Carter was sixteen, Anna fifteen, when everything changed again.
They were taken.
It happened quietly—no sirens, no shouting. One moment they were walking the familiar streets beneath a gray morning sky, the next the world folded in on itself. Hands seized them from behind. Something sharp pressed into Carter's neck. Anna's gasp was the last sound he heard before darkness swallowed them whole.
When Carter woke, the air smelled of metal and antiseptic.
White lights burned overhead, too bright, too clean. His wrists were bound to a steel table, restraints biting into his skin. Panic surged through him as he strained against them, muscles screaming in protest.
"Anna!" he shouted.
No answer.
The first week was hell.
They stripped him of his clothes and replaced them with a gray jumpsuit that clung to his skin like a brand. The fabric itched, stiff and lifeless, as if designed to remind him that comfort was no longer something he deserved. Every day blurred into the next—needles, scans, machines that hummed and clicked while unseen eyes watched from behind glass.
Sometimes they dragged him down long white corridors, the walls so polished he could see his own reflection—thin, hollow-eyed, afraid.
He screamed for Anna until his throat bled.
The second week was worse.
They brought her to him then, just long enough to remind him she was alive. She was thinner already, her eyes too bright in her pale face. They never let them touch.
Carter slammed against the restraints. "Don't hurt her! I'll do whatever you want—just leave her alone!"
A man behind the glass tilted his head, studying Carter the way one might study an insect.
"That," the man said calmly, "is exactly what we intend."
By the third week, something inside them began to break—and something else began to grow.
It started with whispers.
Can you hear me?
Carter froze, his heart hammering. He knew the voice.
Anna?
Her presence brushed against his mind like warm light in a frozen room.
I'm here, she said. They can't stop this.
From that moment on, they were never truly alone again.
Anna's gift manifested fully within days. She could speak to him without words, reach into his thoughts no matter how many walls stood between them. The doctors reacted with thinly veiled excitement. Her tests intensified. So did his.
Carter's changes were violent.
His bones ached, reshaping beneath his skin. His muscles swelled and twisted, tearing him apart from the inside. Sometimes fur burst through his flesh. Sometimes scales. Sometimes things that didn't have names. He screamed until his voice gave out, until only hoarse gasps remained.
Through it all, Anna anchored him.
You're still you, she told him again and again. Don't let them take that too.
Without her, he would have lost himself.
Three months in, Anna escaped.
The alarms came first—shrill and frantic, echoing through the facility. Carter felt her absence before he understood what it meant. The quiet inside his mind was unbearable.
Anna?
Nothing.
For two weeks, she was gone.
Hope—terrible, fragile hope—took root in his chest. He imagined her running free, hiding somewhere warm, finally safe. He endured the tests in silence, clinging to the idea that at least one of them had made it out.
Then they brought her back.
She was unconscious, carried past his cell like broken cargo. Blood matted her hair. Her body was limp.
For a week straight, Carter heard her screams.
They echoed through the walls at all hours—raw, agonized, begging. Each sound carved itself into his bones. He tore at the restraints until his hands were slick with blood. He howled until the walls shook.
They were punishing her.
Not just for escaping—but for reminding them that control could be broken.
After a year, the rules changed.
They loosened the restraints. Gave them limited freedom to walk the halls. Spoke to them in softer tones, offered smiles that never reached their eyes.
"You've been making progress," they said.
It was a lie.
The kindness was just another experiment. Another way to see how far they could bend without breaking.
Three years passed.
Carter grew stronger. More dangerous. He learned to suppress the changes until his skin felt too tight, until the beast inside him paced endlessly. Anna grew quieter, her thoughts heavy with things she would not share.
One morning, Carter approached Anna's room, expecting to see the door ajar as it always was.
It wasn't.
Panic clawed at his chest.
"Anna?" he called, pounding on the door.
No answer.
He forced it open.
The room was painted red.
Anna lay on the floor, her blood pooling beneath her like a shattered mirror. Her eyes fluttered open when she heard him.
"No… no, no—" Carter dropped to his knees, lifting her into his arms. His hands shook violently as he pressed them against her wounds, uselessly trying to stop the bleeding.
Her lips curved into a faint smile.
It's the only way, her voice whispered inside his mind. The only way to escape.
Then she went still.
Something inside Carter shattered.
His body convulsed. Bones snapped and reformed. White fur tore through his skin as his frame expanded, spikes of jagged black erupting along his spine. Venom dripped from newly formed claws as his eyes burned with a furious orange glow.
A guard rounded the corner and froze.
"HEY—!"
Carter—no, Carter—turned.
The facility fell apart in minutes.
Walls cracked. Alarms died in his wake. He tore through steel and flesh alike, a storm of rage and grief given form. When the last body hit the floor, he stood alone in a hallway drowned in silence and blood.
"What have I done…?" he whispered.
He returned to Anna, lifting her gently despite his monstrous form. He fled the compound before anyone could stop him.
He buried her beneath a lone tree nearby, carving into the bark with shaking claws:
We got out.
He placed her dolphin pendant atop the grave.
Then he wandered.
Days blurred into nights. States passed beneath his feet. When he finally noticed the rusted sign, it read:
WELCOME TO OKLAHOMA
And yet, his heart was still in Japan.
Grief hollowed him out until there was nothing left but motion. He transformed again—this time into a griffon—and took to the sky, wings cutting through cloud and storm.
Anna's screams followed him across the ocean.
Carter…
"I need shelter," he whispered to the wind.
Days later, he landed in Japan.
He found the bridge they once called home. The memories came crashing back—rain-soaked nights, shared laughter, hunger that felt endless. He walked to their old begging corner.
And there he stood.
Mr. Pearson.
Charter shifted back into human form and scavenged clean clothes from a nearby bin. He approached slowly.
"Hey… Mr. Pearson."
The old man turned, eyes widening with recognition.
"You seem different, son," he said gently. "You okay?"
Carter shook his head. "Not really. Can we talk somewhere private?"
Mr. Pearson studied him for a long moment, then smiled.
"After you eat," he said, guiding him inside the ramen shop.