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I awake to the pain of something being stabbed into my arm. I jolt suddenly awake and find myself to be restrained. I open my eyes and see a fuzzy little creature finishing an injection of some dark, viscous looking fluid into my arm using a medical syringe. I attempt to struggle again but to no avail. The fluid is already starting to flow through my veins. To add insult to injury the little fuzzy creature seems to be trying to comfort me. It's making cooing sounds in a calm, gentle manner, all the while softly stroking my chest. If anything this kind of babying tactic only serves to piss me off more. However, if they wanted me harm they had plenty of opportunity to do so. I am at their complete mercy and struggling against these bindings isn't going to suddenly make them go away. So I eventually stop trying to resist.

Once that happens the creature moves over and undoes the straps to one of my arms. I try to take a swipe at the creature but it scurries away too fast. I take the opportunity to remove all the rest of the straps. Now free I take a moment to sit up and take a good first look at my surroundings. I definitely seem to be in some sort of lab, particularly an analytical lab. There are a lot of equipment here, many I recognize, though at least a few that I do not. All of the equipment is in pristine condition, almost to the extent of looking brand new. State of the art too, from the looks of things.

I turn my head to full regard my captor. They are only about half my size. They're some kind of dog-like species, or at least a mix of canine and human features. Large, triangular ears adorn the top of its head, currently pinned back in a defensive/cautious posture. Long, pointed muzzle, almost triangular face, deep blue eyes with an almond-shaped pupil. Covered head to foot in an off-white colored fur. They have a long fluffy looking tail sticking out behind them and they stand on animalistic legs. However, they are still standing up on two feet, and seem to have human-like hands and arms. As for their sex I can't tell. They're wearing a very pale blue gown that covers their chest and groin but leaves most of their arms and legs exposed. Given the lack of any obvious breasts, however, I can guess probably male.

In his hands are a kind of notebook. I stand up to try and see if I could get a better look at it, figuring it's a good chance that it will give me some clue as to what was injected into me and why I'm here. But standing up I can already feel the effects of something or other. My whole body aches and the area just above my ass is tender. Though that might be a result of whatever mechanism they used to abduct me. The worst part, though, is the itchiness. My whole body itches as if I was dumped into a vat of itching powder and when I absent-mindedly scratch at a bit of itchy skin on my arm I notice that some of the hairs of my arm come off with it. In a panic I dash forward and snatch the notebook from the creature's outstretched arms.

Grabbing the notebook I almost half dread the notion that it may be encrypted or using a bunch of terms and symbols that I wouldn't know or worse, the book could be written in a completely different language or hold nothing relevant. I did just grab an unmarked notebook from something the size of a child, one that has not said a single intelligible word since I woke up. It is, then, entirely possible that I just grabbed the dog thing's coloring book. Or it could be blank and I'm supposed to fill it out. If it is I'll just have to proceed on the basis of radiation poisoning since that's what my symptoms remind me of.

Preparing for the worst I open the notebook and am pleasantly surprised that not only is it relevant to my situation but is also written in English in a format that I can easily understand. Unfortunately it does seem to be less a lab notebook and more of a personal journal. And yet, it seems to be written in a handwriting extremely similar to my own. Curious I bring it up to my face and look at it closely. I can't find any depressions of ink smudges to imply it was written by a pen. I sniff at the paper a few times but can't detect anything. Given this and just how all the text is too regular, too neat I can come to the conclusion that not only was this notebook typed out, but done in a custom font. Apparently they had gotten enough of my writing to make a custom font just for me. Which means I was especially targeted.

While considering the ramifications of this I scratch at the top of my head and come back with a clump of hair, bringing me back to the task at hand. Scanning quickly through the pages I see no sign of the words 'radioactive' or 'isotope,' meaning I can rule out acute radiation sickness. Then what else could cause me to start having my hair fall out so quickly? Flipping back to the front of the notebook I try to find how this person describes the situation. He describes the serum as a progressive mutagenic agent that wasn't doing what it was intended. Originally designed to treat degenerative conditions, instead it ended up causing one of its own. Sure it would remove the old diseases, but slowly altered the subject down to even the genetic level. The initial symptoms seem to be hair loss, the un-fusing and development of the coccyx and the growth of fine white hairs all over the body.

I close the notebook and consider what I've learned. If what this thing says is true, it would explain my symptoms. Though that supposition seems more fantasy than possibility. I regard the other person, finding that they've hopped onto a table and are watching me with interest as their legs swing back and forth.

"Is this you?" I ask before the thought even occurs to me that they might not even be able to understand what I'm saying. Thankfully, though, they shake their head at me, which answers that question as well. "Do you know who did?" I ask as a follow-up question and after a few seconds get another shake of the head. "Can you speak?" In response I get a series of somewhat high pitched barks that are too complex to be simply making noise. So technically yes. He can speak, it's just not in a language that does me any good. "So why did you inject me?" The creature considers this for a good long moment, eventually making me realize that I didn't ask a simple question it could answer yes or no to. Eventually the creature makes a show of putting one hand on top of the other, rotating them so that the other one is on top then opening the hands back up again.

It takes me another moment to try and figure out what that means and my gaze falls to the notebook in the process of looking at my own hands. It is a thought I hadn't even really thought of. I went through the notebook to try and find an explanation for what was done to me and I got that, but especially with my observation regarding the fact it was typed out and seemed to be a journal more than anything I had dismissed it as something that would pertain to me specifically. I open the notebook and flip to the last entry, half expecting it to be a direct comment at me. Instead it is just another journal entry, though as odd as it may seem the handwriting seems to be a lot sloppier, which is confusing since it was a custom font to begin with.

'I fear that the process is nearing its completion. I won't have much hope left for my own sake. But the most frustrating part of this all is that I know I'm on the right track. If I can figure out the last few ingredients, the last few pieces of the puzzle I should be able to not only undo my own changes but make it so that the serum would work as intended, even if it ends up requiring the use of two injections back to back rather than a single injection as I had really hoped. I'm setting up the last experiment for today and I hope that all my work has come to fruition. The cure is so close now I can smell it.'

A cure? There is a cure to whatever is happening to me? A way to reverse what was done to me and quite possibly the dog man thing as well? Well that is certainly promising but then there comes that nagging thought. If he had found the cure then what would be the need to inject me?

"There is no cure yet, is there?" I ask the dog thing. His ears fold back slightly and he looks more than slightly disappointed. After a moment he sighs and shakes his head. "You were injected with the serum as well, weren't you?" A slow nod, the dog thing not even bothering to look at me. "Then why inject me? If you had wanted help couldn't you have just asked for it?" The dog thing seems hesitant at this, as if again trying to figure out how best to describe the situation. Finally, gritting his teeth he rotates a hand and with two fingers pointing down starts alternating them quickly. To add further emphasis he starts moving his hand forward and then to the side.

Which doesn't take too much to figure out what he's talking about. As things are now there is no possible way in which someone of his stature would be able to forcefully keep me from doing just about anything. He's half my size and has more of a lean build than anything. I don't even think he'd be able to do anything other than slow me down if he pushed with all his weight against me. So without some technological means of enforcement or other people acting as muscle there is nothing he can do to keep me from trying to escape, unless there was some other form of incentive to keep me here. So I was injected by the serum for the sole purpose of giving me a reason to not just run away. I still can, but if I do I'll be allowing whatever that serum is doing to me to run to fruition. If instead, however, I help this little dog man then I can theoretically cure myself and be on my way back to normal.

Frowning I put the notebook down onto the nearest table and notice while doing so that the floor below me is starting to look like the result of having just gone to the barbershop, clumps of my own hair all over the ground below me. I must start to look quite the mess but a quick rummage through my hair to deal with the itchiness and get a feel for how much is left does imply that at the very least I do still have most of my hair left. I also notice something while doing so, a sensation on the other side of things. I bring my arm up close in front of my eyes and see that not only have I been losing my own hair, but now there's these fine little white hairs starting to grow. They seem to at the very least be all over my arms; don't have a mirror to check just about anywhere else. They aren't very long at the moment, about maybe about a quarter of an inch long, but considering how long ago I was that I was injected that is most certainly a troubling feat and I wonder at that rate how long I have to actually find this cure.

"Welp, I guess we might as well get started. It's not like just sitting here is going to help me any. So what all do these things do?" I ask, wondering how in the world I'm to understand and use all this equipment when the only person who likely knows how they work that I can get access to has no capacity to speak and any communication has to go by means of pantomime.

The little dog creature jumps off the table and lands on his little crooked looking legs and starts beckoning me to follow as he bounds through the lab before arriving at one of the machines. He holds up one finger at me, points at the machine and then pushes against the table just underneath it, revealing a hidden compartment in the table. And inside that hidden compartment is what I half expected to be an owner's manual but instead is a piece of paper printed out with the same custom font that details the basics of what the machine is and how to use it. I start trying to read through the entirety of it but the dog thing barks at me, trying to get my attention.

I look over and find he hasn't stayed at one spot as he has moved on. I start trying to ignore him and go back to reading this document. I figure if all of them have this document hidden then a good start would be to simply spend the time to figure out how all the machines operate and then start to come up with ideas on how to proceed from there. Unsatisfied with being ignored the dog thing jumps up, snatches the paper from my hand and sticks it back into the hidden compartment before grabbing my hand and pulling at it. That fucker is certainly fast I'll have to give him that.

Half tempted to growl at him I try to resist but he snarls at me and pulls at my arm again. He moves to another machine, raises two fingers at me and then pushes below the machine to reveal another hidden compartment but this time before I can even get a chance to get a look at the paper he closes the compartment and moves on to another machine. It takes me a moment to realize that what he's doing is showing me a sequence. Instead of letting me try to find out all of the equipment and come up with a course of action for myself he's skipping that step for me and instead showing me the order of the equipment that we will be running. I imagine once we get started on actually using them he'll either let me start reading the thing or at the very least show me how to use them.