There were voices nearby, but who they belonged to and what they were saying she didn't know. Her senses were slow to process, very slow. A bright room began to form around her, and there were at least six people there. They were examining her, and…exercising her limbs? What was going on? Something was wrong, but she couldn't figure out what it was.
There was a man speaking to her. She realized he was repeating the same thing to her, but she had a hard time understanding. Who was he? Why was he there? Why was she there, wherever "there" was?
Her senses gradually sharpened and clarified, and at last she could understand what the man was saying.
"If you can hear me, count from one to ten, if you know how."
"O-one…two…th-three…four…fuh-five…six…seven…eight…n-nine…ten…." It was difficult, and took a while, but she could do it.
"Wonderful! You're awake, and undamaged."
"What…what's going on?"
"You've been asleep for a while. We're helping you get re-oriented again. Don't try to move fast just yet; you're not quite fully alert just yet."
"Where am I?"
"We call this the Genetic Infusion Laboratory."
"Where's that?"
"Here in the facility."
She didn't understand why she had been asleep, and the name Genetic Infusion Laboratory sounded unfamiliar. And the more she woke, the more she was convinced something was wrong. Her body didn't feel right, but she couldn't figure out why, until she looked down, and screamed.
Vivid crimson scales covered her arms! On her left arm they were like stripes across her arm from her shoulder to her wrist. And the right arm consisted of two large patches; one reached down her shoulder to the mid-upper arm, the other from the forearm and completely covered her hand-
Claws! She had two large claws instead of four fingers and a big clawed thumb on both hands now.
She screamed again and started to thrash around furiously, and had to be held down by the people who were examining her.
"What happened?! I-I wasn't like this before!"
"No! You mustn't move like this! You're not used to this yet!" the man said to her.
"Fascinating! This strength is incredible! It might surpass our projections," somebody said.
"It's very encouraging. We'll have to include this in our preliminary report," said another.
"Please! Relax!" the first man told her. "You're going to hurt yourself!"
"Something happened! You did something! Show me what!" she shouted.
"Get a mirror," the man said. "If she sees herself, she might calm down. I don't want to sedate her, and have her panic again later."
One of the people moved away momentarily and returned holding a small mirror. The mirror was held before her and she gasped; her whole body had crimson scales everywhere, either as scaly stripes or in large patches. The only exception was her chest and abdomen, where the scales were yellow-gold instead of crimson. Her toes were claws like her hands, and she had fangs now, too. Almost half of her face was scales on her left side, the other, just her cheek. Her eyes were still brown, but the pupils were reptilian now. And it was worse than just that because she could see she had large crimson and gold wings, and a long tail to match. She was half dragon.
She had stopped thrashing and the people let go, though she was allowed to sit up. She felt ice cold and sick in spite of the pleasant temperature the room was kept.
"Why?" she asked tearfully, though none answered her. "What happened? I want my-" She stopped. Who did she want? She looked down, struggling to remember, and noticed for the first time that there was a large scar on the underside of her right forearm. It looked somewhat fresh, but she couldn't remember when she got it, or how.
She looked back up at the people. Another man that had been lurking in the background stepped forward; he appeared puzzled by this clearly unexpected development.
"You don't recall what happened?"
"No."
"Do you remember your parent?"
"N-no, I don't."
The man frowned. "Do you know your name?"
She concentrated, and struggled, but this time she could answer. "Ce...cil...ia. I'm Cecilia."
"How old are you?"
"…Five."
"Hmm. What else do you remember?"
Cecilia thought as hard as she could for several minutes before finally shaking her head. "Nothing. I can't remember anything."
