The last drop of genetic serum slid into Professor Connors' veins.
At first, nothing happened—just a faint tingling under the skin, like static. Then came the pain.
It hit all at once, a thousand needles stabbing into every nerve. His scream tore through the lab, echoing off cold metal walls. He fell from his chair, writhing on the floor, knocking over glass and instruments in a storm of agony.
At that exact moment, one of his graduate assistants—a young woman who'd forgotten her tablet—pushed open the lab door.
"Professor! What's wrong?!" she gasped, rushing to his side.
Connors could barely breathe, much less answer. His entire body was burning alive from the inside out.
"I—I'll call an ambulance!" she shouted.
"Don't!" His voice cracked but firmed. He wasn't about to let his life's work be taken from him by bureaucrats and panic.
Then came the sound—wet, terrible cracking. His right arm, long since lost, began to twitch and swell beneath his sleeve.
The pain dulled… and then faded.
The flesh split, peeled, and regrew.
Connors tore his shirt off and stared, wild-eyed, as bone and sinew knit together before his eyes.
A new arm—strong, slick with a greenish film—was being born.
"My God…" the assistant whispered.
Connors laughed, half-mad, half-ecstatic. "This—this is it! The breakthrough of a century! No more cripples, no more lost limbs—humankind will evolve!"
"Professor," she said softly, "your face… it looks strange."
He turned to the mirror.
Scales. Tiny, green, glinting scales spread across his cheeks and down his neck. His skin was splitting.
Then came the burn at his tailbone. A pulse.
A shudder.
And a violent rip.
A massive, muscular tail burst through the back of his pants, coiling and flexing like a serpent. The assistant screamed, stumbling backward as the Professor's transformation accelerated—his skin darkening to reptilian green, his pupils thinning to slits.
"P-Professor…?" she whimpered.
The Lizard turned, eyes cold and gleaming. His voice was a hiss.
"Will you tell anyone what happened here?"
"N-no, never—"
"Only the dead can keep secrets."
She barely had time to scream before he lunged. His claws slashed clean through her chest, the air thick with blood and shock.
She fell wordless to the ground, eyes wide.
Connors froze. His breathing hitched.
He stared at his claws, dripping red, and collapsed to his knees.
"I… killed her?" he whispered. "I—"
The human shape began to reassert itself, muscles shrinking, tail receding, scales dissolving. Soon he was just Professor Connors again—one-armed, trembling beside the corpse of his student.
Minutes passed. Then a laugh broke the silence—hoarse at first, then hysterical.
He'd realized something:
when he suppressed his violent impulses, the mutation vanished.
When he embraced them… he became powerful.
"Kindness," he muttered, "is just another chain."
His grin split wide, too wide.
If humanity mocked him for his weakness, he'd abandon it entirely.
With that decision, his body convulsed again—muscle surging, bones twisting, skin hardening into emerald armor. The Lizardman returned, monstrous and unashamed. He lifted the limp body of his assistant in one clawed hand and whispered,
"Thank you.
If I hadn't killed you,
I'd have never known how good it feels to stop being prey."