I remember the day they came and stole me from my home. It was sort of surreal, just like a dream. Normal girls like me didn't get kidnapped; they just didn't.

And I was normal. Long, dark brown hair, brown eyes, freckles, straight teeth, average height. I had straight A's in school, except for the B+ in math. I had two best friends, a mom and a dad, and a little brother. My family had an old fat cat named Winston the Third, and there was a fish tank in the corner of my room, opposite the door. I was normal.

That day, everything changed.

The men that kidnapped me weren't human; I was sure of that the moment I saw them. The bottom halves of their faces were elongated, jutting out like snouts. Pointed teeth sliced down, canines, I thought. Furry, pointed ears stuck up from the sides of their heads, chunks of flesh missing in places where they must have been torn out during a fight. Their eyes were yellow, not unlike those of a cat or wolf. There were two of them.

I was sitting with my legs pulled up to my chest, popcorn bowl next to me, eyes trained on the CSI episode on the television, when I first noticed them. A mistake, a rustle in the bushes outside, was all it took to bring my eyes to the window. They were staring at me, feral grins dancing over their hideous faces. My first thought was, Werewolf.

I've read in books that you're not supposed to remember screaming, and trying to run away as they leap through the thick pane of glass like it isn't even there. I've read that it's supposed to happen excruciatingly slowly, but you're blinded by fear; you don't remember. Well, the books are wrong. All wrong. It happened quickly, yes, almost too quickly to process, but I did process it, and I remember it all.

I never thought they would be able to get in fast enough to catch me, but they just dove through the glass pane like it didn't exist. I was barely over the threshold when the bigger one grabbed my forearm, squeezing tight enough for his nails to slice through my soft, thin, human skin and leave ugly gashes, tight enough to cause instant bruises. He yanked me back towards him. He didn't even have to push me into the bag; I fell in for him. I remember abruptly realizing that while I had a half-day at school, Travis, my brother, still wouldn't be home for another two hours, and my parents three hours after that.

I'll be dead before they even know I'm gone.

I screamed again as the bag closed, and again, over and over, until one of the monsters kicked me, right in the ribcage. I gasped as three ribs shattered, another cracked, and two more bruised. The pain was making it hard to breathe. Another bump smashed my head against something hard, and I fell into a welcomed unconsciousness.

When I awoke, I was far from comfortable. My head was pounding, my ribs ached, and cold was pressing in on all sides.

Maybe this is what hell feels like, I thought, internally grimacing. I hope they have food.

A metallic rattle broke the painful silence, but I couldn't bring myself to open my eyes. Maybe if I ignored it, it would go away.

"Get the new ones," someone said. The voice was rough and cruel, deep. Male. Four more rattles echoed around me, one of them directly in front of my face. If I wasn't in hell already, I was sure I was about to arrive in a silver chariot.

A hand gripped my arm under the armpit and yanked, pulling me out of what must have been a cage. I didn't want to open my eyes to find out.

"The one's still out of it," a new voice muttered. The person holding me up, I supposed. They dumped me on another cold surface. A table, maybe. A hand lifted my shirt, freezing hands probing my sensitive, bruised and swollen ribcage. I whimpered.

"They were pretty brutal, huh? She probably won't survive. You still want to go ahead with the injection, boss?"

"Execute the surgery to fix her ribs and the crack in her skull, and then go ahead with the experimental DNA injection. Send someone to let the erasers know to be more careful with the cargo. We can't operate on merchandise damaged more than necessary," the first voice replied, sounding irritated. I didn't blame him. I wouldn't want damaged goods, either.

I wonder what kind of cargo they're talking about? I thought as I was wheeled from the room. I'll find out later.

As I wondered about what the strange men had been talking about, though, I realized that one of the words hadn't made sense. Erasers. Perhaps they were talking about a specific kind of surgeon or doctor. They'd been talking about surgery, after all. But what about the werewolves?

A sharp, stinging pain in my left arm, on the inside of my elbow, tore me from my thoughts, and I fought back a yelp. Almost immediately, I was drowsy.

Anesthesia, I thought sleepily, drifting into sleep.

Waking again in the same cold, hard, cramped cage as before, I determined that the werewolves must have killed me and taken me to hell, silver chariot be damned. I was lying on my right arm, and it was beginning to cramp up, so I shifted, trying to free it. There was a sharp pain as it pulled out from under me, which brought my attention to the areas of my body that should be hurting; my ribs and my head. My ribs only ached. I realized that they must have healed, or been fixed. My head, too, didn't hurt nearly as bad as before, though it still throbbed dully.

"Look at that. You're actually alive. I never would have thought," a harsh, raspy voice whispered from beside me. I turned my head, cracking open my eyes to see, and immediately wished I hadn't.

In the dog kennel next to me was what could have been a boy. He must have been only ten years old. His skin was sea green, small patches of scales scattered here or there. His hair was a silvery white, albino, probably, from lack of sunlight. His eyes glowed an impossibly bright red, the light from them glinting off his pointed teeth. He was truly a creature of nightmares. I pushed myself against the wall of my cage, trying to get away.

"What are you?" I muttered, voice cracking in fear.

"A mutant," he shrugged, grinning maliciously. "You, too, soon, if not already. They've been injecting you with various things over the past few days while you've been out. Some of those might have been DNA. Then again, they might have been waiting for you to wake up to give it to you. They do that sometimes." So he had been human once. Soon, I wouldn't be.

"Who's 'they'?" I asked suspiciously, earning another grin.

"They whitecoats. Doctors. Scientists. Some of us, for the sake of a pun, call them teachers."

"Teachers?"

He dropped the grin abruptly, replacing it with a grim expression. "We call this the School. They take most of us when we're babies, from the hospitals. They tell our parents that we died. Some, though, like you, they kidnap. Most of you don't survive because your developed systems can't handle the mutations. Seventy-five percent of you don't survive, especially if you're injected while you're awake. You'll probably be dead in a few days."

Wow, way to be supportive.

My attention was drawn from the mutant boy when white light flooded the room, originating from a door on my left. A man's silhouette was outlined in the doorway, tall, but neither lanky nor burly.

"Number forty-seven, it's time for your first dose of avian DNA."