Rage. Power. Destruction.
The creature's mind thought only of these things. She did not distinguish between human or object - all was an obstacle in her way.
The way to freedom. The way to peace.
She had awoken in confusion in a place that was not familiar to her. The space was small and confining, with no clear escape route. Loud noises whistled in the distance. She was . . . afraid.
Her fists had clenched. No. She was not afraid, afraid was small, afraid was weak. She was not small, she was not weak, not puny.
She was angry, she had the power, and she was going to destroy anything that got in her way.
Powerful muscles flexed, veins carrying irradiated blood flexed against rippled green skin and in a flash, the room had been no more, just rubble of something that had tried to stop her.
Feet crashed through tile floors as the creature's feet carried her in swift, large strides down hallways, while her arms cleared out anything that would threaten to slow down her pace: doors, walls, or puny humans. Obstacles.
Finally, her fiery eyes locked onto a glimpse of open air, a glimpse of freedom. She approached head on, knowing there was only one thing she had to do to be free. The creature gritted her teeth, channeled her rage, and prepared to. . .
Talia Walker's world smashed back into consciousness. Only blurs were currently visible - the harsh rays of the sun blinded her immediate view of the surroundings. Overloaded senses couldn't tell left from right, up from down. The doctor could feel her heart racing as confusion and panic set in.
Calm. Down.
Taking a deep breath, Talia closed her eyes and centered herself, slowing her heart rate and willed her body back into control instead of in the leash of her emotions. Fear, anger, confusion - they were all silenced and tucked deep within her core. Her brain was back, it was time to flex it again.
Calm. Safety. Humanity.
The woman's mind thought only of these things now. It was imperative to make sure these would be a reality for the foreseeable future.
She brought her hands to her face and felt the contours. Soft skin, small rounded nose, pronounced cheekbones and a sharper chin that she wasn't so fond of. All features she recognized - she was herself again, the monster had gone to sleep.
She opened her eyes and the blurs were now in focus, at least as much as they could be with the loss of her glasses. Countless rows of trees surrounded her, trunks stretching skyward with branches full of green leaves forming a lush canopy, with the sun brightly shining through small gaps of the foliage. She herself was fraily leaning against the thick trunk of a rough-barked tree. The doctor wiggled her bare feet, her toes digging into damp soil beneath her.
Talia sighed - partially in relief and in annoyance. She was in the woods.
Goose bumps prickled up her skin as the chill of the surrounding air touched her bare skin. Her body ached and her head, though hers again, throbbed in pain.
Talia brought her hands down, crossing them to touch bare shoulders, running them down across her naked torso, before they snagged ragged remains of denim barely clinging on to her hips - the only piece of clothing that had survived her metamorphosis.
As she fumbled with the remains of her former jeans, a short burst of panic ignited in Talia's brain, her hands immediately shooting for her pockets. As her fingers fished inside, they contacted smooth glass tubes. An instant wave of relief washed over her as she slipped them out - they had survived, her mission had not been for naught.
Relief was short-lived, quickly segueing into a burst of frustration."Luck," Talia scoffed at herself. She glanced down at the vials in her hands, which had not taken any serious damage riding shotgun with her alter-ego. "You got careless."
She had studied the lab's security system thoroughly, but had gotten impatient inside the lab and triggered the alarm while removing the vials from their containment unite. All after being so careful getting up to that point. Her impatience led to police, police led to panic, panic led to . . . the change.
Talia crouched down to the ground and leaned her back into the nearby tree, pulling her knees up to her face and wrapping her arms around her legs, dangling the three purple vials between her thumb and palm. Her eyes let her surroundings fade out of focus while the beams of sunlight filtering through the opaque liquid commanded her attention.
The creature had been emerging for nearly four months now - four incredibly long and taxing months, four months that Talia Walker would do anything to have back. For all the education she had, all the intelligence she possessed, all she had learned about her transformations and their consequences, she hadn't yet found a way to undo the big mistake that had brought this creature, this monster into the world.
Purple is my favorite color. Talia slightly shifted her hand back and forth, causing the vials to clink together and the purple liquid inside to spawn tiny ripples. Maybe this is a good sign.
"No, don't do that to yourself. Don't get your hopes up."
A cold chill washed over her body. Talia remembered the experiment all those months ago. She remembered when she had first felt something was wrong. When her body first began to change into something not hers. . . .
"No!" Talia balled up her free hand and smashed it into the dirt, the damp soil spreading underneath her fist. Anger washed through her body.
No. Don't it get you again. Anger was one of the triggers. She always made this mistake. The first key priority was always to keep her emotions in check. Letting any of them get a hold of her was dangerous - these are what brought forth her changes in the first place. Several times, after waking up half-naked in strange places, panic, fear and anger would often cause her to immediately re-transform into the creature.
The doctor rested her head into her knees. I need to get out of here, get back to my home, find some new clothes and be me again.
She sighed. OK, second stroke of luck, please. She returned the three vials to her right pocket, then used her left hand to fish into her left pocket. Her cell phone was there, too.
"Two for two." Talia smirked, unlocking the device and scrolling down to the most frequently used number in her recent contacts, then hitting dial. "Luck is saving my ass."
The black station wagon pulled up on the grass and spun its wheels against the muddy turf, pushing the well-used vehicle as close as possible to the barrier of trees. The driver shifted the car into park, twisted out of the front seat and pulled on the handle of the rear right door, pushing the door open.
Exactly 11 seconds later, a half-naked brown-haired woman, one arm draped across her chest and the other holding a ragged piece of ripped jeans from falling off of her hips, darted out from the shadows of the woods and dove into the car, shutting the door behind her. With the power of a four-cylinder engine, the station wagon peeled back onto pavement and onto the side road.
Talia Walker breathed a sigh of relief and melted into the cloth seats of the car. Lucky again. She opened her eyes and stared forward into the car's rear view mirror, where she met a pair of brown eyes staring back at her.
"Rough night, huh?" said the woman driving the car, her voice tinged with sympathy, yet also infused with a touch of humor.
Talia nodded. "Most of them are, nowadays, Rachel."
Rachel shook her head, the long, sand-colored hair that wasn't pinned to the driver seat by her back bouncing around. Her voice lost the humorous tone, replaced with a more weighted seriousness. "Hey, Tal, it's going to be all right."
The doctor forced a smile to her face and adopted a slightly more positive tone. "Well, this is a good start, I guess."
There was an extended length of silence as the pair drove, avoiding eye contact. Talia slumped down in her seat, only letting her eyes breach the bottom of the window. Her body yearned for sleep, but she forced herself to stay awake, at least until she could get back to her house.
"Hey, Tal?"
Talia moved only her eyes, meeting her friend's gaze once more in the mirror.
"I know you're going through a rough time and all, but for goodness sake, please put on a shirt at least."
The doctor blushed, moving her head around before finally noticing a pile of folded clothes sitting next to her - spares she had given to Rachel in the past in case of moments like these.
"Sorry, Rachel, I'm without my glasses so I'm not in the best vision at the moment."
"I don't care, friendo," Rachel said, the humor-lightened voice returned. "I'd prefer we keep our dress code business casual."
Talia found herself smiling a bit, for real this time. Rachel often leaned hard on humor in their interactions to lighten the mood, which was usually an initially-rejected but quickly-welcomed form of recovering from an incident.
"Thank you," said Talia, clasping the back of a fresh bra together on her stomach, before twisting it around and pulling it up over her chest, letting the straps fall over her shoulders. "Seriously, thank you, Rachel, you've saved my life in so many ways. I owe you." She pushed each of her arms through a cotton sweater, then pulled her head through before pulling it down over her torso. She went to unhook her pants, or what was left of them, and once again felt the vials in her pockets.
"No, Tal," said Rachel, once again losing her light-hearted inflection. "I'm the one who owes you a million. Your changes -"
"Let's not focus on that," said Talia, once more retrieving the three purple vials from her pants. "However, there's something I'd like us to focus on later today." She shook the vials once more. "A real change, perhaps."