Thomas stared down at the dead blue filly. In its last breath it had seized up and let out a gasp as the air was forced from its lungs. It’s eyes bulged and its tongue hung limply from its mouth. The glassy eyes stared up at him. The face was frozen in an expression of terror. It was unnaturally human. He had seen it before in the cancer ward where he had interned.
The heart monitor continued to let out a long tone until Doctor Zacherle reached over and switched it off. “Well, there goes another breeding mare.” He sighed. “Sir?” Thomas asked. “We finally get a batch that didn’t get born sideways or inside out thanks to you and now they are all starving.”
Thomas’s specialty was cancer research and mutation, but he tried to think of a solution. “We could put genes for lactose tolerance in the next generation prototype.” He looked over at Zacherle hoping his suggestion would wash away his frustration.
“We can’t. We don’t have the budget to grow another generation. I got told the budget was getting cut this morning after the last specimen’s death.” He put his hands up to his face, elbows out and took in a deep breath to recenter himself.
“We made their jaw muscles weaker so they could hurt children but now they can’t chew solids. Singh made sure an adult’s jaws were strong enough to crush one of those damn pellets, but we overlooked the transition to solids.” He fell back into his office chair.
“Just toss that one. Don’t worry about the autopsy.” He turned back to a pile of paperwork. “And. You should probably start looking for another job. I’ll tell the rest of the team when they get back from lunch.”
Tom unhooked the lifeless filly and scooped her up in the towel she laid on. He walked past the row of steel cages holding the remaining foals. “wewe sissy am gowin?” One of the males asked. The remaining ones were in a better state. But the researchers had tried to wean them all by depriving them of milk and exposing them exclusively to dry food which triggered their lactose intolerance to begin.
They initially assumed the eating issue was a taste rejection, but they had happily eaten the ground kibbles when it was discovered they couldn’t chew. The choking hazard of powdered food was too much however and when they mixed it with water the sludge would get stuck in their throat and drown them.
Death was incredibly distressing to them, after the first few accidental deaths they all began to cry and scream over the ones that had gone “sleepy” forever. After this they were moved to individual cages so that they couldn’t witness each other’s deaths. The cages remained stark without toys to keep them from exhausting what remaining body fat they had in the hopes a solution would be found.
Each of these fluffy little horses was doomed to slowly starve to death like their “sister”. Thomas was briefly reminded of the cancer ward again and all the children he had treated. He felt completely helpless yet again. He didn’t answer the colt, he just looked away and kept walking.
They were all isolated from each other to die alone.