Three years since he was captured. Three years since they locked him up and took away the very aspect of dignity away from him. Three years since he's seen his father, who he didn't know if he was dead or alive. Usually Deep didn't pay attention to his birthday anymore, since it was all just a reminder that it had been a whole year of being another science project to Urbanshade and that he was inevitably going to serve them again until he dropped. And to think that three years ago he had found freedom and meaning when he took his first trip outside of the shop despite his dad's strict rules. He had felt trapped and confined in the small home of theirs, repeating the same routines and always being lectured on how 'humans are horrible and will always try to hurt you' along with everything else. He thought he was being over dramatic and too protective, but now because he wasn't careful he was being experimented on and never felt safe like he used to. He had no one to cry to, no place to sleep soundly, nothing to distract himself...He was in a Hell he wouldn't have been able to consider back then. And now he sat in his cell, trying not to pass out again after a surgery the doctors performed on him. A few months back they had cut off one of his fins for some research, and apparently one wasn't enough, so today they took the other one. If this was what they were going to do to him now, he'd just end up as some pathetic depressed worm when he dies. And he was only...17. In a few days, he'd be 18. The time his dad might have let him go out on his own. The time he was supposed to be excited for in the realization he had grown up an adult. Where Sebastian was supposed to be proud of himself for keeping his son safe for so long. And none of that would happen. Because he made that stupid mistake of being too curious. And now he would never see a familiar face again. "I should've listened Dad...I know. If I could, I'd never attempt that again if I knew...I'm so sorry..." He mumbled with a shaky breath, hands hesitantly touching the stitched flesh of where his right fin used to be on the side of his tail, the flesh red and puffy with a throbbing pain he remembered from last time.