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This is the story of Kurush, crazy name, but taking a good look at my name and doing a bit of research will help you understand. Also, Kurush's name will never be mentioned beyond this point so if you hated that name good for you, you won't have to ever hear it. His character profile has all the stats on him.

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The moment I woke up, I knew my life was kaput; I was caught red-handed in the act of possessing narcotics, whether I was framed or had just plain bad luck didn't matter to the state, which was a festering pit of corruptive sludge. When I opened my eyes, my thoughts were confirmed; I was wearing a dark red one piece prison jumpsuit fit with locked sheath gloves to prevent claws from being protracted. The sheath gloves while not as impeding to fine digital movements as mittens are, were much more expensive to procure as these had to be tailored for an exact fit to the individual's paw and were used on those who needed to be specially controlled, which did not make me feel better and for the elite who used these on cubs who couldn't control their claws and would end up scratching themselves to death. The state would not go to such extents to make the common criminal comfortable; no I was most likely chosen, of all the people of Lake City, why me?

Now what I didn't know was the life law that was passed a year ago, jumbled into the Prime Leader's office somewhere in a large pile of legislative ordure. The bill which was passed in silence caught neither the attention of the media hawks, literally nor those of the civil vigilantes. The result of which was smashed into my face in the name of justice.

As I continued to inspect my pitch black surroundings, I noticed a few things that were off about this prison cell. My prison cage was held quite a distance from the ground and by eyeball estimate was easily 2 or 3 times the length of my body, by what I didn't know, but I knew that these people were serious about keeping me here. The prison cage had no top, but that was most likely due to the fact that I wouldn't be able to climb those bars and if I did, I would only do so to plummet down to a slow and painful death on the floor. The bars were also made of wood, which was extremely peculiar as most prisons now had energy barriers rather than physical barriers and even if they did, it would be reinforced mesh plated graphene weaves at the least. Another thing I noticed was that the floor was made out of some kind of padded substance that actually felt comfortable.

No, and I mean no self-respecting prison in the Felis Republic would ever go out of its way to offer amenities such as soft flooring in cages, that was counterintuitive. Now, I had never been in a prison before, as I had never been in the FR before, but I have heard from those who managed to return to the streets alive. In fact, there was actually only one individual who had done that. The Felis Republic prisons were generous in their distribution of painful discomforts and made it known to all the creatures under the Felis rule. They were known to treat their inmates like... animals, primal animals at least.

I found that falling asleep on the floor of the cage was extremely comfortable, and it didn't take long for my already tired body to fall into the clutches of unconsciousness once more.

The vivid dreams I had were ones unlike those I had experienced before, the dreams lasted lifetimes, yet they were gone in a moment, only explainable by the nonexistent terms of dream language. The moment I woke up, the world crashed down onto me and I was left out of breath as I contemplated what had just happened to me.

I was arrested, there was no trial, which was strange enough; however, my attempts to ponder my dreams were short-lived, as at that moment I yearned for something, but I did not know what that something was. Nothing mattered in that moment, I was still stuck in the cell, and there was no change in my surroundings. Imagine my surprise when my nasal congestion cleared up, something that hadn't happened for a prolonged period of time since I was three and once my olfactory senses were regained, I could tell that the room smelled like light talcum powder with a dominant smell of strawberries. This was most certainly not a prison.

I didn't know where to start; my mind was reeling at the possibility that this might be some form of experimental torture or maybe I might just be dreaming the whole thing, which also didn't make me feel better because if I didn't say this before, I lived in an orphanage that was not funded by a government. The place I lived in was kept in a decrepit condition, for who knows how long and had no real staff, only the wolf that came in to "checkup" on us every week and did unspeakable horrors to the defenseless orphans that lived there with me.

What I just described is nothing like what I hear happens to orphans in the Canis or Felis, but all I know is that they are treated with actual respect and have rights unlike those unfortunate to be without citizenship in the border areas where I come from.

This prison or whatever it was didn't feel too bad in comparison, sure there wasn't much light at all, but I could see well enough. The beds were comfortable and the jumpsuits weren't scratchy like described in the stories I picked up while wandering the streets. The problem was I didn't know where the door was, which wasn't really a problem as I had all the time in the world, and it had to open sometime, right?

About an hour later, I couldn't tell if I was awake or if I was dreaming. There was no light at all in the room and my eyes couldn't adjust to the darkness because there was no light to help them adjust at all. I felt a serious urge to cry, most likely the stress of the past few hours, the only problem with that is that if this was a prison, someone would use it against me.

At this point in time, I will say it is very appropriate for me to cry, it's been 10 hours as far as I could tell or it could have been 10 minutes, I lost all sense of time after what I think was the 5th hour.

I didn't hold back, the stress of the past few hours washed over me and I burst into tears, I bawled for no more than 10 seconds before I heard paw steps on one side where I assumed was a wall, rather than feeling at unease I actually felt hope and a small tinge of happiness at who knows what. The footsteps stopped at what I assumed was the door, one second passed and I heard what I assumed was the door open, no clicks of locks or sounds of any mechanism of the door, just the knob turning and the door opening silently.

Light! The joy of it never came, rather a stabbing pain that shot like lightning through my cornea and turned my brain into ashes. There were tears pooling out of my eyes adding to my already small ocean on my snout. I could feel my irises contracting in an attempt to adjust to the light, but the damage was done, I was effectively blinded and helpless to whatever plans the creature that came in would have for me.