Remember when I mentioned that the taste of the food had changed? Well, it wasn't my taste buds going wonky on me. No, the actual taste of food had changed. I had become so used to things going weird, that I didn't notice when things went wrongly weird. And this weird, was deadly.
Howard had one goal in mind this whole time. To take me out permanently. Only, me and my companions were not complying with the 'get sick and die' part. We'd get sick, but we always recovered. Until now.

My companions' bodies lay still, cold, and stiff all around me. The last of them, had died sometime during the night. though by this point I was too delirious to keep track of when he'd taken his last breath. I just had too....I didn't know...I had to do something, but it was so hard to get air into my lungs, the pain in my sides caused my muscles to spasm. I curled in tighter into myself, seeking warmth, seeking comfort, relief. Something to stop the pain, but almost immediately my muscles rebelled against me. I had very little control of my movements. I couldn't even bring myself to whimper. I had no energy. None. The ability to run endlessly on the wheel had escaped me days earlier. Frankly, I didn't know how I was still breathing. Apparently stubbornness resides in the core of my being as I was stubborn even when I didn't know I needed to be stubborn. This was worse then the venom that the creature kept trying to inject me with. If only one fang made it in, this had to feel like a whole mouthful had sunk into my body. Sucking away my life a little at a time. I couldn't even remember the last time I'd eaten. And that was a bit deal to me. Eating meant survival. Not being able to eat, meant not surviving. Yet, trying to move only brought another wave of pain through me. Again, my main relief was trying to curl tighter, curl the pain into a ball. But that only worked when my muscles would respond to my wants.  To say I felt awful was an understatement. I've been told that we had a severe case of 'Wet Tail.' If you don't know what it is you can go Google it, as I'd rather not explain here. It's sufficient to say that my insides were rebelling against me to an extreme measure. Poison will do that to you.  

"....Look! The whole litter dead! I don't even know why they keep sending these Robo Russians to us. We can barely keep them alive for a week! They're worse then useless. How are we ever supposed to get any real results if we can't keep our test subjects alive. We haven't even tested this lot yet and look, all dead."

The sudden voice emanating from the opening above me, barely registered. I recognized the angry voice as something that I should fear. If the smell of decay had come closer, I'm sure I would have reacted in some way. But my body chose that moment to not respond to my vague reflex to try and flee. It didn't register at all that the odd sounds I heard, I was understanding.

I think being near death triggered a tiny piece of my human brain that had been locked away in the simple hamster brain. That tiny piece, the ability to understand English again. I guess having a near death experience helped in some way.

"What do you want me to do?" A soft voice asked. Those words held very little meaning to me. They were different, soothing. Lulling. Different from the sounds the other creature had made.

"What do you think? You have a brain! Use it! They need to be tossed out, we can't really do tests on dead creatures now can we? Be sure to use the outside garbage, they're already beginning to stink, I don't want the odor permeating my work space. We're just in luck that that order of winter whites I decided to get came in today. I've heard that they make better test subjects. Well, what are you doing still standing there? Get to work! And be sure to sterilize this cage twice. I don't want whatever disease these mongrels brought in to spread to the winters."

"yes sir." the other voice meekly replied. "I'll get rid of all the dead, sir."

But...I wasn't dead. They had to know I wasn't dead. I hadn't gone cold like the rest of my companions. Not yet. Couldn't they see me breathing? I was still breathing, right? I had to be. I was still alive.
Did it matter though? Did it matter when I felt like every breath could be my last?

Martin Elek