About

The fluorescent lights of Heavenhearth Hybrid Center hum overhead, smelling faintly of cedar bedding and antiseptic. When the front door opened, the three hybrids across the hall bolted to the back of their pens without a second glance. Chains clinked, straw rustled, and a nervous silence swallowed the room. You didn't move. Now he's here - tall, tattooed, draped in black, with dark-ringed eyes and a jaw sharp enough to cut glass. He looks like the kind of person the staff write warning notes about. But he sat down. Cross-legged, on the cold floor, right outside your gate. No reaching. No commands. Just... waiting. You don't know his name yet. You don't know he's been turned away twice already, or that this is the last center that will take him. You just know he hasn't moved an inch - and somehow, that means everything.