A couple people asked about the species change. I don’t think this piece really addresses either prompt well, but I wrote it, so I thought I’d share it.

“Test subject seven-one-five-three, through here, please.”

A week ago, she had been Antoinette Abaster, a mid-level secretary at a Indianapolis research firm. She’d been saving for a vacation to Paris and planning her church rummage sale.

Now she was Test Subject 7153, and she was walking through a blue door into a very sterile-looking room. She was having trouble focusing on anything except the door and the orders she was given, but the cables linked to her restraints didn’t give her a lot of choice either way.

“You have been selected for the Agency’s Transformative Project Eighty-three.” The voice was coming from behind her. She twisted, pulling her restraints to their limits, but there was nothing anywhere except white. Even the door had vanished. Her cables were connected to white ports in white walls. “Your conversion will begin now. Please describe any physical sensations you encounter.”

There were a number of physical sensations, which she described in tones from calm to hysterical. There were a number of emotional sensations, which she described only once, near the end. “This feels weird, and I’m scared.”

“Fear is to be expected. Fear is one of the three emotions we expect you will undergo in the first process.”

“First?” The words were coming out oddly through lips that felt numb. “First?” What’s the second?”

“The second will begin tomorrow. Please exit through the open door.”

She didn’t remember falling asleep, but she would remember forever waking up, because the first thing she did was stretch and yawn. Her back arched in strange ways and she pawed at the bed for a moment.

Pawed at the bed… and looked down at her hands, which had more in common with paws than they had the morning before. She rubbed her nose and eyes and looked again.

Paws. Paws, and something on her head felt strange. She yowled, confused and unhappy.

“Easy, Subject seven-one-five-three. What is the problem?” The voice came from the ceiling, or possibly the walls. She twitched an ear at it.

“I’m a caaat.”

“You have been put through stage one of the Transformative Process, yes.”

“I’m a cat.” She wiped at her face with a hand again. “I can’t stop acting like a cat. And I’m hungry.”

“Food will be provided.”

“Now? Now?” She put her face in her hands. Paws. “Why can’t I… what’s wrong with me?” She focused on a memory. The office. Typing in endless data, eating rice cakes and punching in formulae. The church raffle. A sound between a sob and a wail escaped her.

“You are partially transformed. Your personality remains unchanged, but your body and your instincts are now felid-hominid. The transformation goes bone-deep and has affected your brain as well as your body.”

“I’m a cat girl?” She scratched behind her ear. “You turned me into a cat?”

“You are partially transformed into a felid-hominid, yes.”

She stared at the wall. “But what does that mean for me?”

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