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The rumble of thunder rattled the windowpanes of the room, shaking the soft pink curtains as the rain battered the windows. A small girl woke with a gasp. She sat up in her bed as the moonlight caused shadows to sway in a foreboding dance on the white stained wood of her bedposts and traditionally carved footboard.

The shadows in her room continued to captivate the breathless child, who was unsure why she was afraid. They were only shadows, yet the child could not comprehend why their movements filled her with such dread. The dark dance drew her eyes toward her closet, painted to match her floral patterned walls. Her closet door was cracked ever so slightly, and something moved within. The movement caused the little girl's heart to beat faster as she reached for her glasses on the nightstand. She turned to look at the crack in her closet, but the movement had ceased.

She cautiously removed her white covers from her cream colored nightgown and steadily got herself out of bed. She moved over to her closet and tried to peer inside. She did not see the shadow move again. Her curiosity winning out over her wary fear, she pushed her closet open just a small bit. The dancing shadows played a small light over a toothy grin full of razor sharp teeth. Two eyes grinned down at her from within the closet as it seemed to almost whisper,

"Hello, little Tabby."

Little Jasmine Tabitha did the only thing her mind could do. She screamed.

****

They came without warning, the men in black armor. Faceless behind black visors, they came like monsters. Brandishing rifles and machine guns, they burst into the mansion amidst a hail of bullets, gunning down the staff. Tabitha was only a teenager then, when she saw them from her window. The gunfire scared her. The thunderous crack filled the girl with dread as she went to her doorway. She wanted to see her father. He would protect her.

However, as soon as she peaked her head out of the room, she saw the men rushing along the halls. She had no idea how the men in black tactical armor could have reached the third floor so fast. She would come to learn that there had been a helicopter landing on her roof carrying more soldiers during the invasion on her father's mansion home. "Get the girl!" they had said. She'd slammed her door shut and locked it tight. Yet, she still heard their footsteps thundering toward her. They crashed upon her doorway like a wave, and she'd heard the door splinter. She looked frantically around her room for an escape. The window was not appealing as an escape when she would have to drop three stories to the unforgiving concrete of the garden walkway below. Having few options, she ducked into her closet and shut the door.

It was pitch black, she could not see the light of her room through the cracks in the door. She could not see anything, she was alone in a dark void, though she did not try to find the light switch. She heard her door break as footsteps stormed her room. "Find her!" the voice came again, angry and threatening. "Check the closet!" one of them said, and the girl's heart skipped a beat. It was only a matter of time before she was completely at the mercy of the men who had invaded her home and killed its occupants. She gave a squeak of fear as the door started to rattle. "It's locked!" "Kick it in!"

The girl was confused. Her closet did not have a lock on it. She felt a warm breeze come about her, unnatural and alarming. She looked around her frantically, locked in the darkness as blows rained down on her closet door, trying to break it open. A hot breath wafted down the back of her neck, and she wheeled to face a pair of glowing red eyes. "Hello, little Tabby." it said bemusedly at a teenage panthergirl. "It seems you're in a bit of a mess. I wish we had more time to talk, as it has ever been so long since last we were able to see each other. What's it been... six years?" The toothy maw grinned a macabre smirk down at the girl.

Tabitha was speechless. Years of being afraid of the dark had been overcome with sixteen months of therapy with the world's most renowned psychiatrist specializing in irrational phobia, and her childhood memories came crashing back to her. Monsters were real, and this was the second time she had encountered one. She squeaked again as she gave a little nod, inching her way to the door. She would choose the men in black armor over the monster in the dark. "Ah ah ah, I wouldn't do that, little Tabby." the monster had said. "Those men will surely kill you." Tabitha's heart pounded in her chest, her stomach churning. She did not seem to have a hope. The monster, however, continued. "I can offer you, an escape." it said, grinning ever so widely.

Tabitha did not know what to say, growing ever more confused and her adrenaline mixed with anxiety to make her blood rush so fast that she was afraid she may faint. The monster spoke again, "Listen girl. I can make the bad men go away, but I need something from you."

"What... what is it?" Tabitha choked forth. The door started to splinter, and the maw spoke again, this time with more urgency. "Your blood." Tabitha made to speak again but was cut off. "No I don't want all of it, I just need a drink. Allow me to drink your blood and I will have the strength to protect you. I can't hold that door closed forever and I can't fight them like this. I need your blood. Time is running out and I am losing strength keeping them back. Tick tock, little Tabby, what will it be?"

Tabitha did not know what came over her, why she decided to trust this shadowy demon, but the rattling of the breaking doorway gave clear indication that the men in black armor would soon be through the door. She weakly nodded her head, her breath catching in her throat as she choked forth a whisper, "Yes."

The maw grinned wider than ever. "Excellent..." it whispered as it opened to reveal more of its razor teeth. There was barely any pain, and Tabitha suddenly grew cold. Very cold. Her vision started to blur white, and she felt as if her brain might freeze. As her mind and her vision clouded to white in the darkness, she wondered if the being had lied to her. Maybe it was just toying with her, and sought to just kill her. At least it was a peaceful death. Soon she did not even feel the cold anymore, just a warm fuzzy numbness throughout her being, and she drifted peacefully off to sleep.

****

Tabitha roused from a deep sleep. A sleep that seemed to want to suck her back down into that deep dark abyss of unconsciousness, and Tabitha almost heeded its call. However, she struggled to open her eyes and a dim light shone directly above her bed. She stirred, and felt herself beneath a blanket. Her sluggish mind started to process the memories of her last waking sight, and she sat bolt upright. A twin pair of yellow eyes burned itself into her mind's eye as her last waking memory, and it was quite a sobering thought. Those eye woke Tabitha from her drug-addled stupor like a bucket of hot water splashed across her face. She looked around the room, startled, but her alarm gave way to weariness as she came to realize that there was no immediate danger. Her hospital room was a sterile whitewashed chamber of medical equipment, the air was thick with the rhythmic beeps of monitors. She took a deep breath, and laid back on her bed. She stared up at the ceiling for what seemed like an eternity, lost in her thoughts as she tried to make sense of everything.

"So..." she said aloud. It was some comfort, hearing the sound of her own voice through the clinical atmosphere. It made her feel slightly less alone. "They didn't manage to kill me..." she mused. "Great. Which means that while I was out, either Julian killed a bunch of them so that they couldn't kill me while I was unconscious... or Julian's dead and I'm now some sort of test subject... Seems like the thing Garron would do." She looked at the tubes that she was hooked up to, scanning for any Serum vials that may be feeding directly into her bloodstream. "An experiment, haha. They'd like that. Make my life a living hell while they make me suck serum off of their balls..." They weren't happy thoughts, but musing them made her feel better. Made her feel less hopeless. Less lost. She did as she had learned to do when faced with a shitty situation. Look it directly in the face and laugh defiantly. They would not break her, she thought to herself. She would endure anything, and would die before she was broken. "They can rape my dead fucking corpse..." she said to the ceiling.

The door to her room opened, but Tabitha did not bother looking until a familiar voice spoke up. "That's sort of the opposite of what I'm trying to go for, Overseer. But if you want, I can give you a nice Kavorkian." the voice said in a deep, soft voice. Tabitha smiled, a gesture so ill-practiced that the expression felt odd on her face.

"Doctor Abercrombe." Tabitha said, turning to him. "You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice."

Dr. Sebastian Abercrombe was an older golden retriever. He once had the form of a bodybuilder, but age had robbed him of his muscle tone and hunched his posture. His eyes wore a perpetually weary expression behind square-frame silver glasses, and his snout bore graying around his whiskers. "Julian's been standing a sleepless vigil waiting for you to wake up, Overseer."

Tabitha slumped back in her bed. "How long was I out?" she asked. Sebastian shook his head, "Fifteen days." The Overseer took a deep breath. "How many attempts on my life?"

"Fifteen. Disposable feeders disguised as nurses. Promised freedom if they could inject sodium thiopental into your IV line. None of them can identify who's putting them up to it, apparently someone disguising their voice over the PA system into the feeder holds. All of them have been euthanized according to Protocol, Overseer, though Julian has personally dispatched a few of them that tried to sneak in during the late and early hours. "

Tabitha was surprised at that, but she supposed that she shouldn't have been. She gave a sigh, "I suppose that is to be expected. They didn't expect me to survive 222, now they're desperate to finish me while I'm down." Doctor Abercrombe nodded. "So it would seem."

Tabitha took a deep breath. "How long until I'm able to return to my position?" she did not hear an answer. She looked up, alarmed by the doctor's silence. "Doctor. How long?"

Sebastian sighed deeply in turn. "As soon as you feel up to it, but I must... tell you something, Overseer." Tabitha looked at the Doctor with an alarmed expression. "Sebastian, skip the Overseer crap. Tell me what's the matter."

The doctor took another breath. "Your medical file has been burned." Tabitha looked at him, puzzled. "Why?" "I burned it. Also scrubbed from the database." "Why?" "Because it had to be done."

Tabitha narrowed her eyes. The Doctor was dancing around the subject. "WHY, doctor? Why were these things necessary?" she looked at him accusingly. "What did you do?"

Doctor Sebastian Abercrombe shook his head. "We... could not save your eye. In fact, we almost couldn't save you. Specimen 222's caustic acid had eaten through your eye entirely, and was steadily burning its way through your skull. If it reached your brain.... you would have suffered irreversible brain damage and most likely death..." the golden retriever trailed off. Tabitha reached up to touch her face, but felt it intact. She tested and both of her eyes seemed to be in place, further confusing her. "Doctor, what are you talking about?" she looked to her old friend, growing a bit scared.

Sebastian could dance around it no longer. "We applied a regenerative skin graft taken from one of our specimens as an experimental procedure to regrow damaged areas of the body..." Tabitha looked at him callously. "You put... freak DNA... in my skull?"

She WAS an experiment...

Sebastian put his hands up, moving to reassure Tabitha. "What specimen?" she snapped at him. "What the HELL did you put into my head!?"

"Regenerative stem tissue harvested from Specimen..." Tabitha did not hear the number. She already knew. There was only one specimen with a regenerative factor high enough for them to harvest stem cells in large enough quantities to be of any research significance. She scrambled out of bed and ran into the bathroom.

Doctor Abercrombe called after her, "It really is a miracle that it wasn't rejected, Tabitha! "

Tabitha vaulted in front of the mirror and stared at her face. Heavy scars ran down the middle of her forehead, down parallel her nose, across her cheek, and ending at her neck. Her skin graft had taken well, except for the golden colored fur that now covered at least a third of her face. Within her eye socket, a bloodshot golden iris stared back at her. She stared silently into her reflection, and her yellow eye seemed to mock her. She heard a hissing voice in her head, "We are... the same..."

Tabitha screamed.