Aaron awoke to silence.
The room was dark, completely pitch black—no ceiling lights, no monitors beeping, not even the faint glow of hallway fluorescents through the door's crack. A stillness had settled over the lab, heavy and quiet, as if the whole building had fallen asleep.
Except... not entirely.
Through the glass wall, Aaron spotted the soft silhouette of someone in the adjacent room—his dad. David was slumped over the desk, arms folded under his head, unmoving. Asleep.
Aaron blinked groggily, his body aching with every twitch. Everything hurt—his muscles, his skin, his bones—but the pain was different now. Not sharp or overwhelming, more like a low, constant hum, as if his entire body was slowly being rewritten from the inside out. He reached a hand forward, trying to push himself upright.
His legs buckled instantly.
With a soft grunt, he dropped back down, panting from the brief effort. His limbs felt like they belonged to someone else—longer, heavier, strangely angled. His knees didn't bend quite the way he expected, and his balance was nonexistent. Still, despite the frustration, he knew it could've been worse. It had been worse.
He sat quietly for a moment, letting his body settle. That's when he noticed it—the soft, ghostly glow around him.
Looking down, his breath caught.
The pads on his hands and feet... were glowing. Not just reflecting light, but emitting it—a soft, luminescent blue, like tiny lanterns pressed into his skin. The glow pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat, bathing the room in pale light and revealing more of his new form.
Fur covered him now, soft charcoal grey blanketing the entire surface of Aaron's body, the extra insulation keeping him warm. He raised a hand-paw, turning it over, watching the light softly radiate from his palm.
I can control it, he realized.
As he concentrated, the light dimmed. Focused harder—it grew brighter. A strange sensation... but comforting, in a way. Something was still his. Something he could control.
He crawled slowly across the chamber, cautious not to fall again. At the front of the room, he placed a glowing paw on the glass and looked out at his father. The blue light barely reached him, but Aaron could see clearly. His new eyes pierced the darkness effortlessly.
David looked peaceful in sleep, yet worn—shoulders slumped, hair disheveled, his lab coat draped loosely over his frame like a forgotten blanket. Aaron stared for a long time, his heart aching. His dad had stayed. Through everything. Even after what Aaron had become... after what he'd done.
He curled up on the floor, right by the glass wall. He didn't want to be alone in the middle of the room. Not tonight. He closed his eyes, the soft glow of his pads slowly fading as sleep crept in once again.
This time, the dream was different.
Gone were the mirrored corridors and long passageways. Gone was the sterile dreamspace of before. Here, there was only darkness—thick, impenetrable, endless, suffocating. Aaron stood at the center of it, breath shaky, the floor beneath him feeling like solid shadow, ready to swallow him whole.
Then... he saw them.
A pair of glowing blue eyes in the distance.
Unblinking. Watching. Waiting.
He tensed. His heartbeat quickened. He knew those eyes. They were his—but twisted. Animalistic. Wild.
And then... it spoke.
The voice came not from the dark, but from inside his head. Deep, cold, and bone-chillingly calm.
"Why fight?"
It was like a whisper and a growl at the same time, rumbling inside his head.
"You're not in control anymore. You know that."
Aaron stood still, fists clenched at his sides. "I am in control."
The eyes narrowed.
"You're weak. Afraid. But I'm not. I could take the pain away. I could make it easier."
The voice slithered around his thoughts like smoke. It sounded... tempting. For just a second, the idea of not feeling the pain, the confusion, the fear—letting someone—or something else take over—it sounded peaceful.
But then he saw flashes—his mom's smile, his dad's worried eyes, the tears he'd cried while clutching his knees in this very room.
Aaron shook his head. "No. I'm not giving in. I don't care what you are. I won't let you hurt them."
The voice growled—no longer calm, now guttural and wild. The kind of sound an animal makes before it strikes. It echoed through the dreamspace, shaking the very air.
But it didn't move.
It stayed where it was—lurking just beyond reach, glaring at Aaron with cold fury.
And then, slowly... it backed away.
The eyes faded into the dark, vanishing one by one like dying stars.
Aaron stood alone again.
And then, the dream slipped away.