Bobby silently drew the arrow back on the string, praying for a clean kill. He hated causing animals pain. Humans? He could care less. As he let the arrow go, the artificial lighting turned off. A voice from the darkness around him spoke eerily.

" Bedtime, Bobby. No more killing pets."

He didn't understand this new development. Who was this disembodied voice? And how did it cause the sun to go out? He was instantly terrified. He attempted to slink off to the red symbols, but stopped himself. How did they get there?

" CBobby. Come on now, I know you're in there. Do you want me to come get you?"

For some reason he did want the nice voice to find him. Wait! How did he understand? He couldn't speak! How could he understand?

"Ok, I'm coming to get you."

He felt both pleased and terrified. What would happen?

The lights turned back on. Bobby saw a godly being completely in white coming towards him. "No!" his mind was screaming. But the creature continued towards him. He looked down and saw fur all over him. He felt his arms. What was happening? Why was he so short? Why did he have fur? The being in white held up a mirror.

" Want to see the development? You are actually turning into a rat! You should be proud. You are the first rat creature in the history of the universe!"

Rat creature? How? Why? What was happening? He was a mutant. He could never return to his family or be accepted again. Bobby summoned up the courage to look in the mirror. What he saw there was enough to make him scream and run as fast as he could away, away from himself and the hideous features he had.

Bobby woke up and looked at the clock. It read, 3:13 AM. Another bad dream. As he shuddered, he felt his arms to see if there was any fur. Satisfied there was not, he decided to go to the bathroom and take a sleeping pill. Who knows, it might help him sleep. He blearily cleared his eyes and looked in the mirror. Bobby screamed and broke the mirror, as well as his knuckles. The rat creature, it had been there. In the mirror. He began to cry, nursing his broken hand. That was when he heard sniffing behind him. The kinds of sniffing you hear from a rat. Slowly, cautiously, he turned just in time to see the creature leap at his throat.

6:00 PM, the same day...

" Well, detective? What do you think it was?" the rookie cop stared cockily at Trebuchet.

" It looks like self-inflicted knife wounds. Maybe this guy was a psycho," the thirty-five year-old detective replied, completely out-of-keeping with his normal businesslike manner.

" Well, I don't think so," the rookie continued staring, challenging Trebuchet to disagree.