The next morning Sarah woke up before everyone else. She knew that when they woke up, the questions would start coming. Questions that she really didn't want to answer at the moment. She considered running away, but then remembered her injured wing. She wouldn't get far. Then again, for her, it would only take a couple of days to heel. She could probably fly with it already, and if she took breaks in flying, she could last longer. She as about to get up, when Ryan walked into the den.
"Hey," he said, "how are you feeling?" Sarah knew that she had just lost any chance of escaping.
"Better," she answered.
"Wanna help us put up the Christmas tree?" he asked. It had been a tradition in their family to put the tree up on Christmas Eve.
"Sure," she said. She got up and went to change. A little while later, everyone was up and decorating the tree. About half an hour later, the phone rung. Ryan answered it. When he came back, he said he was going over to Dia's house to help move furniture to make room for company.
"Her dad threw out his back lifting boxes," he explained, "and her and her mom can't move some of the stuff by themselves." He left to do that, while the others sat down in the kitchen.
"Ok," Max said to Sarah, "I'm sure everyone has plenty of questions about last night, so maybe you should just us from where all this started."
"Well," Sarah started, "I guess it started when I was born. I never knew my parents, but from what I heard, they were told I went missing shortly after I was born. A lot of things like that have been happening around the world. Babies randomly go missing from hospitals. The reason for it was an undercover facility called 'Compound 24', they were performing illegal genetic experiments on humans.
They would somehow sneak babies out of hospitals and take them there. Once there, they were injected with the DNA of animals. The scientists used high Tec equipment to specially design the baby into a super-strengthened, faster, tougher, and more dangerous mutant hybrid. There were different kinds, but the most successful were tiger/humans and wolf/humans. The other experiment usually ended up dying for one reason or another. The scientists also found that they could add wings to any successful animal/human hybrid.
The reason for these experiments I guess was to be used in wars, but a lot of us didn't want to have anything to do with it. The hybrids were kept under close watch. If they weren't being tested, they were in a cage. We had to run drills daily, usually where they pinned two of us against much larger hybrids, just to see how long we could hold out. But one day, they made the mistake of letting two of us, me and another, outside for a flying drill.
They had long chain leashes that they were going to put on us, but before they got the chance, we slipped out of their grasp and flew away. The other person was my friend, Danny. He was a tiger/human hybrid. We got separated when they sent mutant guards after us. I never found out what happened to Danny, and I can only hope he got away. But since then, I have been on the run, going from one state to another, trying to escape the mutant guards that are still tracking me. They don't want news of the experiments reaching the government. Then I wound up meeting Ryan, and now I'm here," she finished. They must have looked pretty shocked, because she asked them if they were ok.
"Wait," said Jimmy, "so you're some kind of human/animal mutant thing?" Sarah nodded.
"You look pretty normal to me," Jimmy said.
"That's the whole point. They don't want you to know that we're any different than any other person on the street," Sarah said, "we can change into human/animal hybrids at our own will."
"So then, what are you?" Emily asked, finally getting her words back.
"I'm a human/wolf hybrid," Sarah answered.
"Then show us," said Jimmy, still skeptical about the whole thing.
"Ok," she said, and she stared to change.
She grew wolfish ears and a muzzle. Fur grew out on her arms and hands. Her bare feet grew furry. Claws grew from her toe and finger tips. She grew fangs and a tail. Her fur matched her hair, so all and all, she look like a reddish brown werewolf, except not nearly as menacing. All of those changes took place in a time span of about ten seconds. Jimmy jumped back in shock, Emily screamed, Max starred in surprise and fear.
"Told you," she said, she still had her normal voice.
"Wow," Max choked out, "that's………different." She changed back to normal. Jimmy seemed to get over the shock, because he continued to ask questions.
"You said that hybrids had different abilities, so what else can you do?" he asked.
"Well, we are very light for our size because we have hollow bones, so that we can fly. But our bones are also almost unbreakable. Basically, I could get hit by a speeding Mac truck and walked away, or fall over a thousand feet and live. Also we are very strong, though it depends if we're morphed or normal. And, we can take on a lot of injuries and still be able to fight; we could be shot several times and live. We can't go long without food though; flying takes up a lot of energy. But pretty much, we were made to be weapons"
"Well then," said Jimmy, "I guess that answers all of our questions."
"Ok, well then, if that's it, I'm gonna go for a walk," Sarah said, getting up and walking out the door.
"Be back soon," Max called after her, "We might worry that you got into more trouble if you're gone too long."
Sarah walked to a nearby thicket of trees. Sooner or later, the Philips would figure out that when Sarah went for a 'walk', she was actually flying. She spread her wings and took off.
Meanwhile at Dia's house, Ryan had just finished helping by moving furniture.
"Thanks for helping Ryan," Dia said.
"Anytime," he replied.
"So whatever happened to that girl? Sarah?" Dia asked.
"She's fine," Ryan lied, "she's adjusting well." Not a total lie.
"I've better start heading home," he said, "Merry Christmas." He started his walk home. He supposed he could have asked for a ride, but Dia might have kept asking Sarah related questions, then he would have to lie, which he hated doing. Walking down the street, he past a fenced in yard. Inside was a viscously barking Doberman.
Ryan didn't pay it much attention, but when all of a sudden, the barking stopped, he looked up to see what had happened. He looked up just in time to see the dog slip out of a hole it must have dug earlier and was outside the fence. He broke into a run as the dog started to chase him.
He ran all the way to a familiar steel rod fence. The sign hanging over it read 'Oak Wood Cemetery'. He ran inside, hoping he could close the gates. They turned out to be chained open, and by then, the dog had almost caught up to him. He ran about twenty yards before tripping over a snow covered headstone. The dog lunged at him. He realized that he might just die in the same cemetery where his parents were buried. He hated irony.
It had started to snow again, so Sarah started to head back. She was passing over a cemetery when she heard someone scream. Looking down she saw what looked like a person being attacked by a dog. Flying down lower, she recognized the voice. Ryan. She swooped down at the huge Doberman that was on top of him. Knocking it to the ground, she morphed into a human/wolf. She growled at the attacking dog. It tried to fight her, but didn't last long before running away. Sarah looked down at Ryan. He had a large rip in his blood covered coat sleeve. Just then someone ran up to them.