I woke up. Once again it was 4:21 am, just like every day since the initiation. Sometimes I thought of it as the awakening, but it seemed a bit redundant. This day I felt a bit out of my head, as if my mind was rubbing alcohol in an open jar. I had just been in a dream where I was on a barren field and the world opened up like it was a giant set of venetian blinds. No matter how I tried I could not stay aloft or force the slits closed. there was nothing waiting for me, I would just fall and then start over again. It was as if something was not right and my subconscious kept trying to fix it, only to fail again and again. My dreamy eyes swept over to the alarm clock. Once again my prized possession was useless. I wondered if I should get up, considering that I would not fall asleep until around midnight. No, I decided, this time I will wait until there is a good reason to get up. Ever since that fight I had always felt guilty, I just couldn’t believe it. How in the world could I do something so hideous without realizing it? I knew that I must make amends, but without knowledge of the cause I would not be able to do so. It was a gut feeling really, sometimes the agony this feeling caused made me puke. What had Valleysing said yesterday? Go and rest, you have your reasons. I think that was it. I guess I… oh yeah, that’s right! I used the mutagen. That would be why. I guess I should go check what I look like. Dressing in my awesome black jeans and a white Kendfell band shirt I went to the mirror. Oh, this a different time isn’t it? Then I guess I should add a few little details. The shirt, like any other shirt I knew, had an angled cut in the hem and sleeves, so that it might seem my shirt was spilling, or dripping. In either case it seemed to fit better. Jeans these days came in several noticeably different varieties. Mine was the riding style. It had been reinforced on the shins at angles, giving the appearance that I was wearing armor or something. My shoes were made of metal. Come to think of it they probably still exist. Now a person of your time might expect that they were some boxes with shoelaces. No, these had elegant moving parts, allowing full freedom of movement, light weight, and lots of protection. Whoever made these were real craftsmen, and likely liked them as much as I do. I only found them because one day I just randomly dug a pit in the ground about 8 feet deep. (Andaron gets really boring.) Looking in the mirror I became very surprised and scared. What poor makeup artist had the free time to break into my room and do this? Sure enough I still had my strong angular features, and many of the details were still there but different. Where before I had a straight nose, an eternal frown, generic eyebrows, and large round ears, I now looked like a lionman. What? What is wrong with the world? The case was labeled cheetahman mutagen- right? Well, staring at myself I figured it wasn’t that bad. Golden sunburst eyes, light yellow fur, brown mane, furry ears, and a somewhat heart shaped nose. Best of all I had a real smile. I laughed a bit. Ooh, even sharp teeth and a couple fangs. I tried licking my nose out of curiosity. Ow! It’s like rubbing two pieces of sandpaper together, except I’m the sandpaper. I touched my face, I rubbed it, I even scratched it. It was all real. Good God, I’m a heretic! How do I get out of this costume? It can’t be real, can it? No, I gotta get out! My mime’s heart attack was climaxed by knocking on the door. “Rise and shine, oh harbinger of doom.” Oh, it’s just Valleysing. I relaxed and went to open the door. There was Valleysing, smiling like he always did. What kind of joke could he be imprisoning behind that smile? I never noticed before, but there was something canny about him in general, and it was a very big can. “Er, hi. Um, do you know how to get this,” I said, pointing at my face,”off?” Valleysing looked a little impressed, “well well, he finally stopped with the thousand yard stare. By the way you’ll feel right at home the way you are, but normally people can control their level of animality to a degree. Just relax, and then get your shoes.” I looked at him for a second. Okay, I guess I can hold off on the suspicion for a while. I relaxed like I always do, just put all your energy back inside. At this point I was able to do it while I locked my shoes. Looking back in the mirror I saw that Valleysing was right. “Alright, let’s go, time’s a wastin’.” I followed him through the corridors of Andaron. Oddly I felt wind rushing by, and I wasn’t struggling to keep up. Finally we arrived at the same room as I had seen the day before, with the strange machines. Valleysing looked at me in an almost serious way, “this is the door to your destiny. You may see doors like it, but you will never pass through this door again.” I thought this was peculiar, but I trusted him. “Okay, let’s see what’s inside.” He opened the door majestically and I entered. There It was, same great machines, only now there were many people using them. Valleysing just started walking in some direction. I followed him, thinking there was something I should be doing here. When I caught up with Valleysing he was in a smaller room talking with a very feral looking man with a greasy wrench in his hand. They came to an agreement and then the man turned to me. “Hello, stand very still.” I stood at attention and suddenly five or six other men with measuring tapes came out of nowhere and started measuring me. They left just as quickly mumbling their measurements to each other. I was startled, “what was that?” The man said, “we’re building you a custom jetbike.” I felt impressed, but I never agreed with jetbikes, so I got a bit cautious, “what’s your name?” He grunted, “I know what you’re going to do with my name, no sir, let’s pretend I’m just some nameless munchkin. Now how would you like your bike?” “Wait a second, I didn’t say I wanted a jetbike. Why do you people assume I ever wanted to bother with the things in the first place?” The “mechanic” grunted again, “you realize that as a human you should have died on that thing. The G-forces on even the scrap you flew should have melted your brain, among other things. So you really have no choice, you are the freaking best pilot we have, hands down.” I frowned primly. If I couldn’t shake him I could at least humor him. “Whoa, man, I’m not fresh meat, take it easy.” Several others were startled and made defensive postures. “What? What do you mean?” I couldn’t tell why they were so surprised. Valleysing rolled his eyes and told the mechanic, “He’s fresh fang.” The mechanic and those around him sighed, even chuckled, and went back to work.  I looked at my hands to see that they had talons and were covered in fur again. “Okay so enough stalling, how do you want her done? Over easy or hard boiled?”  Of course he was referring to the jetbike. I thought about it for a bit, and then I said, “Okay, I want it to be red, go above mach five, turn on a dime, run for ten hours, carry a payload of ten thousand pounds, and have functional melee weapons.” The mechanic just wrote it all on a sheet of paper, and started walking somewhere. Valleysing just smiled and said, “Well don’t you just give in easily? Come on; let’s check out the other bikes.