It was impossible to tell how much time had passed before he awoke again. No longer was he floating in a void without dimension or substance. He was lying face down on a solid surface, unable to move, as if somebody had injected his entire body with anesthetic.

His limbs felt too heavy to control, too awkward and imbalanced. He would have panicked; he should have been screaming after the nightmare he had just experienced, but he lacked the energy for it. He was just too tired...too damn tired.

The only part of his body he could move were his eyelids, so he opened them. Though it was still dark, he knew he must be near the edge of a rim because, though his body was touching the ground, his head hung freely. He could feel the edge digging into his collarbone.

Just a few feet below him, gazed a pair of eyes. At first, they were heavily lidded, like his, so he could hardly make them out. But as he opened his eyes wider, his observer also opened its eyes. Did they belong to his stalker? No...he knew this was different.

Its irises glowed, seeming to reflect an unseen light with a dull mixture of magenta and blue rays, providing a modicum of luminescence. He tried to pull his head up, but he only had enough energy to move it about an inch. There was a plunking sound, like a stone dropping into water and a ripple distorted the eyes.

There were implications that disturbed him on a vague level, but he was too overwhelmed with somnolence to think about them. His thoughts were dream-like and fragmented. He literally did not have the capacity to care about what the reflection implied, so he closed his eyes.

The incoherence of dreams began to come upon him as he prepared to doze off. He may not know what that reflection had been, but he did know he must be next to a body of water, perhaps in an underground cave somewhere.

As he drifted off to sleep, he heard the television in his father's living room playing. There was a special report about fish becoming sentient, followed by the democratization of cats. Following that was pundit, who began to blab about popcorn eaters. His mother asked for peace and quiet.

The mere memory of his mother was enough to jolt him back into a more lucid state. He opened his eyes again and once more, met the magenta-eyed observer.

I was so close...he thought.

“What have you been doing with your life?” a voice asked. It was not an external voice, but one that spoke inside of his mind.

“It...is none of your business.” was Vincent's unspoken answer.

“Is that so?”

In response to his answer, the stone beneath his body rumbled. A ripple broke the surface of the water and scattered the magenta gaze. It was as if some machine, hidden within the depths of the water had come to life, stirring it into motion.

An ambient white light source pierced the darkness and nearly blinded him. It came from deep within the water, illuminating a circular basin about 10 feet in diameter. A few more very subtle vibrations clambered through the stone, and the light changed to a very light blue luminescence. That was when the water began to rise.

Vincent knew he was in danger, but his limbs were still numb and his mind: too clouded. The water rose and boiled, as though some subterranean spring had begun to fill the basin.

Get...up...he thought, but his commands were useless. His body may as well have never existed.

“They have you," something said.

It was a phantom, a voice of his madness. It had been years since he had heard one so clearly, but he recognized the disembodied quality of its words. It was barely a whisper, perhaps his voices shared his numbness, so they lacked the energy to fully manifest. He let his eyes fall shut, as they did not have enough energy to process what was happening. He could see a blue shimmering through the flesh of his eyelids.

As soon as the water touched his nose, he felt his entire body suddenly being pulled into the basin, as if the water itself had grabbed him and swallowed him into its depths. He could feel the pressure of the water pressing in on his ears and eye-sockets. He could feel his lungs ache for breath and yet, he was still unable to move a limb.

He had no idea how far he had descended into the plunge, only that he could feel the current pull him downward toward the light. He opened his eyes. The water blurred his vision so he could not make out very many details. But what he did see confused him.

He was descending headfirst towards a glimmering light, still far off in the distance. But more identical motes of glimmering light could be seen surrounding it in a hexagonal orientation, repeating indefinitely as if he were descending down the tube of a large kaleidoscope. He was sinking at a speed that defied normal gravity, plunging further and further away from the surface.

The air in his lungs protested to be let out until it became fire in his chest. He gagged and released a plume of bubbles. Water rushed in to fill the voids in his chest and his body seized with a violent coughing as it tried to expel the incoming fluid.

But each spasm only served to allow more of it in. The muscles in his chest wrenched with agony as he vomited, threatening to tear his ribs loose. The phantoms, suppressed for years by his medication, accompanied him along his descent, making scattered observations about his condition.

“He's drowning.”

“He can't swim, he's going to die.”

“We missed him.”

“He was already dead.”

“Drowning...the IRS is drowning him.”

As he began to fade out of consciousness for the third time, he perceived a shift in gravity. Somehow, he was no longer being pulled downward to the glimmering light, but floating “upward” toward it. The pressure against his eyes and ears decreased. At some point, he lost all sense of time.

Something grabbed his hand. His ears popped as somebody pulled him out of the water and onto a boat. Voices chattered while his rescuer pressed a hand against his chest and pumped until he puked out the contents of his lungs. He arched his back and gasped for air, phosphenes dancing in front of his eyes. Somebody held his head in their hands and spoke in a language he could not recognize.

“Sirai! Sirai!” it repeated.

The voice was rough and it said something else, but it spoke in a grating, foreign dialect. The dots swarming Vincent’s vision began to clear, but he could see nothing of his rescuer except for a silhouette cast by warm sunlight. Tears fogged his vision and created a haze which further obscured his sight. What he saw made no sense: the lacertine silhouette had horns.

“Vincent. Good morning. It’s time to wake up.”

“Yes, good morning. It’s time to get up for school.”

A grin spread across Vincent’s face at the warmth caressing his body. He should have opened his eyes to see where he was, but there was no need. It did not take long for him to figure out his predicament. Judging from the electronic chime of a heart monitor, he was in a hospital.

So he had somehow survived his accident and somebody managed to call 911 and get him help. How an ambulance was able to get through all that snow so fast, he did not know. But he was grateful somebody got to him. Perhaps they'd used a helicopter?

It didn't matter. What mattered for now, is that he was safe and the terror he had experienced had simply been a nightmare. It had been a vivid dream.

Perhaps the scalpels were what contributed to the agony of mutilation, though he thought the doctors would have used some sort of anesthesia when operating on him. But for now, he did not even feel any pain. In fact, he felt very comfortable. They had prepared for him a warm, plush bed. So instead of opening his eyes, he basked in the comfort health insurance afforded him.

“He’s awake. He’s going to miss the bus.

“Too late, he already missed it.”

“I think he hears us. Be quiet...I think he can hear us. I think...hear us.”

He recognized the disembodied murmurings of the observers. For many years, they had been suppressed by medication, only manifesting in the occasional whisper. They were his phantoms. Most people referred to them as voices, because that’s what they were, but he often referred to them as phantoms because he somehow felt more comfortable with the term. Every crazy person heard voices. He heard phantoms.

The difference was superficial, but he preferred the latter anyway. He was a bit disappointed that they were back, but not too surprised. Obviously, the doctors could not shove pills down his throat while he was under. So naturally they would manifest.

“Yes, he hears us,” one whispered.

Ignoring them, he attempted to drift back to sleep, skirting the border between consciousness and dreams. He thought he should call out to let somebody know he was awake. But the lull of sleep was too seductive. Every muscle in his body felt relaxed and loose and the linings of the bed felt plush enough to swaddle infants. Maybe one of the machines they had him hooked up to would let a nurse know he was awake. But for now, he was content to simply lay there in bliss.

“Grandmother.”

“Grandma.”

“Grandma?”

“This reminds me of your grandmother’s house. That smell.”

“It does.” Vincent murmured in response, though he was unable to form any words.

They must have put him on anesthetic after all, his lips felt too heavy to move. The phantoms were right, though. Despite being in a hospital bed, it reminded him of being under his grandmother's care. He could even smell something like the herbs she used to put in potpourri. He had the faintest memory of her placing a vase of dried flowers next to his bed when he had come down with the flu.

It had happened when he was just a child, maybe even before he had been diagnosed. It was hard to tell because the memory was so far away, and he lacked the energy to recall it. The aroma made him curious, but even more than that, it gave him a faint yearning for a time when life was easier, and he was still ignorant.

He stirred gently so that he could turn his head and find a new position of comfort. His head felt odd, it took more effort to move than it should have.

“Neck brace.”

“His neck is broken.”

“Chirp chirp.”

Worry crept into Vincent's reverie and fear began to rouse him out of his peaceful state. How badly had the deer impaled him? Did it cause permanent nerve damage? Was he ever going to be able to walk again? No, that couldn't be the case. If he were paralyzed, he wouldn't be able to feel his legs and arms.

Just to make sure, he tried to move both his limbs. This time, they responded and he was immediately flooded with a sense of relief. So he hadn't been paralyzed after all. However, something about the movement felt “wrong”, different in a way he could not understand.

But he ignored the sensation and grinned at his own silliness. His body felt heavy, but it felt heavy in a good way, every movement was a lethargic pleasure.

But why did they fit him with a neck brace? He decided he did not want to know the answer, he just wanted to sleep. Let the doctors come on their own time and give him the answers. He grabbed a cover and tried to turn on his side, but doing so caused something to tug at his back.

“IV.”

“Probably.” Vincent murmured, knowing full-well IVs go into the back of the wrist.

It was probably a cramp from lying down for so long, but he didn’t argue the point. Instead, he let his arm fall, holding the blanket in his grip. One by one, his fingers released the cover. His muscles felt so calm, so relaxed.

The simple act of letting his arm splay was a pleasure. It was hard to believe that he had been in an accident. It felt wonderful to let his arm lay lazily, to let it stretch, to flex his hand and open it. Perhaps they had him doped up on some sort of “happy” drug.

“Good morning. Good morning. It’s morning,” another phantom crooned.

Again, he was not used to hearing the phantoms this clearly. He had all but forgotten their passive observations. Normally he would be upset that they were back, but right now he felt blissful. Their gentle whispers were like ASMR. He was happy to be alive and everything felt wonderful and peachy.

He lied there and listened to the chime of the monitor until he realized he had been mishearing it. It was not a heart monitor that he heard, but birds chirping. Of course, heart monitors don’t make noise unless he’s close to flatlining, at least that was his understanding.

He was listening to the sounds of nature. Perhaps it was the combination of drugs being pumped through his veins, or it was the fact that he survived a near-death experience, but Vincent had a greater appreciation for being alive.

He smiled like a dazed idiot as he listened to the birds sing. He could hear leaves rustling as a light breeze tickled the treetops, the hum of a fly as it landed on a wall before taking off. He could catch the earthy scent of grass and sediment, accompanied by a subtle aroma of flowers.

The breeze wafted into the room and licked his cheeks. It was the very definition of springtime bliss, which he enjoyed until he remembered with a jolt that it was in the middle of December.

“Winter...it’s winter outside.”

“Winter...” he agreed. “It’s winter. So why is there a window open? Why are there birds chirping?”

“Chirp chirp...chirpity chirp chirp...”

He needed to get a better assessment of this curious situation, so he opened his eyes only to immediately be blinded by sunlight pouring through the nearby window. He quickly shut them and with some effort, he shifted so that he could move his head out of the beam. There was still something “off” about his movements; they did not feel natural.

When his head was out of the sunlight, he opened his eyes, curious to see why he was hearing and smelling the sounds and aromas of spring in the middle of December and preparing to see himself hooked up to machinery.

“There you are...” a phantom’s voice resonated as if it spoke from within a long iron tube.

Expecting to see the sterile white walls of a hospital room, Vincent instead saw a wall made of painted clay. There, a small lizard with six legs and a twitchy head looked at him briefly before darting upward and disappearing through a small, diamond-shaped port of a window. A beam of sunlight poured through it, illuminating motes of dust that danced in the air, winking in and out of existence. Trees beyond the window swayed as their leaves dazzled with the sunlight.

“The birds are singing. Chirp.” a phantom mused as Vincent followed the wall upward and found that it curved to meet the ceiling.

As he was doing this, he noticed something peculiar near the bottom of his vision. Something was attached to his face. It was blue, shaped vaguely like a cone and it seemed to be covering his nose and mouth. He couldn’t tell for sure because it was still too close to his eyes to discern any details. A breathing apparatus perhaps? He freed his arm from the covers and brought it up to inspect this mysterious object, but he froze when he saw his hand.

Instead of his hand, he saw a limb covered in scaly blue flesh, coated with a subtle sheen of blue-green iridescence. Each of his fingers had a claw at its end. He turned his hand around, flexed it, clenched his fingers and felt their claws digging into his palms.

He raised the other limb and saw that it too, was covered in scales, as if it were an appendage belonging to a reptile. He watched in amused, stupefied perplexion as these limbs obeyed his commands. He even laughed a little bit.

“What...what the hell...” he tried to say with a mouth that felt too heavy.

The words came out malformed, as if some dentist had shot his mouth up with Novocain. His voice was different too. It did not sound anything like this own. It was deeper.

“Oh dear...what has happened to him?”

“His arms...look at his arms.”

He tried to sit up, but felt something tug against his back. It was a bewildering sensation, but he managed to prop himself up enough so that he could see his feet. Instead, he was met with the sight of two blue, clawed, extremities with talon-like digits peeking out from under the covers.

He wriggled his toes and saw them obey. He raised a hand to the blue cone covering his face, expecting that he would be able to remove it. Instead, he felt claws tickling his cheeks.

What in the hell? he thought as he explored the changed facial structure, holding a triangular skull in his palm.

“What has happened to his face?” a phantom whispered.

Vincent stared at the limbs and watched as they carried out his motions, his brain too shocked to process what was happening. It could not acknowledge the ridiculous implications. He thought he was still asleep, that this had to be some strange drug-induced reverie. So he explored these limbs with a bit of amusement, his mouth twisting with hints of wry laughter.

What in the hell is this?

He tried to sit up further, but when he pressed his hand down to support himself, he felt pain...a strange pain that seemed to be “dislocated” from his back. He looked down and saw his clawed hand pinning down something resembling a blue umbrella. A large membrane stretched across several elongated, articulated digits...and he could feel sensation coming from it. It was a...it was a limb...a wing.

Something crashed to the ground as he tried to push himself out of the bed, feeling disoriented. His feet slid out from underneath him, he lost his balance and fell to the floor. The back of his head slammed against the wall with enough force that he should have suffered a concussion.

But something prevented the impact from injuring him, as if he had a hard-hat on. Strands of green hair fell in front of his eyes and obscured his vision. He tried to push them out of his way, but in doing so, he scratched the side of his face with the claws.

A large blue snake draped over his legs. No, it wasn't a snake, it was another limb that was attached to the back of his hip. He knew it was part of his body because like the wings, the sensation of touch permeated its length. He could actually feel his back extending until it separated into the long flexible appendage. It was a tail. A trill of fear skirted the edge of his confusion.

What in the hell...he thought, What the fuck is going on...

“He just fell.”

Vincent simply stared at the limbs, his mind too numb to think. Hypnotized by this strange reverie, he planted his hands against the ground and crawled over to the wall before pulling himself up and using it for stability. Before he could reach the optimum standing position, he was suddenly on the verge of toppling backward. Adrenaline spiked in his chest as he grappled for balance.

Both the wings and tail were like weights that kept swinging around beyond his control, changing his center of gravity. Only by shifting his foot back a step did he manage to avoid falling. He clung to the wall, gasping and panting as tension threatened to constrict his chest.

The claws on his fingers scraped the stone as he tried to stabilize himself, vibrating his joints and pushing his fingers out. He teetered from side to side, fighting the precarious balance as though he had been drugged. His brain was disoriented in a daze-like stupor, overwhelmed by the phantom sensations coming to it from the new limbs. The nameless dread continued to grow in his gut.

Caught in a trance, he shifted his hand along the wall and took a step, not daring to leave it. He moved without purpose, unsure of what he was doing. Tightness clenched his chest and his breath hissed through clenched teeth as he tried to quell the growing panic. The phantoms murmured their disjointed observations and conspiracies, a few of them manifested as eyes that opened up in the mortar.

Static courted the edge of his consciousness like a lurking fog, threatening to roll over and obfuscate his presence of mind. This is what it had been like before he doubled down on the medication.

What will he do...”

“He needs to escape....before they come back.”

He looked around the room. The walls rose about 7 feet before sloping into a dome. The bed he had fallen off of was not rectangular like a traditional bed, but circular, more of a nest with covers than a bed. Several lunette-shaped alcoves had been carved into the wall, holding some sort of decorative crystals.

The entrance to the room was a tall doorway. Only instead of a door, there was a curtain of leather strips that were all connected at the bottom by a wooden bar which appeared to act as a weight.

“Inefficient...inefficient”

“3 percent, 49 percent, 50...”

Unthinking, he took one trembling step towards the doorway. When he planted his foot, his claws tapped the floor with a “clack”. There were six on each foot: five on his toes and one more on the back of his heel. They pushed up his feet, making him feel as though he were wearing high heels. He shifted the position of his hands and continued to use the wall as a crutch. He waited for the tail to stop swishing around so that it would not threaten his balance.

He wasn't sure why he was moving, perhaps he was simply coasting along to this strange experience like a wader in a river, allowing the stream to carry him along. One of the wings touched the sloped ceiling and began to scratch it. The sound and sensation startled him, he almost lost his balance and fell to the ground.

“You got yourself into a bit of a pickle,” a gruff-sounding phantom growled, startling Vincent with its proximity.

The voice was familiar, but its sudden appearance in this surreal state left him floundering to remember.

“D-Dave?” he tried to say.

A tall marine drill-instructor stepped around him, sunglasses hiding his eyes. Scowling, he looked Vincent up and down before disappearing right into the wall. The phantoms, for the most part, were disembodied murmurings without personality.

But occasionally, one of them would give themselves a name and take on a persona. This one was a phantom Vincent had not heard from in years. It called itself Sergeant Dave.

“What did you do...get on the wrong side of some spooks?” Dave said, “get involved with some government vivisection experiment gone wrong?”

Vincent managed to stabilize himself against the wall, his arms shaking.

“I don't...where am I?” he tried to mutter. His words came out slurred.

“I don't know...but you better get moving...check this place out before they come back.”

He tried to put Dave out of his mind. The voice's return was sudden, and he was too confused to deal with its presence. Nevertheless, he heeded Dave's words and began to explore the strange building using the animal-like vessel he found himself in, moving hand over hand as he stayed near the wall. He entered a tall, narrow corridor.

More diamond-shaped ports allowed sunlight to pour in, casting their light on the opposite wall. Chalky red and blue paint formed patterns along the clay. Cracks fissured along the passage, but they were filled in with some sort of crude mortar, indicating years of maintenance were required to keep the place, wherever this was, hospitable. There were also scratch marks in various places along the walls and floor, as if left behind by claws.

“Must be in Mexico,” Dave suggested.

The corridor bifurcated at the end, splitting into a T-intersection. But before he reached the intersection, he noticed there were two more rooms, one to the left and one to the right. One was some sort of food pantry containing jars of spice and dried herbs.

A strange script labeled the various vessels and bags full of ingredients, a variety of geometric shapes forming its characters. What country used this sort of language? He had seen nothing like it ever. Some of the aromas it produced had foreign scents, smells he had never encountered. Others contained the flowery potpourri scent he had been smelling.

The other room was being used as some sort of wardrobe. He could see clothes strung up: shirts with two notches running up their backs, which would have flanked the spinal cord when worn. He also saw pants with three sleeves. The design of the clothes confused him. Why would shirts have openings in their backs? Why would pants have three sleeves? They amplified the sinking feeling in his gut.

To pass the door, he had to let go of the wall and “fling” himself across the doorway and catch the opposite side. But the tail ended up throwing him off, causing him to fall onto the floor. The tile scraped his knees and he fell onto the left wing, which sent a sharp pain up his back.

The phantoms immediately began to scream in his head as he flailed on the ground, the tail slapping against the wall. Panic swelled in his chest and he fought to keep himself under control. When he finally up righted himself, he was on the verge of hyperventilating. Static threatened to overtake him as beads of sweat began to form on his snout despite the reptilian appearance of his new form.

What in the hell was happening? What had been done to him? No, he couldn't think about that, he had to remain calm. There was an explanation for this, he was certain of it. He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths until he settled down.

He wanted to know more about this strange place, so when he struggled to his feet, he proceeded down the hallway until he reached the split. The passage to the left lead toward two more rooms, which did not look too promising. The passage to the right lead to a small open rotunda. In the middle of the chamber, there was a smoldering fire pit over which a tripod stood, with a kettle hanging from its peak.

A hole at chamber’s apex was surrounded by wisps of soot, left behind by multiple firings. Several strings stretched from one side of the chamber to the other. Along their lengths hung several bundles of spices and herbs for drying.

“Like I said...we are definitely in Mexico,” Dave whispered.

That didn't seem right. Yes, he could see what inspired the comment, as some of the designs on the walls reminded Vincent of Latino artwork, but there was something alien about the architecture. The doors were taller than necessary and there seemed to be an inordinate amount of space for a dwelling this simple.

Curiosity tempered the growing dread he felt at the back of his mind. Ignoring the phantoms' whispers, he explored the room using the “body” he found himself inhabiting, feeling a little bit like Goldilocks discovering the three bears' house.

Whoever lived here, did so without electricity. There were no outlets to plug anything into, no refrigerator, no lights. Instead, he found barrels of salted meat. Outside one of the windows, he saw a garden, though at a glance, he could not recognize any of the plants that grew in it.

On the opposite side of the chamber from the dining area was a small desk with various measuring instruments whose purpose he could not fathom. He was about to make his way over to it when he heard something fall to the ground. One of the wings had brushed up against the wall and knocked something off its mount.

Swearing, he braced on arm against the wall for support and leaned down to pick the object up. It was a mirror made of polished metal and when he saw his reflection in it, he froze.

Nothing about the face that stared back indicated that it had ever been human. A mane of vibrant green hair crested its head, the long strands framing a blue snout. Ram-like horns grew from the back of the skull and curled around shoulder-length ears, which twitched erratically. Two almond-shaped nostrils flared right above his mouth as he breathed. Flesh of a lighter, sky-blue circled his eyes like liner, narrowing to a taper on his snout like tear streaks. For a split second, Vincent thought it was not as bad as he had imagined it should have been.

What in the hell am I looking at? he thought.

But as the details began to settle in, he began to feel the full import of the imagery. The snout, gleaming with the same sheen that limned his arms and legs, was smooth, almost immaculate of any blemish save for the very fine texture. It looked like something one would get if they crossbred a rabbit with a kangaroo and injected dragon DNA.

The marsupian creature in the mirror looked innocent and frightened, as if it had nothing in it but weakness and vulnerability. As he continued to stare, he watched it reflect his shock, his confusion, and eventually, his disgust, anger, and panic. As he clenched his mouth, it did the same, exposing fangs that curved like a dog's.

But it was the irises that caused ice to settle into his chest. He recognized those eyes as the same ones that stared up at him from that pool in the darkness. They glowed with an iridescent ambiance that reflected an unseen source of blue and magenta rays.

Flashes of the Stalker's attack came crashing into him, obfuscated memories of breaking bones and rent flesh reverberated through his mind. Vincent dropped the mirror and held up the clawed extremities as if seeing them for the first time.

“He knows.”

“Yes...he figured it out.”

“This isn't happening...” Vincent tried to say, but his mouth was no longer his own.

Even the voice was different, it was deeper. The panic that he was trying to hold back was clawing its way to the surface. He had been taken from his world...tortured...remade into something new. He could feel it in his flesh. But that was impossible. This was a dream...

“They did something bad to you Cordell.”

“No...what the fuck…” He stumbled, lost control and fell to the ground.

Scrambling, he tried pushing his back up against the wall as if to retreat from the reflection. But the tail would not let him, it kept his back propped forward. Clenching his teeth, he fell on his side, staring at his trembling hands. Phosphenes danced across his vision and he found he was struggling to take in breaths.

The trance-like reverie he had been under was falling apart. In its place was an inescapable claustrophobia that felt like the whole world was trying to close in on him.

“What did he figure out?”

"He's no longer human.”

“I am a doctor. Let me help.”

Vincent reached up to grab handfuls of hair only to find the horns. He was about to scream when his mind went blank. There was a “pop” that only he could hear, followed by a crackling sound, as if somebody had poured carbonated candy into his ears.

There were only a few times he had ever experienced this, and they each happened during periods of incredible distress. He entered a catatonic state and “flatlined”.

He referred to this kind of episode as a “burnout”, a non-medical term he invented that understated the seriousness of such an event. He would suddenly cease to react to external stimuli. It was a daze taken to the extreme and it could last for minutes or days.

It was hard to tell how long he had been lying on the floor curled in a fetal position, unaware of his surroundings. A few lizards crawled into the room, only to scatter at his breathing. The sunlight pouring through the ports, slowly traveled across the ground.

When he eventually came out of it, fog obfuscated his thoughts. But as his mind began to clear, and the panic returned. He found himself clawing away at one of his arms as though he hoped to find the human arm buried beneath.

The violence lit his nerves on fire as azure blood began to dribble forth from his wounds, but adrenaline kept him going. The phantoms murmured as he tore into his own flesh like a wild animal.

Eventually, the pain became too much for him and he was forced to stop, cradling his self-inflicted injury. The garment he had been dressed with, a loose-fitting shirt that had Navajo and Spanish influences, was now being stained with alien blood.

“You should not have done that.” Dave had returned. “You need to get a bandage on that wound.”

Vincent was being crushed by this mad reality. It was insane. He could not think. He pulled himself to his feet and stumbled over to the kitchen, trailing a path of blue blood in his wake. He grabbed a sharp knife and brandished it in front of him, as if expecting to fend off an attack at any moment.

He stumbled his way over to a wooden door with a small port through which sunlight poured. He lifted the bar, the door flew open, and he practically threw himself across the threshold, falling to his knees. The knife sunk into the red-tinged grass and twisted his wrist, but he tightened his grip and pulled it out.

He didn't even bother trying to get back on his feet, seeing as there was nothing to hold on to. Instead, he scrambled along the ground on all fours, digging into the dirt with his claws. He was running...but from what?

A forest painted a nearby dirt path with shadow and light. In the distance he could see a break in the tree line. Without thinking about it, he began to crawl in that direction. Every limb trembled as though his bones had turned to gelatin, but his panic drove him forward, forcing him to take each step.

He wanted to get out of here, he wanted to go home. He wanted to silence the voices which now screamed at him and who refused to let him think rationally. He had been changed...no, that was impossible.

This isn't fucking happening, he thought.

His phantoms watched from the trees, waiting among the rustling leaves.

“He is using the trunks for support.” they observed when he pulled himself up.

The trail was covered in snaking roots, so he navigated with care. He did not recognize the species or the patterns in any of the dead leaves that covered the path, nor did the singing of the birds sound familiar to him.

“Mexico,” Dave whispered before disappearing among the observers.

The forest was densely packed, branches intertwining with branches, arching over the path. Creatures skittered at the edge of his vision. Enemies? Observers? Wildlife? Nothing could be trusted so Vincent let out a yell to scare them away.

The reflection he had seen stayed in his mind; it had been burned into his memory. He screamed a refusal at the image, in hopes that his shouts of profanity would make it disappear. But each malformed vocalization that escaped from his maw seemed to affirm his strange metamorphosis.

The treetops rustled with the wind in response to his cries, their leaves chattered silent gossip. A vortex of dead foliage and seeds stirred along the passage before scattering among the bushes. The forest did not want to let him go. Indeed, the path almost seemed to narrow as if it intended to close him off from escape.

With a nameless hysteria at his back, Vincent tore at the ground like a rabid animal and hurled himself toward the light. It was far from graceful. The wings and tail caused him to stumble. The former often extended against his will and got caught on nearby branches. Small lances of pain told him they had been scratched. But the sensation of pain in limbs that did not formerly exist was yet another ugly facet added to his delirium.

“Get a hold of yourself Cordell. You are almost there.”

“Almost where?!” Vincent said, almost screaming the words out loud. “Where the fuck am I?! Where the hell are we going, Dave?!”

“To safety.”

Dave said nothing more after that. After all, he was simply a phantom like the rest. He only had the illusion of intelligence. He had no idea what he was talking about, as he was nothing more than an emulation of sentience.

When Vincent reached the tree line, he dropped back to his knees and crawled. The path turned to the right, but he crawled straight ahead into tall grasses. The tips of their green blades were tinged in waves of rust-colored red. Some were mottled with alternating colors of red and green. He didn’t get far before he abruptly found himself staring down the face of a massive cliff. It came out of nowhere.

Adrenaline surged through his chest and he gripped the ground, holding on for his life. If he had been standing, perhaps he would have seen the cliff. But because he was crawling, and because he had to look straight at the ground due to the blind spot the snout caused, he did not see it until he came up right upon its ledge. Wind rushed up the drop and caught his wings. He clutched at the ground and felt the world list with vertigo.

The wind continued to buffet him, but he held onto the ground. The drop beckoned to him, threatened to pull him over and swallow him whole. But he couldn’t pull away, his eyes drifted upward. He saw meadows of the red-green grass spanning in the distance, covering a shattered land. It looked as if a giant had at some point smashed the ground with a giant hammer, leaving the land fractured.

Time healed the wounds and softened the scars, but ravines fissured the terrain, creating shallow upheavals and plateaus. Glassy mountains dominated the vista in the distance, their gleaming peaks looked sharp enough to cut the sky open.

Only when Dave screamed at Vincent to back away from the edge did he let go. When he tried to back up, he found that the tail got in the way. So he rotated on the spot until he was facing the woods, then he crawled several feet and stopped. It was then that he noticed how much he was shaking.

His lungs ached with exertion and sweat poured down his cheeks, matting the green hair. The world began to spin out of his control as though he had just exited one of those dizzying rides often featured at state fairs. Weak and exhausted, he rolled over and collapsed to the ground.

That was when he saw the sky.

Perhaps he could eventually accept that he had been captured, perhaps vivisected, experimented upon, and then taken to some third world country in South America. It was a reality that, despite how outrageous it sounded, invited more belief than the celestial bodies he saw in the blue canopy above him.

There were two planets, or perhaps they were moons. One of them was a dark shade of purple, barely visible along the blue backdrop. The other was as crimson as ruby and appeared slightly smaller, partially obscuring the purple one.

It was impossible, what he was seeing had to be a lie. It was some sort of conspiracy yet there they were: floating in the sky. His ribs strained under his laborious breathing and the muscles in his jaws clenched as though he wished to grind his teeth to a powder.

“I don't think we're in Kansas anymore, Toto,” Dave whispered.

“Heh...”

A few seconds passed after Dave’s snarky comment when a sound abruptly burst forth from Vincent's maw, a high-pitched, raspy, shrill ululation, as though all the sanity he held onto sought to escape his body. He thought he was having a seizure, but when his voice cracked, he recognized what was happening. It was laughter.

The two pale celestials stared down at him like pupiless eyes as he clutched his chest and writhed with crazed hysterics, howling his joyless mirth into the heavens. He laughed until his lungs threatened suffocation, forcing him to take in a large gasp of air only for him to expel it in another fit of crazed laughter. He punched the ground with his fists and tore handfuls of the grass while continuing to scream in a voice that was not his own.