Chapter 5: Moving on
The lightness became a kind of armor. In the days following Martin’s announcement, Aurora moved through her habitat with a new, detached curiosity. The panic had burned off, leaving something clear and cold behind. She owned nothing. Therefore, she had nothing to lose. It was a perverse liberation.
Her focus turned inwards, to the machinery of her own maintenance. The automatic dispensers provided her bland, nutrient-dense pellets and water. Her body, however, was becoming something else—something wilder, hairier, more real than the curated “natural” image the exhibit likely intended. She’d catch her reflection in the glass at night, a pale, furred creature with eyes that looked back, unblinking. She didn’t mind it. It felt like claiming a territory they hadn’t thought to regulate.
They noticed.
The speaker chimed one morning, not with the sunrise tone, but with a sharper, three-note alert. “Aurora, this is Martin. Please proceed to the rear airlock for a habitat maintenance and wellness check in ten minutes. This is a standard procedure.”
Wellness check. The words felt oily. She’d been medically cleared before entry. This was something else.
The familiar shudder of the hidden door sounded from the back wall, the one that led to the sterile passageways only staff used. She thought about refusing, planting herself by the stream. But the curiosity, cold and clinical, won out. What did a “wellness check” look like to them?
The airlock was a small, white room. It smelled sharply of antiseptic and laundry detergent. Three people in pale blue scrubs waited, along with a wheeled cart laden with bottles, clippers, and towels. Two were men she vaguely recognized from her intake—broad-shouldered, with the calm, capable hands of zookeepers. The third was a woman, younger, maybe late twenties, with dark hair pulled into a messy but practical bun and a smattering of freckles across her nose. Her name tag read: J. Silva.
“Hey Aurora,” said the older male keeper, Tom, his voice aiming for friendly but landing in the practiced, soothing tone used for skittish antelope. “Just gonna give you a bit of a tidy-up today. Make sure everything’s healthy. Standard procedure.”
She said nothing, just stood in the center of the tile floor, feeling the cool air on her skin, so different from the habitat’s controlled humidity.
“We’re just going to trim your nails, clean you up a bit,” J. Silva—Julia, Aurora guessed—said. Her voice was quieter, lower. There was an absence of the performative cheer the others used. It was just a statement of work.
“I’m clean,” Aurora said, her first words to them.
“It’s not about that,” Tom said, exchanging a glance with his partner. “It’s about presentation and hygiene. For your comfort, too. It can get… matted.”
The other man, Leo, unfolded a clean, white mat from the cart and laid it on the floor. “We need you to lie down here for us, okay?”
Aurora didn’t move. “I can trim my own nails.”
“Protocol says we do it,” Leo said, not unkindly. “It’s for consistency. And safety.”
“Safety from what?”
The pause was answer enough. From unpredictability. From autonomy.
“Come on, Aurora,” Tom said, stepping forward. “It’ll be quick. We’ll explain everything as we go.”
She considered the floor, the mat, the tools. The resistance rose in her throat, hot and bitter. But under it, that cold curiosity persisted. She wanted to see the mechanism. She wanted to understand the exact texture of their control. Slowly, she lowered herself onto the mat, the vinyl sticking slightly to her skin.
“Good. That’s good,” Tom said.
The moment she was prone, their demeanor shifted from request to routine. Tom knelt at her head, his hands gentle but firm on her shoulders. Leo took position by her feet, a large hand encircling each of her ankles.
“Just gonna hold you steady,” Tom said, his apology already baked into the procedure. “It’s how we’re supposed to do it. For everyone’s sake.”
Aurora tensed, every muscle coiling. She was stronger than she looked, wiry from constant movement. But they were professionals, used to restraining creatures without hurting them. Their grip was immovable, a fact of physics. She turned her head to the side, her cheek against the cool vinyl, and stared at the legs of the cart.
Julia moved into her line of sight, holding a pair of rounded-tip clippers. She didn’t look at Aurora’s face, but at her hand, which Tom had now pulled gently but inexorably away from her body, pinning her wrist to the mat.
“Starting with your fingernails,” Julia murmured, more to herself than anyone.
Aurora felt the cold metal touch her fingertip, heard the crisp snip. Julia’s hands were warm, her fingers deft and sure. She worked quickly, methodically, moving from finger to finger. There was no roughness, only an efficient, clinical care. As she moved to the other hand, Aurora caught a scent—not antiseptic, but something beneath it. Lemon soap. A hint of coffee.
The absurdity of it threatened to swallow her. Held down for a manicure.
Next, Julia switched to a smaller clipper. “Toenails now,” she said, her voice still that low, steady murmur. Leo adjusted his grip, lifting her foot slightly. The vulnerability was absolute, grotesque. Aurora squeezed her eyes shut, retreating into the dark behind her lids.
She heard the rustle of a bottle, a aerosol hiss. A cool, gel-like substance was applied to her legs. “Shaving gel,” Julia explained. “For hair management.”
The sound of the electric clippers was a brutal, buzzing roar in the sterile room. Aurora flinched as they touched her calf. Julia’s free hand rested on her shin, not to hurt, but to guide, to feel the muscle beneath the skin. The touch was professional, but it was still touch. Human contact, after weeks of only glass and stares. A confusing, unwelcome heat spread through Aurora’s chest, a traitorous response to the simple, terrible fact of being handled.
The clippers moved up her legs, efficient and thorough. The process was repeated under her arms. Then came the most invasive part. Julia’s voice, still calm, gave a warning. “I need to groom the pubic area now. Standard for hygiene in the enclosure. Try to stay still.”
Aurora’s breath hitched. She felt Julia’s hand, gloved now, part her legs slightly, felt the buzz of the clippers there, removing everything. Her face burned with a humiliation so deep it felt like ice. Tears of pure, helpless rage leaked from her closed eyes, tracking into her hairline.
Through it all, Julia worked. Her movements were neither hesitant nor prurient. They were the movements of someone completing a task they’d done a hundred times, on a hundred different animals. And yet, in the stark, dehumanizing calculus of the room, her lack of commentary, her focused silence, felt like the only sliver of respect on offer. Aurora found herself hyper-aware of her presence—the faint sound of her breathing, the shift of her scrubs, the careful, minimal way she touched her.
It was Julia who finished, who applied a cool, astringent spray, who gently wiped away the stray clippings with a soft towel. Julia, who finally, after what felt like hours, said, “All done. You can let her up.”
The pressure on her wrists and ankles vanished. Aurora didn’t move. She felt air-dried, sanitized, and hollowed out. A specimen, prepared.
“Hair on your head is fine, we just evened out the ends a little while you were down,” Tom said, his voice returning to its earlier, false warmth. “All about maintaining a natural but tidy silhouette for the guests. You did great.”
They gathered their tools, the cart wheels squeaking on the tile. As they moved to leave, Julia paused, glancing back. For a second, her brown eyes met Aurora’s. They held no pity, no camaraderie. Just a look of stark, professional recognition. Then she was gone, the airlock door sealing with a definitive thud.
Alone, Aurora pushed herself up. Her skin felt new, exposed, and foreign. She was smoother, lighter. She looked down at her hands. Her nails were short, neat, blunt. She ran a hand over her calf; it was slick, hairless, like plastic.
Walking back into the habitat felt like re-entering a dream. The artificial sun was warm. The stream gurgled. She stood in the center of her world, feeling the air on every inch of her altered skin. The attraction she’d felt was a ghost now, swallowed by the profound weirdness of it all. It hadn’t been about Julia, not really. It had been about a hand that didn’t gawk, a touch that was a transaction, but a competent one. In this place where she was either an icon or an animal, being treated as a simple body had felt, for a fractured second, almost like being seen.
She walked to the stream and sat in the shallow water, letting it run over her, trying to wash the feeling of their hands away. The cold clarity returned, sharper than ever. They could trim her, hold her down, make her smooth and acceptable. But the mind they’d exposed in the process, the simmering, observant rage, was growing teeth. And it owned itself completely.