The world is cold and grey around me, a sterile world of tubes and syringes and disinfectant.

I try to will myself to be unafraid. To tell myself that I can get through this. I am not a meek, frightened girl. I am Aerith Gainsborough. I’ve spent my years in the slums of Sector 7 seeing the worst of all humanity on display. I am not afraid.

My litany only gets me so far.

The man leveling his gaze at me from the other side of the glass reeks of more danger than any of the criminals or lowlifes I was used to guarding myself against back home. He’s a bony, almost emaciated man with cruel cheekbones who would be tall if he ever straightened his back. His slight smile feels empty, as if he is just wearing it because he knows it’s what people expect to see.

“The last Cetra,” he says. His voice, muffled a bit by the glass, is barely inflected, almost boring. It feels bland. Unassuming. Like the castor bean—or the death cap. Neither seems overtly dangerous.

I suppress a shiver, but he’s not looking at me. He’s staring down at his clipboard. His labcoat is plain white and devoid of the emblem for the organization he works for: Shinra Corporation, the energy conglomerate that rules the world in all but name. “You know, we found another who’s the last of his kind,” he says. When he glances up, I don’t enjoy the look in his eye. “I’ve stumbled upon a truly marvelous idea. A way to prevent the extinction of two endangered species in one swift stroke.”

My mind turns over his words for a few seconds before I realize what he’s hinting at.

My revulsion couldn’t be stronger.

“You—you freak!” I scream, jumping to my feet. “You—no! I won’t!”

His laugh is as bland as his voice. He stands to look me in the eye; from here I can see how greasy his hair is. “My dear Cetra, I’m surprised you care so little about the viability of your species,” he says. His eyes sweep up and down my body and I step back, crossing my arms over myself. It only seems to amuse him.

“When—if—I have children, it will be my decision. I’m not breeding for you,” I spit.

He laughs again. “Why girl,” he says, “what makes you think you have a choice?”

He nudges a button on a console nearby and one of the doors slides open with a pneumatic hiss. On the other side is a coterie of merciless Shinra goons and—

I start. Some kind of creature?

The creature is lithe—mostly leonine, but with wolfish traits as well. Its fur is a fiery carnelian red, the belly a softer orange-yellow like the sun at dawn. Someone has tattooed geometric designs on its left legs; above one of them is the symbol for thirteen. Its mane, trimmed almost like a human’s hair, is a rich and pleasing umber; one eye is golden, the other sliced through with a scar.

There’s a thin hum in the room, so slight as to almost be unnoticeable, and I realize it’s coming from the electric collar they have around the creature’s neck. No fewer than three of the Shinra goons have poles attached to the collar, which they use to keep it at bay.

The red-furred creature does not seem happy to be here. It snaps uselessly at one of the suits, and as it does so, it twists in a way that lets me get a glimpse at its underbelly. I see a sheath—lightly-furred balls—so the creature is a he, then, not an it.

I start. A ‘he’?

And it suddenly all clicks.

“No,” I whisper. This isn’t happening. “No, no, no!” I back away until I thump uselessly against the transparent walls of my holding cell. “You can’t!”

I can feel the researcher smiling at my back. “Can’t?” he asks, a tiny mocking lilt to his voice.

“I won’t mate with that—that thing! I won’t do it!”

The commotion interrupts the creature’s scuffle with his guards. All attention is on me.

The creature looks at me, and then past me at the doctor. His eyes… they’re a summery golden color, but more than that, they show a soulful, quiet kind of thought to them. They’re not the eyes I would have expected to see in a monster or a beast.

And then he opens his mouth and—well. What would your reaction be, were you to learn that humanoids aren’t the only things in this world that can talk? That maned, four-legged creatures can speak—and not only speak but do so with a voice that is low, smooth, exotic, almost lyrical. What would you do?

I was left speechless.

“Hojo,” the creature growls, his voice astonishing me. “‘Mate’? What is this?”

I hear the scientist—Hojo—shuffling behind me. “Red,” he replies. “I think it should be simple. You’ve snarled at me for long enough about how lonely you are. Well, now you have a companion.” A tinny knock sounds through my cell as he raps on the glass right over my head. “One who, given about nine months, will do even more to ease your loneliness.”

The frankness of what Hojo is saying—me? Knocked up, bred by this mysterious creature, this Red? It’s obscene—no, more than that, it’s impossible!

“Y-you can’t,” I say shakily. My voice is tremulous; I’m fighting to keep my composure and only partially succeeding. “You c-can’t think h-he… and I…” I turn, half-rising, to shoot as desperate a look I can manage at Hojo. “We’re so different! It’s—it can’t be biologically possible!”

Whatever I was expecting, it wasn’t for Hojo to shake his head like a teacher about to correct a child. “You are so ignorant of your own history,” he said. “Cetra ruins show that your race can breed with almost anything—not just humans, but other creatures as well. Chocobos, monsters, even dogs and wolves. Perhaps the etchings in the ruins were fanciful imaginings or allegories or fables.” His smile, impossible as it seems, tightens even more. “But I do not think so. Of course, there is only one way to know for sure.” He looks past me. “Red. Come now. She may not be the shape you were expecting, but you have a female.”

What is he saying? He’s really going to go through with this? This beastlike Red, he’s going to fuck me? To impregnate me?

I begin shaking again. No, no, no. I try to protest but my words come out inarticulate, shaky behind my cries. I huddle uselessly against the wall. AVALANCHE will rescue me, I think desperately. My new friends. They’ll find me. They have to.

A snort of derision from behind. Hojo is unimpressed. “Come now, Red,” he says. “Rip those close off her easily enough and you can finally bid farewell to your loneliness.”

Red stares at me, and my heart pounds in fear that he’ll make his move—but then he doesn’t do anything and I manage to knuckle through my fear enough to see clearly. This is no slavering, hungry, lustful beast. The tip of his tail is thrashing in distress; his eyes look concerned, disgusted, even angry. I wonder how I look to him—crying, fearful, huddled against the wall.

He lowers himself onto his belly and refuses to get up.

“I’m not some piece of livestock for you to mate, Hojo,” he says. Says, not growls—I wonder at how his mouth, all fangs and tongue, can make human speech. “I’m not forcing myself onto that poor girl.”

I can barely register my astonishment, my surprise, my relief, before Hojo’s voice cuts in. “Stupid beast. Make him want it.”

One of the goons hits a button on his pole and lightning surges down it, sinking its fangs right into Red.

The result is instant. Red tenses, digs his claws into the ground, grits his teeth. The lightning is playing about him and he’s trembling.

It lasts about half a minute and when it’s over, he can barely stand.

“We can keep doing this, Red,” Hojo says. It’s like he’s forgotten I’m here.

“I… won’t…” he forces out. I hear Hojo sigh, hear him rap the glass once, and then—

Two of the goons hit their buttons. Red’s reaction is not nearly so subdued this time. He arches his back as best he can with the collar and poles on him. A scream rips out of his mouth. The sound… it was like a wolf screaming and a young man wailing, layered on top of one another. It was a hideous, haunting, terrible sound.

I’m up before I know it. “Stop it!” My voice cuts across the air. “Stop it, please!” I rush forward, to do what, I can’t say—swat at the goons (but I don’t have my staff), cast a healing spell (but they stole my materia). Instead, a Shinra thug catches me, and when I try to fight back, he grapples me to the floor like it’s second nature.

I can only watch as they torment him.

They keep the double current on him for almost a minute and when they let up, Red collapses against the floor, shuddering. His beautiful autumn fur looks singed in places, and I hear him whimpering softly, like a dog that’s been kicked and is afraid it’s going to be kicked again.

“All you have to do is fuck the girl,” Hojo says. There’s a slight trace, barely imperceptible, to his voice—an undertow of annoyance. “Really now, Red. The solution is that simple.”

“She doesn’t… want it…”

An aggrieved sigh from Hojo. “That’s her problem, not yours.”

The noble creature rolls his head to glare at Hojo through his good eye. I think to the scar on the other one. How did he get it?

Will he get more today? Because of me?

“I’d rather… die…” Red says.

“You’d throw your species’ legacy aside just to protect some weeping girl?” Hojo sneers.

Red doesn’t respond. Instead, he curls in on himself, waiting the end.

“Fine.” Hojo nods at the three goons with the poles. “If he wants death so bad, give it to him.”

I scream in protest, and it’s worth as much as a dandelion against a firestorm. All three of them press the buttons.

The electricity almost makes the room glow. I can hear Red screaming in pure, inarticulate agony. His voice, low and melodic and noble, is now high with pain. It’s messy. Drawn-out. Shattering. This is no way to die.

Die. He’s dying. They’re killing him. And all because of me. Someone he barely knows. A fellow captive he refused to hurt.

It’s because of me that the electricity is dancing across his fur, is making his voice shake with agony. He’s the last of his kind. There will be no more of whatever nameless, wonderful creatures he is—dancing across the glades and the fields (for surely he doesn’t belong in such a grimy place as Midgar) with their fur swept by the cool, life-giving breeze.

An entire race will die tonight.

AVALANCHE, I think desperately. They’ll save us. They have to. But the seconds tick on and Red’s screams grow more broken and I have to face facts: AVALANCHE isn’t coming. Cloud isn’t coming. None of them are. They can’t save me or Red tonight.

Only I have the power to do that.

“I’ll do it!” I scream, bellowing as loud as I can to be heard above Red’s pained yells. Hojo knocks his hand against the glass and the men shut off the power instantly. What’s left is a silence so pure that you could hear a leaf fall to the earth. The only sound is Red’s soft, intermittent sobs.

“Say it again,” Hojo says.

“I—I’ll—”

I swallow. The words die in my mouth. Red is—he’s not a monster. He’s a good person. (Person? I ponder, before deciding that yes, fur or no, he’s certainly a better person than the men who collared him.)

But good or not, the thought of me bent over, hissing from the fur rubbing against my back as I am taken from behind by a quadruped, makes me queasy.

I don’t want this.

But I don’t want Red to die even more.

“I’ll d-do it,” I say, my voice faltering. “I’ll sl—” The words tumble over each other and I swallow. I force myself to say it. “I’ll sleep with him.”

“And bear his children?”

Oh gods. Oh gods. I’d almost forgotten that part. Could Cetra really breed with this creature? Would I—would my belly swell with Red’s young? Would they be people? Animals? Something in-between?

The seconds grow and I can feel Hojo’s impatience growing with them. He’s going to order them to finish Red off.

I can’t say it, but I nod as clearly as I can while still pinned by the goon.

“You get that, Red?” The whiff of annoyance in Hojo’s voice has been replaced by smugness. “You’re in the clear.”

Red struggles to raise his head and looks at me. “You don’t—have to do this for—m-my sake,” he forces out. “Miss…”

“It’s Aerith,” I reply, my voice soft as the dawn.

“Aerith,” he repeats. “Please. Forget about me.”

Forget about him? If he died here for me, that would haunt me forever. I shake my head.

Red locks eyes with me and a wordless understanding passes between us. Neither of us wants this, but neither is to blame. We’ll do what we have to in order to protect each other. I can see the emotions marshaling behind his eyes: gratitude, despondency, weariness.

“Well then!” Hojo says. “We can move ahead, but Red doesn’t seem to be in the state for strenuous activity at the moment.” He adjusts his glasses. “Thankfully, we have all the time in the world. A few days from now.”

They drag Red away, and Hojo follows after, leaving me alone in my tiny cell with the see-through walls.

Only a few days until they breed me like the specimen I am.