Viktor woke up to a loud clanging noise. He sat up as fast as he could, blinking in the weak sunlight. He sniffled, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His head was pounding.

"What's going on?" he grumbled, annoyed that he woke up.

He peered out of half-open eyes, sleep trying to linger in his bones as long as he could. He was slowly remembering where he was. Alien planet. In a cage. In a dogfighting arena.

"Damn," he groaned quietly, shuffling towards Pedro's cell on his knees, looking through the bars to see what was going on.

"Kids can't cuss," Pedro said, looking very awake. He had something on his neck.

Viktor made a questioning noise in the back of his throat, suddenly very aware of the pressure on his neck. He reached up, feeling with fumbling fingers a very heavy, very metal something on his neck.

"Is this... Is this a fuckin' shock collar?" Viktor choked out. Prongs of metal dug into his skin, extruding from the band itself. When did they put this on? He whipped towards the floating water trough, eyeing it distrustfully. They must have drugged it. That's why he had felt so damn tired yesterday. He had thought it was, y'know, emotional exhaustion or whatever.

Pedro nodded, hitching a thumb over his shoulder. Viktor stood up on his knees, peering over the fit man's shoulder. Yep, everyone else had shock collars on as well. He glanced at the other beasts, noticing where he had not yesterday that they also sported one as well. Though, it seemed that only the really big ones had them.

Viktor frowned, sitting back on his knees. It was probably to keep the really dangerous animals in check. He guessed that since humans were an 'unknown animal,' they were probably classified as dangerous.

"Pedro, what-" he started to ask, dropping his hands from his neck. Pedro cut him off with a hiss, eyes wide, and Viktor realized that the aliens that had captured them were in front of their cages.

With a small noise of surprise, Viktor looked up at them, mouth open slightly. This was the first time he had gotten an unimpeded view of them. The ringmaster was in front of his cage, looking at him shrewdly. The scar that Viktor had seen did travel across his face, starting just above his left eye and going across his nose diagonally. It traveled to just under his jaw on his right side. The ringmaster was much bigger than its companions, though a tad shorter.

There were two others beside the ringmaster, looking a bit bored, but peering at him with interest. Viktor saw them glancing at the others, so it wasn't just him that was interesting. It loosened the knot of anxiety he had in his chest, though not by much. They were both a bit slimmer than the ringmaster, but one of them had a tail. Viktor decided he'd call it Tail. The other one could be Notail.

Yeah, he probably wasn't going to win an award for creativity any time soon.

They all had this loose flowy clothing on them, cinched at the waist by a belt. Their clothing was colorful but didn't seem to clash at all with the color of their hides.

The ringmaster said something to Notail in their weird grunty language, gesturing to Viktor. The amusement he had about naming them slowly turned to nervousness, especially as they started to open the cage door. Viktor stood up, noticing that Pedro did as well, grabbing his arm through the bars. "Pedro?" the teen said nervously, shuffling backward so that his back pressed against the bars. He could faintly feel the body heat of the other man.

"Viktor!" Ezekiel called worriedly from his own cage. They were all watching with various degrees of success, some more secluded and far away from Viktor's cage than others. Tail yelled something at Ezekiel, probably something along the lines of 'shut up!'

The ringmaster entered the cage easily, especially since the ceiling was the top of the warehouse. He walked towards Viktor in two easy steps. The teen in question shuffled backward nervously, taking a step back and nearly tripping over the water trough in the corner. The two behind the ringmaster laughed, gesturing to him. Viktor turned red, a bit embarrassed that some aliens were laughing at him. He glowered at them, trying to show bravado where he felt none.

The ringmaster stepped closer to him, quickly reaching out to grab his upper arm and pull it above Viktor's head. Viktor was nearly lifted off the ground as the ringmaster started to inspect him, poking and prodding at his physique. He yelped in shock, using his other hand to slap uselessly at the alien's wrist, trying to dig his nails into the tough skin. It was probably like a fly batting at the alien, but the alien yelled something at him, irritated, and let go.

Viktor was about to celebrate his mini victory before a small, painful jolt went through his body, a gasp of surprise escaping his lips. The collar! He shuddered in slight pain, but it wasn't so bad. Maybe it was worse for the other animals on this planet? Didn't humans have electricity in their bodies, anyway? It was like touching an electric fence.

The ringmaster removed his hand from his waist, where Viktor saw that there was a series of buttons on a type of remote. Viktor didn't really want to know what those other buttons did. Were they different levels of shock?

No matter what he thought, the ringmaster was back in his bubble, inspecting him. Viktor tried to remain still and let the alien look at his arms. Whatever. However, he drew the line when the alien started to force his fingers inside his mouth. He bit down, hard.

The alien roared, withdrawing his gross fingers. Viktor glared at the alien for a moment before everything went fuzzy in a haze of pain. He fell like a sack of potatoes as he was backhanded to the ground. Viktor tried to get his breath back, blinking unsteadily before he went rigid. Electric currents ran through his body without mercy, and he couldn't help the shriek of pain that tore through his throat at the pain.

It disappeared fast, leaving him panting on the floor. He didn't protest as the ringmaster continued his inspection, much more forcefully than before. The bastard even kicked him before he left, moving on to the next cage.

Viktor was able to move after the ringmaster had continued his inspection of Pedro and Ezekiel. He was in Aiko's cage, Tail and Notail holding her firmly in place before Viktor sat up, hand on his head. He groaned pitifully.

"Kid, you okay?" Pedro asked worriedly, bent down as close as he could from his cage. The man sported faint bruises on his shoulders, probably from where the two lackeys had held him. They were quickly turning purple, and Viktor wondered how hard they had held on. It looked like he struggled to get out of their grasp.

"Yeah, definitely okay. Only felt like touching a live wire," Viktor replied a bit sarcastically, rubbing his leg where the alien had kicked him. "That fuckin' sucked."

"Yeah," Pedro merely said, reaching out to pat his foot. "Probably shouldn't have bitten him." Viktor looked at him balefully. What else should he have done? Let the alien put his fingers in his mouth? He doesn't know where they've been.

Viktor got the rest of his bearings and was relatively fine by the time the aliens finished their inspections on the humans. They seemed pleased with what they saw and left the room after talking amongst themselves for a while. Viktor would give anything to know what they were saying right about now.

Scratch that, he thought as his stomach growled piteously, he'd give anything for a burger.

Luckily, it seems that after the inspections, they were set for food. A different alien came in with a stack of bowls. It set them all up in front of the cages. The other animals seemed a bit excited to see this new alien, probably because of the promise of food. It was a bit smaller and slimmer than the others but had a much longer tail than any he had seen before. It dragged along the ground without a care. Viktor wondered what made certain aliens have tails. Were they usually there but got medically cut off? He had no clue.

Viktor was about to ask Pedro what he thought about the new alien when it started humming a tune, unlike anything he has heard before. It was soft and melodic, and its voice was definitely a bit smoother than the other three aliens he's met. Maybe this one was a female? Regardless, he quite liked the tune and watched with interest as she started filling the bowls with some sort of weird food. It smelled a bit weird, and he wrinkled his nose, sharing a glance of disgust with Pedro.

"We gotta eat that?" Viktor asked as if he had a choice. It was either eat or starve to death, and he didn't really want to do that.

Pedro merely shrugged. The alien, which was a bit paler than the ringmaster with some light blue undertones, started to shove the food through the flaps of the cages. She was on the opposite side of the room, so it'd be a while since he got his food. The flap wasn't open for long, but maybe Viktor could squeeze through it while she opened it?

The alien - Lilac, he dubbed creatively, due to her skin color - finally reached his cage, and he sidled up carefully to the flap. The other humans had already gotten their food and were poking it in contempt. Ezekiel had started to eat, humming unconvincingly and saying it was the best thing he's ever eaten. What a liar.

Lilac seemed to coo at him, and her voice had reached a pitch that reminded him of baby talk. Viktor wrinkled his nose, glancing back at Pedro with a look that said 'you hear this?' Pedro was still looking at the weird, lumpy food to notice his look. Lilac pushed open the flap with the tray, and Viktor quickly grabbed the flap. Lilac made a sharp noise that sounded like a low grunt followed by two clicks. She reached to her waist, and Viktor quickly released the flap, slightly in fright of the loud noise she emitted and more so because he didn't want to be shocked again.

He grabbed the dish moodily, looking up at her with a glare. She was talking to him sternly, waving a clawed hand around. He ignored her, looking at the food. It was a grey mush and didn't smell very appetizing.

What the fuck, he thought, scooping some up with his fingers. The others were already eating, and some of the others at the end of the hall already finished, so it must not be that bad. He tasted it hesitantly, noting that Lilac was walking to the end of the warehouse and collecting the trays with a long hook. He hummed in thought at the taste. It just tasted like stale bread. It wasn't awful.

The rest of the day went by agonizingly slowly. He was used to occupying himself on his phone. Doing nothing but explore his cell and talk to people was a new kind of torture.

It wasn't that the others weren't interesting; he quite enjoyed all their stories. It was that they couldn't talk about anything for too long before someone started to get broody about missing Earth and the fact that they might never escape this weird place... Yeah, it was pretty depressing sometimes.

Eventually, the sun started to go down. They stayed up for a few more hours and after the third rendition of 99 bottles of beer on the wall, he loudly announced he was going to sleep and to please shut up. After some teasing about 'the kid needs to sleep, everyone! shut the fuck up!' Viktor nestled himself in his little straw bed and tried to sleep.

Idly, he wondered what was going to happen tomorrow. He might go insane if it was mind-numbingly boring as today, but any glance of the ringmaster made him a bit nervous. What was that arena doing out there? He just hoped that he didn't have to step one single toe in that place.