Katherine Annabelle Tailer was never an ordinary girl. Always teased by her classmates for caring more about animals than people. The only other person like her had been her life long friend David but even he had failed her know.
She lay there on the floor of her laboratory surrounded by shattered glass and chemicals. There were voices but they were distant. She couldn't explain what had happened or what she was feeling it wasn't anger or sorrow, it wasn't an emotion. She was tingling all over, especially her ears and the bottom of her back. Odd. Katherine turned her head to see where the faint voices were coming from. Crap. The police.
'Police, why is it always the police?'
None of them were looking at her, she could easily slip away.
Slowly she moved her body away from the officers. Quietly, carefully she made it to the back entrance. It hadn't been far away and, thankfully, no one had noticed. Katherine rose to her feet and slowly turned the door knob, frequently looking behind her to check if anyone had spotted her. No one had. The door swung open and Katherine bolted out quicker than she had ever run before, not stopping.
'Don't stop,' she told herself. 'Don't look back just keep running.'
She turned into an alley way her body still tingling, except now her ears were beginning to sting and her backside was aching. Stopping, Katherine found a small space where she could curl up for the night. The strange thing was she could still see, better than usual. Her head was spinning but as soon as she closed her eyes sleep came over her quickly.
Katherine's dreams were full of terrible images that night. The flying rodent almost killing her. Her best friend abandoning her and the syringes, what had she done with them?
She woke with a start. Still dark it had only been a few hours.
It all came flooding back to her. The Bat. David. Her experiments. The needles…
Katherine's fingers touched her arm. She flinched, it was sore to the touch. She had injected herself with the altered DNA. Her fingers travelled to her ears, they had hurt last night.
"Oh my god," Katherine whispered to herself.
Her ears were a little bigger than usual, pointed and … furry? Like a cats. Next her hands moved down to where it had hurt most, her rear,
"Holy crap!"
She had a tail.
A large smile spread across her face, it had worked! Almost, did they work? Or were they just physical?
She tried to move her tail, she could but only just, it was still painful. It must still be growing. Next she sat down and listened. Traffic, people talking, rats. But then it struck her, the direction the noise was coming from. Rats. Quietly going about there business. In the next alley way. Impossible. Katherine sniffed, she could smell the rats too. Her grin widened, it had worked. Completely, it had worked! All the research, illegal testing, having to move country to avoid the law, all had been worth it.
Katherine's ears began to swivel, no. It can't be him. The stupid flying rodent. He had ruined her plans and now he was hunting her down. She ran. Suddenly, looming up in front of her was a wall, she couldn't do anything, she panicked, she jumped. Now like a cat she was pouncing up the wall, over the wall.
Still running not tired, running on adrenaline, she began to head instinctively towards her laboratory. The back entrance was still open.
'Thank you!' her child like grin returning.
Her pace slowed and silently she began to walk in the shadows. She had to get her research noted, she just had to. She had worked too long and too hard not to at least have the chemical equation for the working chemical.
Glancing through the open door, it was shadowed but someone was there. But she had to rick it. For science.
She began into the lab crouching almost on all fours. Finally she made it to her desk on the other side of the laboratory and straightened up. Her tail flicked eagerly from side to side as she licked through the papers… where were they? They weren't here not the correct ones, she breathed in deeply. Bat. All she could smell was that god forsaken man in a bat suit! Again her ears began to swivel, there was someone behind her. Fast as lightening she spun around, ready to attack. It was the Bat. She threw the papers she still had in his hand to distract him. Jumping over his head she kicked him in the back. Knocking him over into the table, his head hitting it with a horrible thud. And he lay there unconscious. Katherine's childish grin appeared once more.