9 September 2012
I prowled the cage, snarling at any whitecoat who dared approach.
Two tongues of saliva dripped from my upper fangs, adding, I'm sure, to my ferocious appearance.
When they'd forced the Shift upon me, I'd refused to turn back.
It was their own fault that they now had a rogue panther pacing around one of their inhumane cells.
Also, I wasn't sure how to Shift back.
One whitecoat darted forward with a clipboard, just close enough for me to swipe a long-clawed paw through the bars of my cage and catch his lab-coat with a hooked nail.
He shrieked.
I let out a coughing panther-laugh.
Shedding his coat and running for safety, the whitecoat glared in my direction.
I sat down and began the laborious feline pass-time of grooming myself.
If I took the moment to appreciate myself, I realised that what they'd turned me into was quite spectacular: sleek, black fur with rippling muscles, wide green eyes staring at me from the reflection in the metal poles holding the cage up... The panther was a creature of beauty.
Yet I wasn't supposed to be a panther. I was supposed to be a girl. A fresh-out-of-school-on-the-way-to-university girl.
I snarled again.
Being a cat had also, it seemed, shortened my reign on my temper.
My stomach growled and I turned my back to pace the other way.
That's when I felt a sharp, liquid sting in my rear flank.
I hissed and turned quickly, too quickly, to see the offending whitecoat holding a tranquillising-gun with a smug expression on her squashed, fat features.
I wanted to rip... To... To rip...
My vision wavered.
I snarled again, quietly and turned in a circle on the spot, twice, before my rear legs gave out.
Then my front legs.
I fell to a heap on the floor, a tangle-limbed heap.
A tangle-limbed heap of human.
I'd changed back.
I whimpered quietly, and sank into a dark, medical-induced void.
The Shape Shifter. • Opuss № I