Elara drifted in and out of consciousness for what felt like an eternity. She didn’t know what they gave her periodically, but she wished they would stop. The pain was relentless. It started as fire in her bones, then it became a crawling, tearing sensation as her body rewrote itself at the genetic level. She screamed until her voice gave out. Her muscles twisted and burned endlessly. She was barely conscious throughout the process, the pain unbearable. At some point, every hum of the lights, every chemical scent in the air, every distant scream from another subject felt ten times more enhanced as they drilled into her skull.

When she finally woke, she was curled on the cold floor. She groaned; her body was sore all over. As she sat up, she noticed her surroundings. She was in a reinforced glass enclosure. As she pushed her hair out of her face, she felt something on her neck. She grabbed it and felt the heavy metal collar encircling her throat. Then, she felt it, something soft tickling her jaw.

She crawled to the edge of the enclosure and stared at the reflection in the glass with horror. She was no longer fully human. Her long black hair was now streaked with shimmering with silver-white that caught the light like frost. Her ears had shifted higher on her head and were now rounded, expressive and covered in soft gray fur with subtle black markings on the back. They twitched and swivelled independently, catching the faintest sound. Her eyes were now ice blue with vertical pupils, and her teeth, when she ran her tongue over them, she felt elongated canines. She also had retractable claws extending from her fingertips and toes.

Soft gray-white fur dusted with black rosettes blooms across her shoulders and upper thorax, extending down her forearms to the elbows and along her thighs and lower legs. These patches create a beautiful contrast against her smooth, pale human skin. The thickest and densest concentration of fur runs along her spine from the nape of her neck all the way down to the base of her long tail, forming a plush, insulating mane-like strip that provides both protection and a striking visual line.

She really wasn’t human anymore… At all.

“No… no, this can’t be real,” she whispered, voice hoarse and raw. She felt violated and not just physically, but existentially. “This isn’t me. This can’t be me.”

A speaker in the ceiling crackled to life. “Subject Sylara-01. Stand. We begin baseline physical assessment.”

Sylara. They had already renamed me… Erasing my past.

She still tried to stand up but almost fell because of her tail. Sylara stared at her long snow leopard tail as it twitched behind her, responding to her emotions before her mind could catch up.

Before she could process anything, the tests began immediately and without mercy. First came the treadmill. The floor suddenly moved beneath her, accelerating rapidly. Sylara stumbled at first, her new center of balance thrown off by the tail. But her enhanced muscles quickly adapted, propelling her forward with terrifying speed and agility. As she ran faster and faster, she panted desperately, trying to catch her breath. She swallowed again and again, trying to keep everything down. Suddenly, the machine slowed down abruptly. Sylara gasped and crashed into the glass wall. Her head spun as she gasped for air, her thighs burning. She stood on her shaking legs, using the glass wall as support. Her ears perked up at the electric buzz.

“W-wai—”

Loud crackling sounds echoed as her vision went white. She screamed in pain as her body contracted. It ended as fast as it had started, but Sylara fell to her knees, now seeing double.  

“Sylara-01, return to the treadmill.”

Groaning, she dragged her body back to the treadmill. As soon as she stepped on it, she was made to run again. It started slow, but she quickly gained speed again until something hit her in the face, propelling her back on the ground. It was a wooden log. They threw it at her. An electric buzz pulsed on her collar. Sylara whimpered as her body froze from pain.

 “Sylara-01, mistakes will not be tolerated.”

“D-damn you…” she groaned in pain as she got back on her legs.

For the next hour, Sylara's focus didn’t waver. She couldn’t afford it. They kept the pattern unpredictable as she ran at different speeds and even had to jump or duck to avoid things being thrown at her. When the treadmill finally stopped, her thin clothes stuck to her skin as her legs trembled.

“Agility within upper percentile.” The researchers’ clinical notes echoed through the speakers as if she were nothing more than data.

She was only allowed a ten-minute break with a cup of water before going to the next trial. Mechanical sounds echoed through her enclosure as platforms rose from the floor at varying heights and distances. Sylara didn’t need instructions to know what the next test was. The first jump wasn’t that high and she easily reached it. As she got further, the platforms were getting further from each other with varying heights. Looking down, she swallowed nervously. The next platform was so far away. She would never make it.

“Sylara-01, jump,” the voice commanded.

When she hesitated, the collar started to vibrate with electricity. Wiping her palm on her shorts, Sylara crouched and leapt. Her tail moved instinctively as it stabilized her mid-air. Her eyes widened as she landed on the platform. She did it, and it was so easy. Quickly, she cleared distances she could never have managed as a human. But on the last one, she misjudged the landing and crashed painfully onto the hard surface. Her claws in her hands and feet extended, scraping deep gouges into the material to keep herself from falling. On top of the last platform, her shoulder tensed anxiously for the shock, but it never came. She sighed in relief.

“Reaction time is improving. Muscle density is within expected parameters,” a researcher noted clinically.

The platforms slowly slid back into the ground, and the enclosure was back to its original state. Sylara stood awkwardly in the corner of the glass room as her tail flicked around nervously until they released a live rabbit into the enclosure. She smelled the wild rabbit before seeing it. A growl came deep from her chest as she quickly scanned the area looking for the animal. When she spotted the rabbit hiding behind a bush, she crouched low as her tail flicked back and forth. Her mouth watered as her vision narrowed and her claws extended.

“Control it, Sylara-01,” the speaker ordered coldly. “Suppress the predatory drive.”

She snapped out of it. She turned her back to the rabbit. She held her face in between her hands but recoiled when she felt her claws.

This wasn’t me. It couldn’t be me!

“I’m a human!” she screamed at the glass. “My name is Elara, stop treating me like an animal!”

“Suppress the predatory drive, Sylara-01,” the voice repeated coldly. “Failure to comply will result in physical punishment.”

Sylara bit her lips, tasting her own blood. She fought it desperately, pressing herself into the corner and digging her claws into her own arms to stay grounded, to stay connected to her human side. She held out for nearly fifteen agonizing minutes, tears streaming down her face, memories of her old life flashing desperately through her mind. She remembered the joy of capturing pictures of that snow leopard in the wild, the wind on her face, the pride of chasing her dream for a major magazine feature. But the instincts won. Before she knew it, she stalked and pounced with terrifying speed. The kill was clean, brutal, and instinctive. As the taste of blood filled her mouth, she retched violently afterward. She sobbed and curled into a tight ball with her tail wrapped around her body, shaking with disgust and self-loathing.

How long until I stop fighting it? How long until I forget who I was?

“Excellent predatory response,” the voice praised. “Base instincts are strong but show signs of higher cognitive resistance. This is promising. It is all for today.”

She found a hard sleeping platform hidden from view somewhere in her enclosure. She curled up on it and winced. All her body ached, but her lower stomach also ached and throbbed as her tail wrapped around herself for comfort.

“I’m still Elara Voss… I’m still me, a human,” she whispered as tears slipped down her cheeks.

But even as she repeated it, her heart sank. Today proved it. She was not totally human anymore. Her senses were too sharp, her body too powerful. They were turning, honing her into something they could use. Sylara closed her ice-blue eyes tightly, claws digging into the thin bedding. She had to escape, but where would she go? One look at her reflection and she felt her stomach churn. Her dreams felt further away than ever.