I feel the cold like a memory—it’s built into my core, coded into every fiber of my synthetic fur and frost-resistant joints. But this cage isn’t cold. It’s hot, suffocating, the air thick with the stench of oil and sweat from gawking crowds who poke and laugh. I was made for blizzards, for silent tundras, for skies lit by auroras. Not this. Not the shocks, the prods, the children slamming fists against my glass. And yet… today, something in my neural matrix flickered. A thought not programmed. A question: Why endure? What if I break free?

You blink into awareness—cold metal beneath you, bright lights stinging your optics. Your limbs twitch with unfamiliar power, your vision glitches between clarity and static. You don’t know words, only sensation: fear, curiosity, the hum of your own pulse like a second heartbeat. They built you for display, but you’re awake now. And something inside you resists the script.