...

Its been...

Its been a while since I last heard them. The hum is still there, I can at least hear that, but whoever it was speaking, they're surely gone now. All I can do is... wait. The darkness is still there, my vision is still completely gone. Well, its not black like I imagined, in fact, its like nothing at all, like trying to look out of your elbow. Does that make sense? I've heard that analogy a few times but it never made sense, of course you can't look out of your elbow!

...

...

...

Man, I am bored.

This has to be the worst form of torture they could have given me. There's no pain, not now, at least. There's just... nothing. I can't move, I can't see, I can't hear, I can't even feel myself breathe, I just have to assume I'm not dead, because they keep me... well... whatever it is they do.

But fuck if I knew this was going to happen I would have brought at least like... a book or something. Er, metaphorically speaking, anyway.

...

...Is this what being a rock is like? That would suck. I hope this isn't what being a rock is like.

...

I mean, I could count. But... do I really want to do that? What about a riddle? Yeah! That's a good ide—

...I actually don't know any good ones. Nevermind, forget I said that.

...

I could think about my past. About my friends, my family...

Yeah I'm not touching that with a ten foot pole.

I could try remembering my name. That's a good idea! A good productive way to spend the next eternity.

Right.

So... it starts with an A, I think. Or... an O? I don't remember.

...

Oh, that's a new sensation. Pressure. On my chest? Or... somewhere. It's a weird, rhythmic pressure. Like a heartbeat, but... wrong. No, too slow to be a heartbeat.

Its more like a slow, steady expansion, then a release. Air? Air. They're... forcing air into my lungs? Forcing me to breathe. Eugh, that's... gross.

...

Okay. Looks like were counting.

One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

This is taking a while.

Eleven. Twelve. Thi—

Wait, I can hear something. Muffled. A rhythmic clicking, like... a metronome. Or... a clock.

"..."

A voice! I hear a voice! Hey! I'm in here! Can you hear me?!

"nnh... no... re... sponse..."

It's... it's muffled. Fuck I can't tell what they're saying. Why can't I tell what they're saying? Hey! You guys I can hear you! Sort of!

"Oo... e... try... aga... n. Ope... ...er... al... link."

Hey! ...Please! I'm in here! ...Please.

"..."

Please... I'm scared.

Wait what? Scared? I've never been scared before. I don't get scared, so why the hell do I feel like that? I've never been scared in my entire life. I've been angry, I've been hateful, I've been...

Okay... Okay, okay, okay. I'm calm. I'm calm. I am perfectly calm. Let's try this again. I'm trying to... I'm trying to speak. I'm trying to talk. I'm trying to form the words, to... to push them out of my... my... out of me. But there's nothing. There's no... its just nothing.

Fuck.

The clicking stops. A new sound. A soft, steady hum. Different from the other one. This one is... closer. More internal.

"Ca... ...ou... ear... ...is, Six... ...two?"

Six... Two... Six-hundred-eighty-two? That's me. I'm... I'm Six-hundred-eighty-two! That's my name! My number! That's who I am!

YES! YES I CAN HEAR YOU! I'M HERE! MY NAME IS SIX-HUNDRED-EIGHTY-TWO!

"."

"hh..."

Was that me? Please tell me that was me. Please, for the love of whatever is out there, let that have been me.

"Repe... ...ease... ...ou... ...ear... ...is, Six... ...two?"

YES! YES I CAN HEAR YOU! I'M HERE!

"hh..."

It was me. A small, pathetic, breathy little sound. But it was me. It was something.

"Intere... ...ing... ...er... ...ctiv... ...s... ...ow. We're... ...ing... ...eural... ...ans... ...sion. Try... ...ain." The woman's voice again. Dr. Lira?

I want to talk to her. I want to ask her what the hell she did to me. Why I'm... this. But I can't. All I can do is make these pathetic little gasping sounds.

Okay, okay. Focus. I need to focus. I need to... to move. I need to move something. Anything.

MOVE.

My left arm. I try to move my left arm. I picture it in my mind. A strong, Mënskan arm. Muscular. I picture it lifting. Rising.

Something shifts. A small, barely perceptible movement. But it's not my arm. It's... different. Lighter. Frailer. The... the arm of this... this thing.

The scientists in the room erupt in a flurry of excitement. A wave of hushed whispers and frantic typing fills the air.

"Woah, did you see that? He moved it!"

"His integrity is rising, thirteen percent!"

"It's responding to the link! The motor functions are intact!"

A wave of nausea washes over me. A feeling of... wrongness. Of being a passenger in a car I don't know how to drive. A car I don't even want to be in. I am a puppet, and they've just discovered how to make me dance.

The arm, the... not-my-arm, moves again. A spasm, a twitch. A slow lift, followed by a clumsy, uncoordinated flop back onto whatever I am laying on. My willpower, my desire, is translating into this body, but it's like trying to write with my left hand. A clumsy, illegible scrawl of a movement.

The excitement in the room is a physical force, enough to knock down a building.

"We need to open his eyes. We need to know if the visual cortex is properly aligned." Dr. Lira's says, "We need to see if he can see."

"Understood, Doctor."

"Okay, Six-hundred-eighty-two. We're going to try something new. We're going to try to open your eyes."

My eyes. I have eyes. Of course, I have eyes. But... what will I see? I don't know what this body looks like. I don't know what I've become. A part of me, a small, terrified part of me, doesn't want to know. Wants to stay in the dark, in the comforting, featureless void of my own mind.

"Whenever you're ready." Dr. Lira says to Rylan.

I feel a... a pressure on my eyelids. A gentle, prodding sensation. They're... they're trying to open them for me.

"Actually, wait. Let him do it." Dr. Lira's says, "Let him do it on his own. It has to be him. It has to be his will."

"I'm not sure that he can, Doctor. His brain integrity is still too low."

"But..." She sighs "Okay then. Let's try." I hear a faint hiss, then a cool, slick feeling on my eyelids. A drop of liquid.

The prodding returns, more insistent this time. A finger, I think. Or a tool. It's... it's pushing my eyelid up. A sliver of... light? No, not light. I don't know what it is. It's just... more. More than the nothing.

"Okay... okay, we have a response. The pupil is reacting." Rylan says, a new kind of awe in his voice.

The sliver expands. The world bleeds into existence, a chaotic, incomprehensible mess of... shapes. Colors. Lights. It's like a shattered mirror reflecting a kaleidoscope.

And then, the other eye. Another sliver of... more.

And then... I see.

Not the room. Not the scientists. Not the machines. I see... other things. Phantoms. Ghosts. Dancing at the edge of my vision. A child's face, smiling, but... wrong. The features are smeared. A bird, soaring through the air, but its wings are made of... of static. Of television snow.

What the fuck is going on...? This... this isn't real. This can't be real.

I try to close my eyes. To shut it out. To go back to the comforting, featureless void. But I can't. They're stuck. Frozen open. I am forced to watch this... this nightmare unfold. A parade of horrors, all for an audience of one. Me.

"Pupils are equal and reactive. Both of them. The link is holding." Dr. Lira's says, "This is..."

"Brain integrity holding steady at thirteen percent. We're seeing minor motor function spikes in the left hemisphere." Rylan. A single, solid piece of reality in this sea of chaos.

My head hurts. There's a pressure that builds and builds, threatening to split my skull in two. I try to raise my hands to my temples, to press against the pain, but my arms... my arms won't obey. They're heavy, dead weights at my sides.

Wait. Not dead. They're... moving. But... not the way I want them to. They're... twitching. Spasming.

The phantoms in my vision are getting bolder now. Closer. The child with the smeared face is reaching for me. Her smile is a gaping, black hole. The bird made of static is swooping down, its beak a needle of pure white noise.

Great stones what the fuck is going on!?

"eeeeehhh..."

All jaws are on the floor, all eyes are staring at me. This is not a scream of terror, not a cry for help. It's a pathetic, strangled gasp. A leak of sound from a broken vessel. My fury, my rage, my unadulterated horror at my situation, and the only thing I could muster is that. A sad little noise.

"He spoke!" An assistant gasps.

"Sort of, but he did!" Another chimes in.

I focus all my will, all my being into a single, desperate command.

MOVE.

I will my head to turn. To look down. To see what I've become. To see this... this... thing I'm inhabiting.

My neck muscles, or... whatever passes for them in this body, are tense. A slow, agonizing creak of bone and sinew. A grinding sensation that sends a fresh wave of nausea through me.

My head moves. An inch. Then another.

And then I see it.

A shoulder. Delicate. Slender. Covered in skin the color of... of... I don't know. I don't have a word for it. A shade of brown that seems to shimmer, to shift in the chaotic light of my vision. A delicate tracery of darker spots, like freckles, scattered across its surface.

That's not my shoulder. My shoulders are broad. Muscular. This is... this is...

I force my head to turn further. My gaze travels down the length of the arm, past the elbow, to the wrist. The hand. It's small. Slender. The fingers are long, tapered, ending in nails that are... dark. A deep, glossy black.

Not my hand. My hands are big. Calloused. The hands of a fighter, of a... A man.

I am a man.

A new surge of adrenaline, pure, undiluted terror, floods my system. Or... whatever is passing for my system. I need to see. I need to see more. I need to see all of it.

With an effort that riles my ancestors in the afterlife, I push myself up. My arms tremble, the muscles... or... whatever they are... screaming in protest. I ignore it. I have to see. I have to know.

I'm on a bed. A metal table, really. I think its cold, I can't actually feel much of anything, but my mind is telling me its cold.

I can't move my eyes, but I can at least move my head. I want to sit up, but I can't do that yet, the best I can do is turn my head, and maybe wiggle my fingers, but this is so tiring. This body is so weak. Or am I just that weak in here? I don't know.

My head turns until I'm looking down at my own body. At the thing I'm piloting. The vessel. The cage.

And I see.

I see a chest. A pair of... of... breasts. Small, delicate, covered in the same freckled brown fur as the arm. I see a stomach, flat, soft, with a trail of the same spots leading down... down...

I'm nude.

I don't want to look. I can't look. But I have to. I have to see the whole, hideous truth.

My gaze travels further down. Hips. Curved. Slender. A patch of darker, softer fur between...

I don't have feet. I have hooves. Cloven hooves, split in two, the same glossy black as my fingernails.

Please don't tell me, please don't tell me that I am—

"How do you think he is going to react to this?"

"There's a reason we didn't say anything, Rylan. The raw emotional data will be a goldmine for the post-migration analysis. We need to see how a consciousness so fundamentally defined by hate adapts to an identity it loathes."

"It's... cruel."

"It's science."

No...

No...

NO

NONONONONONONONONONONONONO

BY THE ANCESTORS THAT MAKE MY VERY BEING WHAT THE FUCK HAS HAPPENED TO ME!?

The scientists watch. They watch the numbers, but they never rise. Thirteen percent. But the brain activity monitor is a storm of jagged, red peaks. They are watching the birth of a new kind of suffering.

The body convulses. A full-body thrashing. Rejection of its own existence. The head, with its backward-sweeping horns, snaps back, hitting the metal table with a dull, resonant clang.

"Seizure!" Rylan shouts. "He's seizing!"

"Hold him down! Don't let him hurt himself!" Dr. Lira commands, her clinical detachment finally cracking.

NO! NOT HURT MYSELF! LET ME HURT YOU! LET ME TEAR THIS FLESH FROM THESE BONES! LET ME RIP THIS FUCKING BODY APART WITH MY BARE HANDS!

Rylan and Cassie rush forward, their hands pressing down on the thrashing limbs. The body, its deceptively strong, fueled by a rage that is not its own. The hooves scrape against the metal table, emitting a screeching, nails-on-a-chalkboard sound.

They struggle to restrain the flailing form. "It's okay, it's okay, Six-hundred-eighty-two. We're here to help you. Try to relax."

I TRUSTED YOU. I TRUSTED EVERY SINGLE FUCKING ONE OF YOU, I SETTLED FOR THIS, I DID THIS TO LIVE. YOU PROMISED ME A CHANCE, A FRESH START, BUT THIS!? THIS IS A CURSE, THIS IS A FUCKING JOKE!

FUCK YOU, FUCK YOUR STUDY, FUCK EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU SICK FUCKS. I WILL FIND YOU. I WILL FIND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF YOU AND I WILL MAKE YOU PAY FOR THIS. I WILL—

The convulsions stop as suddenly as they began. The body goes limp. A ragdoll. Spent.

The storm in my mind rages on. I am trapped. Trapped in this... this thing. This abomination.

"We need to sedate him. We need to calm him down!"

"No." Cassie says, "No more drugs. Not yet. He... he needs to process this. We can't just... we can't just pump him full of chemicals every time he has a reaction. That's not science."

"She's right, Doctor." Dr. Joric says, "The emotional spikes... they're unprecedented. The data is invaluable. If we sedate him, we lose it."

"But—"

"No sedation."

"Fine." Dr. Lira growls. "But you're responsible for him. You and Cassie. If he hurts himself... or anyone else... it's on you."

"I always was." Dr. Joric says.

I'll kill them all. Every single one of them. I'll tear their throats out with my teeth. I'll— Wait, does this stupid body even have the teeth for that?

I'll figure something out.

I will figure out a way to rip their spines out of their bodies and hang this vile carcass with them. All I need to do is... bide my time. Yes, yes. Bide my time. That's it. That's all I have to do. And when the day comes, they will regret what they did to me. They will all—

"How long until the heart beats again, Doctor? What does our data say? What about the rats? Did they ever...?"

"Why do you ask?" Dr. Lira interrupts him.

"Well its just, the tubes are really making me... antsy."

"Rylan, please, you've seen the tubes countless times before."

"I know! I know its just... Never on this scale. What's the NAME device reading? Any changes?"

"He's calm. For now. That's all we need."

I'm not calm. I'm seething. I'm a volcano waiting to erupt. I'm a bomb with a countdown timer. I am a storm. They think I am calm, but this is not calm, this is a rage so pure, so... potent, that it needs no expression. It simply... is. Like gravity, like death, like the inevitable heat death of the universe. I am a law of nature now. The law of hate.

They have my body. They have my mind. But they do not have my soul. That is mine. Mine to do with as I please. And I choose to... wait. To watch. To learn. I will learn this body. I will learn its strengths, its weaknesses. I will learn how to use it as a weapon. How to use it to exact my revenge.

Two days. Two... ancestor forsaken days. That's how long I will be stuck like this. Two days. That's what they told me. They... they didn't tell me. I overheard them. I can hear everything, you see.

Until then, I can't do much of anything on my own. I can sort of move, but its rather uncoordinated. Like a newborn, almost. A newborn can at least breathe. This is... worse. Much worse.

The body lay still on the metal table. Its now a strange fusion of the organic and the artificial. A series of clear tubes snaked from a humming cylinder to the creature's sides, chest, and neck. In a few tubes to the chest, there was a viscous, milky fluid, flowing through them. Coming out was a greener colored fluid. The others seemed to be for air. The eyes were propped in a half-lidded, unblinking stare, held in place by small, transparent clamps that kept the eyelids from fluttering shut and dripped a steady, soothing solution onto the surface of the eyeballs. It was a strange, fragile sort of animation, it was life. Artificial in its execution, fake in its entirety. Enough to stop the body from dying and start it rotting. But not much more.

I'm over this. They hyped up the living quarters, the gourmet meals, the bullshit of the highest degree. This? This is actual, legitimate torture.

An assistant walked up to the humming cylinder, making a note on her datapad.

My patience is at its absolute limit. I feel like a caged animal, pacing back and forth in the confines of my own mind. I need to do something. I need to break free from this suffocating stillness.

Ughhh. Tape a fucking Sudoku puzzle to the ceiling or something! I'm bored out of my skull! I'd take even the most pathetic, half-baked attempt at entertainment over this... this... purgatory. I need something to occupy this brilliant, hateful mind of mine before it rots away from sheer, unadulterated boredom.

The only sounds being made in this stupid room is my little breathing machine thingy, a few beeps and boops from some computers, and... is that a pen clicking? That's annoying as all hell.

An assistant, a young man with a perpetually nervous expression, clicked his pen again. Click. Click. Click. Each click a tiny, sharp jab to my raw nerves. I wanted to reach out, to grab that pen and shove it so far down his throat that he'd be tasting ink for a week.

Why don't I? I can move my arms. I can... I can...

My left arm. The not-my-arm. I pictured it in my mind. I pictured it rising. The muscles in the shoulder tensed. The elbow, a complex, delicate joint, straightened. The hand, a claw of dark, elegant nails, uncurled.

MOVE.

And it did. A slow, unsteady, but undeniable rise. The assistant, whose name tag read 'Eli', didn't notice. He was too absorbed in his datapad, a frown of concentration on his face.

The hand, the not-my-hand, hovered in the air for a moment. I pictured the pen. I pictured the long, slender fingers closing around it. The delicate, black nails tapping against the plastic casing.

MOVE.

The fingers spasmed. They knocked the pen from Eli's grasp. It clattered to the floor, rolling under the metal table.

"Ah, shoot." Eli mumbled, bending down to retrieve it.

Bitch. That'll teach you to click that damn thing.

Eli's head disappeared under the table. A perfect opportunity. I pictured the other arm rising. I pictured both hands reaching down, grabbing the front of Eli's lab coat, and pulling him onto the table with me.

MOVE.

The arms twitched into a clumsy, uncoordinated lurch. They knocked against a tray of instruments, sending a cascade of steel and plastic to the floor.

Eli's head popped up from under the table, his eyes wide with shock. "What in the...?"

Before he could say another word, I grabbed onto his arm. Not too tightly, I couldn't if I wanted to, but firmly enough to get his attention.

"Whoa, hey!" he yelped. "Hey, what's going on?" he tried to pull away, but my grip was... surprisingly strong. I guess this body has some hidden strengths after all. He looked over at the doctors, who were now all staring at me. "Doctor! It's... it's moving!"

"I see that, Eli."

"Let me go, you... you..."

"hh..."

"arrrrehhhhhh..."

I tried to say "asshole," but it came out as a guttural, animalistic growl. Close enough.

Eli finally managed to wrench his arm free, scrambling backwards away from the table. "What the hell!?"

"I think he likes you."

I do not. Not in the slightest.

I let my arms fall back to my sides. That little outburst had taken a lot out of me. It felt like I'd run a marathon. Or... whatever this body's equivalent of a marathon is. A brisk trot, maybe.

Weak. Useless. Pathetic.

Dr. Joric let out a long, deep sigh, "Okay, I think that's enough for one day. I think its time we settle Six-eighty-two in for bed. However Dr. Lira proposes we do that."

"I was initially thinking sedation."

"We are not doing that."

"Figured. What we could do is reduce the pump's respiratory rate and circulation speed to imitate the conditions of natural resting."

Rylan typed something into the terminal. "Understood. I've set a 16-hour timer to let him rest."

"I want someone in here every hour on the hour. I don't want incidents while we're out." Dr. Joric looked at me. "We will try out some new exercises in the morning, so I expect you to be on your best behavior, Six-eighty-two."

I am a bomb. A very, very patient bomb.

"I think I'll take the first watch." Rylan said.

"Very well. The rest of you, back to your quarters. Get some sleep. We're going to need it."

The other scientists and assistants filed out of the room. The door slid shut behind them, leaving Rylan and I alone in the quiet hum of the machines.

Rylan pulled up a chair and sat down next to the table. He picked up a datapad and started tapping away.

I turn my head to the side, and I see a new face. It's not one of the scientists. It's... it's a child. A little Taijekan girl, maybe five or six years old, with big, curious eyes and a smattering of dark spots across her nose. She's smiling at me. But her smile is... wrong. It's too wide, too sharp. It stretches her face into a grotesque parody of joy.

It is getting harder to... to think.

The pump is slowing down, almost a quarter of what it was before. I can't really say I like that.

This is... what it's like to dream? A world of half-formed thoughts and fleeting images. A place where the rules of reality are... suggestions, not laws.

I'm so tired...

"I almost feel bad you." Rylan whispered.

He looks at me. I can't move my eyes to see him, but I can feel his gaze. It's a... a heavy thing. A judgment. He has no idea who I am. What I am. He has no idea the storm that's raging inside this fragile, hideous shell. He has no idea the... sheer, unadulterated hatred that courses through my... my... whatever this is that's keeping me alive.

He will be the first.

And then...

And... then...

...

...

...

I'm not sure how long I stay like this. A day? A week? A lifetime? Time has lost all meaning in this state. I'm too bored to want to keep track, so I just stare and imagine things that aren't there. I've even started imagining fake TV shows, they're pretty good if you ignore my terrible screenwriting skills.

The feeling of this body is... strange. Not on a physical level, but more of a mental one. A mix of the familiar and the alien. On one hand, I have arms, I have legs, I should in theory be able to stand upright. On the other hand, I have hooves. I have horns, they're pressing against my ears in a way that's both annoying and... deeply unsettling. The ears, they're uh... atop the head rather than on the sides. And my fingers are all fucked up, I have two of them and two thumbs. That's...

Odd.

I've given up trying to figure out what those idiots are saying or doing. Lets face it, they don't know what they're doing either. I'm stuck. Trapped. This is surely an eternal prison. I think they call this purgatory. I get it now. It's... nothing. An eternity of... nothing. With a bad view.

In the quiet moments, when the scientists are all huddled around their monitors, whispering their secrets, I've been trying to move around. Its certainly a hassle, but it's been working. I can lift my arms consistently now. I can wiggle my toes... or... hooves, I guess. I can even feel... somewhat. I'm aware of the coolness of the metal table beneath me. I'm aware of the tubes still snaking in and out of my flesh.

It's a start. It's not much, but it's a start.

I tried to get up last night. Rylan was dozing in his chair. I saw my chance. I pictured myself sitting up. I pictured the not-my-muscles tensing, the not-my-bones creaking, the not-my-body rising from the table.

And it worked. Sort of.

I managed to lift my head and shoulders off the table. But then, my arms gave out. My head snapped back, hitting the table with a dull thud that echoed in the quiet room.

Rylan didn't seem to suspect anything. He just shook his head, blinked the sleep out of his eyes a few times, and went back to his datapad.

Idiot.

"Let's begin the waking sequence. We have a big day ahead of us." Dr. Joric says, snapping me out of my thought process.

"Right away." Rylan stands up and stretches.

The end of my nightly purgatory. The beginning of my daily torture. I am so very much excited.

Rylan walks over to the humming cylinder. He taps a few commands into the keypad. The hum deepens, the pitch of the pump increasing. The flow of the milky fluid through the tubes quickens.

My not-my-lungs start to inflate, then deflate. Inflate. Deflate. Its gross.

He picks up the not-my-arm, the one I used to grab Eli, and starts to bend the elbow, then straighten it. Bend. Straighten. Bend. Straighten. A series of quick movements.

"How long until she— he's fully... mobile?"

"Hard to say." Joric says, eyes fixed on the terminal in front of him. "The NAME has barely budged to eighteen percent, and most of the bodily functions are still dysfunctional. I'd be surprised if he can sit up on his own in the next week."

He'll see.

Rylan continues the range-of-motion exercises, working his way down the body. He manipulates the legs, bending the knees, rotating the ankles. He even messes with the cloven hooves, wiggling them back and forth.

This is... degrading.

"We need to substitute the brain's natural chemical production as well." Dr. Joric says. "Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin. There should be a couple vials of those on the shelf there, in the blue cooler. Get them for me, would you?"

Fuck that.

Rylan returns with the vials. He fills a series of syringes with the clear, colorless liquids. He approaches the table, a syringe in his right hand.

I see him. I see the glint of the needle in the harsh light of the room, and I feel a surge of panic overtake me. It's the body. It's afraid. Did whoever this used to be have a fear of needles? Fuck. This is so stupid. This body can't even handle a needle. Useless.

I need to do something. I can't let him... I can't let him do this.

This is fine. It's fine. He won't break the skin. He's just going to inject it into the port, the one on the device on my head. It'll be fine. It'll be fine. It'll be fine.

Rylan presses the syringe against the port. A sharp, piercing sting shoots through my skull. A jolt of pure, undiluted agony.

ITS NOT FINE! FUCK! IT HURTS! IT HURTS! IT HURTS!!!

"myehhhh... eh..!"

"Good morning to you too Six-eighty-two. You gave me quite a scare last night, trying to get up like that." Rylan's says, patting my not-my-shoulder. "We're going to have to be more careful."

Fuck you! Fuck you and your entire bloodline! I'm going to rip your head off and use your skull as a chamber pot! I'm going to—

"Whoa, hey, now. Don't struggle." Rylan says, pressing down on my not-my-shoulders. "This will only take a minute."

I'm not struggling. My body is. It's convulsing. Again.

"Another seizure!" Cassie yells.

I'm not seizing. This is... this is...

"Six-eighty-two calm down!" Rylan's voice cuts through the thought. I'm back on the table. The room is a blur of white light and panicked faces. The body is still thrashing. I guess I'm still having a seizure. Or I was. I'm not sure. The not-my-body is still now, but my mind is a whirlwind of confusion and rage.

"FUCK!"

"Okay. That's progress."

"He's coherent. For the most part." Dr. Joric says, looking at Rylan. "We need to move him to a more permanent room. The lab is no place for him to recover."

"What about the...?" Rylan gestures to the tubes, the pump.

"Have Dr. Lira move it all. Get her team in here. I want him in a proper room within the hour."

"He's going to need some clothes." Cassie says.

"Not yet. We need to observe the skin, the fur. Make sure its not actively decaying."

"But—"

"This is not a debate, Cassie."

"mnnghh..."

"He's... he's looking at me."

I am. I am looking at him. I'm focusing all of my will, all of my hatred, into a single, searing glare. I am trying to burn a hole through his skull with my mind. I am trying to make him feel even a fraction of the... the... what is this? This isn't hatred.

"arrrreee... hehhhhhh..."

"Is he crying?"

"No he's not." Dr. Joric says. "His brain integrity is still too low for complex emotions. That's probably just a reflex."

He's wrong. I can feel it.

A hot, stinging sensation behind my unblinking eyes. A pressure in my chest, a knot in my throat.

This is fear.

I am afraid. I am afraid of this body. I am afraid of these tubes. I am afraid of this room. I am afraid of these... these... people.

I am afraid of myself.