{+}+{+}+{+}+{+}+{+}+{+} CH 8
February 1995
Gary paced the large glassed in area, much as the tiger that he glimpsed in his reflection.
He had been there two months. Sixty days since he had been brought to Manhattan.
Sixty days since he'd been given the injection that turned him into this… thing.
He had writhed in pain for what felt like weeks. He couldn't even tell how long it had been, as he had been in this underground prison since waking after being drugged on the plane.
After the pain had passed, after he'd sprouted the fur and claws, he had been poked and prodded. He had been able to talk at first, but slowly, his voice had faded until he couldn't even make a sound anymore.
Sevarius, he knew the name now. He'd committed it to memory. The mad man (he refused to call him a scientist, knowing that's what his daughter hoped to become someday) had seemed disappointed in that and had muttered about adjusting something in his formula.
He must have done it, as the next male he had found, some young self-professed street-tough wise guy, never shut up.
Because he had no way to communicate now, he gave up trying. He felt himself retreating into the animal he felt like.
After he had been brought to the glass cage, finally seeing himself as he was now, any hopes that he had left of going home fled.
He couldn't go home like this, and he couldn't exactly call home and explain.
It would be best, and perhaps kinder in the long run, to let his family believe him dead and gone.
The door to the laboratory slid open as Sevarius wheeled in yet another medical bed, this one with a clearly terrified woman strapped to it.
Gary pounded on the glass, knowing it was a fruitless gesture but wanting to stop what he knew was about to happen.
"Now, now, my silent friend," Sevarius said in that jovial voice of his that made Gary want to grind his teeth. "Is that any way to greet our new friend?"
Gary dropped his hands.
He turned his back, unable and unwilling to watch what was about to happen as the woman began to scream.