Your exposed flesh rippled like water, the makeshift metal plating sinking…

Sinking…

Sinking inside of you like stones.

Flesh became skin, became scales, it sprouted eyes, and sprouted teeth like feral blossoms. You hauled yourself to your feet, unsteady on six legs like a newborn lamb.

Your face melted, the bones beneath breaking and healing and becoming something else. An eyeless skull, a muzzle crammed with glowing blue teeth.

Cat-like and uncanny.

A deep and wretched sound rattled in your chest, organic and metallic at the same time like a bad midi dragged from the depths of an old point and click game.

You saw Everything all at once, every frightened face and every half formed mistake pickling in the stasis tanks.

You were covered in eyes.

Anything that was not head or massive tail or the undersides of your heavy paws was covered in eyes. An ugly, artificial Argus rendered in blue-black flesh. Electric blue spit slithered from your open maw, glowing with an unnatural luminescence, it sizzled and smoked as it hit the ground leaving holes in its wake.

The scientists bolted, a panicked flurry of limbs in motion crashing into each other as they struggled to make it through the open door. Several people tripped and were trampled. The scientist holding 37 screamed and forced their way to the front of the pack, taking off down the hallway like a shot. You sped after them, your gait unstable and awkward until you figured out how to get your feet beneath you. You slammed haphazardly into walls with every sharp turn, your claws leaving furrows in the tile floors as you struggled to gain traction.

You were not in control, that much was clear. Your brain took a backseat to your body's wishes, an almost instinctual desire to run and fight and be free of this place drowned out all else and left you almost delirious. You could only watch in terror with your hundred eyes as the innocent were trampled underfoot and tossed aside like toys.

You didn't want this.

Any of this.

All you wanted was 37, and Mara, and your other friends safe away from this hell. You couldn't stop, no matter how hard you tried, your body kept surging forward like the tide.

This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

Sirens screamed themselves awake, and lights strobed overhead.

"This is an activation of the Specimen Suppression System, if this is not a drill please take cover. This message will repeat." Droned a recorded voice over the Facility's loudspeakers. Parts of the ceiling slid open, huge guns poking their muzzles from the space beyond like well behaved dogs. They followed you as you ran, whirring to life and spitting out a stream of tranquilizers and suppression foam bullets.

The foam bullets splattered against the walls and floor, the fluid inside them quickly expanding to triple their initial size and hardening within seconds.

You took a tranq to an eye on your shoulder, the eye popped like a grape and started to bleed.

Two more eyes quickly grew back in its place, too close together to even blink or roll.

At no point did you slow down or stumble, the pain and fear urging you on.

The scientist cornered themself on accident, you saw your reflection in their wide and terrified eyes. They held 37 tight enough to hurt, tight enough that she stirred and looked at you.

And then she screamed.

You finally stopped then.

Ears back and hackles raised.

You wanted to lay down, to be small again. You wanted to tell her and everybody else that it was OK and you were sorry but your big stupid body wouldn't fucking let you.

It hissed, teeth bared. Flecks of acid flying from its snarling mouth as it took a single step forward.

The fear in 37's eyes broke something inside of you. You weren't her friend anymore, you were a threat, a wild animal.

A monster.

You… you couldn't think anymore. A sort of numbness breached the surface of your panic and spread like melting ice until you were cold and empty and trembling. Your body didn't tremble though, it refused to show any weakness, but fat iridescent tears fell from every wild and rolling eye.

The beast lunged, a sharp and horrible pain shot through your tail. Your eyes caught on the bright plumage of a tranquilizer dart buried in the flesh of your tail. Your body twisted around, mouth still open and spraying acid, a semi-mechanical roar building in your chest. Mara stood there, dressed in riot gear, holding a tranq gun in trembling hands.

Smoke curled from the gun's muzzle.

Mara's betrayal took the shards of your broken heart and ground them into dust. She dropped the gun and held her hands up like she was trying to soothe a startled animal, not a scared kid in a body he didn't recognize. Mara glanced behind you. "You folks ok?"

"I-I've been better." Stammered the scientist, one terrified Francis Moreau, clearly on the brink of tears. "But-but we're not dead."

Mara laughed but the sound carried no relief or amusement, "That's good to hear, now Frank I'm gonna need you to hold tight to 37, and cover her eyes…" The Specimen Suppression System turned its guns towards you in eerie unison, security guards dressed in riot gear shuffled forward. The sounds of their boots stomping towards you sounded like funeral dirge. "She doesn't need to see what happens next."