"Nnnng," Jade shook her head. She couldn't remember anything after the green flash of light that had shook the room. She slowly pushed herself up, one hand on the cold metal ground. She raised her eyes, catching sight of a cage enclosing her. Glancing to the side, something else caught her eye, a flash of… red? Jade turned, her vibrant green eyes resting on another person, sleeping. Sprawled in another cage, his back rose and fell as he breathed. He looked peaceful, his expression softened by sleep. His wings and legs were splayed. Wait, wings?! Jade did a double take, sucking in her breath as she surveyed the sleeping person beside her.
Where his arms should be were two huge and luxurious wings, tapered red and black feathers spread. Crowning the end were talons similar to hands, save their raptorlike build. Tiny down feathers were visible between the primary and secondary flight feathers, a soft orange.
"H-Hello?" Jade held her breath as he stirred. "Sup," He yawned, stretching luxuriously. "You new?" His brilliant chartreuse eyes took her in as he flicked back his hair. "I'm Dave."
"I guess…" Jade glanced around the room. Cages lined the bare white walls, each containing a sleeping form. With a closer look, Jade realized many were like her new friend, animal combining flawlessly with human to create an entirely new being. In one cage she saw a boy with scaly skin and fangs like a snake, and in another she saw the cloven legs of a deer. She shivered. What was this place?
"Welp, you're here now." Dave said, ruffling his feathers. "So what kind of Splice are you?" He stared curiously, and Jade shrank under his intense gaze.
"A Splice?" She stared blankly, shocking green eyes clouded with confusion. "I-I'm sorry, I don't understand…" She trailed off.
"Nah, it's cool." Dave grinned. "'Splice' is what we call ourselves. It means you're DNA's been changed, got new genes from something else. Rose thought of it," He gestured to another crate. "The Doc and his assistants like to call us experimental beings and such, but we didn't like it."
Jade stared blankly. She was an experiment. No one would know she was there, that she existed. She had nothing. "So I'm some kind of animal hybrid?" She asked. Jade gave herself a once over, gasping as she came across her new features. Her legs had changed, her foot lengthened and clawed, fur coating her now digitigrade legs. Her tailbone had also grown; it now split into sixteen different vertebra forming a long, fluffy tail. Her ears had become pointed and moved to the top of her head, also furred and constantly flickering about, searching for noises.
Dave looked on as she checked her new features. "We all are," He explained. "None of us really remember where we came from, or who we were. We're all like this now, though. Some of us, like Rose, kinda remembered some of their skills from when they were all human. Rose can still read and write, which has been damn helpful. Some of the others have managed to save stuff too, but if ya can't practice it in a cage, you're gonna lose it."
Jade opened her mouth to reply, but before she could speak a claxon alarm sounded, jolting the other 'Splices' from their sleep. All around her the sleepy murmurs of waking animals kept her ears flicking as the lights came on and the laboratory buzzed to life.
