The room was cold. Not physically—there was warmth in the air, in the soft hum of electronics, in the subtle glow of wall-mounted lights—but cold in the way a hospital felt after bad news. The kind of cold that curled around the bones and didn't let go.
Aaron hadn't moved in nearly twenty-four hours.
The food tray remained untouched by the door, condensation gathering inside the water glass, untouched and useless. The room's air had started to sour with the weight of breathless silence. Aaron lay still in the center of the room, curled tightly at first, then sprawled out... as if even his body had given up.
His mind was a prison now. A loop of screams, claws, red on fur, lifeless eyes. And his voice—when he found it again—had turned against him, whispering curses, guilt, shame. He couldn't stop seeing the face of the woman he killed, even though he hadn't even known her name.
He didn't deserve to.
Each hour that passed seemed to weigh more heavily than the last, until something inside him—something human, something broken—snapped.
When Catherine and David opened the door and stepped into the chamber, they weren't expecting the silence to be so loud. But it hit them like a wall.
Then they saw him.
Aaron was collapsed on the sterile floor, a length of wire—thin but strong—wrapped mercilessly around his throat, digging deep into the soft fur of his neck. His lips were tinged blue. His claws limp by his sides, still holding the other end of the wire.
David let out a cry before his brain could catch up to his body. He sprinted across the room, skidding to his knees as he frantically unwrapped the wire, each second an agonizing eternity. Aaron was barely breathing—faint, shallow gasps that rattled like dry leaves in winter.
"Stay with me, stay with me, please—" David's voice cracked as he cradled Aaron's head, shaking with panic. He pressed his forehead against his son's, whispering anything and everything he could—words of comfort, apology, love, desperation.
Catherine followed, moving slower, but no less shaken. She knelt down beside them and gently placed a trembling hand on Aaron's head, her fingers stroking through the coarse fur between his ears. Like she had done when he was a child. When he used to cry himself to sleep after a nightmare. When she could still fix things with lullabies and warm cocoa.
"Aaron... baby, you're here," she whispered softly, her voice wet with tears. "You're here, you're okay. Just breathe. Please, just breathe..."
Aaron opened his eyes.
They were glassy, unfocused... but he looked up at them. And he saw them.
His lips trembled. The wire had bruised his neck, and each breath was a painful wheeze. His voice was hoarse, barely audible.
"I didn't... I didn't want to... I couldn't stop..."
"We know," Catherine said, brushing her thumb under his eye. "We know, sweetheart. You're not alone."
David held him gently, guiding him into a seated position and wrapping his arms around him. Aaron clutched his father's shirt with weak paws, sobbing into his chest. He couldn't hold it back anymore. The pain, the guilt, the confusion—it all spilled out in a raw, animal sound that echoed through the room.
"I killed her... I killed her..."
David closed his eyes, the weight of those words crushing him. "It wasn't your fault, Aaron. You weren't in control."
"But I felt it," Aaron rasped. "I wanted it. For a second, I wanted to hurt her. I liked it. That's not human. That's not me..."
Catherine pulled him gently into her arms as well, the three of them tangled together in grief. "You're scared. You were pushed beyond your limit. That doesn't make you a monster, it makes you a survivor."
Aaron shook his head violently. "I shouldn't have survived..."
David's heart shattered all over again.
There was no guidebook for this. No protocol for how to comfort your child after something like this. They were scientists, researchers, planners. But this—this was grief, guilt, and trauma given form. And it had to be lived through.
Eventually, they moved Aaron to the bed in the corner of the room. He didn't have the strength to walk, so they carried him, David supporting his legs, Catherine holding his shoulders.
They stayed with him for hours, cleaning his wounds, checking his vitals. A team had been on standby, but David waved them off. Right now, their son didn't need more strangers poking at him. He needed them.
Night fell.
The lights dimmed to a soft amber glow, and the room felt less sterile now, more like a sanctuary—though fragile and temporary.
Aaron lay curled beneath a blanket, Catherine seated beside him on the edge of the bed. Her fingers never left his fur, gently stroking, anchoring him. David sat in a chair across from them, rubbing his temples, eyes red and exhausted.
Aaron finally spoke.
"Will it always feel like this?"
David looked up. "Like what?"
"Like I've lost something I can never get back."
A long pause.
"Yes," David admitted softly. "But over time... it hurts less. Or at least, you learn to carry it without letting it crush you."
Aaron swallowed hard, blinking slowly. "I'm scared."
"I know," Catherine whispered, kissing his temple. "But you're still here. And we're not going anywhere."
Chapter 14
It had been a few days since the events in the lab—days that felt like they existed in some strange half-reality, neither entirely here nor there. Each one blurred into the next, stitched together with the sterile hum of fluorescent lights, the soft hiss of air vents, and the faint antiseptic tang that seemed to cling to the back of his throat no matter how many times he drank water.
They called it "monitoring," but it felt more like being under a microscope. There were always voices somewhere nearby—low, muffled conversations between people in white coats, words just out of reach, too quiet to understand but heavy with the knowledge they carried. Every so often, someone would step in, clipboard in hand, eyes scanning his chart before turning that clinical gaze on him. The questions were polite but probing. The tests—blood draws, reflex checks, scans—came so often they began to blur into the rhythm of his day.
And though the transformation was over, Aaron knew, in the marrow of himself, that he wasn't the same—not in body, and certainly not in spirit.
The first shock came with the tail. It was never still. No matter how tightly he tried to will it into calm, it twitched, curled, and flicked as if moved by its own thoughts. Sometimes it wrapped around the leg of the chair when he sat; other times it swept across the floor behind him, snagging on things he didn't see. More than once he'd startled himself with the faint rustle of fur against fabric.
His legs were worse. Longer now, digitigrade, every bone and muscle shifted into an alien alignment. Each step felt strange—off-balance, like walking in someone else's body. His hips carried a weight they hadn't before, his center of gravity tugged toward the ground in a way that made him second-guess even the simplest movement. He could no longer simply "walk"; every motion was an act of concentration.
Physiotherapy became his anchor, though it was grueling. At first, the steps were small—literally. One foot in front of the other, guided by a patient hand on his arm. A few paces, rest, repeat. Then, learning to trust his own balance, to feel the new mechanics of his body without panicking at every unexpected sway. There were moments of triumph, yes—but they were drowned out by moments when his knees buckled, when his tail threw his stance off, when frustration knotted in his chest until he wanted to scream.
When the day finally came to go home, the air in the lab felt different. Lighter, almost—but not in a way that comforted him. It was the lightness of stepping out into unknown territory, of being released from one cage only to walk into another.
The three of them—Aaron, David, and Catherine—didn't speak much on the drive. The silence was thick, filled only by the low hum of the engine and the occasional soft tick-tick of the turn signal. David's hands rested steady on the wheel, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. Catherine sat in the passenger seat, posture straight, her gaze forward but unfocused, as though she were watching something distant only she could see.
Aaron sat in the back, his forehead pressed to the cool window glass. The city drifted past in blurs of motion—shopfronts, people walking dogs, cars idling at red lights—but it all felt disconnected from him, like a film he was watching instead of a world he was returning to.
His tail lay curled in his lap, the fur soft under his fingers as he absentmindedly stroked it, the repetitive motion grounding him. But his thoughts spiraled, faster than the scenery outside.
How was he supposed to go back to school like this? Could he even? The image rose in his mind unbidden: the moment he walked into the hallway, every conversation halting, eyes locking on him. Not just eyes—phones. Pictures. Videos. Whispers turning into laughter, or worse, pity.
Would his friends still be his friends, or would they see something else now—something strange, something other? Would they pretend to be fine with it to his face, only to flinch when he wasn't looking?
He could imagine the way they'd talk about him when he wasn't there. Not maliciously, maybe—but with that careful, hushed tone people used when they didn't know if they were being cruel.
His chest felt tight, as though there wasn't enough space inside him for the air he needed. He let his gaze drop to his reflection in the window. The faint ghost of himself stared back—taller now, sharper in ways that didn't belong to the boy he'd been. His eyes caught the light strangely, a glint that hadn't been there before. His ears—furred, pointed—twitched at the sound of the tires rolling over a rough patch of road.
The boy in the glass looked like him, and yet not.
And for the first time since the transformation, Aaron let the truth settle over him like cold water: he didn't know if the person going home was still the same one who'd left.
The car slowed, the hum of the tires giving way to the muted crunch of gravel under the wheels. Aaron felt the subtle shift of the vehicle as David eased it into the familiar driveway, and a strange knot of anticipation and dread tightened in his chest. The engine clicked into silence, leaving only the soft rustle of leaves in the still afternoon air.
When he stepped out, the sunlight hit him—warm, almost tender against his altered skin. It wasn't quite the same warmth he remembered; his senses were sharper now, the heat sinking deeper, the faint scent of grass and earth blooming in his awareness. He caught the chirp of a bird somewhere overhead, the minute scrape of tiny claws on tree bark. The world felt louder. Clearer. Too clear.
They started toward the house. He followed a few steps behind his parents, his gaze tracing the way the familiar white paint had weathered over time, how the flowerbeds were slightly overgrown. The front door loomed ahead, unchanged and yet foreign, as if it belonged to another life entirely.
It wasn't until he reached the threshold that he noticed how much taller he'd become. The frame that once cleared his head easily now made him duck. The small, awkward movement caught him off guard—a simple, stupid thing, but it lodged in his mind like a splinter. Another reminder that nothing about his life fit neatly anymore. Not even the spaces that used to hold him.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of dust and the ghost of familiar scents—Catherine's cooking, the faint trace of laundry soap. But instead of comfort, they brought a pang of dissonance. These were smells that belonged to the old Aaron.
He made his way to his room without a word. David and Catherine didn't follow; they didn't try to speak. They understood that what he needed right now wasn't conversation but space—room to breathe, to take stock of who he was in this place that was supposed to be home.
His room was exactly as he'd left it. The computer sat quietly on the desk, a layer of fine dust catching the sunlight. The books stood in their neat rows on the shelves, spines like old friends waiting to be picked up again. On the wall, his half-finished sketches—pinned crookedly in places—still hung, frozen mid-thought.
The bed looked smaller. Not just in the way everything from childhood sometimes does when you come back to it, but physically smaller, as though the weeks had somehow shrunk it. Or maybe he had just outgrown it overnight. The sight almost made him laugh—almost.
He sat down anyway. The springs groaned softly under his new weight, the mattress dipping in a way that felt unfamiliar beneath him. He leaned forward, elbows on knees, staring at the floor.
It was only then that he realized the light was off, yet the room was bathed in clarity. Every corner was visible, every detail sharp. He blinked, pupils narrowing instinctively against the dimness, his eyes adjusting with a speed that wasn't human. A small sigh escaped him. Another change. Another thing to get used to.
On the nightstand sat his phone, exactly where he'd left it, still plugged in from the night they'd taken him away. His fingers hesitated before picking it up. The plastic felt too smooth against the pads of his altered fingertips, the faint hum of the battery strangely noticeable to him now.
He pressed the power button. The lock screen appeared, bright and familiar—until the face recognition failed. For a moment, he just stared at the icon, unblinking. Then his gaze dropped to the reflection in the black glass.
A stranger looked back. His features were his, but stretched, shifted, touched by something other. The subtle planes of his face had been pulled into new shapes; his eyes carried a faint gleam that caught the light unnervingly. Alien.
The lump rose in his throat without warning. He entered the password manually, each press of the keys deliberate, heavy. The screen unlocked, flooding him with notifications—hundreds of messages, dozens of missed calls. Friends. Teachers. Names that once anchored him now floated like debris from a wreck, reminders of a life that was still his on paper but impossibly far from reach.
He set the phone back down. The weight inside him wasn't sharp, wasn't the clean slice of panic or grief. It was heavier, slower, more formless. Not pain exactly, but something close. Something that sat in his ribs and refused to move.
The bed felt too small, too confining. Without really thinking, he slid to the floor, curling into the soft give of the carpet. His tail wrapped around him in a protective arc, the fur holding warmth against his body. He shut his eyes, pressing his face into the space between his arms, breathing in the muted scent of home.
It didn't feel the same. And neither did he.
Hours later, Catherine eased the door open, the faint creak of the hinges sounding almost too loud in the quiet house. She meant only to check on him, but the sight stopped her in the doorway.
Aaron lay curled on the carpet, tail looped around his legs like a protective ribbon of fur. His breathing was slow, steady—each rise and fall of his chest a rare glimpse of calm in a week that had been nothing but storm. The late afternoon light slanted in through the blinds, striping his face in gold and shadow.
Her chest tightened. It wasn't just that he looked different now—taller, sharper, undeniably altered—it was that something intangible had shifted, something she couldn't name. The boy she'd raised was still here, she knew it, but part of him felt… distant, like a shoreline glimpsed across deep water. And beneath that knowledge lay a quiet grief, not for who he'd become, but for the life they'd once shared, the easy normalcy that could never quite return.
She stepped inside on silent feet. Even so, his ears—feline now, soft and furred—twitched toward her, instinctively tracking her movements. He didn't wake, but the subtle reaction tugged at her heart.
Kneeling beside him, she hesitated for a moment before letting her fingers sink into the thick fur at the back of his head. It was softer than she expected, a comforting texture under her hand. He made no sound, but the slight ease in his jaw, the faint smoothing of his brow, told her he felt it. For the first time in days, the tension melted from his face, leaving behind something gentle.
She stayed there longer than she meant to, her hand resting against him, grounding herself in the simple, wordless contact. Eventually, she leaned down and pressed a kiss to the crown of his head, her lips brushing the fine strands of fur.
Without a word, she stood, glancing back once before slipping out and closing the door behind her.
In Aaron's dreams, the air was cool and dim, the ground beneath him an endless stretch of shadow. He wasn't alone.
The other was there—it, the wild part of him, crouched just a few paces away. Its eyes glowed faintly in the gloom, a steady, unblinking light.
But tonight was different. There was no snarl, no low rumble of challenge. It watched him with something like patience, its muscles loose, tail still. Aaron met its gaze without flinching. The two of them stood there, locked in quiet recognition, as if testing the boundaries of their shared skin.
Cautiously, he reached—not with hands, but with presence, a steadying calm that said: I'm here. I'm not afraid.
The wild part tilted its head, eyes narrowing in thought, and then—without resistance—it stepped backward. Not defeated, not banished, but receding. As if it had decided, for now, to let him lead.
Aaron's lungs filled with a slow, deep breath. The dream began to thin, the edges of the shadow curling away into darkness. The last thing he saw was those glowing eyes, still watching from the dark—no longer a threat, but a promise.
He exhaled softly in his sleep. And the night held him.
—END— (to be continued...?)