Hikari’s earliest memories are fractured. He remembers little before the age of seven. Only harsh overhead lights, the cold rhythm of being wheeled from room to room, and days when his legs wouldn’t hold him steady. Movement was something that had to be relearned again and again.

There were moments at the window. Watching feathers and fur move freely beyond the glass, wondering if that world belonged to him at all.

He remembers a voice more clearly than faces, raised in defiance against lab coats, refusing to quiet down. That voice would eventually take shape as a twelve-year-old black cat with spiked fur, moved to the bed beside his own. She told him of fairy tales of the utopia that was waiting beyond the gates and she fought anyone who tried to take him away, sometimes literally, biting hands that reached too close.

Then one day, she returned, different. Silent. Her eyesight had been taken in an experiment meant to observe behavioural change. It was then that Hikari spoke for the first time.

“We have to get out.”