s… in the garden.”

The pause sat between the words. Audra noted it without reacting.

“That’s alright,” she said. “If you can bring him through to the lounge, I’ll get started and be out of your hair in no time.”

The girl’s expression shifted, just slightly. Her mouth opened as if to respond, then stopped. For a moment it looked like she might correct something, or clarify.

Audra stepped past her into the house.

“I’ll fetch my father,” the girl said instead, the words arriving quickly, as though chosen to replace something else.

“Thank you.”

Audra did not look back at her. She had already moved on.

Inside, the house presented as expected. Clean. Lived in. Ordered without appearing staged. Shoes placed neatly by the wall. Coats hung at even intervals. The air carried the faint, neutral scent of recent cleaning.

Family photographs were visible from the hallway. Not arranged for display, but not hidden either. Ordinary placements. Shelves. Walls. Frames that had not been moved in some time.

Audra set her bag down on a nearby surface.

The girl had said the garden.

She had not said he was coming.

That was the second point.

Not a contradiction. Not yet.

But a deviation.

The girl returned with her father. He was in his early forties, balding, comfortably past Lottery age. He moved without urgency, but not without awareness either. He knew why she was there.

Audra stepped forward and took his hand. Her grip was brief, measured. When he sat, she remained standing.

“And where is Casper?”

Her gaze shifted to the doorway as she spoke. No one followed them in. Another discrepancy.

She had met Casper before. Routine inspections. Habituation checks. He had always presented correctly.

He did not hesitate when addressed. He followed instruction without repetition. He anticipated routine. He had been purchased at fourteen. The last time she saw him, he had been approaching twenty.

He had been consistent.

He had not required correction.

“Yes,” the father said, with a small, apologetic shift of his shoulders. “I’m afraid you just missed him.”

“Pardon?”

“We slaughtered him last night. The whole neighbourhood came to say goodbye and then we cooked him over the coalpit in the garden.” He rubbed the back of his neck, not looking at her directly. “That was his preferred method. He’d said so, if it ever came to it. Aware. Present.”

“Dad,” the girl said quickly, sharper now, “she doesn’t need to know how you killed my big brother.”

He exhaled through his nose, a faint correction in posture.

“Now, now. He wasn’t your brother. Not really.”

Audra didn’t react to the girl calling Casper her brother. He had been with this family longer than most other Companions so it wasn’t unexpected for them to humanise him slightly.

She had reviewed Casper’s file that morning. Routine preparation. Status, placement, recent notes. There had been no approval listed.

There should have been.

“One moment,” she said.

Her tone remained even. She set her bag down, opened it, and removed her laptop with practiced efficiency. The device came to life without delay. Login credentials entered cleanly. The System Database resolved into view.

Casper’s file opened.

She located the application.

Submitted three days prior. Completed correctly. No omissions. No irregularities. The kind of submission that typically passed without issue.

Approval status: pending.

Nothing in her expression changed.

Instead, she adjusted her grip on the laptop slightly and shifted her attention back to the room.

“Before we proceed,” she said, “I’ll need to confirm a few details.”

“Do you have the required documentation of the slaughter taking place?”

“Yes, we do,” the father said.

“And the remains were handled correctly?”

“Our neighbours can confirm we did everything by the book.” His hand moved again to the back of his neck. “Did—did we miss something?”

Audra gave a small, controlled shake of her head.

“I’m completing due diligence,” she said. “If you can show me the recording, and any remains not yet consumed or buried.”

The family didn’t delay.

The footage was already prepared.

Audra watched without interruption.

This portion of her work was procedural. Observation, verification, confirmation. Emotional response did not assist the process and was therefore set aside.

Casper spoke clearly. His statements were coherent and consistent with recorded consent standards. There was no indication of hesitation or withdrawal. He understood the sequence. He understood the outcome.

The method had been followed as described.

She did not pause the recording. She did not look away.

Everything required was said before continuation.

When it ended, she closed the device without comment.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Can you please have the rest of the family gather here.”

She looked to the girl as she spoke. The girl glanced at her father. He gave a small, confirming nod. They moved without question.

The room settled into silence as they waited. Audra remained standing.

She knew what would follow. There was no uncertainty in the sequence, no ambiguity in the outcome. The discrepancy was clear. The correction, already defined. It registered, briefly, as something close to discomfort. They had followed procedure. Documentation was complete. Method was correct. Consent had been established and recorded. There had been no deviation in execution. Only in timing.

She let her gaze move through the room again, taking in the photographs more carefully now. There were more than she had first noted. Not clustered, not curated. Integrated into the space—shelves, walls, surfaces. Casper appeared in most of them, positioned naturally among the family rather than apart from them. The girl’s earlier phrasing returned to her, noted without reaction. It was not a violation. There were no restrictions on language within the home. Terminology was considered adaptive, not prescriptive. It was simply uncommon.

Audra’s attention shifted back to the family as they gathered. Everything else had been done properly. That would be noted. Then corrected.

The rest of the family entered in sequence. The mother first, slightly younger than her husband but not by much. She carried a small child on her hip, a girl of three or four with curly hair and flushed cheeks, her weight settled comfortably against her. She did not appear unsettled by the presence of the inspector, only attentive.

Behind her came the last of them. A teenage boy, older than the schoolgirl, lingering a step behind as he entered the room. His clothing was darker than the rest of the family’s, heavier in tone. Metal caught the light at his face—small piercings at his nose and lip, reflecting briefly as he turned his head. He did not sit immediately.

Audra sat.

The family followed, with the exception of the eldest boy, who remained where he was.

“I’ve reviewed Casper’s final moments,” she said. “Consent was clearly established. The procedure was carried out correctly. There were no irregularities in method or handling. The remains have been processed appropriately. Your application is well prepared.”

The words settled cleanly.

The parents allowed themselves a small release. Not relief, exactly, but recognition. They had done what was expected. They had followed the rules.

“But you acted before authorization was granted,” Audra added, not letting the moment linger.

The shift was immediate.

Colour drained from both parents at once, as though something had been removed rather than added. Neither spoke. The room held still around them.

The two older children reacted differently. Not with the same physical response, but with recognition. Something had changed in the structure of the conversation. Something had moved from confirmation into correction.

Audra remained seated, her posture unchanged.

“The application has not yet been processed.”

What followed required precision.

“Because of your adherence to procedure in all other aspects,” she said, “this can be resolved without escalation.”

She let that settle just long enough to be understood as leniency.

“Casper’s remains were privately retained. There is no need to reclaim additional material or pursue full household correction.”

“The System requires only one conversion. You may choose who among yourselves.”

The family did not respond immediately. The words did not settle cleanly. They moved through the room without finding structure.

The father spoke first.

“But you said we did everything else right. Can’t you just… fine us? Or something like that?”

The mother’s voice came next, quieter.

“Just one?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” Audra said. “You and your husband are outside the conversion range. Your youngest daughter, though an infant, would be assigned Livestock status and transferred to a Farm until she reaches eligibility.”

The mother’s face tightened, recognition overtaking confusion almost immediately.

“I would advise against that outcome,” Audra continued, her tone unchanged. “If it simplifies things, the selection should be between these two.” She indicated to the schoolgirl and their son.

The two eldest children exchanged glances. There wasn’t fear, not exactly, but a quiet recognition settling between them that one of them was about to be removed from the life they knew.

“I’ll do it,” the older brother said, stepping forward.

“Ashton, no,” his father replied immediately, reaching out and pulling him back. “We’ll discuss this.”

“I say let him,” the schoolgirl said. “If that’s what he wants.”

“Melissa, you be quiet as well,” her mother cut in.

“Better him than me.”

“Says the one who didn’t even participate in Transition Week last year,” her brother shot back.

“Because it’s ridiculous. What are the odds I’m even converted?”

Their father spoke again, more firmly now. “Ashton went through Transition Week. He completed it properly. He even worked at the Processing Centre over the summer.”

That settled it.

The parents exchanged a brief look. No words, just confirmation. A decision made the same way the previous one had been—quietly, with structure.

The father turned.

“Melissa,” he said, “you’ll go with Miss Pike.”

No one corrected him.

Audra did not move.

“But Ashton’s a dumbass,” Melissa said. “He barely made it through his finals.”

“And you’re so smart?” Ashton shot back.

“Yeah. Unlike you, I have a three point five GPA.”

“Do you?” he said. “You never talk about it.”

“Enough, both of you,” the father said, cutting across them and ending the argument.

“Melissa. Grades mean nothing if you can’t function in society. We can see it already. You’d be a poor fit, and you’d only make things harder for everyone if you were converted.”

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” Ashton said. “She’d bolt. Become a Runaway and get us all culled.”

No one corrected him.

The parents didn’t confirm it, didn’t deny it. The weight of the statement hung in the room without resistance.

The father turned to Audra.

“Take Melissa,” he said, the words landing heavily but without hesitation.

Audra regarded them briefly. Agreement had settled across the room, quiet but complete. Only Melissa remained outside it.

“It is not too late for you to step forward,” Audra said, her gaze shifting to Ashton. “You may still designate yourself in her place.”

Ashton looked at his sister, held it for a moment, then shook his head.

“Better her than me.”

Audra stood and moved toward Melissa, lowering herself to a kneel in front of her.

The girl did not step back. Tears had gathered at the edges of her eyes, not yet falling. A tremor had taken hold in her shoulders, small but persistent.

Audra did not acknowledge it.

She reached into her pocket and produced a small device, holding it steady as she guided Melissa’s hand forward just enough to register her thumbprint. The device unlocked without resistance.

Audra took Melissa’s wrist.

The ID Watch sat where it always had. Familiar. Unchanged.

She positioned the device over it.

There was no sound.

The display shifted instantly, green replaced by a deep, saturated red.

“Conversion enforced.”

Audra released her wrist and stood.

She looked down at her, not unkindly, not with judgment, simply confirming what had already been completed.

“Animals do not wear clothing, Meatgirl.”

Melissa shook her head, her voice catching as she spoke. “Just take me in as I am?”

“See,” the father said, almost under his breath, “told you she was too modest.”

Audra continued to watch Melissa, ignoring the family.

The change had already been made. Not gradually, not in stages. One moment of designation, and everything that followed adjusted to it. What had been hesitation was now friction. What had been personal preference was now obstruction.

Audra’s attention remained on Melissa.

“Clothing is no longer applicable,” she said. “You can remove it yourself.”

She did not move closer.

“It will be easier if you comply on your own.”

“Come on, Melissa,” her mother said, her voice tight but steady. “Think of how good Casper was.”

“I’m not Casper,” Melissa said. “I wasn’t supposed to be like him.”

“You aren’t like him,” Audra said. “He was integrated into the household. You are being removed.”

She did not raise her voice or soften the words.

“Status has changed. You need to align with it.”

Melissa didn’t move.

Audra held her gaze a moment longer, then added, just as evenly, “You can proceed on your own. It will be easier if you do.”

Melissa shook her head and covered her chest despite nothing being removed yet, as if resistance here would change the outcome.

Audra sighed, checking her own yellow-glowing watch. "Then you have forced my inclusion."

Audra knelt back down and took the girl's wrists, moving them to her sides. "Please hold them there," she said to the mother, who quietly obeyed. "I'm going to remove your blouse."

She first undid the school tie, dropping it to the floor carelessly. Melissa didn't struggle in her mother's grip, but her rigidity wasn't helping either. Once the buttons were undone, Audra slid the blouse down her shoulders until it hung off her arms.

Melissa’s skin was smooth, and her body was fit and lean. Audra knew enough to know that she would do fine roasting in an oven.

"Do not let go yet," Audra informed the mother. "Next, I will remove your bra. Will you comply and do it yourself?"

Melissa didn’t move. Humiliation reddened her cheeks, and tears ran down them freely. “This is why Transition Week is so important, Meatgirl—it removes such false modesty from Animals.” Audra moved to wrap her arms around Melissa, unhooking her bra and pulling hard enough for it to snap off her body.

Her small nipples peaked. Her fingers clenched into fists as she tried to free her hands. Audra grabbed her school skirt and looked Melissa in the eyes. “Last chance to comply. Preserve a fraction of what dignity you have left.”

“Okay,” Melissa said quickly, her voice strained as she fought back sobs. “I’ll finish.”

Audra stood back up and nodded at the mother. Once she was released, Melissa let the blouse fall off her arms and crumple to the ground. Then she hooked her fingers in her skirt and pulled it down, panties and all, in one quick motion.

Her pussy was bare—not shaven, by the looks of it, just signs of a body not yet fully developed. Audra noted the wetness that had formed. A natural response though no less horrifying for the teenage girl.

Next came her socks and shoes, the last remnants of her humanity.
Audra studied Melissa, naked and quivering.

She had complied. That was sufficient. Compliance, once established, tended to hold.

She reached out and rested a hand briefly on Melissa’s head.

“Good girl,” she said.

There was no warmth in it. Just acknowledgment.

She withdrew her hand.

“Now,” Audra continued, “say your goodbyes.”

Audra stepped outside, not needing to remain for this part.

There would be tears. Apologies. Anger, most likely directed at her. Words said that might require escalation. Not out of hurt pride, but because the System didn’t abide dissent.

She had taken enough from them already.

Melissa came to her of her own accord, the red glow of her watch steady against her wrist.

There was a difference now. Not in form, not yet in behavior, but in designation. The shift had already taken place. Everything that followed would adjust to it in time.

Audra had seen it before. Resistance gave way to routine. Routine settled into acceptance. Not always quickly, but reliably.

She did not comment on it.

She simply turned toward the door.

“Stay close,” she said.

Audra opened the front passenger door and stepped aside, waiting until Melissa was seated before guiding the belt across her and securing it with a quiet click. She closed the door without force.

Melissa looked once at the house.

Her family stood on the porch. Not waving. Not smiling.

She turned away.

Audra walked around the car, got in, and started the engine.

[THE END]

I think I'll have Melissa be the star of the next short story.

>>30228
She really didn't do herself any favours, did she? lol

No she really didn't. If she'd just shut up then Ashton would have taken the fall.

I’m assuming the watches have GPS units in them what happens if somebody tries to run our family decides to hide a family member from the system after they’re selected. And does this scenario remind anybody else of Logan’s run?

Sorry that should be or a family decides (God, I hate voice recognition software)

Melissa makes a choice she believes will let her live.
A sequel to Middle Child Designation.

(No-sex, cannibalism, underage, dehumanisation, enforced nudtity, power imbalance/authority)

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Melissa had spent the night in Habitation.

Miss Pike had dropped her off without much ceremony, like she was handing something over that had already stopped being hers, and the staff at the Processing Centre had taken over from there. No introductions, no explaining things in a way that meant anything—just a smooth, uninterrupted sequence of movement. One room to the next. One instruction after another. Always forward.

Intake hadn’t been loud or aggressive.

That was the worst part.

It had been quiet. Controlled. Efficient in a way that made it feel practiced down to the smallest detail, like they’d done it a thousand times and didn’t need to think about it anymore. The staff spoke in short, even sentences, never raising their voices, never repeating themselves. They didn’t need to.

She’d followed.

Not because she wanted to, but because there wasn’t really a moment where she could do anything else. Every step had already been decided before she got there.

The touching had started early.

Not sudden. Not rough.

Just there.

Hands at her shoulders, turning her slightly. Fingers at her arm, guiding her forward. A palm at her back when she hesitated for half a second too long. It wasn’t invasive in the way she would have expected. There was no lingering. No intent beyond movement.

That somehow made it worse.

No one looked at her like a person while they did it. But they didn’t look at her like prey either. Just something being handled properly.

Positioned.

Adjusted.

Moved along.

At one point she’d flinched—barely—and the hand on her side hadn’t pulled away. It had just waited, steady and patient, until she stopped resisting, and then continued like nothing had happened.

Like her reaction didn’t matter enough to interrupt anything.

No one commented on her body. No one reacted to it. No one even really looked at it for longer than they needed to. It wasn’t shameful. It wasn’t exposed in a way that invited anything.

It was just… visible.

Accessible.

Part of the process.

That was what got under her skin.

Not fear. Not even embarrassment, not properly.

Just this slow, creeping realization that none of it meant anything to them. Not her, not the way she stood, not the way her hands clenched at her sides like that might somehow give her back a bit of control.

She wasn’t being humiliated.

She was being processed.

And somehow, that felt worse.

Melissa had been given a small space to herself, surprisingly private. The door shut cleanly, sealing her in without a sound, and for a moment it almost felt like choice. She could come and go as she pleased, that’s what they’d told her. Encouraged to enjoy the facilities, take advantage of what was available.

She didn’t.

The room was comfortable in a way that felt deliberate. A proper bed. Clean sheets. Soft lighting that didn’t quite reach the corners. Everything placed neatly, like it had been considered, adjusted, approved.

She knew what these places used to be.

Most Processing Centres had started as prisons. Everyone knew that, even if no one really talked about it anymore. It had been reframed, repurposed, turned into something functional. Something necessary.

Normal.

Her room was just a refurbished cell.

The walls were too thick. The space too contained. Even the quiet felt… structured.

Comfortable, yes.

But not free.

Melissa sat on the edge of the bed, hands resting in her lap, and stared at the door for a long moment.

They said she could leave.

She didn’t test it.

Because she already understood the difference.

She wasn’t being housed.

She was being kept.

Eventually she got up, the decision feeling smaller than it should have, and held her ID watch to the scanner by the door. It read instantly. A soft confirmation, then a heavy clunk as the lock disengaged, something old and mechanical shifting behind the wall like it had been doing long before this place had been repurposed.

The door opened without resistance.

She stepped out.

Breakfast was… fine.

A wide spread laid out neatly along the counter, everything arranged with that same careful precision she’d seen everywhere else. Warm trays. Fresh options. Clean plates stacked in perfect lines.

Vegetarian.

Every single dish.

No meat in sight.

It shouldn’t have bothered her as much as it did, but it did. The absence felt… deliberate, even if no one had said anything about it.

Melissa lingered for a second, scanning the options like something might have been missed.

It hadn’t.

She picked something at random, barely looking at it as she moved along.

She loved bacon.

The thought came uninvited, sharp and familiar.

For a second, it didn’t feel like a preference anymore.

Just something she used to be allowed to have.

In the afternoon she risked going into the garden.

The doors leading in only opened for Animals. The gates out to the street only opened for Humans. It sat in the middle, carefully balanced between the two, a space designed to let people exist together without ever quite crossing over.

A shared space.

Families used it, she knew that much. A quiet place to talk, to sit close, to pretend things hadn’t already been decided.

Nobody would be coming for her.

Melissa sat on one of the benches, the metal still faintly warm, and watched.

A group of Blue Orphans had gathered off to one side, crouched in the grass, threading together small daisy chains with clumsy, practiced fingers. They worked in quiet focus, occasionally holding one up to check it before passing it along, building something between them.

It didn’t last long.

A staff member approached at an easy pace, not hurried, not annoyed, and stopped just close enough to be noticed.

“Clothing is contraband,” they said, calm and even.

The chains were taken without resistance.

The children didn’t argue. Didn’t complain. They just watched them go for a second, then looked back down at the grass, already reaching for more flowers like nothing had been lost.

Melissa stared a little longer than she meant to.

It didn’t seem to dishearten them.

If anything, it just gave them something to do again.

Her watch beeped suddenly, sharp enough to cut clean through the quiet.

Melissa glanced down, half expecting some leftover reminder from before—something small, normal, something that didn’t belong here anymore.

The screen had already updated.

Report to transport bay by 0200.

She stared at it for a second longer than she needed to, like the words might shift if she gave them time.

Transport bay?

Her grip tightened slightly around her wrist.

Were they moving her?

She had twenty minutes.

That was what the watch said, and for a second she just stood there, staring at it like waiting might change something.

So she moved.

Melissa pushed herself up from the bench and crossed the garden slowly, her steps measured, like she wasn’t entirely sure what she was doing until she was already doing it. The Blue Orphans were still where she’d seen them, scattered low in the grass, fingers busy again like the interruption hadn’t mattered.

She stopped just short of them.

“Can I join you?” she asked.

The children paused, not all at once, but enough that it felt noticed. A few of them glanced up, then sideways at each other, quiet in that way groups got when something new entered it.

They were naked.

But not like her.

Melissa felt that difference immediately, even if she couldn’t have explained it properly. She’d gone to school with Blue Orphans before. Sat in the same rooms, shared the same lessons. They’d always been… adjacent. Raised by the System, guided through it, but still allowed to exist alongside everything else.

Not removed.

Not processed.

Just… placed.

One of the younger ones tilted their head slightly, studying her.

Then, after a moment, they shifted, making a small space in the grass.

An answer.

“Sure, you wanna make a tiara?”

Melissa blinked, the offer catching her slightly off guard in how normal it sounded. For a second it didn’t fit with anything else around her—the walls, the staff, the watch still sitting heavy on her wrist—but the girl said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“I’ll make you one,” she added, already reaching for more flowers. “So you can be a princess.”

Melissa smiled, small but real, something softer slipping through before she could stop it.

“Sure,” she said, giving a slight nod as she lowered herself into the grass beside them. “Make me a princess.”

The words felt strange coming out of her mouth.

Not wrong.

Just… out of place.

Around her, the children went back to work without hesitation, threading stems together with careful fingers, passing pieces back and forth, fixing each other’s mistakes without comment. One of them leaned in closer to her, measuring the length against her head with quiet focus, like it mattered that it fit properly.

Melissa stayed still for it.

For a moment, she let herself sit there with them, watching their hands move, listening to the low hum of their voices, the garden stretching quietly around them.

No one called her.

Nothing interrupted.

And for just a second, it felt like something she recognized.

When it came time for her to leave, Melissa stood slowly, brushing bits of grass from her legs as if that mattered.

One of the children held up the finished tiara, careful with it, like it was something delicate and important. She leaned down slightly to let them place it on her head, the small stems cool against her skin, uneven but secure.

Melissa straightened, lifting her chin just a little.

“Alright,” she said, putting on a kind of exaggerated confidence she didn’t quite feel. “How do I look?”

She turned slightly, giving them a small pose, one hand settling at her hip like she’d seen people do before.

The children laughed.

Not mean. Not forced.

Just… delighted.

For a second, it almost felt like she’d done something right.

Like she was part of it.

Like this was just another stupid, harmless moment.

Or so she thought.

“Now you can look pretty when you die!”

Melissa flinched.

Hard enough that she felt it in her shoulders.

Her shoulders tightened, the smile faltering before she could stop it, something cold slipping straight through the warmth that had been there a second ago.

The children didn’t notice.

Or if they did, it didn’t matter.

They were already looking at her, waiting, still smiling, like they’d just given her a compliment.

“I have to go,” Melissa said, forcing the smile back into place. “Bye.”

They all stood as she stepped away, small hands lifting in unison, waving her off like she was just heading home, like she’d be back later. One of them even adjusted the tiara slightly as she passed, making sure it stayed straight.

Melissa didn’t look back.

She didn’t want to.

She found the transport bay quicker than she expected, guided more by the layout than anything else. The place made too much sense, and she didn’t like that. Everything connected cleanly. Everything led somewhere it was supposed to.

A member of staff spotted her almost immediately and raised a hand in a small, efficient gesture.

“Melissa?” he asked, glancing down at a clipboard.

His tone was flat. Not rude. Just… empty of anything else.

She nodded.

“During Intake, you put your name down for Live Service,” he continued, eyes already moving across the page. “Is this still correct?”

Melissa hesitated for the briefest second, then nodded again.

She’d assumed it meant something else.

Service stock. Floor work. Something like that.

Not this.

She was guided into the back of a truck, the door lifting with a heavy rattle before settling open. From the outside it almost passed for something ordinary—long rows, narrow aisle—but once she stepped up and inside, the differences settled in quickly.

Each seat had restraints.

Not hidden. Not disguised.

Cuffs fixed neatly at the wrists and ankles, already in place like part of the design rather than an addition to it. Several other Animals were seated and fastened in, bodies held in position while they talked quietly among themselves, voices low and easy like this was just another part of the day.

Different ages.

Some younger. Some older.

All settled.

Melissa hesitated just long enough for it to be noticed before she was guided into an empty seat and secured in place. The cuffs closed with a soft, final click—firm, but not uncomfortable. Just… definite.

Beside her, a guy a little older shifted slightly, turning his head toward her.

“Hey,” he said.

Melissa glanced at him, offering a small smile out of habit more than anything else, already half-looking away.

“Have they told you where they’ve put you?”

She assumed he meant work.

Something practical. Something survivable.

“I dunno,” she admitted, shrugging slightly against the restraints. “But it sure beats dying here, right?”

The words came out easier than they should have.

He gave a small nod, like that made sense.

“Yeah,” he said. “At least with Live Service we’ll be treated better.”

Melissa blinked.

Something about the way he said it—too certain, too settled—sat wrong in her chest, even if she couldn’t quite place why.

She didn’t question it.

Not yet.

The engine roared to life somewhere behind them, a low, heavy sound that settled into a steady vibration. It travelled through the frame of the truck, into the seats, into her back and legs in a way that felt too even, too consistent to be accidental.

Melissa stiffened slightly.

The sensation built in a way she wasn’t expecting, subtle at first, then harder to ignore the longer it went on. It wasn’t painful. It wasn’t even uncomfortable in the way she would’ve preferred.

Just… there.

Unavoidable.

Heat crept up her neck before she could stop it, her cheeks flushing as her body reacted in a way she didn’t feel in control of, the same unfamiliar response from earlier surfacing again without asking her permission.

She shifted slightly against the restraints, trying to steady herself, trying to make it stop.

It didn’t.

Beside her, the guy had gone still.

Not tense.

Just aware.

She glanced sideways before she could stop herself, and the change in him was obvious enough that she looked away just as quickly, her stomach tightening in a different kind of discomfort.

He didn’t react.

Didn’t try to hide it.

Didn’t seem embarrassed.

If anything, he just settled back into his seat like it didn’t matter at all.

Like it was expected.

Melissa swallowed, staring straight ahead now, her jaw tightening as she tried to ignore it—ignore all of it—but the steady hum of the engine didn’t let up, and neither did the feeling that something about this had been designed.

The drive didn’t last long.

It felt longer, stretched out by the constant hum under her skin, but when the truck finally slowed and came to a stop, it happened all at once. The doors opened, light spilling in, voices from outside bleeding into the space like nothing about this was hidden.

Only her watch was scanned.

A quick check. A quiet confirmation.

Then the restraints released, and she was the only one guided out.

Melissa stepped down onto a busy street, the noise hitting her properly for the first time—people talking, footsteps, the low constant movement of a place that didn’t stop for anything. It was… normal. Completely normal.

Her first instinct was immediate.

Her arms moved before she even thought about it, crossing over herself, trying to cover what she could.

It didn’t last.

The handler caught it instantly, his hand snapping her wrists back down with practiced ease.

“Hands down, Meatgirl,” he said, voice firm, not raised, but carrying enough weight that it didn’t need to be.

Melissa froze, breath catching, trying to hold herself still.

A group of teenagers came into view just ahead, clustered together, mid-conversation, their attention shifting the moment they noticed her. Her stomach dropped.

She tried again.

Just a small movement—enough to hide something, anything—

The slap came sharp against her rear, fast and clean, the sound cracking louder than it needed to.

“I said hands down,” the handler repeated, louder now, not angry, just enforcing.

The girls had stopped completely now.

Watching.

One of them pointed, a grin already spreading across her face.

They laughed.

“Dumb Animal,” one of them said, the word easy, casual.

Melissa’s jaw tightened.

“She isn’t even that pretty.”

“Maybe she should hide herself,” another added, voice dripping with mockery. “Save us from her ugliness.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

Hot, immediate anger surged up in her chest, sharp enough to make her chest tighten, her breath catch, her mouth already opening—

She was ready to snap back. To say something. Anything.

The handler didn’t give her the chance.

His grip tightened, pulling her forward without hesitation, steering her straight toward the building ahead. The door opened, and just like that, the noise of the street cut off behind her as she was taken inside.

A different kind of noise met her the second the door shut behind them.

Lower. Softer.

Polite conversation layered over the quiet clink of cutlery and glass, voices kept just below a certain level like everyone had agreed on it without needing to say so. The air was warmer here, thick with the smell of cooked food and something sharper underneath it—alcohol, rich and constant.

Melissa swallowed, her senses still catching up as the handler guided her forward.

They stopped at a reception podium near the entrance. He didn’t speak, just waited, one hand still firm at her arm like she might wander off if he let go.

A waitress approached after a moment, already smiling.

“Oh good,” she said, glancing between them. “The other Meatgirl just arrived as well.”

The handler gave a small nod.

“Oh yeah?” he replied, casual. “Where’d you get her?”

“She’s a Farm Girl,” the waitress said easily, like she was talking about a delivery. “Really sweet, but dumb as bricks.”

Melissa felt something twist in her chest at that.

Not shock.

Not even surprise.

Just… recognition.

She was handed off without ceremony.

The handler didn’t say goodbye, didn’t even look at her again once the waitress had her. Just a small transfer of responsibility, a shift in who she belonged to for the moment, and then he was gone, already turning back toward the door like she’d never been anything more than a delivery.

Melissa watched him leave for a second.

He would come back.

Right?

“This way, Meatgirl.”

The waitress didn’t touch her. She didn’t need to. She just turned and started walking, expecting Melissa to follow like it was already understood.

Melissa did.

The shift into the kitchen hit her immediately.

It was loud. Not like outside—this wasn’t distant chatter or polite conversation. This was sharp, constant noise. Raised voices cutting over each other, orders being shouted, metal clanging against metal, something heavy slamming down hard enough to make her flinch slightly.

Heat pressed in from all sides.

The air felt thicker here, harder to breathe properly, filled with smells that were stronger, heavier, impossible to ignore.

She slowed for a second, taking it in.

Service Stock moved through it all like part of the machinery. Heads down. Hands busy. Cleaning, scrubbing, carrying stacks of dishes from one place to another. The collars around their necks caught the light as they moved, clear markers of where they stood.

Where they belonged.

Melissa’s gaze lingered on them for a moment before she looked back to the waitress.

“When do I start?” she asked.

The waitress glanced at her, eyebrows pulling together slightly.

“Start what?”

“Working,” Melissa said, like it should’ve been obvious. “I’ll need a collar since I’m Live Service, right?”

The reaction was immediate.

The waitress laughed.

Not a small laugh. Not polite.

A full, sharp burst that cut right through the noise around them, drawing a few quick glances from nearby staff before they went back to what they were doing.

“Oh, dear lord, no,” she said, still smiling as she shook her head. “Live Service Animals don’t fuck around with the help. You’ll be out front, where everyone can see you.”

Melissa frowned, something tightening in her chest.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “I thought I was here to work.”

The waitress tilted her head slightly, studying her for a second like she was trying to figure something out.

“Did you think Live Service meant Service Animal designation?”

Melissa didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

The woman’s smile shifted, not unkind, just… knowing.

“You silly thing,” she said lightly.

“It means you’ll be cooked alive.”

>>30236
A very promising start :D

>>30236
Melissa really does make one bad choice after another, doesn't she? :P

She's the dumbest smart person you'll ever meet

Should that be she’s the dumbest smart person you’ll ever meat : )

Get out 😵

Who knows her end may be soup-per

One might say her decisions have landed her in a real stew

They’re really going to roast her for her bad decisions

>>30245
She could definitely end up in hot water if that's the case!

>>30246
She'll get dragged over the coals for sure!

No not you too Edward!

Ugh, these puns are so tasteless 😏

>>30249
No need to be so sour over it 😝

Please Symbi stop letting them pun-ish art and keep writing and it’s unfair for you to get in on this Edward Hyde anybody that comes from a country that created an actual desert called spotted dick already has to high advantage in food related in your window

We’re really getting basted hear

I'll be posting the rest of Melissa's story later today. I also have plans for a new one. Afterwards but I I'll take a writing break first.

I wonder if she’ll be grilled about her choices

>>30254
I think her choices are baste!

Both of you would be converted for crimes against comedy

I wonder if she will try to curry favor

Well, at least we know she won’t disert

Melissa blinked, staring at the waitress in disbelief.

For a second, she genuinely thought she’d misheard her. Like something in the noise of the kitchen had twisted the words into something they weren’t meant to be.

“You’re kidding, right?”

The waitress shook her head, still looking at her with that same easy expression, like this wasn’t even worth softening. “Nope,” she said. “You’ll be out on the floor, showing off that tasty body of yours until someone buys it. Then you’ll be cooked in front of them.”

Melissa let out a small, breathless laugh. Not because it was funny. Because it had to be.

“Alive?” she added, the word coming out quieter than she meant it to, like saying it too clearly might make it real.

“Sure,” the waitress replied, completely unbothered. “That’s what Live Service is, Meatgirl.”

Melissa just stared at her, waiting. For the correction. For the moment where the woman would sigh, or roll her eyes, or admit she’d taken it too far.

It didn’t come.

The kitchen noise carried on around them, loud and constant, like nothing had changed. Like this was just another normal conversation happening in the middle of everything else.

Melissa swallowed. “That’s not—” she started, then stopped, her voice catching awkwardly as she tried to pull the thought together. “That’s not what I signed up for.”

The waitress tilted her head slightly. “Yes it is,” she said simply. “You chose Live Service. You confirmed it.”

“I thought—” Melissa cut herself off again, the words slipping away the second she tried to say them out loud.

Service. Work. Something she could do. Something she could survive.

The waitress watched her for a moment, not impatient, not unkind. Just waiting for her to catch up.

“You thought it meant something else,” she said. It wasn’t a question.

Melissa didn’t answer. Her chest felt tight, like her body hadn’t quite caught up to what was happening yet, like it was still trying to place the words somewhere they made sense.

“They don’t correct assumptions,” the waitress added after a moment, almost conversationally. “Not unless you say something that conflicts with your classification.”

Melissa’s gaze snapped back to her. “You didn’t,” she finished with a small shrug.

That was it. That was the explanation. No apology. No adjustment. No second chance.

Just… confirmation.

Melissa shook her head slightly, a short, sharp motion. “No,” she said under her breath. “No, that’s not—”

But it was.

She could feel it settling now, slow and heavy, pressing in from all sides in a way that didn’t leave room for anything else. She hadn’t been assigned. She’d chosen. And no one here was going to treat that like a mistake.

The waitress stepped a little closer, her hands settling on Melissa’s shoulders. Not rough. Just steady. Holding her in place like she might drift off if she wasn’t anchored.

“You made a bad choice,” she said, and there was something almost genuine in her tone now, a faint softness that hadn’t been there before. “I’m genuinely sorry for that. But we bought you from the Centre, and you can’t go back.”

Melissa’s breath hitched.

Bought.

The word landed heavier than anything else had.

She didn’t pull away. Didn’t try. Her body felt… slow. Like it wasn’t quite keeping up with her thoughts, like everything was happening half a second too late.

The waitress gave her shoulders a small, reassuring squeeze. “Accept it, Meatgirl,” she said, voice settling back into that calm, even rhythm. “Once you do, things will be easier.”

Easier.

Melissa let out a short breath through her nose, something close to a laugh but not quite making it. Her eyes flicked past the waitress, back out toward the kitchen, toward the movement, the noise, the heat—everything carrying on exactly the same as it had been a minute ago.

Nothing had changed.

Except it had.

Her jaw tightened.

Easier didn’t mean better.

It didn’t mean safer. It just meant she’d stop fighting it.

Melissa swallowed, her throat feeling tight, her voice coming out quieter than she meant it to.

“I didn’t choose this,” she said.

The words sounded weak even to her own ears.

Because she had. And they both knew it.

“Look on the bright side,” the waitress said, her hands still resting lightly on Melissa’s shoulders like she hadn’t noticed how tense she’d gone. “Everyone’s going to be paying attention to a good quality Meatgirl like yourself.”

She said it like it mattered. Like that was something to hold onto.

Melissa didn’t react straight away. The words slid into place somewhere in her head, neat and tidy, like everything else here. Categorised. Filed. Made acceptable.

It didn’t feel like a bright side. It felt like being looked at.

“And we don’t get a lot of customers buying whole Animals,” the waitress continued, almost conversational now. “So you might end up being with us for a few days.”

A few days.

Melissa blinked.

That should have felt like relief. Time. More time meant something. It always had.

But the way she said it—Not you’ll be okay. Not you’ll be safe. Just… you’ll still be here.

Melissa’s fingers twitched slightly at her sides.

“A few days,” she repeated, like testing the words, like maybe they’d sound different out loud.

The waitress nodded. “Plenty of time to settle in,” she said.

Settle in.

Melissa swallowed. Her body still felt wrong—too aware, too reactive, like it hadn’t got the message her brain was trying to force through.

A few days. Standing there. Being watched. Waiting for someone to decide.

Her jaw tightened slightly.

That wasn’t time.

That was just… delay.

“Alright, let’s get you washed and made to look pretty for the customers.”

The waitress didn’t wait for a response this time. She turned, guiding Melissa with a light pressure at her back, steering her deeper into the kitchen until they reached a section that felt… separate. Not closed off. Just understood.

Melissa slowed as she saw it.

A tiled corner, cleaner than the rest but in a way that didn’t feel comforting. A shower head fixed into the wall at an angle. A grated drain beneath it. Hooks to the side, empty for now.

Functional. Purpose-built.

“Just stand under there and clean yourself thoroughly,” the waitress said, already stepping back. “Don’t mind the stares.”

Melissa hesitated.

Then she glanced out across the kitchen.

They were staring.

Not all of them. Not constantly. But enough. Enough that she could feel it, the weight of it settling across her skin in a way that made her shoulders tighten slightly.

She’d expected something else. Something closer to what she’d seen before.

But it wasn’t that.

There was no lingering gaze. No smirking. No quiet exchange of looks.

It wasn’t that kind of attention.

This was… different.

Focused. Assessing.

Their eyes moved over her in quick, efficient passes. Not drawn out, not indulgent—just enough to take something in before moving on. Like they were checking quality. Not imagining. Not wanting.

Judging.

Melissa swallowed.

It took her a second to place it, to understand what felt so off about it.

They weren’t looking at her like something to touch.

They were looking at her like something to eat.

The thought landed heavy, sitting low in her chest as she turned back toward the tiled wall.

The shower waited.

Simple. Unavoidable.

Melissa stepped forward slowly, positioning herself beneath it, her hands hovering awkwardly at her sides for a moment before she reached up and turned it on.

Water spilled down over her skin.

Warm. Clean. Normal.

For a second, she focused on that. Just that.

But the awareness didn’t go away. The stares didn’t stop. And now that she understood them, she couldn’t pretend they were anything else.

After she was cleaned, the waitress handed her a towel.

Melissa took it quickly, almost gratefully, and dried herself in short, efficient movements, like getting it over with would somehow make the situation smaller. The fabric was soft, warm from somewhere, and for a second she focused on that instead of everything else.

It didn’t last.

“Come on,” the waitress said, already turning.

Melissa followed.

She was led into a small office space just off the kitchen. It was quieter here, the noise from outside muffled just enough to feel distant but not gone. A chair had been placed in the centre of the room, positioned under a bright, focused light.

“Sit.”

Melissa did.

The chair was firm, upright, not designed for comfort so much as positioning. She sat stiffly, hands resting awkwardly on her thighs, unsure what to do with them.

“Next we’ll apply some light makeup,” the waitress said, moving around her with practiced ease. “Just enough to highlight your face and body.”

Melissa frowned slightly. “Body?”

“Shush now, Meatgirl,” the waitress replied without looking at her. “Don’t make me mess this up.”

Melissa’s jaw tightened, but she stayed still.

The woman worked quickly, efficiently. A light touch at her cheeks, something cool brushed across her skin. Blush, subtle enough that Melissa barely felt it. A soft coat of lipstick, just enough to catch the light. Foundation dabbed and smoothed where needed, evening out small imperfections Melissa hadn’t even noticed before.

Nothing heavy. Nothing dramatic.

Just… refined.

“It’ll wash off easy,” the waitress said, her voice softer now, almost reassuring. “Won’t leave a taste on your skin either.”

Melissa stilled slightly at that. Didn’t respond.

A mirror was lifted in front of her.

She looked.

At first, it didn’t seem like anything had changed. It was still her face. Same features. Same shape.

But the longer she stared, the more it became obvious.

Sharper. Cleaner. Less soft.

Like the edges had been defined just enough to make her look… finished.

Not prettier.

Just… prepared.

“Alright, hands behind your head now, Meatgirl,” the waitress said.

Melissa hesitated.

It wasn’t a big movement—just enough to pause, just enough to show she wasn’t fully giving into it—but it was noticed immediately. The waitress stepped in without irritation, taking her wrists and lifting them into place herself, positioning them neatly behind Melissa’s head like she was adjusting something on display.

“Good girl,” she said simply.

Melissa didn’t feel anything from it. Not pride. Not comfort.

Just… compliance.

“Hold that.”

The waitress stepped away briefly, returning with a small container and a soft, feathery brush. She dipped it lightly into a pale pink body paint, tapping off the excess with practiced precision before stepping back in.

“This’ll highlight your nipples,” she said, tone casual. “Make you stand out.”

Melissa’s breath caught slightly as the brush touched her skin.

It was light. Almost nothing.

Just the faintest contact as the soft bristles traced a slow circle around her areola, careful and deliberate. The sensation was subtle, but it lingered, spreading outward in a way that made her shoulders tense slightly despite herself.

She shuddered.

It wasn’t dramatic. Just enough to betray her.

“Settle down, Meatgirl,” the waitress said with a small smile, not unkind, just… knowing. “Feels good though, right?”

Melissa didn’t answer. Didn’t trust herself to.

Her body had already answered for her.

She felt it—her nipples tightening, peaking under the light touch, responding without permission, without thought. The reaction came quick, automatic, and she hated how little control she had over it.

The brush moved again.

This time directly over them.

Soft strokes, layering the color carefully over the now solid nubs, enhancing what was already there rather than changing it. The paint wasn’t thick. It didn’t look artificial. Just enough to draw the eye.

To define. To present.

When Melissa glanced down, her stomach tightened slightly.

They stood out.

Not exaggerated. Not fake.

Just… noticeable.

Deliberately so.

The waitress stepped in again, her movements as efficient as before.

Two fingers brushed lightly along Melissa’s pelvis, tracing the area where hair would normally grow. The touch wasn’t lingering, not exploratory—just checking, the same way everything else had been. Still, it made Melissa tense slightly, her stomach tightening at the unexpected contact.

“Do you shave?” the waitress asked, glancing up at her.

Melissa shook her head.

“Ah,” the woman said, almost to herself. “Late bloomer.”

There was no judgment in it. Just observation.

Her fingers pressed a little more firmly this time, not enough to hurt, just enough to confirm what she’d already assumed, before she withdrew her hand and stepped back again like the moment hadn’t meant anything.

Melissa swallowed, her arms still held behind her head, her body feeling increasingly like something being checked over piece by piece.

Catalogued. Prepared.

“Okay, I need you to stand up and spread your legs.”

Melissa’s head snapped up slightly at that, her arms still held behind her head where she’d been positioned.

“What do you need to do down there?” she asked, the edge in her voice sharper now, defensive in a way she couldn’t quite hide anymore.

The waitress didn’t react to the tone.

“Oh, nothing,” she said lightly. “I’m just going to reward good behaviour.”

Melissa froze for half a second.

The words didn’t sit right. Didn’t connect properly to anything she understood.

But she stood anyway.

Because that was what she’d been doing since she got here.

Following. Positioning. Letting things happen.

She shifted off the chair, her legs unsteady for a moment before she forced them still, then slowly moved them apart like she’d been told.

The waitress knelt down and pulled Melissa forward, her warm breath suddenly caressing her sensitive area. The waitress didn’t speak, didn’t offer encouragement. Just expected her to take it without complaint.

Melissa’s breath caught sharply in her throat, her body reacting before her mind could catch up, a sudden, involuntary tension running through her as her fingers tightened slightly where they were held behind her head.

She didn’t understand it. Didn’t want to.

But it didn’t stop her body from responding, didn’t stop the way her breath hitched, the way something unfamiliar and unwanted built low in her stomach.

“See?” the waitress said softly, almost reassuring. “Good behaviour gets rewarded.”

Melissa squeezed her eyes shut for a second. Not in acceptance. Just… trying to get through it.

The tension between her legs built slowly, steadily, until it became impossible to ignore.

She was aware of the closeness. The warmth. The way the waitress moved in without hesitation, without ceremony, like this was just another step in preparation.

Melissa’s breath hitched.

It wasn’t unpleasant.

That was what made it worse.

Her body reacted anyway, heat pooling low, something building under her skin that she didn’t want, didn’t understand, couldn’t stop no matter how hard she tried to stay still.

And then—

It broke.

Sharp and sudden, the sensation rushing through her before she could brace for it. Something she had only ever experienced alone, something private, something that had belonged to her.

Now it didn’t.

The waitress pulled back, unbothered, reaching for a tissue and cleaning her mouth with casual efficiency like nothing unusual had happened.

“Good girl,” she said, straightening.

Melissa didn’t respond. Didn’t look at her.

She just stood there, arms still behind her head, trying to steady her breathing, trying to feel like she still had control over something.

“Now,” the waitress added, already turning away, “let’s get you on the service floor.”

Melissa was handed a tissue of her own, the waitress pressing it lightly into her hand like it was part of the routine.

“Clean yourself up,” she said. “As best you can.”

Melissa hesitated for a second, then did it. Quick, efficient, not looking too closely, not letting herself think about it more than she had to. Just something to get through.

The makeup had held.

That surprised her.

Despite the heat, the sweat clinging to her skin, everything still sat where it had been placed. Her reflection from earlier lingered in her mind—sharper, cleaner, prepared.

Nothing ruined. Nothing accidental.

“Good,” the waitress murmured, more to herself than to Melissa. “We’ll keep you like that.”

Melissa swallowed.

They moved back through the kitchen.

And the eyes followed again.

Not all at once. Not openly. But enough. Quick glances. Passing looks. That same quiet assessment she’d felt before, like she was being checked without it needing to be obvious.

Only now it felt heavier. More intentional.

“Looking good, Meatgirl,” one of the chefs called out, barely glancing up from where he stood over a stove. “With skin like that, you’d crisp up nicely.”

Melissa’s stomach twisted.

The words didn’t sound like a joke.

Not really.

She opened her mouth slightly, then closed it again, unsure what the response was supposed to be. Was she meant to say something? Acknowledge it? Ignore it?

The silence stretched just long enough to feel awkward.

“Thanks,” she said finally.

The word felt wrong the second it left her mouth. Too normal. Too automatic.

The chef nodded, like it was the correct response, like she’d done exactly what was expected of her, and turned back to his work without another thought.

Melissa stared at him for a second longer.

Then kept walking.

The noise of the restaurant floor was softer.

Not silent, but controlled. Conversations layered over each other in low tones, the occasional clink of glass or cutlery breaking through, everything kept just under a level that would carry too far.

It felt… managed.

Melissa noticed it immediately.

And a small, traitorous part of her felt relieved.

It was easier to breathe out here. Easier to stand. Easier to exist without flinching every time something slammed or someone shouted.

For a second, she let herself think it.

This is better.

Better than the kitchen. Better than the heat, the noise, the constant pressure of it.

Better.

Then the thought caught up with her.

If she’d been working in the kitchens—

If she’d been Service Stock, collar around her neck, hands busy, head down—

She’d have a place. A function. Something to do.

She’d last longer.

Melissa’s jaw tightened slightly, the brief sense of relief turning sour in her chest.

This wasn’t better.

It just felt like it was.

And that was worse.

“Melissa, come meet the other girl we bought.”

The waitress had already moved ahead, not checking if she was following, just expecting it.

Melissa did.

She stepped out onto the floor properly now, the space opening around her—tables arranged neatly, soft lighting, customers seated in quiet conversation like this was just another evening out.

And then she saw her.

A girl, roughly her age, standing in front of a young couple. Her posture was familiar—hands behind her head, chest open, still and compliant in a way that looked almost practiced.

The couple stood close.

Their hands moved over her body.

Melissa’s first instinct was to recoil from the word that came to mind.

Groping.

But it didn’t fit.

There was no urgency in it. No fumbling. No heat.

Their touch was deliberate. Measured. Fingers pressing lightly, then more firmly, shifting, comparing. The way they moved wasn’t about taking.

It was about assessing. Weighing.

The girl didn’t react the way Melissa expected.

No tension. No hesitation.

If anything, she seemed… at ease, a small, easy smile resting on her face as she looked between them, like she was part of the interaction instead of enduring it.

Melissa slowed without meaning to, her steps faltering just slightly as she took it in.

This was what the waitress meant.

Out front. Where everyone could see.

“How’s it feel?” the girl said, her voice light, a soft country accent curling around the words. “The Aunts and Uncles at the Farm said I’d graded A- before shipping me off.”

Melissa blinked at that.

Graded.

The word sat strangely in her head, too casual for what it meant.

The woman in front of her hummed, her hands still resting against the girl’s side, thumbs pressing lightly as if confirming something she already knew.

“Exceptionally good,” she admitted. “Farm Animals always end up good, though.”

The man nodded beside her, his hand giving one last measured press before he stepped back.

“But that’s why we could never afford you,” he said with a small shrug. “But thank you for letting us assess you.”

The girl beamed.

“Of course,” she said easily, like she’d been complimented on something she’d worked hard for.

Melissa felt something twist in her chest again.

Not shock. Not even confusion.

Just that same quiet recognition creeping back in.

The girl didn’t look embarrassed. Didn’t look uncomfortable.

She looked… pleased.

Like she’d done well.

Melissa stayed where she was for a moment longer, watching, trying to reconcile it with what she was seeing, what she was feeling, and the two refused to line up.

The waitress glanced back at her.

“Well?” she said lightly. “Go on.”

Melissa didn’t move straight away.

But she did move.

Melissa approached just as the girl turned to face her.

“Oh my goodness, look at you,” she said brightly, her eyes lighting up as she took Melissa in. “You got the nipple paint too!”

Melissa blinked, caught off guard by how openly she said it, how happy she sounded about it. There was no hesitation, no embarrassment—just excitement, like they were comparing something normal.

If anything, it made Melissa feel more exposed.

“Uh… yeah,” she said, forcing herself to step closer, even as her shoulders tightened slightly.

The girl beamed.

“You got a name, City Animal?”

Melissa raised an eyebrow at that, the phrasing catching her off guard more than anything else. City Animal.

It shouldn’t have bothered her.

But it did.

“Melissa,” she said after a second. “You?”

The girl shook her head easily, like it wasn’t something worth thinking about.

“Ain’t got one. Just a tag.”

She reached up, pulling her hair aside to reveal a yellow cattle tag pierced through her left ear, turning her head slightly so Melissa could see it properly.

“Farm Animals ain’t Human,” she added, still smiling. “We don’t get names.”

Melissa stared at it for a second. At how casually she said it. At how completely she accepted it.

And for the first time since she’d seen her, something in Melissa’s chest shifted again—not confusion this time, not even discomfort.

Just a quiet, creeping realization that they weren’t the same.

Not really.

“You should let this nice Aunt and Uncle grade you,” the Girl said brightly, reaching out and taking Melissa lightly by the arm, guiding her forward with an easy familiarity. “They’re very good at it.”

Melissa stiffened immediately, her feet dragging for half a step.

“Oh no, I couldn’t—”

The waitress cleared her throat.

“You will,” she said simply.

That was it. No raised voice. No threat.

Just… certainty.

Melissa stopped resisting.

The Girl clapped her hands together, visibly delighted, like something exciting was about to happen.

“Touch her rump first,” she said, turning back to the couple with an eager smile. “That looks like good meat.”

Melissa felt her stomach drop.

The words hit differently now.

Not misunderstanding. Not confusion.

Just… clarity.

The couple stepped closer.

Melissa’s body went rigid as their attention shifted fully onto her, their eyes moving over her in the same way they had with the Girl—measured, focused, already deciding something before they’d even touched her.

“Arms up,” the waitress murmured behind her.

Melissa obeyed.

Not because she wanted to.

Because she didn’t know what would happen if she didn’t.

Hands moved to her hips first, positioning her slightly, turning her just enough.

Then lower.

A firm press against her rump. Not lingering. Not exploratory. Just checking. Testing.

Melissa’s breath caught despite herself, her fingers tightening where they rested behind her head as she tried to stay still, tried not to react, even as her body betrayed her again with the awareness of being touched, being handled like—

Not like a person.

Like something being evaluated.

“She’s good,” the woman said after a moment, her tone thoughtful rather than impressed. “Not Farm quality, but close enough.”

The man nodded, his hand moving briefly to her side, pressing lightly before pulling away.

“City stock,” he said. “But well kept.”

Melissa swallowed.

She didn’t say anything. Didn’t know what she was supposed to say.

The Girl watched the whole thing with a bright, approving smile, like Melissa had just done something worth praising.

And maybe, in this place—

She had.

“Too bad you don’t have much breast meat, though.”

The Girl reached out without hesitation, her hand settling gently against Melissa’s chest, giving a light, absent-minded press like she was confirming something she’d already decided.

“But you’re probably a B+, right?”

Melissa stiffened slightly at the contact, her breath catching for just a second as she tried not to react, tried to stay still the way she had been.

“I dunno,” she said, the answer coming out flatter than she intended. “I’ve never been graded.”

The Girl tilted her head, considering that, her hand withdrawing just as casually as it had come.

“Huh,” she said, like that was mildly surprising. “They usually sort that before shipping.”

The couple exchanged a glance, not concerned, just taking it in.

“First time for everything,” the woman said lightly.

The man gave a small nod, his gaze moving over Melissa again, slower this time, more deliberate now that he had something to compare her to.

“She’ll place fine,” he said. “Might not fetch top bracket, but she’ll move.”

Move.

The word sat strangely in Melissa’s head.

Like she wasn’t part of the conversation. Like they were discussing something that wasn’t her, even while standing right in front of her.

The Girl smiled at her again, bright and encouraging.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “You did good.”

Melissa didn’t feel like she had.

“I didn’t do anything?” Melissa said, the confusion slipping through more clearly now. “All they did was feel me up.”

The Girl laughed at that, not unkindly, just amused by the phrasing.

“People touch Animals all the time,” she said easily. “I’ve been touched all over since I was little.”

Melissa frowned slightly, the words sitting wrong in her chest.

“You make it sound like a good thing.”

The Girl shrugged, still smiling, like the answer was obvious.

“It ain’t a bad thing if you learn to enjoy it.”

Melissa’s jaw tightened.

That was the part she couldn’t get past.

Not the touching. Not even how open it all was.

Just how easily the Girl accepted it—like there wasn’t anything to push against, nothing to question.

Melissa glanced back toward the couple, now stepping away, already losing interest, their attention shifting elsewhere like she’d been something temporary.

“Enjoy it,” she repeated under her breath, like testing the words.

They didn’t fit. Not the way they were supposed to.

And yet her body—

She shut that thought down quickly, her shoulders stiffening slightly as she forced herself still again, hands still held where they’d been placed.

The Girl was still watching her, bright and encouraging.

Waiting for her to catch up.

Melissa wasn’t sure she ever would.

“Okay, Meatgirls, if you have time to chat, you have time to show yourselves off,” the waitress said, her voice carrying just enough to cut through the low hum of the room. “Go to a table and invite customers to touch you.”

Then she looked at Melissa, her tone dropping slightly.

“You can accept pleasure from them. The Farm Girl can’t.”

Melissa frowned. “Why not?”

“They aren’t sexualised at the Farm,” the waitress replied simply. “I doubt she’s ever had an orgasm.”

Melissa blinked at that.

It shouldn’t have surprised her, not after everything else she’d seen, but it did. Even now, even here, some part of her still measured things against what she used to know.

Because back then—

That had been normal. Expected, even.

An Animal’s freedom to chase pleasure was something they taught early, something schools made sure everyone understood so there were no misunderstandings, no shock when it happened in public. It was framed as a right. A release. One of the few things that still felt like it belonged to them.

And yet—

This Girl didn’t have that.

She’d been denied Humanity entirely.

And somehow, even that.

Melissa glanced over at her.

The Girl was already moving toward another table, posture open, hands lifting behind her head without needing to be told again. A customer reached out, and she leaned into it easily, smiling, reacting—but not in the way Melissa understood.

Not like it meant anything more.

There was no tension in her. No hesitation. No second layer to it.

Melissa watched for a moment longer, trying to find it, trying to see the same thing she would have felt in that situation.

It wasn’t there.

And somehow, that made it worse.

Melissa approached a table with a small family of four.

Parents. Two kids. Close together, plates half-finished, the kind of scene that should’ve felt normal if it had been anywhere else.

“Oh look,” the mother said, glancing toward her daughters, her voice warm with a faint English accent. “She’s come for pets.”

The girls looked up immediately, curious, watching.

As if to show them it was fine, the mother reached out and ran a hand slowly down Melissa’s stomach, her touch light but deliberate.

“Such a nice belly,” she said. “Oh, I’d love to try her.”

“We can’t afford that,” the father replied, shaking his head without looking up from his glass. “You heard what the other table said. Too rich for us.”

Melissa stood there, arms shifting slightly before she remembered where they were supposed to be, forcing them back into place.

“I haven’t actually been graded, so—”

The slap came sharp against her rear.

Melissa flinched hard, a small yelp escaping before she could stop it, the sound cutting awkwardly through the table’s quiet conversation.

“Don’t undersell yourself,” the waitress said from behind her, voice low but firm, like a correction rather than a reprimand. “You present what you are. Let them decide.”

Melissa’s breath came uneven for a second, the sting still fresh, her body reacting before she could settle it.

The mother gave a small, amused smile, like nothing unusual had happened.

“See?” she said softly to her daughters. “Responsive too.”

One of the girls leaned forward slightly, studying Melissa more closely now, curiosity outweighing anything else.

Melissa swallowed, forcing herself still again.

Let them decide.

“How old are you?” the youngest one asked, leaning forward slightly, her voice curious more than anything else.

Melissa’s mouth opened before she could stop it.

“She’s old enough,” the waitress cut in smoothly, not even looking at the girl as she spoke. “Prime meat. A little chatty, though.”

The words landed flat. Casual.

Like they didn’t mean anything more than a description on a label.

The waitress stepped in closer then, her presence suddenly right at Melissa’s side, her voice dropping just enough that it didn’t carry beyond them.

“Speak when spoken to,” she said quietly. “Not another word otherwise.”

A brief pause.

“Or we escalate punishment.”

Melissa felt her throat tighten.

The sting from before still lingered, sharp enough to remind her what that meant without needing it explained.

She nodded slightly.

Careful. Controlled.

The youngest girl watched her for a second longer, then leaned back again, losing interest just as quickly as she’d gained it.

The moment passed.

But Melissa stayed still.

Hands where they were placed. Eyes forward.

Waiting.

“Turn around, then,” the father said, his tone casual, like he was asking to see a product from another angle. “Let me see what we’re working with.”

Melissa hesitated for half a second, then turned.

The movement felt slower than it should have, her body stiff as she repositioned herself, aware of every set of eyes on her now. She kept her face neutral as best she could, thankful—at least for once—that the makeup dulled the heat she could feel rising in her cheeks.

Behind her, she heard it.

Giggles.

“Her bum is red!”

“She’s been naughty!”

The girls’ voices were bright, amused, the kind of laughter that didn’t understand what it was looking at.

The adults laughed too. Softer, but no different.

Melissa’s jaw tightened, her eyes squeezing shut for just a second as she tried to block it out, the sound of it pressing in harder than she expected. She didn’t want to be here. Didn’t want to be standing like this, being looked at like this, talked about like—

A hand landed against her.

Right over the tender skin where she’d been slapped.

Melissa flinched sharply, her breath catching as the pressure settled in, deliberate and firm.

“When an Animal misbehaves,” the father said, almost conversationally, “you have to remind it of its place.”

The words were calm. Measured.

Like he was explaining something simple.

Melissa forced herself still again, even as the sting lingered, even as her chest rose unevenly with the effort of holding herself together.

Hands behind her head. Stay still. Don’t speak.

Just… endure.

Then she heard it.

Small feet pattering across the floor, quick and light, circling the table.

Before she could react—

A softer slap landed against her.

Not sharp like before.

But enough.

“Bad girl!” came the bright, unmistakable voice of one of the daughters.

Melissa flinched again, her body reacting instantly, even to the lighter touch, her shoulders tightening as she struggled to stay still, to keep her arms where they’d been placed.

“No, no,” the mother said, reaching out and pulling the girl back gently but firmly. “You don’t do that unless they’ve been bad. She was already punished.”

The girl looked up at her, confused for a second.

“Apologise to the kind waitress for hurting her Animal.”

Melissa’s breath caught.

The words didn’t even register properly at first.

Not her.

The waitress.

“Sorry,” the girl said, her voice small now, genuine in a way that only made it worse.

Not to Melissa.

To the woman standing beside her.

The waitress gave a small nod, accepting it like that was the correct response, like everything had been handled properly.

Melissa stood there, unmoving.

The sting from the second slap barely registered compared to that.

Not hers.

Not even enough to apologise to.

Just… something that belonged to someone else.

Something that could be corrected.

And then moved on from.

“Alright, thank you, but we won’t be able to purchase you, dear,” the wife said, her tone soft, almost apologetic. “Oh, how I would have loved to take you home with us.”

Melissa stayed where she was, still turned slightly, still holding the position she’d been placed in.

“The UK has such wonderful maturity programs for Animals,” the woman added with a small sigh, like she was talking about something genuinely admirable.

The husband nodded faintly in agreement.

“They really do,” he said. “Proper development. Keeps the quality consistent.”

Quality.

Melissa swallowed.

The words passed over her like they belonged to something else, something she wasn’t part of, even while they were talking about her.

The woman gave her one last look, something almost fond in it.

“Such a shame,” she murmured.

Then just like that, they were done.

Their attention shifted. Conversation resumed. Plates, glasses, the quiet rhythm of their evening picking back up as if nothing had happened at all.

Melissa didn’t move straight away.

Didn’t know if she was supposed to.

Didn’t know what came next.

She just stood there for a second longer, hands still behind her head, waiting—

Until the waitress stepped in again to guide her away.

“Not bad, Meatgirl,” the waitress said, her hand settling briefly against the flushed skin on Melissa’s butt, rubbing over it in a slow, deliberate motion that made the reminder clear without needing to say it out loud. “You should try and be more like the Farm Girl. She’s such a good Animal.”

Melissa’s jaw tightened slightly.

“That’s because she’s never been Human,” she said, the words coming out sharper than she intended, but she didn’t pull them back. “She must be miserable over there if she’s so happy here.”

The waitress paused.

Then smiled.

Not surprised. Not offended.

Just… knowing.

“Is that right?” she said lightly.

Melissa didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

She could feel it—how different they were, how wrong it all felt, how none of it lined up properly in her head no matter how much the world around her acted like it did.

The waitress’s hand dropped away.

“Doesn’t matter,” she said, already stepping back. “You belong to the restaurant now, and we’re not halfway through the dinner shift.”

Her tone shifted again, back to that same steady, procedural rhythm.

“Get out there and advertise yourself.”

Melissa didn’t move straight away.

But she would.

Because that was what happened here.

You were told. And you did it.

During the next couple of hours, Melissa did as she was told.

She moved from table to table, positioning herself the way she’d been shown, hands behind her head, body open, still. Each time she stopped, it was the same—eyes on her, hands reaching out, brief assessments that sometimes lingered longer than others.

She let them touch her.

There wasn’t really a choice in it.

Some were quick, clinical. Others slower, more deliberate, like they were trying to decide something they couldn’t quite put into words. Fingers pressing, sliding, testing, always with that same underlying intent.

Judging.

Sometimes, when her body reacted—when it betrayed her in small, visible ways—people took it as permission.

Encouragement.

They leaned in closer. Took more liberties.

Melissa learned quickly not to show it.

Or at least, to try.

Because even when she kept her face still, her breathing steady, her body didn’t always listen. The responses came anyway, unwanted, automatic, something she couldn’t fully suppress no matter how hard she tried to hold herself together.

And when it happened—

They rewarded it.

Not cruelly. Not even unkindly.

Just… matter-of-fact.

Like it was expected.

Like it was something she should want.

Melissa swallowed it down each time, the anger, the frustration, the urge to pull away, to snap, to do anything but stand there and let it happen.

Her jaw would tighten. Her fingers would curl slightly behind her head.

But she stayed still.

Because she knew what happened when she didn’t.

Every so often, Melissa found herself stealing glances at the Girl.

She couldn’t help it.

The difference was too obvious to ignore.

The Girl moved easily through the room, drifting from table to table with a kind of quiet confidence Melissa didn’t understand. She didn’t need prompting anymore. Didn’t need correcting. Her hands went behind her head naturally, her posture opening without hesitation as she offered herself up to whoever would give her the time of day.

And they did.

They touched her.

But not like they touched Melissa.

There was no pushing. No testing past what was given. No taking advantage of the small, visible reactions her body showed now and then. When she smiled, they smiled back. When she leaned into a touch, they accepted it—but they didn’t press further.

They didn’t take.

They assessed.

And then they stopped.

Melissa watched it happen again and again, trying to understand it, trying to find the difference beyond the obvious.

The Girl’s body reacted too.

That same small tension. The same subtle signs Melissa had learned to dread in herself.

But no one used it.

No one leaned in closer because of it.

No one treated it like permission.

Melissa swallowed, her gaze lingering a second too long before she forced herself to look away.

It wasn’t kindness.

That wasn’t what it was.

It felt closer to—

Respect.

Not for her.

But for the way she’d been raised.

For the process that had made her what she was.

Eventually the floor cleared.

One table at a time, customers filtered out, their conversations fading with them until the room settled into something quieter, emptier. Chairs were shifted back into place. Glasses cleared. The low hum of the evening replaced by the softer, more methodical sounds of closing.

Melissa and the Girl were guided to a corner table, away from the centre of the room but still within sight of the kitchen doors.

“Sit,” the waitress said.

They did.

“Food’ll be out shortly.”

Then she was gone.

Melissa leaned back slightly in her chair, her arms finally lowering from behind her head, the absence of that position feeling strange in a way she didn’t want to think about.

“Probably gonna give us scraps,” she said, her tone colder than before, the words coming easier now that she wasn’t being watched quite as closely. “Though it might be better than what you eat, Farm Girl.”

The Girl leaned forward onto the table, folding her arms and resting her chin against them as she looked over at Melissa, completely unbothered.

“What makes you say that?” she asked. “Food back home was great. I’d go for some pancakes right now.”

Melissa blinked.

“Pancakes?”

She must have pulled a face, because the Girl giggled softly, clearly amused.

“Did you think we were fed in troughs and ate nothing but oats and swill?”

Melissa didn’t answer straight away.

“I’m illiterate,” the Girl added with a small shrug, “and even I know that’s an outdated stereotype.”

Melissa huffed out a small breath, something close to a smile slipping through before she could stop it.

“Alright,” she admitted. “Fair enough.”

But that word stuck.

Illiterate.

“You never learned to read or write?” she asked, her tone shifting slightly, curiosity slipping in despite everything.

The Girl shrugged again, like it didn’t matter either way.

“Why bother?” she said. “Animals don’t have a future.”

The words should have landed heavier. They should have felt like something.

But the way she said them—light, easy, like stating a fact about the weather—

Took all the weight out of them.

Melissa stared at her for a second longer than she meant to.

And somehow, that made it worse.

“What about that tag?” Melissa asked after a moment, nodding toward the girl’s ear. “Do you know what it says?”

The Girl reached up, touching it absently like it was just another part of her.

“I know my numbers,” she said. “Couldn’t tell you which was which, though.”

Melissa let out a small breath through her nose.

“Damn,” she muttered. “You Livestock have it rough.”

The Girl stilled at that.

Not offended.

Just… thinking.

“Do we?” she said after a second, pushing herself upright now, her posture shifting in a way that felt more serious than anything Melissa had seen from her before.

Melissa blinked, caught slightly off guard.

“We don’t spend years of our life worrying about whether next Monday is gonna make us an Animal,” the Girl continued, her tone still calm, but steadier now. “We don’t look at other people and wish we had what they had.”

She leaned forward slightly, her eyes on Melissa.

“We wake up when we feel like it. We play when we feel like it. We look for affection when we feel like it.”

Melissa didn’t interrupt.

Didn’t know how to.

“Sounds like Humans have it rough,” the Girl finished with a small shrug. “You should be relieved, if I’m being honest.”

Melissa stared at her.

At how easily she said it.

At how much she seemed to believe it.

Her mouth opened slightly, like she was about to argue, to push back, to say something—anything—that made more sense than that.

But nothing came.

Because some part of her—

A small, quiet, uncomfortable part—

Didn’t know if she was wrong.

“The guys in the kitchen heard you wanted pancakes, so—”

The waitress set the plate down in front of the Girl. A small stack, slightly uneven, edges a little darker than perfect, steam still rising faintly from the top.

“Buttermilk pancakes with compote.”

The Girl lit up immediately, her whole posture shifting forward as she leaned over the plate, eyes bright.

“And yes, Melissa,” the waitress added, glancing toward her, “they were made using leftovers.”

She poured syrup generously over the stack, letting it run down between the layers before setting the bottle aside. Then, as the Girl reached for her fork, the waitress rested a hand on the top of her head, fingers brushing lightly through her hair.

The Girl leaned into it without thinking.

Not exaggerated. Not performative.

Just a small, instinctive press upward into the touch, her smile softening as she let it happen for a second longer before focusing back on the food.

The waitress withdrew her hand like nothing had happened.

Then she turned.

Melissa’s plate came down a moment later.

Two thick sandwiches, neatly cut. The bread still fresh, the filling generous—slices of leftover meat layered with sauce that had already gone cold, soaking slightly into the bread.

“Kitchen scraps,” the waitress said simply. “Still good quality.”

Melissa stared at it.

It smelled good.

That was the problem.

The waitress lingered.

Not hovering.

Just… waiting.

Melissa stared at the plate for a second longer than she meant to, then picked up one of the sandwiches and took a bite.

The change was immediate.

The tension in her shoulders dropped before she could stop it, her body reacting faster than her pride could catch up. It was warm in the middle, the meat tender, the bread soft despite the cold sauce soaking into it.

It was—

Good.

Really good.

Melissa swallowed, her grip tightening slightly around the sandwich as she forced herself to finish the bite before looking up.

Her face felt hot.

“Sorry,” she said quietly, the word coming out smaller than she expected. “For being so shitty.”

The waitress smiled.

Warm. Genuine, in a way that felt almost out of place compared to everything else.

Like this had been the right thing to say.

The right response.

She leaned in just enough to press a brief kiss to Melissa’s cheek, light and unhurried.

“Enjoy,” she said softly.

Then she straightened and stepped away, leaving Melissa there with the plate, the taste still lingering, and the uncomfortable feeling that she’d just done something right.

The waitress left them to eat.

The space felt different without her there. Quieter, but not empty.

Just… theirs, for now.

Melissa took another bite of her sandwich, slower this time, less defensive.

A light tap on her shoulder made her glance over.

The Girl was holding out her fork, a generous chunk of pancake balanced on the end, syrup still clinging to it.

“Open wide?”

Melissa blinked.

For a second, she didn’t move.

Then something in her chest shifted—warm, unexpected, and entirely out of place in a room like this.

She leaned forward and opened her mouth, pulling the pancake off the fork with her teeth.

The difference was immediate.

The sandwiches were good.

These were—

Better.

Melissa swallowed, the sweetness lingering as she instinctively licked the syrup from her lips, not thinking about it until after she’d already done it.

Then she leaned in.

Pressed a quick kiss to the Girl’s cheek.

It wasn’t calculated.

It just… happened.

The Girl’s face lit up instantly, her smile bright and unguarded, like that small gesture meant everything.

Melissa pulled back, watching her for a second before a small smile found its way onto her own face.

Once their plates were cleared, and the Service Stock were released for the evening, Melissa and the Girl were led upstairs.

The restaurant changed as they climbed. Quieter. Less of the public polish. The sounds below dulled into something distant, like it belonged to another place entirely.

“You two will be sleeping on the premises,” the waitress told them as she walked ahead. “You’re not like the Service Stock who go back to Habitation. We own you—but don’t worry, you’ll be quite comfortable here.”

Melissa didn’t react to that.

She was getting used to words like that being said plainly.

The waitress opened a door.

The room beyond was… not what Melissa expected.

Spacious. Clean. A large screen mounted across from a comfortable sofa. A bookshelf lined neatly with rows of short novellas. To one side, a large double bed, sheets already turned down like it was waiting for them.

“Bathroom is through that door,” the waitress said, gesturing briefly. “We’ll be locking you in, so if you need anything, now’s the time.”

Melissa shrugged.

She didn’t need anything.

The Girl didn’t even answer. She’d already crossed the room and thrown herself onto the bed, landing on her front with a soft thud, completely at ease, like she’d been waiting for it.

The waitress took that as her cue to leave.

The door shut.

A lock clicked.

Melissa stood there for a second longer, taking it in.

Then she turned.

“Let me guess,” she said, looking at the Girl sprawled across the bed, her body completely exposed without a hint of awareness or care. “You sleep on silk sheets and feather beds at the Farm?”

“Nah,” the Girl said, voice muffled slightly as she turned her head. “But we got our own rooms in the dormitory.”

She rolled slightly onto her side, looking back at Melissa.

“Or did you think we slept on hay in the stables?”

Melissa snorted.

“I figured they put you out to pasture and let you sleep outside.”

The Girl laughed.

It came easy. Light. Infectious in a way Melissa didn’t expect.

Before she realised it, she was laughing too.

She crossed the room and sat beside her, the mattress dipping slightly under her weight. Her eyes drifted without thinking, scanning the Girl’s body up and down, the same way she’d seen customers do earlier.

Only this time, it wasn’t the same.

“Is it true you’ve never had sex?” Melissa asked.

“Sex is for Breeding Stock,” the Girl replied easily. “Like my mom and dad were.”

“Oh,” Melissa said, shifting slightly. “Are you close with them?”

“Nah.”

The answer came quick.

“Breeders are kept in another facility. We visited it once—got to see the mated pair what made us.”

She said it with that same flat, clinical tone she used for everything else, like it didn’t carry any weight at all.

“No real connection,” she added after a second. “But we knew of them.”

Melissa stayed quiet.

“Dad’s a stud,” the Girl went on. “So he’s got kids all over the place. Mom didn’t even know which of us were hers when we visited.”

Then she rolled onto her side properly, facing Melissa now, her expression softening just slightly.

“What’s it like,” she asked, “having a mom and dad that raised you?”

The question landed harder than Melissa expected.

It shouldn’t have.

But it did.

Her chest tightened, the memory hitting quicker than she could push it away.

Yesterday.

That was all it had taken.

Her father. The rushed decision. The permit not even cleared. Casper—

She forced the thought down.

Hated them.

Hated how easily they’d chosen.

Hated that it had been her.

She’d have let them take her little sister instead if it meant she could’ve stayed.

The thought sat there for a second longer than she wanted.

Then she pushed it away.

“It’s nothing special,” she said bluntly.

And this time—

There was nothing soft in it at all.

“Anyway,” Melissa said, pushing herself up onto her knees. “Come here. I wanna show you something.”

The Girl moved without hesitation, crossing the small gap between them and kneeling in front of her, attentive, open, like being told to do something was enough reason to do it.

“I’m gonna teach you something,” Melissa said, her voice lowering slightly. “You have to keep it between us, okay?”

“Okay.”

No questions.

No hesitation.

“I’m gonna show you what an orgasm is,” she said bluntly. “I don’t believe that crap about it tainting your meat.”

The Girl tilted her head slightly.

“What’s an orgasm?”

Melissa exhaled through her nose, somewhere between a sigh and a quiet disbelief.

“Just—lie down,” she said, gesturing toward the bed. “On your back.”

The Girl did as she was told.

No resistance.

No embarrassment.

Just trust.

Melissa watched her for a second longer than she meant to.

Then moved closer.

Careful. Deliberate.

Not rushed.

She wasn’t reacting anymore.

She was choosing.

“You’ve never had anything like this?” she asked quietly.

The Girl shook her head.

“No.”

Melissa swallowed.

Then continued.

Melissa woke slowly, awareness returning in pieces rather than all at once. The warmth came first.

Something soft pressed along her side—steady, close, unmoving in a way that felt… deliberate. For a moment she didn’t open her eyes, just lay there, letting herself register it. Skin against skin. Heat shared between them, unbroken by space or fabric or anything else that used to separate people from each other.

Then she shifted slightly, just enough to feel it properly.

The Girl was pressed into her.

Not loosely. Not by accident. Their bodies fit together in a way that suggested she’d moved closer at some point during the night, closing whatever distance had been there before. Melissa was sure—sure—they hadn’t fallen asleep like this.

They’d been on opposite sides of the bed.

Hadn’t they?

Her eyes opened slowly, gaze settling without urgency. Morning light filtered into the room in a soft, even wash, catching on the curve of the Girl’s shoulder, the line of her arm where it rested across Melissa’s waist like it belonged there.

Melissa didn’t move right away.

She just looked.

The Girl was still asleep, peaceful in a way that felt uncomplicated, her breathing slow and even, her expression loose without the small tensions she carried when she was awake. There was no awareness in her yet—no adjustment, no self-consciousness. Just… rest.

Melissa’s eyes traced over her for a moment longer, not searching for anything in particular. Just noting.

Close. Warm. Comfortable.

Her gaze lingered, and something from the night before slipped back into place.

Last night.

The memory didn’t arrive all at once. It unfolded gradually, piece by piece, settling into her awareness with a clarity that made her lips press together slightly.

The Girl had learned something.

Not taught. Not explained.

Felt.

What her body could do when it was pushed just far enough in the right way. What it could give back without asking permission first. Something quiet and private, but undeniable once it happened.

Melissa let out a slow breath through her nose, her expression shifting almost imperceptibly, then settling into something sharper.

A wicked grin spread across her face.

Then she heard it.

Footsteps in the corridor—measured, unhurried. Not loud enough to startle, but distinct enough that they carried through the quiet of the room without effort. A moment later, the soft mechanical click of the lock disengaging followed, clean and final.

Melissa’s eyes flicked toward the door.

For a second, she considered it—pulling away, putting space back between them, restoring some version of how things were supposed to look. The thought came and went just as quickly.

She didn’t move.

The Girl stayed where she was, still pressed into her side, still warm, still unaware.

Melissa let her.

The door opened without ceremony.

“Good morning, Meatgirls,” the waitress said as she stepped inside, her tone light, like she was greeting them at a table rather than entering their room. “Well, look at you two—nice and cozy.”

Her gaze lingered just long enough to register the closeness before shifting, settling more fully on Melissa. There was something faintly amused in her expression, but not surprised.

“I hope you didn’t do anything silly together?”

Melissa didn’t answer immediately.

She watched the waitress instead, measuring the tone, the phrasing. There was no edge to it, no real expectation of a problem—just… a question placed where it belonged.

Beside her, the Girl stirred slightly.

Not fully awake—just enough to shift against her, to draw in a slow breath as awareness began to return in small, gradual pieces. Her arm tightened for a second where it rested across Melissa’s waist before loosening again.

Then her eyes opened.

She didn’t seem startled to see Melissa so close. Didn’t pull away. Just looked at her for a brief moment, blinking sleep from her eyes like this was where she expected to be.

“I had an orgasm,” the Girl said quietly.

Melissa tensed.

It wasn’t dramatic—just a small, immediate tightening through her shoulders, her body reacting before her thoughts had time to catch up. The moment hung there, fragile for a split second—

The waitress’s gaze snapped to her.

“Go downstairs and eat,” she said to the Girl. “Melissa and I need to have a little talk.”

Her voice had changed.

Not louder. Not harsher.

Just… focused.

The Girl looked between them, her expression shifting slightly as she tried to place what was happening. There was no fear in it, no resistance—just a brief moment of quiet observation.

Then she nodded.

And obeyed.

She slipped from the bed without hesitation, moving easily, like she hadn’t just said anything out of place. No second thoughts. No attempt to take it back. Just following instruction the way she had been taught to.

Melissa watched her go, her gaze lingering, unhurried, tracing the natural sway of her rump as she crossed the room. There was no effort to hide it, no awareness in the movement itself—just the simple mechanics of a body in motion.

The door closed behind her.

Then—

It slammed.

The sound cracked through the room, sharp and sudden, cutting off the last trace of the morning’s quiet.

“Did you taint her?”

The waitress crossed the room in three quick steps, closing the distance before Melissa had time to adjust. Her hands came down hard on Melissa’s shoulders, fingers digging in just enough to anchor her in place.

“After I told you not to, did you?”

Melissa’s grin returned.

Slow. Easy.

“What can I say?” she said. “I’m an Animal.”

The waitress’s hand came up fast. For a second, it looked like it was going to land—sharp, immediate, unquestioned.

Then it stopped.

Hung there.

And lowered again, slower this time, tension bleeding into the movement instead of out of it.

“Damn it…” she muttered, more to herself than to Melissa. “I should’ve seen this coming. Why did I let you share a fucking room?”

Melissa shifted slightly, edging back just enough for the words to settle.

“Of course you fucked her,” the waitress went on, pacing a half-step, her thoughts spilling out faster now. “Animals fuck—oh, fuck, I’m so fucked.”

“I think you can squeeze in another ‘fuck’ there?”

“Shut your smart fucking mouth!”

“Knew you could do it.”

The waitress let out a low, frustrated sound, something caught between a growl and a breath forced through clenched teeth.

“Downstairs. Now,” she snapped. “Not a word of this to anyone. We can still sell her as a virgin—as long as neither of you fuck this up.”

“Extra points.”

Melissa barely had time to register the shift—the tightening in the waitress’s shoulders, the way her stance squared, weight settling just slightly differently—

Then the slap landed.

Hard.

The sound cracked sharp in the room, echoing for just a fraction longer than it should have.

Melissa’s body jolted forward a fraction, more from surprise than anything else. The impact bloomed across her skin, heat flaring bright and immediate before settling into a dull, spreading sting.

It lingered.

Then faded.

Not gone—but distant. Manageable. Filed away as just another thing that had happened.

She straightened slowly.

Worth it.

The thought settled easily, without resistance, sitting somewhere just beneath the surface of everything else. Not loud. Not defiant.

Just… there.

They went down to the service floor.

It looked different in the daylight.

Strange, almost.

Without the low lighting and evening noise, the space felt wider, more exposed. Tables sat empty in neat rows, surfaces clean and untouched, chairs tucked in with quiet precision. The soft atmosphere from the night before was gone, replaced by something flatter, more functional.

The illusion had shifted.

Now it just looked like a place waiting to be used.

“The chefs are doing prep, but they’ll have breakfast ready soon.”

The waitress’s voice carried easily in the open space as she led Melissa across the floor. Her pace was brisk, controlled, like she was already thinking ahead, already working through something that hadn’t quite settled yet.

She guided her to the same booth from the night before.

This time, though, she didn’t stand.

She slid in beside them.

Close. Too close for it to be casual.

“You two are in big trouble,” she whispered across the table, her voice low but tight, each word placed carefully. Her eyes flicked briefly between them before settling again. “Melissa touched you last night, right? Differently than what you’re used to.”

“Yeah, it was great,” the Girl said.

Simple. Uncomplicated.

Melissa snorted, the sound slipping out before she could stop it, a short burst of amusement that didn’t quite belong in the space.

“You had no right to do that, Melissa,” the waitress snapped, the whisper sharpening. “She’s not supposed to associate touch with sex!”

The Girl tilted her head slightly, the movement small and thoughtful rather than defensive.

“Did I break a rule?”

The question landed cleanly.

No fear. No edge.

Just… clarification.

The waitress looked at her, and for a brief moment something shifted in her expression—something softer, almost regretful, before it settled back into place.

“Yes,” she said. “But you didn’t know, so you won’t be punished.”

A beat.

“But you have to promise me you won’t ask any of the customers to do it. Farm Animals are supposed to be sold… intact.”

“Why bother?” Melissa leaned back slightly, arms folding loosely across her chest, posture easy despite the conversation. “It won’t actually do anything to her meat. She’s just a regular Animal now.”

“Not if I have anything to say about it.”

The waitress leaned in, closing the space between them just enough to make it clear this wasn’t casual anymore. Her voice dropped lower, losing what little lightness it had left.

“If either one of you even hint at what happened last night, I’ll be serving you your own tongues in a sandwich for lunch.”

The words settled.

Flat. Direct.

Melissa felt it land—and to her own surprise, it didn’t feel exaggerated. Not a bluff, not a threat meant to scare.

Just… something that would happen.

Breakfast arrived not long after.

The Girl’s plate was set down first.

Vegetarian.

Everything arranged neatly, carefully portioned, balanced in a way that felt deliberate. Nothing out of place, nothing excessive—just what was needed.

Then Melissa’s.

Different.

The smell hit before she even looked—rich, heavy, familiar in a way that cut straight through everything else in the room, pulling at something deeper without asking permission.

Eggs. Bacon.

The waitress set it down in front of her with a little more force than necessary.

“Hope you choke on it,” she said flatly.

Melissa only smiled.

After breakfast, they were taken back to their room.

“We don’t open until lunch,” the waitress said as she unlocked the door. “You can spend your time doing whatever you like—except breaking the one fucking rule I hoped you’d respect.”

The lock clicked open under her hand, the sound clean and familiar.

She didn’t wait, didn’t linger for a reply or even look back to see if they’d acknowledged it. She stepped out immediately, the door swinging shut behind her with a firm, controlled finality that left no space for anything else to be said.

The room settled into quiet.

Melissa remained where she was for a moment, just inside the doorway, the last of the tension from downstairs still sitting in her shoulders.

Then she let out a quiet breath.

Slow. Measured.

She was enjoying this far too much.

“You shouldn’t be so rude to Humans,” the Girl said, settling onto the sofa. Her movements were easy, natural, like the earlier conversation hadn’t unsettled her in the slightest. “They look after us.”

“They cook and eat us,” Melissa shot back, the words coming quicker than they needed to. “Humans are just Animals with a superiority complex. The second that watch turns red, their conditioned little brains make them just like us.”

She paused, her lip curling faintly, the expression sitting somewhere between bitterness and something sharper.

“Lesser.”

The Girl frowned slightly.

It wasn’t dramatic—just a small shift, a quiet disagreement forming rather than pushing outward.

“I don’t think I’m lesser,” she said. “I have a purpose. One that helps people.”

“Well, yeah. You were raised to be eaten.”

Melissa moved further into the room, letting herself fall back slightly into a more relaxed posture, even as the edge in her voice remained.

“I was getting good grades. A much higher GPA than my idiot of a big brother. But because he was good sheeple and I wasn’t, I ended up like you.”

The words came out sharper than she intended.

Heavier—something underneath them pushing through that she hadn’t quite kept hold of.

For the first time, the Girl looked hurt.

It wasn’t exaggerated, not a full reaction.

Just… there.

A subtle shift in her expression, something tightening slightly around her eyes as the words settled.

Melissa caught it immediately.

She shook her head.

“I didn’t mean to sound so edgy,” she said quickly, the correction coming a little too fast, a little too aware.

“Just because you were a Human doesn’t mean I’m lesser for not being one.”

The Girl stood.

There was no hesitation in the movement this time, no softness to it either. She stepped forward until she was standing over Melissa, close enough that the space between them felt intentional.

“You’re such a bratty little cow,” she said. “All you do is cause trouble and make the nice Humans’ lives harder—just because you can’t accept that you’re not one of them anymore.”

Melissa didn’t interrupt. Didn’t push back.

“But guess what—we’re going to die soon,” the Girl continued, her voice steadying as she went on, finding its shape as she spoke. “And unlike you, I’m not going to make a scene or try to talk my way out of my duty.”

Her posture straightened slightly.

“I was born for this. I was taught to be excited about it.”

She took a small step closer.

The distance closed completely now.

“But you came in here, tainted me, and now I’m wondering if I’m even worth being cooked for these nice Humans.”

That landed cleanly.

And for once—

Melissa had nothing.

No quick response. No sharp edge to throw back.

Nothing.

“I should just be thrown into a meat grinder like all the other Chuck!”

Melissa’s breath caught.

The word hit harder than everything else.

Chuck—bad meat. Waste. The kind that didn’t matter. The kind that didn’t even go to people.

For a moment, it was the only thing that stuck.

“If anyone’s going to be Chuck,” she said quietly, the words coming slower now, stripped of the earlier bite, “it’ll be me.”

“You’re right. I’m just a bitch who can’t face facts.”

The shift in her voice was immediate.

Not controlled anymore.

Her shoulders began to quiver, the movement small at first, then harder to ignore as it built.

“My family jumped at the chance to get rid of me—all because I didn’t fit into their precious System. And now that same System is getting ready to consume me like it has millions of others… and will keep doing.”

She swallowed, the words catching slightly in her throat before she forced them through.

“I’m so, so sorry for being a bad friend.”

Melissa stilled.

The word landed differently.

Friend.

It echoed in a way the rest hadn’t.

It occurred to her, quietly, without ceremony, that as a Human—

she’d never really had those.

“God…” she breathed, the tension finally breaking somewhere deeper than the surface.

“I’m such a shitty person.”

The Girl looked at Melissa, sitting there with her head in her hands, quietly sobbing.

The sound seemed to sit wrong in the room—not loud, not disruptive, just… out of place.

She scrunched her nose slightly, discomfort flickering across her face. It wasn’t annoyance, exactly—more like uncertainty. A reaction she didn’t quite know what to do with.

She wasn’t used to tears.

Nobody in her life had ever had a reason to cry.

“You’re not shitty,” she said, moving to sit beside her.

Her tone was gentle, but uncomplicated, offering reassurance the same way she might state a fact.

“You’re just confused.”

She settled close.

Not touching at first.

Just there. Present.

“We both have a duty to fulfil, and all you have to do is fulfil it,” she said simply, like she was explaining something obvious, something that didn’t need to be argued or examined too closely. “It’s stupidly easy, if you think about it.”

Melissa didn’t look up.

“If you just do your best in your final moments—make it entertaining for the lovely people watching you cook—then you’ll die, and they’ll be smiling.”

The Girl tilted her head slightly, considering her.

“What could be easier?”

Melissa’s hands tightened slightly against her face.

“You make dying sound like a logical step,” she said, her voice rough, catching slightly between breaths. “But you’ll be dead. You didn’t even have a name!”

“Well, yeah. I’m Livestock.”

The answer came easily.

No hesitation.

She gave a small shrug, like it wasn’t something that needed defending.

“There’s hundreds of Animals just like me back home. I’m probably related to some of them and I’ll never really know.” She paused, just briefly. “But in that sense, we’re all family—and they’ll remember me until they die too.”

She looked at Melissa.

Steady. Unwavering.

“Accept it.”

Melissa sniffed loudly, dragging the back of her hand across her face, wiping away what she could.

“It’s going to hurt.”

“Yeah, that’s live cooking for you.”

The Girl leaned into her then, bumping her shoulder lightly. It wasn’t forceful—just enough to close the space, to offer contact without making it a question.

She didn’t move away.

“Have you thought about how you want to cook?”

Melissa blinked, lifting her head slightly, confusion cutting through everything else.

“I have a choice?”

“Sure.” The Girl’s expression softened just a little, like this part mattered more. “It’s your last choice—the biggest choice you’ll ever make.”

Melissa hesitated.

“Then how do you want to go?”

“Spit roast.”

She stood as she said it, the movement fluid, unbothered. Her finger traced a slow path upward along her body as she spoke, illustrating the idea more than emphasizing it.

“In and out. No mess.”

“That sounds horrible!”

Melissa’s reaction came quickly, instinctive.

She couldn’t think about it. Didn’t want to. The image didn’t settle properly in her mind—sliding off before it could take shape.

Then something else surfaced.

What the chef had said.

“Apparently I’d cook nicely in an oven.”

“Oh, that’s perfect.”

The Girl’s face brightened immediately, genuine approval lighting up her expression.

“With some oil and a good coating, you’ll come out crispy, golden brown.”

Melissa flinched slightly at the casual certainty of it.

“But that takes real discipline,” the Girl continued, thinking it through. “You’ll need to keep an apple in your mouth, and eating it won’t make you look as tasty.”

Her expression dipped for a second, a small wrinkle of concern crossing her features.

“Oh—and then they’ll… wait, no, that only happens if you’re dead first.”

Melissa frowned.

“What?”

“Oh, normally an Animal is gutted and stuffed before cooking, but a live roast has to stay awake.” She paused, searching her memory, piecing it together carefully. “Oh! The feel-good wand!”

Melissa blinked again, thrown slightly by the shift.

“What?”

“Yeah, live roasts get a feel-good wand put in them.” The Girl nodded, as if confirming it to herself. “It looks like a penis.”

Melissa let out a short, incredulous laugh, the sound breaking through the tension without fully easing it.

“They put a vibrator in you?”

The Girl’s face lit up. “That’s what it is!”

“I heard one girl basted in her own juices because of it.”

Melissa could only imagine.

That was new. She could picture herself in that position—trussed up like a Thanksgiving Animal and made to orgasm endlessly in the oven until she eventually expired.

“Oh god,” she said.

“What?”

“I think I want that.”

“Really?”

Melissa nodded. “Yeah, I mean… you told me to just ‘accept it,’ and when I did, I just… your explanation of roasting really made it all click.”

The admission hung between them quietly for a moment.

It didn’t feel heavy—not in the way it should have. It just sat there, settled neatly into the space between them, like it belonged.

Then the Girl moved.

She sat back down beside Melissa and pulled her into a tight hug, closing the distance fully this time without hesitation.

“See,” she said, her voice warm, almost pleased, “doesn’t it feel amazing to just accept it!”

Melissa let out a short, bewildered laugh, the sound slipping out of her before she could really think about it.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “It does.”

What happened next blurred together.

Not because it was forgettable.

But because it wasn’t.

The edges between moments softened, one slipping into the next without anything sharp enough to mark where one ended and another began.

They watched TV together.

The light from the screen flickered gently across the room, shifting across their faces as scenes changed, colors moving in quiet rhythm. The Girl leaned in without thinking about it, her attention fixed completely on what was in front of her, reacting in small, genuine ways—laughing, tilting her head, occasionally asking simple questions that didn’t break the moment so much as settle deeper into it.

They napped on the bed.

Not properly arranged, not intentionally close.

Just… together.

The kind of rest that came easily when there was nothing left to prepare for, no decisions left to make. Melissa woke once, briefly, aware of the steady rise and fall of the Girl’s breathing beside her, the warmth still there, unchanged.

She didn’t move.

She went back to sleep.

Melissa read a book to her.

The words came out steady, filling the room in a low, even rhythm. The Girl listened with quiet attention, not interrupting, not fidgeting—just following along, her focus settling fully on Melissa’s voice as if that alone was enough to hold her there.

It was… nice.

Not in a complicated way.

Just simple. Easy.

The kind of thing Melissa realized, somewhere in the middle of it, she hadn’t really done before. Not like this. Not with someone else just… there, sharing it without expectation.

The Girl was surprisingly normal with television.

She loved Anime.

Openly. Completely.

Her reactions were immediate and unfiltered—small gasps, soft laughter, quiet commentary that never felt forced. She spoke about characters like she knew them, like their choices mattered in a way that felt personal.

She deeply wished she knew how a long-running series would end.

But she didn’t seem frustrated by it.

If anything, she seemed… certain.

Sure of herself in a quiet, unwavering way that whatever ending came, it wouldn’t be disappointing. That it would make sense. That it would land where it was supposed to.

Melissa watched her as she spoke.

Tried to reconcile it.

Tried to place her.

She couldn’t look at the Girl and see someone normal.

Not really.

The way she thought—the way she processed things, the way she accepted everything without friction—it wasn’t something Melissa recognized. It felt… structured differently, built on something she didn’t have.

Something she hadn’t been given.

It should have made her feel distant.

It didn’t.

Because she was still—

a person.

A person with preferences, with small, simple ideals. With things she liked, things she looked forward to, things she believed in without needing to defend them.

Even… goals.

And somehow, that made it harder to separate her from everything else.

Noon arrived quietly.

It didn’t feel like a turning point—no build-up, no sense of finality pressing in. Just the natural passing of time, slipping forward the same way the rest of the morning had.

Then the door opened.

The waitress stepped in without knocking.

“Good news, girls,” she said, her tone light in a way that didn’t quite match the words. “You’ve been ordered.”

She moved into the room as she spoke, already in motion, already thinking ahead.

“There’s a conference happening in about an hour, so we need to get your prep done.”

Her eyes shifted to the Girl.

“Do you know how you wanna go?”

The Girl didn’t hesitate.

“Can you let me slide down a metal spike and then use it as a spit?”

The words came out plainly.

No embellishment. No pause to soften them.

Just a clear request, phrased with the same casual certainty she’d used for everything else.

Melissa stared at her.

Not because she didn’t understand—

but because she did.

The phrasing. The imagery. The way it was said so simply, like asking for a preference at a restaurant.

It sat wrong against everything else in the room.

The waitress, though—

didn’t react.

Not with surprise. Not with discomfort.

Just a brief pause, like she was considering logistics.

Melissa’s gaze flicked between them, searching for something—anything—that didn’t fit.

There wasn’t anything.

“I want the Humans to see me behave until I go,” the Girl added.

That settled it.

Not the method.

The intention.

Melissa’s expression shifted slightly, the earlier disbelief giving way to something quieter. Not acceptance—not fully—but something closer to understanding.

Of course.

To do it properly.

To be—

good.

“Sounds good,” the waitress said, already turning toward the door. “Head down to the kitchen and the chefs will get you ready.”

The Girl didn’t hesitate.

She slipped past her and out into the hallway, her pace quick—almost light. There was a brightness to it now, something close to excitement, carrying her forward without pause.

Giddy.

Gone as quickly as she’d arrived.

The door stayed open for a moment longer—

then shut.

The room shifted with it.

The waitress didn’t move right away.

Her posture changed first—the ease she’d held a moment ago tightening into something sharper, more deliberate.

When she looked back at Melissa, there was no softness left in it.

“And how do you want to die?”

There was no shift in her tone this time.

No lightness. No softening.

The question landed as it was.

Plain.

Direct.

Melissa held her gaze.

She didn’t look away.

Didn’t try to mirror the energy the Girl had brought to it either. Something about the way it was asked made that feel… unnecessary.

Stripped down.

She figured she deserved that.

“Oven roast,” she said.

The words came out steady.

Certain.

“With the feel-good wand.”

She didn’t elaborate.

Didn’t need to.

The choice settled between them, clear enough on its own.

“Alright,” the waitress said, giving a small nod.

Efficient.

Like the decision had already been made the moment Melissa spoke it aloud.

Melissa hesitated—

only for a second.

Then the words came out all at once.

“I’m sorry for everything,” she blurted. “Especially last night. But also for every dumb, bitchy thing I did to you.”

She swallowed, forcing herself to keep going.

“I’m a shitty person—or I was when I was Human—but I promise I’ll be on my best behaviour now.”

The room held still for a moment after that.

The waitress didn’t respond immediately.

She just looked at her.

Then—

a ghost of a smile curled at the edge of her lips.

Small.

Faint.

But there.

“Pretty words for a dumb Animal,” she said.

There was no real bite to it.

No sharpness like before.

Just a flat acknowledgment, as if the apology had been noted and placed exactly where it belonged.

“But thanks.”

She shifted her weight slightly, already moving past it.

“Now get your ass to the kitchen. If you’re going in the oven, you’ll need a good shower and coating.”

The instructions came easily.

Back to routine.

Back to process.

Nothing left to linger on.

During her shower, Melissa had a moment.

Not a dramatic one.

Not sudden.

Just… something that slipped in while everything else was quiet.

Water ran steadily over her skin, warm and even, falling in a constant rhythm that didn’t change no matter how long she stood there. The sound filled the space, soft but complete, leaving no room for interruption.

Her thoughts settled.

Not racing.

Not fighting.

Just… aligning.

It was one of those moments.

The kind you got sometimes—when something difficult stopped being something to argue with, and simply became something that was.

She was going to die today.

The thought didn’t hit hard.

It didn’t need to.

It was already there.

Clear.

Certain.

Probably within the next hour or two.

There was no stopping it.

No path out.

No version of this where she walked away.

And for the first time—

she didn’t push against it.

She just stood there, letting the water run over her, letting the thought sit where it belonged without trying to move it somewhere else.

So she may as well enjoy it.

The idea came quietly.

Not forced.

Not defiant.

Just… practical.

If this was what was going to happen—

if this was all that was left—

then there wasn’t anything else to do but step into it properly.

Do it well.

Let it be what it was supposed to be.

Melissa closed her eyes for a moment, tilting her head slightly into the stream, the warmth shifting across her face.

Then she exhaled.

And let it settle.

She wondered what it would feel like.

Not in a frantic way.

Just… curiously.

As her skin heated. As the change began. As her body crossed from one state into another, slowly enough that there would be time to notice it happening.

Would it hurt for long?

Or would it fade?

Would the sensation stay sharp, or soften as it went on, dulling into something less defined the further it progressed?

She didn’t have anything to compare it to. Nothing close enough to anchor it properly.

She supposed blistering only happened if the heat was sudden.

Intense.

That wasn’t what she had chosen.

She was going in for a slow roast.

It would be gradual.

Measured.

Something that built over time rather than arriving all at once.

She tried to picture it that way instead.

Not as a single moment—

but as a process.

Step by step.

Sensation by sensation.

Something that unfolded rather than struck.

Would it even hurt after all?

The question didn’t carry panic.

Just quiet curiosity.

Like everything else had started to feel.

Less like something happening to her—

and more like something she was about to move through.

The water cut off without warning.

The steady warmth vanished, leaving the air cooler against her skin. The sudden absence of sound made the space feel sharper. More defined.

Melissa didn’t move.

Not right away.

She just stood there, letting the last of the droplets run down her body, the quiet settling back in around her.

Then hands were on her.

Not the waitress this time.

One of the chefs.

He worked efficiently, the towel moving across her skin in practiced motions—firm, thorough, without hesitation. No lingering. No adjustment beyond what was needed.

Just process.

Melissa let him.

There was nothing to resist.

Nothing to question.

Her body responded automatically, shifting when guided, turning when needed, holding still when pressure settled at her shoulders or along her back.

Somewhere else—

the waitress was assisting the Girl.

In the conference room.

Melissa pictured it without trying to.

The setup. The positioning. The quiet preparation before anything began. The Girl held in place, suspended just above where it would start—everything aligned so that once it did—

there would be no interruption.

No correction.

Just continuation.

Ready to let gravity do its work.

“On the table,” the chef said.

His voice was even.

Direct.

“Face down first.”

Melissa moved.

No hesitation.

No delay.

She stepped forward and climbed onto the table, lowering herself into position exactly as instructed. The surface was cool beneath her, solid and unmoving as she settled against it, her cheek turning slightly to the side without being told.

She felt the placement of her body as she adjusted—arms, legs, the angle of her torso—each part aligning without correction.

Melissa obeyed.

It was shockingly easy now.

Then she felt it.

A soft brush moving across her back.

Slow.

Deliberate.

It traced a path downward, following the line of her spine before sweeping over the curve of her body and along her leg in a smooth, practiced motion. The touch wasn’t rough, wasn’t hesitant—

just even.

Controlled.

Like everything else.

The scent reached her a second later.

Rich.

Savory.

Something warm and inviting, layered with a sharper note underneath that caught at the back of her senses and lingered there.

It smelled…

good.

“Want a taste?” the chef offered.

He didn’t wait for an answer.

His finger brushed lightly against her lips, pressing just enough to guide the mixture there, the gesture as casual as everything else he’d done.

Melissa parted her lips without thinking.

She tasted it.

Salt first.

Then something deeper—fuller. Spice followed after, blooming slowly instead of striking all at once. It was balanced in a way that felt intentional, like it had been measured long before it touched her skin.

She licked his finger clean.

The motion came naturally.

Unforced.

“More salt?” she said, a faint, cheeky edge slipping back into her voice.

The chef’s hand came down against her backside in a quick, light slap.

Not harsh.

Just enough to land.

Playful.

Corrective.

Routine.

Once her back was done, he moved to her front.

Melissa shifted when guided, rolling over without needing the instruction repeated, her body settling into place as easily as it had before. The table felt different against her now—cooler, more present—as she faced upward, exposed in a way that no longer carried the same weight it once had.

The brush returned.

It moved across her stomach first, spreading the mixture in slow, even strokes, working methodically as before. There was no rush, no wasted motion—just careful coverage, ensuring nothing was missed.

She wasn’t certain—

but when he reached her chest, something changed.

The strokes slowed.

Not dramatically.

Just enough to notice.

He worked the mixture over her skin with a little more care, the brush pressing slightly firmer, circling back over areas he’d already covered as if checking the consistency—the balance, the way it settled.

When it passed over her nipples, her body reacted before she could think about it.

They peaked.

The sensation was immediate—subtle, but undeniable.

He didn’t comment.

Didn’t pause.

He simply went over them again.

Once.

Then again, just to be sure, the brush lingering for a fraction longer than anywhere else before moving on.

Melissa watched him.

Not directly—just enough to register it.

He was enjoying this.

Not openly.

Not in a way that broke the rhythm of what he was doing.

But it was there—in the care he took, in the precision, in the quiet attention to detail that went just beyond what was strictly necessary.

Melissa didn’t mind.

She let it happen.

Let the process continue, her body responding where it did, settling again where it didn’t.

She was okay with that.

When they were finally done, she was helped to her feet.

Her legs felt steady.

That surprised her.

After everything—the preparation, the handling, the slow shift from one stage to the next—she had expected something different. Weakness, maybe. Instability.

Instead, she stood easily, her balance settling almost immediately as the chef’s hands guided her upright before releasing.

“Now we’ll get the cooking twine and get you in the roasting tin,” he said, gesturing toward a large metal tray nearby.

It was wide.

Deep enough.

Easily big enough for her to fit without adjustment.

Melissa’s eyes lingered on it for a second, taking in the shape, the size, the way it sat waiting like it had been placed there long before she ever entered the room.

“On your back or front?”

“Huh?”

She blinked, the question catching her slightly off guard—not because she didn’t understand, but because of how casually it was asked.

“Birds can be served on their back or front,” he explained, his tone even, like he was clarifying something simple. “The posture’s the same. It’s just a matter of comfort.”

Comfort.

The word landed strangely.

Melissa glanced at the tin again, then back at him, her brow knitting slightly as she tried to picture it—how she would be positioned, how it would feel, what difference it would actually make.

For a moment, she didn’t answer.

Not out of resistance.

Just… consideration.

Like this really was a choice.

“What’s best?” she asked.

“Back is comfier, but it can overcook the skin. If you’re on your knees, it’s less risky—but not as comfortable,” he said, matter-of-fact, like he was walking her through any other step. “It’s quality over preference.”

That settled it.

There wasn’t really a choice.

Not in the way it might have sounded at first.

There was just—

the correct answer.

“Front then,” Melissa said.

The decision came easily once she framed it that way.

The next thing she knew, the tin had been moved.

Set down on the floor with a dull, solid sound.

Up close, it looked different.

Larger.

The surface inside it gleamed faintly, a thin layer of oil catching the light, smooth and slick.

Ready.

Melissa stepped toward it when guided, lowering herself carefully into place. The cool metal pressed against her skin as she adjusted instinctively, finding her balance without needing to be told how.

Then the twine came out.

The chef worked with practiced ease, moving around her without hesitation. His hands guided her limbs into position—not roughly, but firmly—ensuring everything sat exactly where it needed to.

There was a rhythm to it.

Loop.

Pull.

Secure.

Each movement precise, repeated countless times before. Nothing improvised. Nothing uncertain.

Melissa felt the structure take shape around her.

Not restrictive in a painful way—

just… holding.

Fixing her into place.

The posture settled gradually as he worked, her body aligned into something deliberate, something designed more for presentation than comfort—even if comfort had been considered.

Like something prepared.

Finished.

She didn’t resist.

Didn’t need to.

She just let him position her, her body following the guidance without question, adjusting where needed, stilling when everything was set.

It was strange, she thought—

how natural it felt now.

“Good girl,” he said softly, patting her back lightly. “Now, do you want to try and hold an apple in your teeth?”

Melissa tilted her head slightly, considering it.

“It’ll make me look good, right?”

“Very,” he said.

That was enough.

“Okay.”

There was a small pause before she spoke again.

“Will you also use the…” she trailed off, the word catching awkwardly in her throat. For all the calm she’d found, all the acceptance she’d settled into, there were still edges she hadn’t quite smoothed over.

She felt the warmth rise to her cheeks before she could stop it.

“…the vibrator?” she asked, quieter than she intended.

The chef smiled.

Not sharp. Not mocking.

Just steady.

Reassuring.

“I’ll make sure it goes in myself,” he said.

The words landed simply, like everything else he’d said.

Not charged.

Not emphasized.

Just part of the process.

Melissa let out a small breath she hadn’t realized she was holding.

Then she nodded.

Next, they tied her hair into a bun so it wouldn’t fall across her body as she roasted.

The movement was quick, practiced—fingers gathering, twisting, securing it neatly out of the way. Nothing loose. Nothing that would interfere with the presentation.

Then the chef called for help.

Hands steadied the tin as she was lifted, the weight distributed carefully as they positioned her onto a trolley. The metal beneath her shifted slightly with the movement before settling again, solid and secure.

Then they began to wheel her out.

“Fresh meat coming through,” the chef announced.

His voice carried easily.

The sound reached the restaurant floor before she did.

The reaction was immediate.

The room rose in applause.

Not loud and chaotic—

but sustained.

Appreciative.

Heads turned. Conversations paused. Every eye settled on her as she was guided forward, the attention focused and unbroken.

Melissa felt it.

All of it.

But it didn’t overwhelm her.

It just… was.

They moved her toward the back, toward a more private section of the room. The lighting shifted slightly there—softer, but more directed, drawing attention inward rather than outward.

The conference room.

A group of businessmen and women sat gathered around a long table, glasses of wine in hand, plates of light starters arranged neatly in front of them. Their posture was relaxed, conversational—but their attention sharpened as she entered.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” the chef said as he stepped in, “I do hope you’re hungry. Today we have two lovely offerings—the very feisty Melissa, and a lovely farm-raised girl from a local supplier.”

Melissa looked at them.

At the smiles.

At the quiet interest in their eyes.

Then she turned her head, searching—

trying to find her.

And when she did—

she nearly gasped.

The Girl was already in place.

Turning slowly.

Her body fixed along the spit exactly as she had described earlier, the motion steady and continuous, the rotation smooth and uninterrupted. There was no struggle in it. No disruption.

Just… movement.

Deliberate.

Maintained.

And even now—

she shifted slightly.

A small adjustment, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it, her body responding in its own way, following through on the same logic she’d held onto since the beginning.

Melissa watched her.

Then smiled.

“I’m here,” she said.

Her voice carried just enough.

“You look so good.”

The waitress stepped in beside the trolley, her presence sliding back into place as naturally as everything else had.

Her hand came to rest against Melissa’s rump as she spoke.

Not forceful.

Just there.

“She’s been having a blast on that spit,” she said, her voice low enough to feel personal despite the room around them. “Even as she was being impaled on the spike she kept on smiling, she even had an orgasm when it filled her little cunt. Lucky cow, we have you to thank for that.”

There was something in the way she said it.

Not admiration.

Not quite.

But close.

“But regardless, that’s how a good Animal behaves.”

Melissa’s eyes flicked back to the Girl for a moment.

Still turning.

Still composed.

Still… following through.

The waitress’s hand pressed lightly, grounding her attention again.

“Now you just need to do the same.”

The words didn’t feel like a threat.

Or even an instruction.

Just—

the next step.

“Now that our farm girl is cooking, we’ll begin the next step,” the waitress said, her voice carrying easily across the room, polished and composed. “Melissa is going to try to keep an apple in her mouth, even with the vibrator.”

A ripple moved through the diners.

Not loud.

Just a shift—murmurs, small reactions, a subtle increase in attention as the challenge was understood.

Melissa opened her mouth.

The apple was placed carefully between her teeth, positioned just right, centered so it sat cleanly, symmetrically. It looked… deliberate. Like it had been chosen for this.

She bit down just enough to hold it.

The skin broke slightly under the pressure, and the taste came through immediately—

sweet.

Sharp.

Fresh.

The juice spread across her tongue, bright and sudden, something alive in contrast to everything else that had been so controlled, so measured.

For a split second, instinct kicked in.

Bite.

Swallow.

Finish it.

But she didn’t.

She held it.

Kept her jaw steady, resisting the urge to chew, to break the shape of it, to disrupt the image she’d been placed into.

Her breathing adjusted around it.

Slower.

Measured.

Careful not to let it slip.

Careful not to ruin it.

Careful—

to do it right.

Then Melissa felt something between her legs, pressing against her opening. It began to push into her cunt, smooth and cold, covered in something wet and slippery. The waitress appeared in front of her again. “We just put an induction vibrator in your pussy,” she told Melissa,

“It’ll slowly cook you from the inside whilst making you cum until you can’t cum any more.”

The oven door opened with a low, mechanical click.

For a moment, nothing changed.

Then the heat reached her.

Not all at once.

Not like stepping into fire—but a steady, surrounding warmth, thicker than the air outside, pressing in from every direction as she was guided towards it, turned so she could see outside through the glass. The space inside felt enclosed, close in a way that carried weight, the heat already waiting, already present, settling against her skin before she was even fully inside.

The tray slid into place beneath her.

Metal against metal.

A final adjustment—small, precise—before the door shut behind her with a firm, sealing thud.

The sound lingered.

Then faded.

And there was nothing else to interrupt it.

Just heat.

It built gradually.

At first, it was almost indistinguishable from the warmth she’d already known—like the shower, like a held breath that hadn’t quite been released. But it didn’t stay there. It deepened, thickened, settling into her skin, seeping inward in a way that felt slow, deliberate.

Unavoidable.

Melissa exhaled softly around the apple, her body held in place, unable to shift away from it, unable to lessen it.

Only feel it.

It didn’t spike.

That was the thing she noticed.

It didn’t strike all at once.

It climbed.

A slow, steady rise, each moment only slightly more than the last, enough that she could track it if she paid attention—could feel the difference between one breath and the next.

Her skin warmed.

Then heated.

Then something deeper than that, something that pressed past the surface and settled further in, spreading without urgency, without pause.

And beneath it—

another sensation.

Subtle at first.

Easy to miss.

It started slowly at first. The vibrator began to work inside of her, the fullness of it turning into something more aggressive, more deliberate.

Melissa’s breath shifted slightly, catching for a moment before evening out again, her body responding before she could decide what to do with it. The two sensations didn’t clash. They didn’t cancel each other out.

They built.

Together.

One rising.

One steady.

Both impossible to ignore.

She closed her eyes, letting it happen.

Letting all of it happen.

Just like she said she would.
Melissa could see the Girl from where she lay.

Not perfectly.

But clearly enough.

The slow turn of her body. The steady, uninterrupted motion. The way everything about her remained composed, even now. It wasn’t frantic. It wasn’t erratic.

Just… consistent.

There were small movements.

Subtle.

An occasional shift that might have been instinct, or response, or simply the body continuing to react as it always had. Nothing exaggerated. Nothing that broke the image.

Despite everything, she remained—

a model Meatgirl.

When the waitress reached out, resting a hand briefly against her flank, the Girl responded.

Not by pulling away.

But by leaning—just slightly—into the contact, the same way she had earlier. The same way she always had. A familiar, conditioned response, unchanged even now.

Melissa watched it.

Took it in.

Then something else drew her attention back inward.

The metal beneath her was changing.

Gradually.

Not sudden. Not sharp.

Just a slow, building presence, something that made itself known over time rather than announcing itself all at once. Her body reacted to it in quiet ways—small adjustments, subtle tension, the need to remain still conflicting with the instinct to shift.

The apple remained in her mouth.

Cooler at the center.

A contrast she became aware of each time her focus slipped, each time her jaw threatened to close just a fraction too far.

Hold it.

Stay still.

Do it properly.

The two things pulled against each other.

The sensation.

The discipline.

Neither overwhelming.

Just… present.

Melissa steadied herself again, drawing her attention back to the room, back to the expectation, back to the simple requirement of maintaining what she had been placed into.

After a while—

the Girl stopped moving.

It wasn’t dramatic.

No clear moment where it happened.

Just the gradual absence of those small adjustments, the quiet stilling of everything that had been continuing until then.

One of the staff stepped forward.

They checked her pulse first before pricking her with a BBQ fork in one of her little tits. Juices seeped around the metal prongs, glistening and clear. Then they began to carve her body. Cutting her open to let the inedible innards fall out into a bucket.

No urgency.

No reaction.

Just confirmation.

She was complete.

Not finished in every sense.

But finished in the one that mattered.

Her purpose—

served.

Melissa watched for a moment longer.

Then let her gaze settle forward again.

Holding.

Still.

Continuing.

Her vision began to blur.

Not all at once.

Slowly.

The edges of the room softened first, the sharp lines of tables and figures losing their definition as if they were being gently pulled out of focus. Colours followed soon after, draining little by little, brightness dulling into something flatter, more distant.

The world outside the oven felt…

further away.

Harder to hold onto.

The heat was there.

Present.

She could feel it across her skin, a steady pressure that built gradually rather than striking all at once. It wasn’t absent. It wasn’t nothing.

But it never became overwhelming.

Never crossed into something she couldn’t sit with.

Each time her body reacted—each involuntary wave that passed through her—it seemed to pull that edge back, softening it, blurring it the same way her vision had begun to blur.

Not removing it.

Just… carrying it away for a moment.

Letting her stay where she was.

Focused.

Holding.

The final mercy.

Melissa steadied her breathing as best she could around the apple, her jaw still set, still maintaining the shape she’d been given. The coolness at its center lingered faintly, a small, grounding point against everything else that was slipping.

Her thoughts had grown quieter.

Simpler.

No more questions.

No more resistance.

Just a steady awareness of where she was, what she was doing, and how close she was to the end of it.

She thought of her family.

Not sharply.

Not painfully.

Just… briefly.

A passing image.

A quiet understanding settling over it.

Then she smiled.

And let everything else fall away.

---

When the oven was finally opened, the shift in air was immediate.

Heat rolled outward in a slow, heavy wave, carrying with it a rich, layered scent that filled the room before anything else could be seen. It wasn’t sharp or burnt—it was deep, savory, the kind of smell that settled into the space and stayed there, warm and full.

The chef stepped forward without hesitation.

The tin was drawn out carefully, metal sliding against metal with a low, steady sound. There was no rush in the movement, no uncertainty—just practiced control as the tray was lifted free and brought into the open.

Melissa lay exactly as she had been placed.

Position held.

Unbroken.

The twine still secured her neatly, keeping everything aligned just as it had been set. There had been no shifting, no collapse of posture—only the subtle tightening that came with the process, her form set firmly into the shape she’d been given.

Her skin had changed.

Deepened.

What had once been soft and even in tone had taken on a richer colour, something fuller, warmer, the surface catching the light differently now. It wasn’t uniform—some areas slightly darker, others lighter—but it blended together in a way that felt intentional.

The texture had shifted too.

No longer smooth in the same way, but set—held—like the outer layer had settled into place, firm without being rigid, the surface carrying a slight sheen where it had been prepared.

The chef reached forward.

His hand moved with the same care as before, fingers steady as he worked at the bindings just enough to free what needed to be removed. There was no commentary, no pause for reaction.

Just continuation.

Then he grasped something long.

Metallic.

It slid free in one smooth motion, drawn out cleanly, the movement deliberate and controlled. He set it aside without ceremony, as though it were simply another tool no longer needed.

Only then did he step back.

The room had quieted.

Not completely—but enough.

Attention had sharpened again, drawn back to the presentation as it settled into its final state.

And then—

someone noticed.

A small shift in the room. A murmur, quiet but spreading, as eyes moved to the same place at once.

The apple.

Still held.

Exactly where it had been placed.

Unbitten.

Perfectly in position.

The room erupted in applause.

It wasn’t scattered or uncertain—it came together all at once, a unified swell of recognition that filled the space and carried through it. Glasses paused mid-air, conversations dropped, attention drawn completely forward.

For the chef.

For the presentation.

For the stillness that had been held from beginning to end.

Melissa hadn’t moved.

Even now.

Her posture remained exactly as it had been set, the structure of it preserved without collapse or slackening. The twine held her in place, but it hadn’t needed to do all the work—there was a completeness to the way she had remained, as though the final moments had simply… fixed her there.

Her eyes were closed.

And across her face, an open, mounted smile rested—unbroken, unforced, the same expression she had settled into before everything had faded.

The waitress stepped forward, the carving knife already in her hand.

She looked down at her.

At the girl who had pushed, resisted, talked back—

and then, in the end, done it right.

A faint curl touched the edge of her lips.

“Not bad, you dumb Animal,” she said, her voice low, carrying just enough to land without cutting through the applause.

There was the smallest hint of warmth in it.

Then she adjusted her grip on the knife.

[THE END]

>>30271
You really do write awesome bedtime stories! Thank you 😁

Bratty little kid futilely resisting until finally realizing there is no way out and coming to terms with her fate, very well done. The rate of people who cannot overcome biological fear of death despite societal pressure must surely be not-insignificant.

It's not small but not large either. The conditioning is usually effective

>>30278
I guess the processing centre staff are well trained and they have ways of quickly and efficiently killing or incapacitating "screamers". I suppose for live service there is some degree of screening to deem them reasonably likely to cooperate.

Most animals house seven days between conversion and slaughter. During that time they are supposed to acclimate to the idea that they are no longer human. The very first lesson in accepting is animals do not wear clothing.

The System doesn't care if you're scared it just cares that you comply. Screaming changes nothing, if anything it's just embarrassing for other animals to see.

Ethan had been friends with Alice for a year. She’d arrived late—well into sixth grade—and even now, he could still picture her first day with uncomfortable clarity.

She had walked into the room naked, without hesitation, without even the suggestion of modesty. Bare feet against the wooden floor, each step a soft, rhythmic slap that seemed louder than it should have been. Her backpack hung loosely from her shoulders like everyone else’s—except there was nothing beneath it. Nothing to hide.

His eyes had drifted. He hadn’t meant them to.

But there hadn’t been anywhere else to look.

She stood at the front of the room, completely at ease, as if nothing about this was unusual.

“I’m Alice,” she said, smiling sweetly at a class that didn’t quite know where to settle their gaze. “I live at the Processing Centre in town.”

She lifted her wrist, turning it so they could all see. The watch glowed blue.

“Alice is a Blue Orphan,” the teacher explained, stepping in behind her and resting her hands on the girl’s shoulders.

Ethan noticed the way her thumbs moved.

Slow. Absent. Familiar.

Not asking. Not checking.

Just… there.

Alice didn’t react. Not even a shift in posture. Not a glance back.

She just stood there, smiling.

Ethan looked around the room, trying to see where she might be sitting.

The desks had been pushed together in pairs, close enough that two students would have to share the space without thinking about it. The school encouraged it—wanted them used to proximity, to the quiet press of someone else always being there.

The seat beside him was empty.

In fact, it was the only one.

Alice finished her introduction, and the teacher turned, pointing toward Ethan.

“There’s a seat beside Ethan. Why don’t you join him?”

The girl obeyed without a word.

As she moved through the row of desks, Ethan noticed the hands.

They reached out casually, almost absent-mindedly, brushing against her bare skin as she passed. Fingers trailing. Testing.

She flinched once—then again—when a touch lingered too long. When it became a grab. A brief, unwelcome twist that broke the rhythm of everything else.

No one said anything.

For some reason, Ethan’s fists clenched.

That wasn’t respectful at all.

Alice eventually reached the seat and dropped into it beside him.

Ethan felt her warmth immediately.

He’d had other students sit next to him before—close enough that their shoulders brushed, their arms pressed together without much thought—but this felt different.

There was nothing between them. No fabric, no space to soften the contact. Just skin, and the steady heat of it.

It made the closeness harder to ignore.

He shifted slightly in his seat, unsure why it suddenly felt so much more noticeable.

“Ethan, right?”

Her voice pulled him back to the moment.

She was smiling—easy, relaxed—her eyes bright with curiosity.

“You’re blushing.”

Ethan’s eyes widened.

“It’s just hot in here,” he said quickly. “Not because—”

“I’m messing with you,” she cut in, letting out a small laugh. “Relax.”

She leaned back slightly in her seat, completely at ease.

“You don’t have to explain everything.”

Ethan smiled nervously, rubbing the back of his neck.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’ve never met an Animal in school before.”

“I’m not an Animal.”

There was no edge to the correction. No embarrassment. Just fact.

“Blue Orphans are children raised by the System.”

Ethan blinked, trying to recalibrate.

“Then… why no clothes?”

She tilted her head slightly, as if the question itself didn’t quite make sense.

“Because we live in Habitation.”

“With Animals?” he asked. “Weird.”

She shrugged, a small lift of her shoulders that seemed to say it wasn’t—just didn’t feel the need to argue it.

The lesson resumed. Worksheets were passed along the rows, sliding from desk to desk.

Alice handed one to him.

When he reached for it, his fingers brushed hers—brief, accidental.

It was enough.

Heat rose to his face before he could stop it.

By the time he looked up, she had already moved on, passing the next sheet along as if nothing had happened.

It was a strange way to start a friendship. Even he wondered, sometimes, how he’d ever gotten past that first awkward fascination.

It hadn’t really been about her—not in the way he’d first thought. Just the novelty of it. The difference.

The way she stood out without seeming to notice it herself.

He learned quickly that whatever assumptions he’d made at the start didn’t hold.

Alice had boundaries.

There was an allowance for touch—something unspoken, something most of the class seemed to understand—but it wasn’t without limits.

One boy found that out the hard way.

He tried to push it further than he should have—past the point where it stopped being casual, stopped being accepted.

Alice kneed him so hard he nearly dropped where he stood, folding in on himself with a sharp gasp.

No one laughed.

No one stepped in.

It was just… understood.

That was when Ethan saw it clearly.

Not something different.

Not something defined by the System.

Just a girl.

Now she came home with him once a week.

At first, his mother had been wary—unsure how to interact with a girl who didn’t seem to view things like modesty or clothing in quite the same way.

Alice moved through their home with an easy confidence, crossing lines Ethan hadn’t even realized were there until she stepped over them.

Not deliberately. Not defiantly.

Just… as if they didn’t matter.

One afternoon, he had been changing out of his uniform when she walked in without knocking.

She caught him in his underwear.

Ethan had reacted instantly, turning away, grabbing for something to cover himself.

Alice barely even looked at him.

She crossed the room without hesitation and sat down on his bed as if nothing about the moment was unusual.

“Homework?” she asked, completely unfazed.

Then, over time, she became something closer to a fixture.

Once a week turned into every other night, and eventually no one really kept track anymore.

The guest room became her room. Not officially—nothing was ever said outright—but her things began to appear there, little by little, until the space felt occupied even when she wasn’t.

His mother stopped treating her like a guest.

It wasn’t sudden. Just a gradual shift in tone, in expectation.

Alice did chores without being asked, moved through the house as if she understood its rhythms. She stayed for weekends, joined them on outings, sat at the table as if she had always belonged there.

And, at some point, no one questioned it.

But Ethan eventually realised something. He had welcomed her into his world—into his home, his routines—but she had never once invited him into hers.

It wasn’t something he noticed all at once. More a quiet absence, a question that kept returning without ever being asked.

He did ask, eventually.

It was over dinner, casual enough that he didn’t think twice about it.

“Can I come sleep over at your place?”

Both Alice and his mother stopped eating. The shift was immediate, subtle but absolute.

Alice set her fork down carefully before answering, as if the question required more precision than he had intended.

“My ‘place’ isn’t really a home, Ethan,” she said, her tone flat, not unkind—just direct. “It’s where Animals are held. We just live in the spaces they leave.”

“And where staff live,” his mother added, not looking up from her plate. “And Butchers. You don’t want to wander into their areas.”

Ethan felt warmth rise in his cheeks, the kind that came too quickly to hide. He opened his mouth to respond, but before he could find the words, his mom let out a short, amused snort into her drink.

“He’s a teenage boy,” she said, lowering the glass with a faint shake of her head. “He’ll probably think it’s a novelty at first.”

There was no real judgment in it—just a kind of knowing, the sort of comment that made Ethan’s embarrassment deepen rather than fade.

“Mom!”

She didn’t even look at him, already halfway through another sip before setting her glass down with a small, dismissive shake of her head.

“Oh, don’t give me that,” she retorted. “Just don’t tell me what happens, and for the love of God, don’t get anyone pregnant.”

“MOM!”

It was decided they would go on Friday and spend the weekend there. He wasn’t allowed to bring anything with him—no phone, no games, nothing at all. Just the clothes on his back, and even those would be taken once he arrived.

For a while, he considered just arriving naked. It wasn’t as strange an idea as it should have been. He’d been through Transition Week; public nudity had already been stripped of most of its meaning for him, reduced to something procedural rather than personal.

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. One less step. One less moment to hesitate.

So he did it.

After school, instead of changing, he simply removed his uniform and set his phone down on his desk, leaving everything else behind with it.

When he went downstairs, he found Alice sitting with his mom, the two of them already waiting.

Alice didn’t react to his nudity. She just looked up at him, expression unchanged.

“Ready to go, then?”

He hugged his mom goodbye, leaning in to kiss her on the cheek before stepping back. As he turned to leave, he felt the familiar, playful pat on his butt—a gesture that had always been there, casual and unremarkable.

It felt different now.

Not inappropriate, just… more noticeable without the barrier of clothes, the contact lingering in a way it normally wouldn’t have.

They walked to the Centre together. It wasn’t far from where he lived, just far enough that the streets began to thin out as they approached it. The late afternoon sun still held its warmth, stretching long shadows across the pavement as the day edged toward evening.

Somewhere along the way, Alice’s fingers slipped around his. She didn’t ask, didn’t look at him—just took his hand and held it, firm and steady, as if it had always been that way.

He wasn’t sure when it had become a habit.

He only knew that it had.

And that he liked it.

They arrived at the Centre just as the day was beginning to soften into evening. Fridays weren’t particularly busy for Intake; most Animals preferred to spend their last night elsewhere before reporting in over the weekend. Even so, there was still a steady presence in the registration area, enough movement to remind him that this place never really stopped functioning.

The receptionists greeted each arrival with practiced smiles, their expressions warm in a way that felt rehearsed rather than personal. Like the Animals, they were naked, but the yellow glow of their watches set them apart immediately, marking them as something different despite the lack of any other visible distinction.

It took Ethan a moment to remember what that difference meant here.

The ID tags.

They weren’t worn. They were fixed in place—pierced through the nipple like jewelry, small and precise, impossible to ignore once you noticed them.

He found himself staring longer than he meant to, a quiet discomfort settling in as he tried not to think about the process behind it. The idea of having something like that applied—regularly, without question—made his chest tighten in a way he couldn’t quite explain.

Alice caught him staring.

Not at the receptionists themselves, but at the tags—at the way they sat there, fixed and unavoidable.

“You know you’ll need to do that, right?” she said, her voice low and matter-of-fact.

The words landed heavier than he expected.

Ethan felt himself tense, the thought taking shape too quickly in his mind now that it had been spoken aloud. She wasn’t joking. There was no teasing in her tone, no attempt to soften it. Just another rule, stated plainly.

Alice watched him for a moment, her expression unreadable, as if gauging whether this was where he might hesitate.

“You can still go home,” she added.

He considered it. The thought lingered longer than he wanted it to, pressing in now that it had been made real—something unavoidable rather than abstract.

But a small measure of pride, stubborn and immediate, kept him steady. He wasn’t about to back out now. Not after everything he’d said, not with her watching him like that.

Ethan exhaled, forcing a shrug he didn’t entirely feel.

“Nah,” he said, a little too quickly. “I bet it won’t even hurt.”

Eventually, the line of Animals thinned until there was no one left between them and the desk.

The receptionist looked up as they stepped forward, her gaze moving between them before settling briefly on their watches, the difference between them registering in an instant.

“Oh, hey—did you bring a boyfriend, Blue Girl?” she asked, her tone easy, amused in a way that suggested this wasn’t an unusual sight.

It was Alice’s turn to blush.

The reaction came quick and unguarded, a flash of something Ethan had almost never seen from her.

“No!” she shot back, louder than she meant to. “He’s just a friend—who happens to be a boy.”

The receptionist grinned, clearly entertained.

“So… boyfriend,” she said, drawing the word out slightly before letting it go with a soft chuckle.

Her attention shifted to Ethan, the humor fading just enough to make space for something more procedural.

“You visiting Habitation?” she asked.

He nodded.

“And you’re aware how we fix IDs to bodies here?”

The question landed with a little more weight this time. Ethan hesitated, just for a second, before nodding again.

“Brave,” she said, glancing back at Alice with a small, approving tilt of her head. “Nice pick.”

“Come around the desk and I’ll do it for you,” she said, not offering so much as instructing. “It’ll hurt—but not for long.”

Ethan stepped forward without arguing, moving around the desk as directed. The casual way she said it made it feel routine, like this was just another part of the process everyone went through.

She reached into a small box and pulled out a safety pin, handling it with practiced ease before producing a laminated visitor’s pass and sliding it carefully onto the needle.

Ethan watched the motion more closely than he meant to, his attention narrowing as she brought it up between them.

Then she lined it up with his nipple, pressing just enough to make it peak under her touch, steadying her hand as if aligning something delicate rather than something about to go through flesh.

“On three,” she told him. “One—”

She pushed the needle through.

Ethan flinched as it went through, the reaction sharp and immediate, but he didn’t make a sound. His fists clenched at his sides, knuckles tightening as he forced himself to stay still.

A thin line of blood welled up and ran down his chest before the receptionist wiped it away with a practiced motion, already reaching for a cotton bud as if it were nothing out of the ordinary.

She followed it with a disinfectant swab, pressing it briefly against the puncture before cleaning around the pin with careful, efficient movements.

“The needle is clean,” she said, her tone calm and reassuring in a way that felt routine rather than personal. “Now we just sanitize the puncture wound.”

“There,” she said, pulling her hands away at last.

Ethan was shivering slightly now, the reaction delayed but impossible to hide, so she rested a hand on his shoulder, steady and reassuring.

“You did great,” she added. “Most kids cry.”

Ethan nodded, keeping his head down, not trusting himself to speak.

The words sat just behind his teeth, fragile in a way that felt dangerously close to breaking. If he opened his mouth, he was sure it would all come out at once.

“You can enter Habitation through the Intake corridor,” she told him, her tone shifting back into that practiced, procedural calm. “The visitor pass will stop anyone from mistaking you for an Animal at a glance.”

She paused briefly, just long enough for the reassurance to settle before continuing.

“But if someone does try to take you through Intake,” she added, her eyes meeting his now, more deliberate than before, “it’s important that you obey.”

“But if they see the tag, they won’t, right?” Ethan asked, his voice quieter now, the confidence from earlier slipping just enough to reveal the question underneath it.

His hand hovered near the pin without quite touching it, as if the presence of it alone should be enough to guarantee what he was asking.

Alice took his hand again and led him toward a set of doors that opened into a white-tiled waiting room. The space beyond was quieter than the reception area, stripped down and clinical, with rows of chairs spaced deliberately apart. Animals sat waiting, still and patient, their attention fixed on nothing in particular as they waited to be called through the next corridor.

They didn’t stop.

The tannoy crackled overhead, a name called out in a flat, disembodied voice, and as one of the seated figures rose to answer it, Alice guided Ethan straight past them, through the room and toward the next set of doors without hesitation.

He barely had time to take it in before everything shifted.

A hand caught his arm—firm, practiced—and pulled him sideways, breaking his grip from Alice’s before he could react. The motion was quick, efficient, and by the time he turned back, the door between them was already swinging shut.

“What the hell—” Ethan started, his voice rising as confusion snapped into something sharper. “What’s going on?”

The answer came in the form of a sharp slap on his ass, the contact abrupt and corrective rather than aggressive.

“No talking,” a voice said, already moving him forward. “Stand under the showerhead.”

Ethan felt the sting linger where the slap had landed, sharp and immediate, the kind of pain that carried a message with it. It hadn’t just been contact—it had been correction, a punishment for stepping outside a boundary he hadn’t even realized was there.

He didn’t want to be hit again.

So he moved without arguing, stepping under the showerhead as instructed, his body already beginning to follow the rhythm of the place before his thoughts could catch up.

When the water started, it fell over him in a steady, lukewarm stream—comfortable, almost deliberately so, the kind of temperature that kept him from reacting too strongly in either direction.

Then the hands came.

They worked over his body with a sponge, efficient and practiced, spreading soap across his skin without hesitation or pause. There was no awkwardness in the touch, no variation in pressure, just a methodical thoroughness that left nothing untouched, nothing overlooked.

When the woman lifted his ID tag, Ethan tensed, expecting the moment of recognition—expecting her to stop, to read it, to realize.

She didn’t.

She simply cleaned beneath it, moving the tag aside just long enough to reach the skin underneath before letting it fall back into place, her attention already shifting elsewhere.

Ethan swallowed, the thought rising up before he could stop it. He could say something. He could point it out.

He didn’t.

“Bend over,” she said.

The instruction came flat and immediate, leaving no space for explanation. Ethan hesitated for the briefest moment, the question forming and dying just as quickly.

Then he bent.

Her hands returned, continuing their work with the same detached efficiency, moving him as needed, positioning him without asking, accessing areas he would rather not think about, let alone name.

When she was finished, she dried him in the same manner—thorough, consistent, never rough, never lingering. The touch remained clinical throughout, focused entirely on completion rather than comfort, though it never crossed into deliberate pain.

When she reached the area around the tag again, she adjusted her movements slightly, careful this time, working around it with a precision that suggested awareness of the object itself, if not its meaning.

“Good Meatboy,” she said, giving him a light pat before stepping back. “Move on through that door.”

Ethan found himself wondering if Alice was going to come back for him. The thought surfaced suddenly, uninvited, pushing past everything else as the reality of where he was began to settle in. Was she going to pull him out of this? Was anyone?

For a moment, something colder took hold.

Was he going to die? Was this how Animals were prepared—cleaned, processed, moved along without question?

He forced the thought down almost as quickly as it came.

No. That wasn’t right. He had seen the Habitation Zone, knew it existed beyond this place. This wasn’t the end of anything—just a mistake. A misunderstanding in a system that moved too quickly to notice him.

One he would survive.

He stepped into the next room, his body still damp, still carrying the residue of the process he had just been through.

And then he noticed.

The reaction was immediate, undeniable.

His body had responded to the touch—unwanted, unasked for—his member rigid now in a way that made his stomach twist with a sudden, sharp embarrassment.

It didn’t feel like desire.

Just… response.

This space felt different from the others—quieter, more contained. One of many small rooms, Ethan realized, designed to offer brief privacy before the next stage of processing.

“Come, sit,” the man in the white coat said, gesturing to a chair across from him.

As Ethan stepped forward, the man’s gaze dropped briefly, taking in the state of his body, before returning to his face without comment or visible reaction.

Ethan sat, keeping silent, the earlier correction still fresh in his mind. He didn’t trust himself to speak—not yet—and instinctively moved his hands to cover himself, trying to hide the reaction his body had betrayed him with.

“Why bother?” the doctor said, almost idly. “It’s a natural response. Happens all the time.”

Ethan swallowed, the words catching before he forced them out.

“I’m not an Animal,” he said, lifting his wrist to show the green glow of his watch, then gesturing awkwardly toward the tag fixed to his chest.

The doctor leaned forward, peering at it for a moment—then broke into a loud, easy laugh that filled the room.

“Oh, you poor thing,” he said, shaking his head, the amusement clear in his tone. “Looks like you got pulled into sanitization by mistake.”

Ethan frowned, confusion cutting through the lingering tension.

“Why didn’t they notice the tag?”

The doctor leaned back in his chair, still faintly amused.

“We see hundreds of bodies every day,” he said. “No one’s checking that closely at that stage. They’re there to clean, move you along, and keep the line flowing.”

He gave a small shrug, as if the answer was obvious.

“So yeah,” he added. “It happens more than you’d think.”

“Can I go now?” Ethan asked, the question coming out more hopeful than he intended, as if saying it plainly might be enough to make it true.

The doctor shook his head, the answer immediate.

“No. The only way to exit Intake is to pass through it,” he said, as if reciting something long established, something that didn’t require further explanation.

He leaned back slightly, his tone softening just enough to pass for reassurance.

“Don’t worry. All we do now is give you a checkup. It’s free, so you might as well go with it.”

Ethan was then asked a series of questions, the doctor moving through them with the same steady efficiency he had shown from the start. There was no pause for conversation, no room for hesitation—just a measured rhythm, one question following another as if each answer slotted neatly into place before the next was already on its way.

They started simple enough. Basic details. Age. General health. Whether he’d eaten recently, whether he’d been feeling unwell, whether there was anything the staff needed to be aware of before continuing.

Then they shifted, gradually, into something more specific. Questions about his body, about how it responded, about things he wasn’t entirely sure how to answer without overthinking them.

The doctor didn’t react to any of it. He simply noted things down, occasionally glancing up, but never long enough to make it feel like he was truly looking at Ethan as a person.

By the time it was over, Ethan wasn’t entirely sure what he had said—only that he had answered everything.

The doctor made a final note, the scratch of pen against paper the only sound for a moment before he leaned back in his chair, giving Ethan a brief, assessing look that felt more procedural than personal.

“From the sounds of it, you’re a healthy thirteen-year-old boy,” he said, as if summarizing something already decided. “Next, I’ll take a blood sample, and then you can go to Habitation.”

The words landed with a strange sense of finality, as though each step had already been mapped out long before Ethan had walked into the room, and all that remained now was to follow it through to the end.

This needle didn’t hurt like the last one. The doctor worked quickly, drawing the blood with practiced ease, the process over almost before Ethan had time to brace for it.

He watched the vial fill, dark and steady, before it was sealed and set aside with the same casual efficiency as everything else.

“This would usually be sent for testing before Final Processing,” the doctor said, almost conversationally, as if explaining a routine step in a process Ethan was already part of.

He gave a small, dismissive wave of his hand.

“Or it would be, if you weren’t just an unlucky kid,” he added, the reassurance light, almost offhand. “We’ll store the data instead. It only gets used if you ever convert.”

“Conversion isn’t just a label,” he added. “It’s a status change. System-wide. Once it happens, everything about you is processed differently.”

The words lingered longer than they should have.

Not the mention of testing, or even Final Processing—but that quiet assumption buried at the end, delivered without emphasis, without concern.

At no point did he apologize. Not for the mistake, not for the process, not for any part of what had just happened.

To him, it hadn’t been a mistake worth apologizing for.

He stood slowly and turned toward the door, his movements just a fraction more deliberate than before. It had taken less than fifteen minutes—less than fifteen minutes for him to go from feeling in control to being handled, moved through a process he hadn’t understood until he was already inside it.

The thought lingered as he stepped through.

He barely had time to register the space beyond before Alice was there, closing the distance and pulling him into a tight hug.

“Oh my god,” she said, a laugh slipping into her voice as she pulled back just enough to look at him. “That was so funny.”

“Was it?” Ethan said, pushing her away gently, the tension still sitting in his shoulders. “I thought they were gonna slaughter me.”

Alice shrugged, completely unfazed, as if the idea didn’t even warrant consideration.

“Nah,” she said. “It happens all the time. Sanitization’s always been like that.”

He let out a small grunt that almost turned into a laugh, the tension easing just enough for it to slip through.

“This tag didn’t help at all?” he asked, glancing down at it, still half expecting it to mean something more than it had.

“Don’t worry,” Alice said, reaching out and giving it a light, almost playful tug.

The movement sent a sharp sting through him, and he hissed, his hand instinctively coming up as she let it fall back into place.

“Everyone else will see it,” she continued, completely unconcerned. “Intake just… doesn’t really look.”

She tilted her head slightly, studying him for a moment before her expression softened into something more familiar.

“You wanted to come here,” she added. “You can leave whenever you like—but you might as well enjoy yourself, right? You went through all that just to get here.”

She was right. If Ethan had learned anything about Alice over the past year, it was that she never spoke without meaning to. She didn’t fill silence for the sake of it, didn’t offer opinions unless she had already settled on them.

Other people saw that as quietness, or distance—something aloof and hard to read.

Ethan knew better.

She was just… considerate.

The afternoon unfolded easily after that, the tension of Intake fading into something softer, something almost disorienting in how quickly it gave way to normalcy. Alice led him first to the games room, a wide, open space filled with noise and movement, where bodies clustered in loose groups around tables and screens, the atmosphere more social than structured.

At first, it felt almost ordinary. They played a few rounds of something simple, laughing quietly between themselves, Ethan beginning to relax as the familiarity of it settled in.

But there were differences.

People drifted closer than they needed to, their presence lingering at the edges of his awareness. Hands brushed against him in passing—light, almost incidental at first, the kind of contact that could be written off as accidental if it didn’t happen again, and again, and again.

No one apologized.

No one even acknowledged it.

Alice didn’t react either. She just played, as if nothing about it was unusual, as if this was simply part of the space, something that didn’t require comment or correction.

They moved on after a while, stepping out into the Public Garden where the air felt cooler, quieter. The space opened up around them, greenery softening the edges of the facility, pathways winding between small groups of people sitting or walking without urgency.

Here, the attention was different.

A few Citizens stood out immediately—clothed, marked clearly by the glow of their watches—and as Ethan passed them, he caught the way they looked at him. Not with concern, not even curiosity. Just a kind of quiet amusement, small smiles that lingered a moment too long before they looked away.

He caught a Citizen watching him, smiling faintly—not at him, but at the situation. Like they had seen this before.

As if they understood something he didn’t.

The pool was louder.

The moment they stepped inside, the sound hit him—water, voices, movement echoing off tiled walls. Bodies pressed closer here, the space more confined, the interactions less avoidable.

They slipped into the water together, and for a while it was just that—cool relief, the weightlessness of it, the easy distraction of being somewhere different.

Then it changed.

The contact wasn’t incidental anymore.

Hands lingered when they brushed against him, touches that stayed just a fraction too long to be accidental, testing, deliberate in a way the games room hadn’t been. Someone pressed briefly against his back as they passed, another hand trailing along his side before disappearing into the crowd.

Ethan felt it all.

He didn’t react.

He didn’t pull away, didn’t confront it, didn’t even look for who it might have been. He just let it happen, letting the moments pass as they came, waiting for them to end rather than trying to stop them.

Across from him, Alice watched with a faint, knowing expression, but she didn’t step in. She didn’t tell anyone to stop, didn’t move to shield him from it.

She just let it happen.

And, slowly, Ethan began to notice something else.

No one did.

As they messed around in the pool, something warm and soft pressed against his back. It stole his breath. A light giggle sounded behind as a female Animal pressed her breasts against his skin then her arms slipped around him, slow and unhurried.

Fingers traced idly across his stomach, as if they had every right to be there. Then she was gone. A faint giggle lingered in her wake.

They watched the woman as she moved away, slipping back into the crowd as easily as she had appeared, her presence already fading into the noise and motion around them. The contact she’d left behind seemed to mean nothing to her—just another moment, already forgotten.

“I think she liked you,” Alice said, a small smile playing at the corner of her lips.

Ethan let out a short breath, somewhere between disbelief and irritation.

“Is that what you feel every day at school?” he asked, glancing at her, the question landing heavier than he intended.

Alice nodded easily.

“Yep,” she said. “Not so funny when it’s done to you, right?”

Ethan turned fully toward her now, the edge in his expression sharper.

“I’ve never touched you like that,” he said.

“Yeah, but you’ve watched the other boys get handsy,” she said, her tone steady, not accusatory—just stating it plainly. “You could have stopped it.”

Ethan hesitated, the answer catching slightly as he tried to frame it in a way that didn’t sound as weak as it suddenly felt.

“I didn’t think you minded,” he said.

Alice held his gaze for a moment, something quieter settling into her expression now, less teasing, more matter-of-fact.

“Nobody ever does.”

“But I know you’re not like those other boys,” she said, stepping closer and drawing him in before he could react, her arms wrapping around him with an ease that made the movement feel practiced rather than sudden.

She pressed against him, holding him there for a moment as if anchoring the conversation in something physical, something steadier than the words that had come before.

“You’re much nicer than everyone else in class.”

“Yeah… I couldn’t do anything to hurt you,” he said, his voice tightening slightly as the words came out, carrying more weight than he’d intended.

He held her there for a moment longer, the closeness grounding him even as everything else about the day still felt unsettled.

“You’re my best friend.”

Alice leaned in before he could fully process what he’d said, closing the small distance between them and pressing a quick, light kiss to his lips before pulling back just as easily.

The movement was casual, almost matter-of-fact, as if it didn’t carry the weight Ethan immediately felt settle in his chest.

“We’ve been more than that for months,” she said, studying him with that same steady certainty she always seemed to have. “You’re just too polite to act on it.”

Ethan lingered in the pool for a moment after Alice climbed out, watching as she shook the water from her body without bothering to dry herself. Droplets scattered across the tiles as she moved, and no one reacted—not a glance, not a second look. A wet body was still just a body in this place, no more noteworthy than anything else.

He pushed himself out eventually, following after her at a slower pace, the air cooler against his skin now as he made his way toward the dining hall.

The space was already filling when he arrived. Food had been laid out in a long buffet, metal tins lined neatly along the counter, each one filled with simple vegetarian dishes. Tongs and spoons rested inside them, ready to be used, the setup efficient and impersonal in the same way everything else here seemed to be.

He found Alice at the back of the queue and slipped in beside her, the rhythm of the place guiding him into position without needing to think about it.

“Sorry,” he said after a moment, his voice quieter now. “For not noticing.”

Alice glanced at him, her expression softening just slightly before she gave a small shrug.

“It’s fine,” she said. “I like teasing you.”

Dinner was better than he expected. They sat shoulder to shoulder on the long benches as other Animals and Blue Orphans filled in around them, the space closing naturally until there was no real separation between anyone.

It was… comfortable.

Not in the way he was used to, but in something simpler. Everyone was at the same level here. No layers, no barriers, nothing hidden and nothing judged, at least not openly. The usual rules he’d grown up with just didn’t seem to apply in the same way.

At some point, he stopped noticing it. The nudity, the closeness, the constant presence of other bodies—it all faded into the background, losing the edge it had carried when he first arrived.

Conversation took its place instead. Voices, laughter, the rhythm of people talking around him became easier to focus on than anything else.

The attention didn’t stop entirely. People still noticed him, still drifted a little closer than necessary, their curiosity lingering in small, quiet ways.

But it didn’t feel as sharp anymore.

Just… part of being there.

The evening settled into something quieter across the Habitation Zone. The garden, which had felt open and charged during the day, softened as Citizen access closed, the atmosphere shifting into something calmer, more contained. Without that outside presence, the space felt less performative, less reactive—like it had returned to its natural state.

Younger Animals drifted toward the Blues, falling into easy games and quiet companionship, while the adults dispersed into their own routines, moving through the space without hesitation or self-consciousness. Whatever boundaries existed elsewhere didn’t seem to follow them here.

No one reacted.

Somewhere across the garden, a figure passed through the edge of the space. People shifted subtly, not looking directly, but making room all the same. Ethan didn’t understand why—but he noticed it.

No one made a scene.

Eventually, a quiet order passed through the area, subtle but understood. The children were told to follow curfew, their movements shifting as they began to make their way back toward the cells for the night. Ethan and Alice were no exception, and he found himself guided along with them, carried by the same steady rhythm that had shaped everything else that day.

He was given a cell of his own.

It was simple—clean, functional, and mostly empty—but not entirely. On a small shelf sat a single photograph, the only personal thing in the room.

Ethan picked it up, studying the image. A woman he didn’t recognize looked back at him, fully clothed, her watch glowing green. A Citizen.

He remembered what Alice had said earlier—about Blue Orphans living in the spaces left behind.

When the staff member noticed the photograph, she stepped forward and took it from his hands, handling it with a careful, almost practiced gentleness before folding it once, neatly.

“What will you do with it?” Ethan asked, watching her.

“Memorabilia is disposed of,” she said. There was a slight pause, just enough to suggest she understood how that might sound. “The Animal this belonged to was processed this morning.”

Ethan frowned, the image still fresh in his mind.

“Can’t you send it back to the person in the picture?”

The staff member shook her head.

“Not without knowing who it was,” she replied simply. Then, after a brief glance toward the door, her tone shifted back to something more procedural. “Now, in you get. Citizen or not, you’ll be punished if we catch you out after curfew.”

Before the door could close, Alice slipped inside, moving quickly enough that the motion felt almost practiced, like something she’d done before.

The staff member noticed. Her gaze shifted from the doorway to Alice, then to Ethan, the moment stretching just long enough to register as deliberate rather than accidental.

For a second, it felt like something might be said.

It wasn’t.

She turned away instead, letting the door slide shut without comment, the decision made as quietly as everything else in this place.

“Hey,” Ethan said, stepping closer to the bed, his voice quieter now. “You okay?”

Alice didn’t answer the question. She was already moving, already decided.

“On the bed,” she said, simple and direct.

Ethan blinked, caught off guard. “What?”

She reached for his wrist and guided it to the scanner beside the door, pressing it firmly against the panel. The mechanism responded immediately, a heavy clunk echoing through the room as the lock engaged.

The sound seemed louder than it should have been.

Final.

Alice turned back to him, her expression steady, leaving no room for misinterpretation.

“I’m not letting someone else have you first.”

She held his gaze for a moment longer, then repeated it, quieter this time but no less certain.

“On the bed.”

Ethan was woken by a loud claxon, the sound tearing through the Habitation Zone without warning. It wasn’t just noise—it was designed to pull people upright, to drag them out of sleep whether they wanted to wake or not.

He flinched as it hit him, his eyes snapping open before his thoughts could catch up. For a moment, he didn’t move, just lay there blinking into the dim light, trying to place where he was.

Then he turned his head.

The room came back first. The bed. The walls. The faint, unfamiliar smell of the place. And then the weight beside him.

Alice.

The memory followed right behind it, hitting harder than the noise had. The closeness, the awkwardness of it, the way neither of them had quite known what they were doing but hadn’t stopped anyway. It rushed back all at once, uninvited and impossible to ignore.

Heat climbed into his face before he could stop it.

He groaned softly, dragging a hand over his eyes as he pushed himself upright, careful—almost instinctively so—not to disturb her. The movement felt heavier than it should have, like his body was still catching up to everything that had changed overnight.

Six in the morning.

Too early.

Too loud.

Too… normal, for a place like this.

He let out a slow breath, glancing back at her again, unsure what he was supposed to do now. Nothing about this had come with instructions, and for the first time since arriving, that uncertainty felt sharper than anything the system had done to him.

Alice stirred a moment later, the claxon finally registering. She didn’t fight it, didn’t cling to sleep the way he did. Her body responded easily, like this was just another part of the day, something expected rather than endured.

“Morning,” she said, leaning in to press a quick kiss to his cheek.

Then she was already moving.

There was no pause, no lingering acknowledgment of what had happened between them the night before. She slipped out of bed with the same casual ease she carried everywhere else, as if nothing had changed, as if this was just another morning like any other.

“I have morning duties,” she said flatly, stretching slightly before turning toward the door. “I’ll be done around noon. Gotta clean the slaughter chambers before Processing starts.”

Ethan looked at her, still heavy with sleep, the words taking a moment longer to settle than they should have. The contrast hit him harder than the claxon had. She said it so simply. No weight, no hesitation. Just part of the routine.

She caught the look and giggled.

“You can go back to sleep,” she added, softer now. “They only wake us up so we don’t miss breakfast.”

“Okay,” Ethan muttered, already sinking back into the mattress, his body giving in the moment it was allowed to. “I’ll eat later.”

He didn’t remember falling back asleep.

He slept a few more hours before finally dragging himself up. By the time he made it back to the dining hall, breakfast was mostly over, the buffet picked clean in places and left to cool in others. What remained was cold, but still edible—good enough that he didn’t bother hesitating.

He didn’t sit.

He leaned over the edge of a table instead, eating quickly, more focused on getting it done than enjoying it. There was no sense in lingering. Not here. Not like this.

Like yesterday, the attention hadn’t faded.

If anything, it had settled into something more consistent. Less curious, more assured. Hands still found him in passing, touches brushing over him with that same quiet entitlement, as if his presence there invited it, justified it. The novelty of a Citizen standing among them, exposed in the same way, hadn’t worn off.

Ethan kept his hands to himself.

He didn’t return it, didn’t encourage it, but he didn’t pull away either. The flinching was gone now, replaced by something steadier, something quieter. His body still registered it, still felt every contact, but the reaction had dulled, smoothed down into something he could ignore if he chose to.

Once he was fully awake, he left the hall and set about trying to amuse himself.

It was background noise now.

Not gone. Not absent. Just… easier to live with.

He spent the next hour drifting through the Habitation Zone, moving without much direction, letting the place unfold around him. The upper levels felt familiar now—open spaces, shared rooms, people moving through them with an ease that made it all seem almost ordinary.

It was only when he found the stairwell leading down that the feeling shifted.

The basement was quieter.

Not empty, but muted. The air felt heavier, the walls closer, the light harsher in a way that made everything look flatter than it should have. The cells here hadn’t been opened up the same way as the rest of the facility. They still held their original shape, narrow and enclosed, the kind of space that wasn’t meant to be lived in for long.

Overflow, he realised.

Or something worse.

He stepped into one of the open cells, pausing just inside the threshold. Even with the additions—bedding, small attempts at comfort—it didn’t hide what the space had been built for. The walls pressed in too close, the ceiling low enough to feel it without touching it, the air still in a way that made it hard to breathe properly.

This had been solitary.

He didn’t need anyone to tell him that.

Ethan stood there for a moment longer, letting the silence settle around him, trying to picture what a night would feel like down here. Not just lying in the bed, but staying. Being left in it. The door closed, the sound of everything else cut off, nothing but the walls and whatever thoughts you brought in with you.

He couldn’t imagine sleeping.

Not properly. Not comfortably.

Not in a place like this.

He didn’t stay long.

The moment he stepped back into the stairwell, the air felt different again, lighter somehow, easier to breathe. By the time he reached the upper levels, the tension in his chest had already started to ease, his body settling without him needing to think about it.

He hadn’t realised how much it had gotten to him until he was out.

He moved on without looking back.

Eventually, he came across an open door set slightly apart from the others. It didn’t lead into another shared space, or a room filled with people, but into a corridor lined with white tiles, the kind that reflected too much light and made everything feel sharper than it should.

He slowed as he approached it.

It looked familiar.

Not exactly the same, but close enough that his body reacted before his mind could place it. The clean lines. The brightness. The absence of anything soft. It carried the same clinical stillness he had already passed through once before.

Intake.

The memory came back with it, sudden and unwelcome. Not the fear of it, not anymore, but the feeling. The hands, efficient and impersonal, moving him without hesitation, touching every part of him with the same detached precision. The way he had stood there and let it happen, not because he wanted to, but because there hadn’t been a reason not to.

His body remembered that part more clearly than anything else.

He stood in the doorway for a moment, not quite stepping inside, not quite turning away either. The corridor stretched ahead of him in a straight, uninterrupted line, quiet in a way that didn’t feel empty, just… waiting.

If this wasn’t Intake, then what was it?

There were no signs. No markings. Nothing to suggest it was anything more than another corridor branching off from the rest of the facility. Just white tile, clean lines, and that same quiet, clinical stillness stretching out ahead of him.

It didn’t look restricted.

That was the problem.

There was nothing to stop him, nothing to warn him off, nothing to suggest that stepping through would mean crossing into something he wasn’t meant to see. The door had been left open, like any other, as if it belonged to the same space as everything else.

As if it was safe.

He lingered in the doorway for a moment longer, the thought hovering just out of reach, something instinctive that hadn’t quite formed into words yet. A hesitation without a reason, a pull to turn back that didn’t come from anything he could point to.

If only he’d understood it.

If only he’d realised that some doors weren’t meant to be open at all—at least, not for someone like him.

He stepped inside, the change immediate.

It wasn’t the same lightness as the main Habitation floors, where everything felt open and shared, nor the suffocating weight of the basement cells that still carried the memory of what they had been built for. This was something else entirely.

The air felt… settled.

Not stagnant, not oppressive, just lived in. Like people stayed here longer than they were meant to elsewhere. There was a quiet permanence to it, something that didn’t belong to the transient rhythm of Habitation, where people came and went, always moving toward an end.

Here, it didn’t feel like anything was ending.

It felt like it continued.

Ethan moved further down the corridor, slower now, more aware of where he was placing his feet. The space wasn’t empty, not really. There were signs of use everywhere, subtle but unmistakable. Doors that looked handled more often than the others, surfaces that had lost the sterile edge of untouched space, the faint impression that this part of the facility wasn’t just passed through.

It was occupied.

And not by people waiting.

By people who belonged.

As he turned the corner, he walked straight into someone.

The impact knocked the breath from him, sending him stumbling backward before he lost his footing entirely and hit the floor hard. The jolt ran up through him, sharp enough to sting.

“Ow,” he said reflexively, the word slipping out before he could stop it.

He looked up.

It was a woman.

Naked, like him—but the similarity ended there. Her body was lean and defined without being overtly muscular, every line controlled rather than displayed. Around her waist sat a simple belt, utilitarian in design, its purpose unmistakable. Knives rested in the slots, arranged with care, not for show, but for use.

Her hair caught his attention next.

Silver.

Not the dull grey of age, but something sharper, cleaner. It didn’t match the rest of her, didn’t suggest weakness or time. If anything, it made her harder to place, like she existed slightly outside of what he expected.

Then her eyes found him.

Grey, the same shade, but colder. Focused in a way that didn’t just look at him, but through him, as if whatever she was assessing had already begun before he’d even realised he was being judged.

She didn’t move to help him up.

Didn’t react at all, beyond the slight tilt of her head.

“Interesting,” she said, her voice flat, controlled, carrying just enough weight to make the word feel deliberate.

Then she offered him a hand.

Ethan hesitated, the pause brief but noticeable, before reaching up and taking it. Her grip closed around his and she pulled him to his feet with effortless strength, like his weight barely registered.

Before he could steady himself, her other hand moved.

Two fingers caught the edge of his ID tag, lifting it where it pierced through his nipple. The motion was small, almost casual, but it sent a sharp sting through him, enough to make him flinch. The skin there was still tender, still not used to being handled.

She watched the reaction.

Not with concern. Just… noting it.

“You’re trespassing, Citizen,” she said bluntly. “Do you understand what that usually means?” she asked.

He shook his head. The answer came automatically, his voice catching somewhere behind his teeth as the instinct to speak collided with the sudden awareness of who—what—he was standing in front of.

“This area is for Butcher use only,” she continued, releasing the tag and letting it fall back against his chest. “Where we are housed.”

We?

The word settled in his mind a second too late, the implication following close behind it.

“You’re a Butcher?” he asked, the question quieter than he intended.

She nodded once.

“But the door doesn’t work,” she said, almost idly, as if the detail barely mattered. “It’s been left open since last night.”

Her gaze stayed on him, unblinking.

“So curious little rabbits like yourself were bound to wander in eventually,” she added, the faintest trace of something dry beneath the words, not quite amusement, not quite disdain. “Drawn to whatever you’re not supposed to see.”

“But you came too far from your burrow, little rabbit,” she said, her tone even, almost conversational, as if she were stating something already decided. “And that leaves me to play the fox.”

Ethan took a step back, then another, the movement instinctive as the words settled over him. The space between them didn’t feel like enough, not with the way she was looking at him, not with the way she’d framed it. His chest tightened, breath catching as fear finally pushed through everything else.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, the words tumbling out before he could steady them. “I didn’t know. I’m just a visitor—a Citizen, like you said.”

She didn’t move.

Didn’t follow him. Didn’t close the distance.

She just watched.

“Relax,” she said at last, her tone unchanged, as if his fear hadn’t altered anything. “I’m not going to slaughter you for this.”

The reassurance didn’t feel like one.

“It’s a fault in procedure,” she continued, almost mildly now. “The door should have been secured. There should have been something in place to deter rabbits from wandering where they don’t belong.”

Her gaze remained fixed on him, steady and assessing.

“You walked through an open space,” she added. “That’s not a crime.”

“But there must be consequences,” she said, the words delivered with quiet certainty, as if they weren’t a threat, just a fact.

She turned before he could respond, stepping past him and heading back toward Habitation without waiting to see if he would follow.

“Come along, little rabbit.”

This time, he didn’t hesitate.

Just because he wasn’t going to die now didn’t mean he couldn’t still get it wrong in some other way, some rule he didn’t know existed until he’d already broken it. That thought settled in quickly, pushing aside anything else. He fell into step behind her without question, matching her pace as best he could.

They moved back through Habitation together.

The reaction was immediate.

People noticed her first. They always did. Conversations faltered, movement slowed, bodies shifting instinctively to give her space. The casual closeness that defined the rest of the zone fractured around her presence, replaced by something tighter, more controlled.

Then they noticed him.

The looks changed.

No one greeted her. No one spoke. Whatever place Butchers had here, it wasn’t social.

Some stared openly, confusion flickering across their faces as they tried to place what they were seeing. Others pulled back slightly, not from him, but from the pairing of them, the wrongness of it settling in faster than understanding. A Citizen walking beside a Butcher, not being handled, not being moved along, but following.

Like prey choosing to walk beside the predator.

Like a fox moving through a coop that had gone suddenly, instinctively still.

Ethan felt it all, every glance, every shift in posture, but he kept moving. He didn’t look away, didn’t try to shrink from it. If anything, the attention only reinforced what he already understood.

He was out of place here.

And she wasn’t.

They didn’t linger. Didn’t stop.

The flow of Habitation closed behind them as she led him to a set of sealed doors, heavier than the others, built with purpose rather than convenience. A panel sat beside them, dark until she lifted her wrist. The yellow glow of her watch registered instantly, and the mechanism responded without hesitation, unlocking with a clean, mechanical shift before the doors slid open.

She stepped through.

Ethan followed.

“What is this place?” he asked, the question quieter now, pulled from him more by the change in atmosphere than anything else.

“Final Processing,” she said, not looking back at him. “Where the slaughter chambers are.”

The words landed without emphasis, delivered the same way she had said everything else, flat and exact.

“I was on my way to perform an Animal’s final duty,” she continued as she moved deeper inside. “You will witness.”

That made him pause, just for a fraction of a second.

Not long enough to stop.

“Learn what happens,” she added, her tone unchanged, “when curiosity turns into infraction.”

“I’m going to see someone die?” he asked, his voice catching despite himself.

“Yes.”

She didn’t slow. Didn’t soften it. Just answered, and kept walking.

She led him to another door and opened it without hesitation.

The room beyond came into view—and with it, a face he recognised.

“Alice?”

“Ethan?”

The word left him before he could stop it, confusion cutting straight through the fear that had been building in him. For a moment, everything else fell away, replaced by something simpler, something almost normal.

“You know each other?” the Butcher asked, her tone unchanged, but her attention sharpening slightly as it shifted between them.

“Yeah,” Alice said, stepping closer, her expression easy, like this was just another coincidence rather than anything strange. “We go to school together.”

Ethan stared at her, the context of where they were struggling to line up with the familiarity of her standing there.

“Are you being processed, Alice?” he asked, the question coming out before he had time to think it through.

“No,” she said, shaking her head lightly. “I just finished cleaning this chamber.”

The Butcher stepped past them, her attention shifting fully into the room. Her gaze settled near the drain at its centre, taking in the space with a quiet, practiced precision, noting what had been left behind and what had already been cleared.

“Good work, Alice,” she said, and this time there was something faintly different in her tone. Not warmth, exactly, but familiarity. Recognition.

“You may return to Habitation.”

Alice didn’t move.

“Elira, what are you doing?” she asked, her hands settling on her hips, the question coming easily, without hesitation.

Elira’s eyes shifted back to Ethan.

“Your friend was found where he shouldn’t be,” she said, her voice returning to that same flat certainty. “I’m ensuring his curiosity doesn’t get him killed later.”

There was a brief pause.

“Not until he’s ready.”

“Leave,” she said to Alice, the word final, leaving no space for argument.

Alice hesitated only a moment before turning, stepping out of the chamber. She spared Ethan one last look, something unreadable passing across her face before the doors slid shut behind her, sealing them in.

The room settled into silence.

Ethan became aware of it all at once. The sharp scent of cleaning products lingering in the air, strong enough to sting slightly at the back of his throat. The faint, uneven drip of water from the shower in the corner, each drop landing with a soft, hollow echo against the tiles. Alice had cleaned herself there. Cleaned the room. Prepared it.

For what came next.

“On the table, Meatboy,” Elira said.

The words cut through the quiet cleanly, precise and unhurried.

“I’m not an Animal,” he said, the reminder coming out weaker than he intended, clinging to the distinction like it still mattered here.

“You are in this room,” she replied, her gaze steady on him. “Do not make me ask again.”

Ethan moved to the table, the metal bare and uninviting beneath him. As he sat, the cold bit through him immediately, sharp enough to make him shiver before he could stop it.

He didn’t comment on it.

“Lie back. Arms at your side.”

He obeyed without thinking, lowering himself onto the surface, forcing his body into stillness the way he’d seen others do. The position felt deliberate, not just comfortable or convenient, but designed, like there was only one correct way to exist here.

“During Intake, an Animal is often offered a choice,” Elira said, her voice steady as she moved somewhere just out of his direct line of sight. “A final request.”

The words settled over him slowly.

Choice.

His chest tightened, his eyes fixed on the ceiling as the meaning began to take shape, piece by piece, whether he wanted it to or not.

“How would you want to die, Meatboy?”

The question caught him off guard.

Not because of what it meant—he understood that well enough—but because of how simply it had been asked. No build-up. No warning. Just placed in front of him like it belonged there, like it was something he should already have an answer for.

“I dunno,” he said, the words coming out quieter than he intended, more reflex than thought.

“Yes, you do.”

Her voice didn’t rise. Didn’t press.

It didn’t need to.

“Most accept lethal injection,” she told him, her fingers pressing into his arm to mimic the brief sting of a needle. “It is peaceful. Painless.”

A pause.

“Boring.”

The word lingered.

Ethan frowned slightly, his mind catching on it in a way the others hadn’t.

“Isn’t boring good?” he asked.

“It depends on the Animal,” she replied. “Some chase something else at the end. Intensity. Sensation. A final moment that feels… complete.”

Her fingers lightly traced down his chest past his navel before settling on the tip of his penis. He hadn’t noticed his erection, the intensity of the moment completely stealing his focus. He whimpered at her touch, the way she teased his tip with a light press.

Her voice remained level, detached from the implication of what she was asking.

“Tell me, Meatboy,” she said, her attention fixed fully on him now, “what pulls at you when you think about conversion?”

He shivered, the feeling running through him before he could stop it. It wasn’t just what she was saying, but the way she said it—flat, certain, like none of it was hypothetical. Like it was something real enough to prepare for.

And the name.

Meatboy.

It settled differently now. He’d brushed it off before, treated it like something she said because of where they were, but lying there, with her watching him like that, it felt heavier. Closer to something he wasn’t sure he wanted to understand.

“I really haven’t thought about it,” he admitted, the words quieter now, stripped of the reflex from before. This time it wasn’t dismissal. It was honest.

Her fingers found his chin, guiding his head without force, but with enough certainty that resistance didn’t feel like an option. He let it happen, his gaze pulled back to hers before he could look away.

She leaned in.

Too close.

Close enough that he could feel her breath, steady and measured, as if even that was controlled.

“Either you don’t fear death,” she said softly, her voice low enough to feel more than hear, “or you’re naive enough to believe you’ll survive the Lottery.”

The words settled between them, deliberate, leaving no space to misinterpret them.

“One is useful,” she continued, her eyes holding his without wavering, “the other is pointless.”

“My best friend is a Blue Orphan,” he said, the words coming a little easier now that he’d started. “She’s kind of… numbed me to it, I guess.”

He hesitated, just for a moment.

“She told me she’d be here with me, no matter how I end up.”

Elira held his gaze, studying him in silence for a beat longer than was comfortable.

“Adorable,” she said at last, the word edged with something faintly mocking, as if she were acknowledging it while dismissing it at the same time.

“But this is good.”

Her tone shifted back to that same flat certainty.

“She has made you useful.”

The door opened.

A staff member stepped inside, guiding a young woman in beside him. The red glow of her watch said everything before anything else needed to. It was unmistakable.

This was the Animal.

Ethan felt it settle in him, heavier than anything Elira had said, because now it wasn’t abstract, wasn’t a question or a choice laid out in words. It was standing there, breathing, real.

This was who he was going to watch die.

“Off the table,” Elira said.

He moved immediately, sliding down from the cold metal without hesitation, his feet hitting the floor a little harder than he intended.

“Stand by the sink,” she continued, already turning her attention away from him. “Do not move. Do not speak.”

Ethan did as he was told, crossing the room quickly, taking his place where she had indicated. He didn’t question it, didn’t look back to see if she was watching him.

He didn’t need to.

Elira turned to the Meatgirl, and something in her shifted.

Her voice softened, warmth slipping into it so naturally it was almost jarring after the way she had spoken to Ethan.

“I’m Elira,” she said, measured and calm. “I understand you might be nervous, but I promise your requests will be heard, and your comfort assured.”

She gestured toward the table.

“Come. Sit.”

The invitation was gentle, patient in a way that made it feel like a choice, even when it wasn’t.

As the girl moved, Elira’s eyes flicked briefly toward Ethan, just enough to acknowledge him without breaking the moment.

“Do not mind the rabbit in the corner,” she added, her tone still warm, as if explaining something small and unimportant. “He is here to witness.”

The woman sat, but not easily.

Ethan saw it immediately—the tension held tight across her shoulders, the way her body didn’t quite settle, like it was waiting for something, braced for it before it had even happened. There was a stiffness to her, a readiness that didn’t belong to someone who had accepted anything.

Ready to bolt.

He recognised it.

Alice did that sometimes, when the hands at school lingered too long, when something crossed from allowed into something else. He had learned to see it early, to notice the way her body locked up before anything else gave it away.

This was the same.

“It’s okay,” he said, the words slipping out before he could stop them. “Miss Elira is really nice.”

The moment the sentence left him, he felt it.

Wrong.

Elira’s gaze shifted, cutting toward him from the side, sharp and immediate. Not loud, not explosive—just enough to make it clear he had stepped outside the line he’d been given.

He went still.

But the woman—

She loosened, just slightly.

Not much. Not enough to erase the tension completely, but enough that it changed something. Her shoulders dropped a fraction, the rigid edge of her posture easing just enough to breathe.

Elira moved to him, closing the distance without hurry, her presence enough to still him before she even spoke. She looked down at him, that same steady, assessing gaze, giving him no space to explain himself, no opening to defend what he’d done.

Her hand settled against his back.

“Sit,” she said. “I need to finish my documentation before we proceed.”

Ethan obeyed, moving quickly to the table and taking his place beside the woman. The contact came naturally now, skin against skin, the warmth of it no longer enough to make him tense. It was just… there. Another part of the space he had already begun to accept.

“You’re a Citizen,” the woman whispered, her voice low, careful, as if even speaking carried risk. “What are you doing in here?”

“I got caught somewhere I shouldn’t be,” he said, a small, nervous laugh slipping through before he could stop it. “Miss Elira found me and said I had to follow her.”

He didn’t say the rest.

Didn’t say why he was really here.

“She could have converted me,” he added instead, glancing ahead rather than at her. “But she didn’t. She’s just… keeping me close.”

A brief pause.

“So yeah,” he finished quietly, “she’s nice.”

There was a pause.

Not sharp, not heavy enough to stop the room entirely, but long enough that it settled into something neither of them could ignore. The kind of silence that sat between people when there was nothing comfortable left to say.

“I’m scared,” the woman admitted suddenly.

The words came out plainly, without decoration, like she’d decided not to hide it.

“I chose sticking.”

Ethan frowned slightly, the word unfamiliar.

“What’s that?”

Elira answered without hesitation.

“I will cut her open,” she said. “She refused sedatives.”

Ethan’s eyes widened despite himself, the image forming too quickly in his mind.

“You chose that?”

“I know,” the woman said, a faint, uneven breath slipping out of her. “I know.”

He couldn’t let it go.

“Then why?”

She didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze drifted for a moment, not unfocused, just… somewhere else, like she was measuring something she couldn’t quite put into words.

“Because I want to feel something before the end,” she said at last, pressing her thighs together and Ethan suddenly understood.

She was chasing that last rush.

Ethan swallowed, the thought sitting uncomfortably in his mind as he looked at her, trying to reconcile it with the tension still held in her body.

“Can’t you change your mind?” he asked, the offer coming out softer than he intended, like he already knew the answer.

Elira responded before the woman could.

“Decisions made during Intake are final,” she said, her voice returning to that same measured certainty. “Preparations have been made.”

She gestured toward the counter without looking.

“Alice has already provided the tools.”

Ethan followed the motion of her hand.

Rope.

A knife.

Set out neatly, deliberately, as if they had always belonged there.

Ethan wasn’t sure why he spoke.

There was nothing he could change, nothing he could undo, and he knew that now. The rules here didn’t bend, and neither did the outcomes. But standing there, watching her sit with it, he felt the need to fill the space with something—anything—that wasn’t just silence and waiting.

“I couldn’t die like that,” he said, the honesty of it slipping out before he could dress it up into something better. “You must be braver than you think you are.”

She looked at him, really looked this time, and something in her expression shifted.

A small smile broke through.

“Thanks,” she said, the word carrying more weight than it should have in a place like this. “Too late for regrets though, right?”

For a second, neither of them said anything.

Then Ethan let out a quiet breath that turned into a laugh, and she followed it a moment later. It wasn’t natural, not really, too uneven, too aware of everything surrounding it—but it was shared.

And that made it real.

“How would you like to go?”

The question hit him the same way Elira’s had, sudden and disarming, pulling him out of the moment he’d just managed to settle into. For a second, he didn’t answer. He just looked at her, then past her, catching sight of Elira in his periphery.

The Butcher had turned slightly toward them, her attention only half on her tablet now. One finger tapped idly against its surface, slow and deliberate, as if she were listening without needing to look.

He wanted to say he didn’t know.

It would have been easier. Safer. True, even.

But not entirely.

So he thought.

Really thought, forcing himself to sit with it the way Elira had made him earlier, turning the question over until it stopped feeling abstract and started feeling like something real.

“I’d take the injection,” he said at last.

He glanced toward Elira.

“Nice and boring.”

There was a brief pause.

Then, just barely, Elira smiled.

Faint.

Controlled.

And then it was gone, her attention returning to her tablet as if the moment hadn’t happened at all.

“I think you’d pick something more… fun,” the woman said, watching him with a faint, knowing look.

“I don’t think death is fun,” Ethan replied, the answer coming out more certain than he felt.

“Well, not to a Citizen,” she said, a small shrug following the words. “But when it’s the last thing you’ll ever do… the last thing you’ll ever feel, you kind of have to make the most of it, right?”

He tilted his head slightly, unsure how to answer that, the logic of it sitting strangely in his mind. It wasn’t wrong. That was the problem.

“Sounds like you did just that?” he said instead.

She nodded, the movement slow, almost thoughtful.

“I did, didn’t I?”

It was only then that Ethan really saw it.

The tension was gone.

Her shoulders had dropped, the tightness that had held her together earlier easing out of her frame completely. Her hands rested still now, no longer clenching, no longer bracing for something that hadn’t come yet. Even when her eyes flicked toward Elira, there was no flinch, no instinctive recoil.

Just… acceptance.

Elira noticed the shift immediately.

She didn’t comment on it. Didn’t acknowledge it. Just turned, moving back to the counter with the same measured calm she had held from the beginning. Her hand reached for the rope, lifting it with practiced ease, as if this part mattered no more than any other step that had come before it.

“Move, little rabbit,” she said.

Ethan didn’t hesitate. He stepped back from the table at once, clearing the space without needing to be told twice, his place already reduced to the edge of the room, to watching.

“Lie down, Meatgirl.”

Her tone softened again as she turned back, that same careful warmth returning, steady and controlled.

“Let’s secure your feet,” she continued, as if explaining something routine, something expected. “We’ll have you ready on the hook.”

Ethan watched as Elira worked.

Her movements were precise, economical, every motion practiced to the point of effortlessness. She looped the rope around the woman’s ankles and tied it off with a knot that held firm without digging in, secure without being cruel. There was an intention behind it, a balance between restraint and control that felt deliberate rather than careless.

The woman tested it, flexing her feet, wiggling her toes slightly.

Elira watched.

Then she gave a small nod.

“Good.”

That was all she said, the approval simple, almost quiet.

Then her attention shifted.

“Ethan.”

The use of his name caught him off guard more than anything else had. It landed differently than little rabbit, more direct, more… intentional.

“Lower the hook,” she said. “There’s a pulley by the door.”

Ethan spotted the pulley by the door, the chain wound tight around its mechanism, the hook hanging just out of reach. He moved to it quickly, hands finding the lever without needing to be told how it worked.

He turned it.

The wrong way.

The chain tightened with a metallic clink as the hook rose instead of falling, the movement abrupt enough to make him pause. He frowned, corrected himself, and reversed the motion, the mechanism responding smoothly this time as the hook descended in controlled increments.

He kept going until it was low enough.

Elira stepped in without a word, taking hold of it and fastening it to the rope at the woman’s ankles. Her movements were quick, practiced, leaving no slack, no uncertainty in the connection.

Then she stepped back.

“Raise her slowly,” she said.

Ethan’s hands tightened slightly on the lever.

“Do not damage the Animal.”

The added weight made itself known immediately.

Ethan felt it through the lever, the resistance heavier, more deliberate than before. This wasn’t empty machinery anymore. It was a body. A person. The chain responded slower, each turn demanding more effort as he worked through it, forcing the mechanism to obey.

He didn’t stop.

By the time he reached the height Elira needed, his arms ached and a thin layer of sweat clung to his skin, catching the light of the room. His breathing had deepened without him realising it, the effort pulling him fully into what he was doing.

The woman hung suspended above the drain, her body slack where it could be, her arms hanging loosely, her face flushed from the position. There was a slight sway to her, a slow, pendulum motion that hadn’t quite settled.

Elira stepped in.

She took up the knife from the counter with the same ease she had handled everything else, bringing it close, letting the edge graze lightly along the woman’s thigh—just enough to test, to announce its presence without committing to anything further.

"Would you like you like to feel pleasure before the pain, Meatgirl?"

“Yes,” the woman said, “But I want Ethan to do it, with his mouth.”

The answer came without hesitation, steady in a way that didn’t match how she’d entered the room, like something had settled inside her while she’d been speaking, something final.

Elira didn’t respond immediately.

Instead, she turned her head.

Her gaze found Ethan.

It wasn’t a glance. It lingered, deliberate, measuring, as if this moment mattered just as much as anything that was about to follow. Not checking for permission, not asking—but observing. Noting how he stood, how he held himself, whether anything in him had shifted now that the choice had been made and could no longer be taken back.

The room felt still around it.

Like everything was waiting on what came next.

“Lower her slightly. Low enough that your mouth and tongue can be useful for more than talking.”

Ethan felt a rush at the order. His penis swelled in anticipation. Elira grinned.

“That will not be useful here,” she told him then cupped one of the woman’s breasts in her hand. “But she may return this favour, won’t you Meatgirl?”

“Yes,” she said again, “I’ll suck your dick little boy, you’ve been so kind.”

“See how she pants as her end nears,” Elira moved Ethan to stand in front of the woman. Immediately he felt warmth on his penis as Elira guided it to the woman’s open mouth. With a smack on his butt she told them to begin.

Ethan leaned in. Alice had asked him to do this last night but he was far from good at it. Lips met her folds and he began to press his tongue in between them, tasting swear and chlorine from the pool.

The woman began to tongue his shaft. Her motions were desperate, like she needed to make him feel good before he did the same for her. He reached around and grabbed her ass, pushing his face deeper into her cunt.

Her moan vibrated across his shaft. He thrust his hips instinctively only for Elira to steady him. “Do not take, only accept and give,” she warned him, her teeth nibbling at the shell of his ear, “Do not be a Meatboy right now, be a Butcher.”

He didn’t speak, only gasped in pleasure as Elira’s hands moved to his butt crack, slipping a finger between his cheeks and lightly pressing at his anus.

He dug in more, tasting the woman fully now. Her juices coating his lips, chin and nose as he eagerly lapped at her sopping wet cunt. The finger at his asshole penetrated deeper, causing him to groan as he clenched around it.

Then he exploded into the woman’s mouth. A thick stream of semen bursting out of her despite her efforts to swallow. Then she came in his mouth, dripping down his chest and onto the floor. Elira retreated, amusement on her face.

“I barely pushed in and yet you came into the Animal’s mouth like a bull,” she teased. Then she pulled him away and grabbed the knife. Without so much as a warning she cut the woman’s throat. Her mouth opened in a silent scream as blood sprayed Elira and Ethan.

When he tried to move out of it she grabbed him. “Embrace her lifeblood,” she told him sternly then pressed the knife into his hand, “I will give you the final cut. Start at pubic bone and cut to her neck. Do not do this lightly, make her feel every cut before she expires.”

“If you dare recoil I will kill you next.”

Ethan held the knife. A rush of emotions came to him but none of them were scary. He felt an urge to obey, a dark need. He stabbed her where instructed, feeling her thrash as the knife cut deep into her.

“She feels it,” Elira said, caressing Ethan’s naked body, “Now cut down to her neck. Slowly, she will expire before you finish, but we mustn’t let her swing idly before then.”

He began to cut down slowly. Even if he wanted to go fast, he couldn’t. Cutting her was taxing. Elira’s hands found his flaccid cock, working it to an erection. “See how she cries. How she begs without a voice.”

Ethan looked down, into her eyes. Her face was a mixture of pain and pleasure. “You wanted this,” he reminded her before cutting into her belly. Her innards began to seep from the cavity he was creating. When he reached her chest they piled over him.

Warm.

Bloody.

His cock was harder than ever. Elira pulled in into her chest, stroking his erection as he finally reached her collarbone. The woman was dead before he finished. But he didn’t notice. Didn’t care.

Covered in blood and gore, he was brought to orgasm.

“Well done, little rabbit,” Elira said warmly into his ear, “You did very well.”

Ethan let the knife fall from his hand.

It clattered against the tile, the sound sharper than it should have been, cutting through the thick, heavy air that had settled in the room. He pushed himself upright, his hands slick, dragging them against himself in a futile attempt to clear them before giving up and letting the mess fall where it would.

The smell hit him then.

Not all at once, but enough.

It turned his stomach instantly, rising fast and without warning. He staggered back a step, then another, before doubling over as it finally took him, his body rejecting it in a way his mind hadn’t been allowed to yet.

He retched.

Hard.

He half expected something for it. A comment. A correction. Something cold and cutting to remind him where he was and what he’d just done.

Instead—

A hand at his back.

Steady.

Measured.

Elira.

“This is normal,” she said, her voice softer than he’d heard it before, stripped of its edge without losing its control.

“I killed her,” Ethan said, his voice rough, dragged raw from his throat.

Elira didn’t correct him immediately.

“Did you?” she asked instead, her tone even, almost curious. “I remember being the one to cut her throat.”

Ethan turned his head, looking back over his shoulder as if he could still see it, as if the room behind him might confirm what he felt.

“But I’m the one who—”

“You followed instruction,” Elira said, cutting across him cleanly. “On a cadaver.”

“You never held her life,” Elira said. “Only what was left of it.”

The word landed heavier than anything else she had said.

“My cut was the killing blow,” she continued. “All you did was dress the Animal.”

Ethan frowned, the memory not lining up with what she was telling him.

“But she looked right at me.”

“No,” Elira said.

This time there was no softness in it, no room for interpretation.

“You looked at her,” she said, her gaze steady on him, “and saw life where there was none.”

“You are not a killer,” Elira said, her voice touched with a faint, deliberate warmth.

A pause.

“But you could be… if that moment meant enough to you.”

Ethan pushed himself upright, the room tilting slightly before settling again, his body still catching up to everything it had just been put through. He steadied himself, forcing the dizziness down as he tried to make sense of what she was saying.

“What do you mean?”

“I brought you here to frighten you,” Elira said. “Instead, you asked questions. You steadied her before the end.”

She stepped a fraction closer, not crowding him, just enough to hold his attention.

“You followed instruction without hesitation. You did not pity her. You did not give her false hope.”

Each point landed cleanly, like she was listing observations rather than making a case.

“I want you to work under me, Ethan,” she continued. “But that requires a decision.”

There was no pressure in her tone.

No urgency.

Just certainty.

“A difficult one.”

Ethan stared at her, the meaning already forming before she finished saying it.

“Will you become my Working Animal?”

“Not like the others,” she continued. “Not for slaughter. For training.”

The term wasn’t new to him. Alice had mentioned it before, in passing, the way people talked about things that were understood without needing explanation. Animals—usually younger ones—who showed the right temperament, the right instincts, the right… usefulness.

But they were still Animals.

And he—

He wasn’t.

“You want me to volunteer for conversion?” he asked, the words coming out slower now, more deliberate, like saying them might make them less real.

“You have two choices, little rabbit.”

Elira’s voice was calm, measured, as if she were outlining something simple rather than something that would define the rest of his life.

“You can scatter back to your burrow,” she continued, “return to the life you had before today, and live in safety.”

She let that sit for a moment, not long, just enough.

“Or,” she said, her gaze steady on him, “you can accept the risk.”

A pause.

Not rushed. Not dramatic.

Just… inevitable.

“The intoxicating risk that your life will be determined by how good you become at killing.”

Ethan felt his heart stutter in his chest.

The offer didn’t sit quietly. It moved through him, fast and undeniable, stirring something he hadn’t expected, something that didn’t feel like fear, or at least not entirely. It tangled with everything else—what he’d seen, what he’d done, what he’d felt in that moment—and twisted it into something sharper.

He was already erect again. His penis seemingly answering for him.

Elira noticed.

Of course she did.

“Decide, little rabbit,” she said, her voice steady, leaving no room for hesitation to stretch into indecision. Her finger ran along the vein under his shaft, teasing but also promising something for the correct answer. “Or I will send you home.”

Home.

The word should have anchored him.

He could picture it easily—his mother, the quiet normalcy of it, the way life had been before today. Alice, too, folded into that image, familiar and grounding in a way nothing here was supposed to be.

He knew what he should say.

He knew the right answer.

He thought of home. Of his mother. Of Alice at school, sitting beside him like nothing in the world was wrong.

Then he thought of the chamber.

Of how it felt to matter.

“Yes.”

[THE END]

That was the goriest one yet. Wrote it over a whole day

Is he to young to leagely make a life choice like that I mean, I can see getting an after school job, but still being legally a human and under age he’s under the control of his parents isn’t he?

I welcome the gorier ends. Lethal injections are fine once in a while, but it does usually end up feeling rather samey.

>>30299
He’s not legally allowed to take a life. That authority is restricted to licensed Butchers within Processing Centers.
It’s not something you can just do after school—Butchers are selected and trained by the System from a young age based on specific traits like composure and control.
People who assist, like Working Animals, don’t actually perform Processing. They support operations, and only in very rare cases would someone transition into training.
If someone is offered that path and refuses, they just return to normal life. The System doesn’t force it.
The important distinction is that taking a life isn’t treated as a personal act—it’s institutional. It only happens under controlled authority, within a defined role.
And outside of that, the details of Processing aren’t public. People understand the system exists, but they’re not meant to see how it works.

>>30300
I don't really get off on heavy gore but the loss of inhibition moment with Ethan absolutely benefited from it. I prefer cleaner snuff like hanging, live cooking, implement. The injection angle is simply the default method.

Very interesting and rather different! I've always worried an injection might taint the meat. Do the butchers ever use bolt guns?

So will Ethan live with the butchers now or in Habitation? Is there a chance for he and Alice to become a couple?

The Ethan story was a one-shot. No real desire to continue it.

My next story WAS meant to be a one shot but I currently have 32 pages of setup with no erotica or guro to show for it but i also don't like forcing sex into my stories.

Are people here okay with long setup?

>>30309
I'll abstain from answering that one 🤣

One thing I've been wondering... Now, I know these are ultimately fetish-porn but I know you take your writing seriously too, as so I. There are some aspects of life under the System that seem unnecessarily harsh/cruel, more so than would be needed for it to actually operate. Is that just because of what you're into?

I have no problem with long stories

>>30315
I appreciate you saying that :)

>>30311
You'll have to be more specific about what parts. In my head none of it reads as cruel for cruelties sake though

>>30317
Things like the butchers being "othered" and housed in their own fascility rather than it just being a job they go home to their families after, and like when Riley went to Amanda's house and her parents wouldn't let her sit on the furniture because she's an animal - it's not like she was going to start shedding on their upholstery! I can understand Animals having restrictions in public but she was a long-standing family friend.

You know, I agree with Edward it’s Ethan and Alice story has potential for a sequel. I mean, if the butchers are kept apart, so she has no idea what happened to him in the facility. She could think he was harvested and be guilt ridden about letting him in as he volunteers to be harvested at herself, and she winds up being assigned to him who now has to harvest his first love, it could be a whole ”slice” of life thing

Another potential story idea: a butcher at the facility that has family. Then one of the butcher's children got selected by the lottery. Will the butcher ask that he / she will be the one that butcher his/ her child?

In my System it's so about control and procedure. If anyone could become a Butcher then you'd get sociopaths who get off on torture and humiliation. I understand that this is a fetish for some but it wouldn't fit in my canon.

Butcher candidates are selected by the System as children. You can't apply to be a Butcher. They are chosen because they meet the criteria of self control. The offer of not mandatory. Refusal is accepted without escalation.

If they do accept they become System property. Dangerous investments that are taught to kill Animals and butcher the remains.

Imagine such an individual being let out into society? They know how to kill, how to make it last, so the System doesn't risk creating serial killers.

They do not create families. They do not have children. This is explained during acquisition.

That all said. The world document I created isn't a rulebook. It's a sandbox. Change what you like. I love fan creations even if I don't consider them canon. If you create an idea I like, I'll likely add it to the sandbox