AN: In this chap we meet 'Pat'. The italicized paragraphs are her memories/thoughts.
Chapter 1: Remembering
I can remember the darkness, the silence, and the straps that held me to the cold steel of the table. I was imprisoned, unable to fight, my mind a haze, as he jabbed a needle into my arm and tears ran down my face. I couldn't even wipe them away, the salt would dry on my temples and scalp and make my skin itch like crazy. It was then that I realized my head had been shaved. Which only made me cry more.
I can remember thinking about my family, my mom and sister, wondering where they were, wondering where I, myself, was, wondering what was being done to me.
I also remember the change. The way I could suddenly see so clearly in the dark, make out every feature of the face that leered at me when he came into the room, needle in hand. I remember being able to hear his heartbeat, as if it were a drum from the university band, and how I could smell him. Not his cologne, but him, his personal odor, an odor that day by day became fouler and fouler to me. He would shine his pen light in my eyes, and I thought they would explode. Then he'd run his hands over me, as if the lech was checking for broken bones or something, and then, I was now given the opportunity to watch as he slid the needle into my arm, twice. Once to withdraw, once to inject. I had no idea what he was injecting, and I remember hoping that it would kill me.
I recall when I lost my voice from all the screaming for help and cursing that first week. Even after I got it back, I was still silent, knowing it was useless to call out, unwilling to give my tormentor the satisfaction of hearing my torment. So I just cried, listened, smelled, felt, and hated him in silence. I recall being startled one day by a growl, my eyes darted around, looking for the big cat from whose throat the feral sound had come from. But all I saw was the leer fall, replaced by a triumphant and jubilant psycho-smile as he whispered,
"Good job." as he all the more hastily used the needle and then patted my arm. Good job? Was that...Me? Denial, shock, and then anger, rushed through my blood and my brain, and I lashed out against the straps, using every muscle within my body to break free as he simply walked out of the room. But I only fell back, still restrained, more hot tears leaking down my face. I remember whispering,
"Oh, God, help me..."
"Pat?" a girl with long dark hair and opulent green eyes turned towards a girl dressed similar to her in a yellow waitress's dress and apron, Chris.
"What?" Pat answered, going up to the counter as her lanky, auburn headed, friend handed her an order.
"Can you take this? Bill left the grill unmanned." Chris said with some frustration. As Pat took the tray, Chris gave her an appreciative little smile, turning on a tennis-shoed heel to the kitchen.
Pat made her way over to the customers on the other side of the room, two truck drivers; they're typical 'passing through' customers. Missy's did a lot of interstate business, here on the edge of Virginia. She handed them their plates, refilled their coffee, and was about to go back to the counter to wait for the noon crowd when she stopped as a news bulletin was broadcast from the tv that hung in the corner, the topic catching her, and everyone else's, attention.
Mutants...more and more occurences are being reported of these 'evolutionary wonders' and yesterday, the President presented his address concerning the threat to the nation, with a very unexpected twist. A clip began to roll of the address. But Pat turned away from the tv and went on to the kitchen to see if Chris needed any help. What the President said wouldn't make any difference, as far as the world was concerned, to the mutants, and especially not to her. Pat considered herself a mutant among mutants because she hadn't been born 'special'. No...that had been a gift.
"Hey, Pat, could I get another cup o'joe?" one of the regulars broke through her thoughts. Pat barely smiled politely as she grabbed the pot,
"Sure."
I think the worst part about remembering is being able to remember what it was like to be normal; how it was to know where I fit into life. Remembering my mom and sister, and the house we lived in, in our quiet little neighborhood, and remembering high school with all the friends, like Sam, and enemies, like Megan, hurts. It hurts to remember all the dreams and plans that have been replaced with the acceptance and expectance of what is now my life, what is Pat's life.
When I escaped I ran from what I was and those I knew and loved; those I could now only hurt. I changed my name so no one would find me, and I looked so...different...no one would recognize me. I remember how I ran till I fell on the ground, exhausted. I didn't know how far away I was, but I knew that Dr. Kripten wouldn't be able to catch me and take me back to his lab. I caught my breath and aimlessly walked down the highway until I stumbled onto a little town I'd never heard of. I walked those streets like the stray cat I was, and, as I passed a tv shop window, I came to realize just what I was. I'd ruin my old life, and the lives that had been connected to it. I was spattered with blood, and my clothes and new grown hair were wet and matted from the snow I'd lain in. I'd never be able to be 'normal' again.
I must have passed out, because when I opened my eyes I was in a house, one belonging to a former nurse named Rebecca Samuels who had her own reasons for living like a hermit in her sheltered cabin. She, and I guess fate, nursed me back to health, and as a thank you I insisted on leaving - I couldn't bring what ever ill luck was following me to her door. But she insisted on giving me a roll of cash and buying a bus ticket to...somewhere...and that's what brought me here to Nowhere, Virginia, working two shifts at Missy's Diner.
The dinner crowd had fallen upon Missy's, making it the second busiest time of the day - the first being five a.m. to nine a.m - and Pat's second most agonizing time of the day. Every sliding of a utensil against a plate, every raucous laugh, every sound rushed upon Pat's sensitive eardrums like waves on the sand, unceasing and unrelenting. She surreptitiously popped Tylenol like candy, while Chris bustled around like a honey bee, spreading coffee and sweet tea with her eager smiles and ready jokes. Pat just gave polite nods and smiles, serving the food promptly, and taking the payments promptly too. That had come to be expected from Pat by the regulars, and it was accepted like a tree in the forest.
She pulled the pencil out from behind her ear for the millionth time that day, and walked up to the next customer waiting to be served. He was a tall, broad man, with tousled brown hair and eccentric sideburns, but Pat had seen just about everything pass through Missy's at some time or other, so it wasn't his appearance that sent her hairs raising and her pupils dilating. It was his scent - the strong odor of canine. She felt her stomach muscles tense and pushed away bad memories as she stepped up to his booth.
"Can I take your order?"
The dog-smelling man looked over her calculatingly, his nostrils quivering faintly. Pat had a sinking feeling that he must have smelled her too, but he didn't do anything except ask, "The dinner plate and a beer." as he handed the menu back.
"Right up." she said, jotting it down and quickly turning back to the bar. She waited in the little cove the kitchen door provided, touching Chris on the arm as she passed. The fellow waitress paused and turned,
"What's up?"
"Would you take a customer for me?" Pat prayed that she would.
"Yeah, sure." was Chris' ready reply, but when she saw Pat's slightly flustered appearance she got curious, "Why?"
"The guy in that booth," Pat glanced towards the man, he sat still, looking out the window, "he reminds me of someone and is...making me nervous." It wasn't all a lie after all.
"Sure thing, hon." Chris said, switching orders, "Back corner." she directed, and Pat went on her way. But even as more customers came in and they got even busier, her headache worsening, she could still feel the guys eyes on her. The stress only made her go back for more aspirin, emptying her bottle, and when he finally left, Pat sent a withering glare at his back.
As soon as the dinner crowd cleared out and the late night shift came in, Pat was on her way home, her little beat-up car chill since the heater had broken. She felt like a zombie as she climbed the stairs to her second story apartment, and the little suite looked like a zombie's residence in that it was generously bare of any personal touch. Pat exchanged her uniform for a pair of pajamas, and crawled in between the sheets, hoping to escape her life till the alarm went off at four thirty the next day.
I only knew what he was doing, never why. At least no until Dr. Kripten came in that day without his usual metal tray and accompanying needles and vials. What scared me worse than this, however, was the glint in his eyes. I knew he was evil, but today he looked like evil itself, expectant and excited for something I knew would be horrible.
"Today is a very special day." he'd said, as he smoothed back the hair that had grown over the past months. "Today you get an update on the progress we've made." he talked like it was a joint effort, like we were a team. It wasn't, and I wanted to remind him of the fact that he'd drugged and kidnapped me after finishing that last class of his. But I couldn't before he clamped a cloth over my nose and mouth, forcing me to inhale a sickly sweet perfume. I recognized it as ether before I fell into Lala-land clouds.
I woke up, curled in the fetal position on the white floor of a very white room. As I stood, I was confronted by a window, through which I saw another white room, and a slender girl with dark hair, green eyes, and bee stung lips. She looked slightly familiar. I walked over to the glass, hoping for contact with some other human - Dr. Kripten I no longer considered human - but as I reached the glass and went to speak, I stopped. Her lips moved as mine did. I waited, staring. She stared back. I lifted my hand, waving. She waved back. I clapped a hand to my mouth in horror, and so did she.
Who was that? For it surely wasn't me. My hair had always been dark brown, but it had curled, and it hadn't been almost black. My lips had never been that full, my bone structure never that crisp, my eyes never so luminous and...cat-like. I wondered what months of laying on a steel bed had done to my muscles to cause them to ripple so evidently beneath the black leather get-up someone - and I cringed to think who - had dressed me in. I touched the glass, my longer nails clicking against the mirrored surface, and my perusing was interrupted by static.
"Now that you've met yourself, I will explain the findings." I took two large steps away from the mirror - which I was now certain was two way - as Dr. Kripten's voice came auspiciously through the speaker system, "For the past year we have been injecting feline DNA into the subject's - your - blood stream, doing regular blood tests in order to monitor cell variations."
A year? Have I been here a year? I wondered with growing horror and rage as he continued.
"As you can see, the physical change has been remarkable," I glared hatefully into the mirror, "as the eumalanin pigment of the found in the black members of Panthera pardis have caused a change in hair coloring, while other factors from the Panthera eo and the Panthera tigris have heightened olfactory senses, vision, and hearing by at least sixty percent..."
I felt the urge to cry and claw through the mirror to kill Kripten, who, thanks to my 'heightened olfactory senses', I could smell like he was in the same room. I could hear a page turn, and he continued his report, as if I was a lab rat we'd studied in biology.
"Today we will be testing what psychiatric changes, if any, have occured." I thought back to the time when I'd growled at him and I knew that they had. But I wasn't allowed any more time to ponder what those changes might be as a door in the side of the wall across from me opened. As it did, a strong whiff of dog came to my nose, and I automatically backed into a corner as the hairs on the back of my neck rose and I growled deep in my lungs.
From the hole came a man, dressed likewise in leather. His face was scarred and a pair of fury filled eyes glared at me from behind a veil of matted blonde hair. He was bulky, and moved on all fours, a thick collar around his neck, and for a scant second I wondered just what was done to him. I hope no one ever tells me.
He growled at me, moving towards my corner, which I instinctively left, and we began circling each other. If you can picture a wolf and a panther in the same cage that is what we looked like. One growling and the other hissing. I remember suddenly being surprised by what I was doing, as I heard myself hissing and howling at him, and I remember that the dog-man took the opportunity to lunge for me, hurling his sizeable bulk in my direction, bringing me down under him.
I was saved as I rolled away from him, hurtled into the mirror by the impact, but I recovered quickly, pushing to my feet as I whirled back around to face him. Crouching, I held out my hands, long nails at the ready, and we circled again, attempting a swipe here and there. His eyes were red, the capillaries seeming to have burst, but he saw clearly as he jumped once more. I dodged, and then jumped onto his back and sent him into the wall, sinking my nails into his flesh.
He cried out and threw me off, into another wall, and came at me again as he left a coat of red paint where I'd broken his nose. But I used the wall, sinking my nails into it, finding equilibrium easy like any feline. When he was within suitable range, I jumped for him, sending us to the grown, a ball of claws and howls. He flung me off again, and then several more times, and each time I jumped down on him, shredding at him with my claws, as we rolled on the floor, the walls, and the mirror.
Then he bit me. It was the act that sent me over the edge of what little reason I'd maintained in this animal frenzy. I roared as I grabbed his neck and wrenched it around at a 180 angle.
It was with his limp form beneath me that I realized what I'd done, and looking around, I finally noticed the blood smeared on the white surfaces as human and my eyes blurred with tears. What had I done?
"Very good." a sadistic voice came over the speakers, and I tried to hide from it and from the sight of what I'd done by scooting into the near corner and pulling my knees up to my chest so I could burry my head in between them. But the smell of blood assaulted my nostrils and sweat trickled over my skin, mingling with tears, not allowing me to forget. It wasn't until I smelled Dr. Kripten and heard his heartbeat that I looked up. He was smirking at me, his eyes hard, and his hands clenched around a dart gun.
"Now, just hold still, and we'll get you back to your cell -" he raised the barrel but I had already lunged for him, bowling him to the floor and rendering him unconscious. I wanted to tear his throat open with my handy new fingernails, but the puddle of blood looming right beside his head made me queasy with shame. Instead of killing him I ran from him, fleeing down the halls until I found a door that took me to the outside. I frantically ran despite the cold coming down in white confetti, only stopping when I collapsed.
Pat's eyes shot open, a sound rescuing her from the recurring nightmare from her past. It had been a footfall, a stair creaking, someone leaning towards the door as they listened for her breathing, preparing to burst in and take her back - Her terror ridden fantasy was broken by voices laughing, and then the creak of a mattress as bodies fell into it. More vivid sounds came through the walls, courtesy of her amplified hearing by Dr. Kripten, and Pat hastily turned on her bedside stereo. She didn't need to bring on an 'episode'.
Pat hadn't stuck around long enough for Dr. Kripten to discover one of the drawbacks that resulted from his gene tampering. Along with Pat's increased senses, blessings of the feline, a curse was included. The one that sent all female cats into a voracious heat that would drive Pat up the wall or onto the nearest male if she hadn't found a solution - a bottle of sleeping pills taken religiously and precisely for four days every four months. That worked up to twelve days a years she slept 'it' off.
She brushed an offensive tear from her cheek as she heard a name whispered and turned the radio up. Despite all the feline that had been fused with her DNA she was still human and had the longings of home, friendship, and love as every other human did. She just needed someone with enough animal in them to counter. Good luck with that, Pat.
The thought of other animal infused humans brought the guy from the diner to mind. Pat knew that he was a mutant, either born or created by the same Dr. Kripten, her money being on the born option. And that prompted the question of just how many other mutants had been in the diner, on the sidewalk, in front of her at the grocery line. It was a mind numbing question and she closed her eyes to go back to sleep, listening to some old rock song. But her dreams are still mingling with her memories, and as Dr. Kripten stepped into her room she sat upright, eyes wide as she realized she heard something.
Her eyes darted about the room, her hears picking up a soft humming sound and a foreign scent. Climbing out of the bed she went to the wall and listened, finding the other room quiet now she goes to the window and looks out. Nothing in sight. But she still smelled something and knew it didn't belong - someone was out there.