Aaron woke to the murmur of voices.
At first, it drifted through the haze of half-sleep like a dream — muffled words, indistinct, threading faintly through the still air. His first thought was that it was another argument. It had been happening more often lately — sharp whispers downstairs that always stopped when he entered the room. Something about the lab, about safety protocols, or about him. His mother's worry had a way of twisting into anger when she didn't know where else to put it.
But this sounded different. The tones were lower, tighter. Urgent. Afraid.
He blinked against the dim light spilling faintly from the window, realizing the world outside was still gray with early morning. Rain tapped gently against the glass, steady and unhurried. For a second, he thought about staying in bed, pretending he hadn't heard anything. Pretending things were normal.
But curiosity — or dread — pulled him upright.
He pushed the blanket aside, the sheets cool and slightly damp against his skin. His body felt heavy, that deep kind of tired that comes from too many nights spent half-dreaming of alarms, red lights, and the smell of metal and blood. The scars on his arms — the faint, silvery ones — caught the dim light as he moved.
Barefoot, he padded quietly to the door and eased it open. The old hinges let out a faint sigh.
From the landing, he could see the faint glow of the kitchen light bleeding up the stairwell. The shadows of his parents moved across the wall — soft silhouettes, crossing and recrossing each other as they spoke. He couldn't make out the words at first, just the tension in their shapes — the sharp tilt of his father's head, the way his mother kept wringing her hands.
Aaron leaned forward slightly, claws pressing unconsciously into the wooden railing. The faint click of keratin against wood seemed deafening to him, though no one below stirred. His heart began to pound, a dull rhythm in his ears.
Then the words finally broke through.
"…they'll think he's dangerous," Catherine was saying, her voice cracking mid-sentence. "They'll hunt for him, David. You know what people are like when they're scared."
Aaron froze.
They'll think who's dangerous?
The silence that followed felt too long, too deliberate — the kind that comes when someone's searching for the least painful lie.
David's voice came next, low and strained. "We can control the story. We'll say it was an equipment malfunction — the footage was taken out of context—"
"Out of context?" Catherine's voice rose, breaking completely this time. "That video shows our son attacking someone!"
Aaron's chest tightened, a sick, twisting dread taking root beneath his ribs. Video? He felt suddenly cold.
Catherine's words came again, trembling. "You think anyone's going to stop and ask for context?"
He didn't need to hear the rest. The tone said enough.
Something inside him lurched — a familiar, hollow ache that came every time he realized how others must see him. Not as Aaron. Not as someone who had survived, or someone who was trying. Just as the thing he'd become.
He stepped back from the railing, his pulse thudding in his throat. The edges of his claws scraped faintly against the banister, leaving thin marks in the wood.
Downstairs, David was saying something again — something about containment, or statements, or damage control — but Aaron barely heard him. The words blurred into a single, suffocating thought:
The world now knows.
The realization hit like an electric current.
It tore through him in an instant — hot, sharp, and paralyzing. His breath caught halfway in his throat as flashes of memory surged forward, colliding in his mind faster than he could stop them: the sterile glare of the containment room's white lights; the echo of shouting that grew too loud, too close; the metallic tang of fear hanging in the air; and that woman's face — wide-eyed, terrified — frozen in the split second before everything went wrong.
The memory burned. He tried to shove it back, but it clung to him, alive and merciless.
Downstairs, Catherine's voice broke the memory's hold, quiet and trembling. "He's been through enough. If he sees this…"
David's sigh followed — tired, heavy, defeated. "I know. That's why we don't tell him."
That was enough.
Aaron's breath hitched. The words crashed into him like a blow he didn't see coming. We don't tell him.
For a moment, everything tilted — the floor, the walls, the world itself. His vision blurred, heart hammering so violently he thought it might split his chest. He stumbled back from the railing, gripping it to steady himself, claws digging shallow grooves into the wood. The air felt thick and stale, pressing against him until every breath hurt.
They weren't just afraid for him.
They were afraid of him.
The thought hollowed him out from the inside.
He turned toward his room, every step unsteady. His tail — usually so quiet, so controlled — brushed against the banister with a dull thump. The sound echoed through the stairwell, loud as a gunshot in the stillness.
Downstairs, Catherine's voice went silent mid-sentence.
"Aaron?"
Her tone shifted instantly — soft, hopeful, pleading.
He froze mid-step. Every muscle locked in place. His breath came shallow, uneven. He wanted to say something — anything — but his throat refused to cooperate. The words trembled inside him, shapeless and strangled.
"Aaron, sweetheart… are you awake?"
No response. He couldn't force it. His hands were shaking too hard.
David's chair scraped sharply against the floor. "Let me handle this," he muttered, already moving. His footsteps were quick, measured — the kind that tried to sound calm but weren't.
Aaron took one final, trembling breath and slipped back into his room. The moment the door shut, it felt like all the sound in the house vanished with it — no voices, no footsteps, just the faint sound of his own heartbeat pounding in his ears.
Downstairs, David reached the foot of the stairs just as the click of the door echoed through the quiet.
A quiet, heavy punctuation to a conversation they hadn't meant him to hear.
And somewhere behind that closed door, Aaron pressed his back against the wall, sliding slowly down until he sat on the floor, his chest heaving. His claws curled against his palms. His reflection in the dark window looked like a stranger's — eyes faintly glowing, expression cracked by hurt.
He didn't cry.
He just sat there, listening to the faint hum of rain outside, wondering when the world had stopped seeing him as their son — and started seeing him as something else entirely.
For a long time, Aaron didn't move.
The room felt heavier than before, every shadow stretched and silent, the air thick with something he couldn't name. His heartbeat refused to slow. It pulsed through him like static — wild, uneven, too loud for the quiet that surrounded him.
He ran a hand down his face, forcing in a breath that only half-filled his lungs. Maybe he'd misheard. Maybe his mind was twisting their words, the same way it twisted his dreams. He wanted to believe that — needed to — but the tremor in Catherine's voice still echoed in his ears.
They'll think he's dangerous.
That's why we don't tell him.
He pressed the heel of his hand against his eyes until stars bloomed behind them, as if pressure alone could crush the words out of existence. It didn't help.
A faint vibration rattled from the desk beside his bed. His tablet screen had come to life — soft blue light bleeding into the dark. He stared at it for a moment, dreading what he already knew it was.
Curiosity won. It always did.
He crossed the room slowly, like approaching something that might bite. The device chimed again — a dozen notifications stacked on top of one another. News alerts. Social feeds. Mentions tagged with keywords that made his stomach twist.
He unlocked the screen.
The first headline hit him like a slap.
"Lab Creates Hybrid — Turns Violent."
Below it, a thumbnail — dim, distorted, yet instantly familiar.
His throat went dry.
He tapped it before he could stop himself.
The clip loaded in seconds. Shaky, color-warped, punctuated by the strobe of red warning lights. And there — him. His own reflection moving across the screen, eyes glowing faintly in the chaos, muscles tense, the glint of claws catching the light. A flash of motion, the scientist flung backward — and then black.
He didn't breathe through the entire thing.
The video replayed automatically, looping, cruelly indifferent.
Aaron stepped back as if the image could burn him. His mind screamed that it wasn't fair — that it wasn't what happened — but even he couldn't look at it without feeling the same unease that must have seized the strangers watching online.
No one would see the fear in his eyes.
No one would hear the alarms, the shouts, the command that had made him flinch and react.
They'd only see the monster.
The comments were already rolling in.
"Whatever that thing is, it shouldn't exist."
"This is what happens when scientists play god."
"Put it down before it spreads."
He read them all, even as his vision blurred.
For a moment, the world around him wavered — sound dulled, the air pressing too close. He caught his reflection again in the tablet's darkened edge. His glowing blue eyes stared back at him, too bright, too unnatural.
He wanted to smash the device. To erase it.
But instead, he just whispered — voice barely a breath —
"Maybe they're right."
From downstairs came the faint murmur of his parents' voices again, hushed and guilty. The sound made his chest ache.
He turned away from the screen, curling his tail close around himself as if the motion alone could make him smaller. The rain outside had grown heavier, washing softly against the windows, drowning out the notifications still buzzing one after another —
the world dissecting him piece by piece.
Downstairs, the voices grew clearer. Catherine's words were quiet now, edged with something fragile.
"I think he heard us."
David hesitated. "You don't know that."
But she was already climbing the stairs.
Up in his room, Aaron stuffed clothes into a small duffel bag, hands shaking so badly that half of them slipped from his grip. A hoodie, a few shirts, his phone charger — meaningless items, yet the only pieces of normal he could still control. The soft patter of rain outside grew steadier, pressing against the windows like a heartbeat.
His throat burned. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, but the tears wouldn't stop. Everything he touched felt wrong — too human for what the world thought he was.
A knock broke the silence.
"Aaron?" Catherine's voice was gentle, almost pleading. "Sweetheart, can we talk?"
He froze, clutching the half-zipped bag to his chest. He didn't answer.
Another pause, a tremor in her voice now. "We didn't mean for you to hear that. We were just— we're scared. Not of you, honey. For you."
Aaron's breath hitched. The words scraped against the rawness inside him, too late to heal anything.
The handle rattled softly. "Please open the door."
He stared at it, torn. His reflection in the phone's black screen caught his eye again — the same glow, the same reminder of everything he couldn't undo.
He couldn't stay. Not when even their comfort sounded like pity.
The zipper hissed shut.
Catherine's voice broke through again, softer, desperate. "Aaron, whatever you saw online— it's not who you are. It's not—"
But by then, the window latch clicked open.
A gust of cold, rain-laced air swept into the room. He hesitated just long enough to whisper a quiet, trembling apology.
"I'm sorry…"
Then he slipped out into the night.
Outside his room, Catherine's knocking turned frantic. "Aaron? Please—!"
David's footsteps thundered up behind her, but by the time they forced the door open, the room was empty. The curtains fluttered in the wet wind, and the strewn clothes told them everything.
Catherine's breath caught. "He's gone."
Outside, rain swallowed his tracks — the world already erasing where he'd been.