When I opened my eyes, I found myself back down in the crypt, inside the laboratory. At least, it appeared to be the same crypt, but it seemed nowhere near as rundown as when I had been there. Instead of being caked with dust, the walls were clean and tidy, and the shelves were loaded with neat little boxes of materials.

Was this another dream? 

Every single day since Alvin and I had made that trip down to the crypt, and we had been splashed with monster fluid, I had been having these vivid dreams. 

...Almost too vivid, perhaps. 

In the first dream, about the monster, the mercenaries that were capturing it had mentioned people having nightmares. Something about them being a result of getting splashed in the fluid of these monstrous creatures… But aside from that dream itself, they didn’t seem to be nightmares, as the mercenary had said… well, said inside the dream.

Were they visions of the past, rather than simple dreams? Was the dream I had last night about my mother… something that really happened before I was born?

My contemplation about what these dreams could be was interrupted as the door beside me opened with a loud squeak. Someone else was down here. Could they see me? I tried to back away from the door, only to find that even as I moved my legs, my feet had no purchase against the ground.

I flailed my arms, trying to move out of the way of the man who now stood in the open doorway carrying a book. As he entered the room, he quickly walked over to the desk that stood up against one of the walls, not even noticing that I was there.

He couldn’t see me, thank goodness. 

When Alvin and I had found the work desk in the crypt, it had been completely clear, save for the dusty journal and the flask of liquid. Now, however, it was completely covered with papers and writing implements, along with a chair tucked up against it, a long white coat hanging off the back of it.

As the man paused at the desk, he sighed, pushing aside all of the mess until he had made a small space in front of him, in which he laid down the book. Pulling the chair out from up against the desk, he slumped heavily into it, hanging his head back and staring at the ceiling.

“Almost out of food…” he mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. “And I’m not going to get a delivery for the next few days, am I? As long as the harvest’s good, maybe…”

The man slowly sat back upright in his chair, opening the book and flicking through the pages. Most of them appeared to be filled with handwritten notes, interspersed with the occasional page of geometric shapes scribbled all over it.

I peered over his shoulder, watching as he flipped to an empty page, rummaging around in the mess on the desk in front of him with his other hand. Pulling out a black pen with golden trim, he dropped it just next to the book, reaching back into the mess and pulling out a small pot of black ink.

Unscrewing the seal at the top of the flask, he dipped his pen inside it, then began to write on the empty page of the book.

“Doctor Holland’s log,” he began, speaking aloud as he wrote. “Day 12, Season 3, Year 1328. Refining the mixture has been more challenging than I originally anticipated, especially without a proper method to verify its efficiency.”

I peered over his shoulder as he went on, listening to him speak aloud every sentence while he wrote. The handwriting seemed so familiar to me, I was sure I had seen it somewhere before. Was this… I didn’t manage to get a good look at the spine of the book, but was it the same journal that I had swiped from the crypt when Alvin and I went down there?

If what he was writing was an entry in that same journal, then if I looked through it when I woke up, would I be able to find the same entry? If these exact words that he was writing in the dream were in the journal laying on my desk, would that prove that these dreams were really visions? Or… memories of the past?

He lowered the journal, closing it with a loud sound that made me jump as it echoed around the room. Tucking it under his arm, he blearily wandered over to the large glass barrier that stood in the centre of the room.

...Wait, where were we? This wasn’t the same room. 

“Poor thing,” Dr Holland suddenly said, staring through the glass barrier. “I wonder what you were before?”

Who was he talking to? Or… what, in this case? I moved up against the glass next to him, following his gaze into what looked like a small animal enclosure. 

“With those patches of brown fur that I saw, maybe you were a deer previously?” He placed his free hand on the glass. “An unlucky deer that got caught in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

At the sound of Dr Holland’s hand tapping against the glass, something in the centre of the enclosure began to stir. A small mass of what appeared to be dark liquid slowly rose, four thin legs stretching out underneath it. 

“Look at me, showing sympathy to a monster.”

The pitch black lump charged forwards, crashing into the glass barrier with a dull thump.

“I know, I know, being in there is very unpleasant,” Dr Holland said, backing away a few steps from the glass. “But… you’re the only conversation partner I have. If I could turn you back into a regular animal, I would let you go free, but…”

He sighed, fidgeting with the corner of his journal, still tucked under his arm.

“I don’t think the research is there yet.”

The monster in the cage reared up onto its hind legs, letting out a screech. It charged towards the glass once more, colliding with it as Dr Holland turned away.

“One misstep to mess it all up, huh?” he said, running his finger along the gold spiral pattern on the spine of the book he was holding. “And a lifetime’s worth of research to try to fix it.”

*     *     *     *     *

I followed the man — seemingly some kind of researcher — around for what felt like hours as he moved further into the crypt. It seemed far more extensive than I had originally thought, from just the few rooms that Alvin and I explored, but Dr Holland navigated through the maze of rooms effortlessly.

Every so often, we would reach a room with large pipes on the wall, reminiscent of pictures of machinery that I had seen in books. A soft hissing resounded from the pipes, sometimes increasing or decreasing in pitch as he twisted a small wheel that was attached to some of them.

It sounded like it was… steam power? Or at least, what I imagined it to sound like.

My assumptions were confirmed as we reached a room with a large metallic structure in the middle. It looked almost exactly the same as one of the diagrams of a steam generator that I had seen. The large central chamber from which pipes snaked off into the ceiling, the compartment underneath that was coated with ash on the inside... The craftsmanship that was involved seemed so unlike the woodworking that was common in the village. I'd heard that the larger towns and cities had machinery like this, so I couldn't help but be curious about it.

“This is why I didn’t want to be set up in the mountains,” Dr Holland mumbled as he wandered over to a cabinet that was mounted on the wall. “Either the boiler is on and I get cold air, or it’s too cold to burn and then the fans stop, and I don’t get any air at all.”

From inside the cabinet, he took out a single sheet of paper and laid it down on the desk that stood just underneath it. Reaching back inside, he took out a thin paintbrush and an oddly familiar flask of black liquid.

“Well, at least I won’t run out of this stuff anytime soon.”

That was the same flask that I had taken from the crypt! Dr Holland undid the cap on the flask, slipping the thin paintbrush in and dipping it briefly into the sparkling liquid inside. 

I watched as he began to paint a strange pattern across the sheet of paper that lay on the desk. Starting at the centre, he brought the brush out in a slow spiral, creating a circular swirling pattern that took up most of the page. Then, he added four more lines above the spiral, forming what looked like two small triangles against it, before bringing the brush back to the end of the spiral and painting a line that connected it with the start.

The paintbrush clattered against the desk as he quickly dropped it, leaving a few splotches of liquid behind on the surface. The single point in the centre of the spiral began to glow, slowly spreading throughout the pattern that Dr Holland had painted across the page. Orange light began to fill the room, and a few sparks dropped from the sheet of paper as he carried it to the boiler.

Hurriedly opening the door to the fire compartment, he stuffed the page inside, slamming the door shut as it burst into flames.

What was that liquid?

The way he used it made it seem similar to ink or paint, but neither ink nor paint sparkled like that. The only thing I had seen that did sparkle was… the fluid that monsters seemed to be made of.

As I thought about it further, it started to make more and more sense. The crypts held a monster in captivity. The researcher had a flask of monster fluid, which he was using to perform magic. And to top it all off, when I had been splashed with fluid from the monster… not only did I make a ball of fire out of thin air, my whole body changed.

But… everything else I had heard about what monster fluid did to you... it didn’t add up with what was happening to me. I hadn’t gotten any nightmares, like the mercenaries had described in my first dream. Alvin, who was also splashed in fluid from the same monster as me, didn’t end up with the ears and tail of a fox like I had. Instead, he was able to… heal himself using magic.

It had to be some sort of magic. With everything that it caused — the dreams, the transformation, Alvin’s healing ability — there was no way it could be anything else. If that was the case, then… why was everyone so afraid of it?

Every time I had listened to the loud lectures from the training sessions in the village, there had been a big emphasis on keeping your distance from the monsters. Stay away, don’t let it touch you, and don’t get splashed by the liquid. If it did, you’d end up horribly sick and bedridden for days.

Even in books from outside the village, the same sentiment had been shown. Stay away from the monsters lest you end up sick, injured, or dead. And if you do get hit, and survive… you might still be lost to the dissonance, whatever that was supposed to mean.

Were there further effects that I was going to go through? All that had happened to me was the transformation. If what people said was to be believed, then there would have to be something else going on. 

Would my body change further? Would I eventually turn into a monster? That would be terrifying… Or given what my current transformation involved, would I wake up one day as a fox? 

In the end, all I knew for sure was that most people were afraid of coming into contact with monsters. The strange, viscous liquid that clumped together on them had made my body change, and seemed to cause fevers and some kind of ailments in other people. 

And if the flask that the researcher held really was the same flask that I had taken from the underground laboratory, then did that mean… I had a flask of monster blood just sitting on my desk? 

My eyes snapped open, and I quickly sat upright in bed, the scenery from the dream completely gone. I stared at the flask of black liquid sitting on my desk.

It was the same flask… and it contained the same sparkling black liquid inside it, though it seemed to have stopped sparkling for now. It always glittered like the night sky in the evenings, lighting up the walls of my room with glowing dots that looked like stars. But every morning, after I had woken up from my dream, it always looked like a dull black void.

If it really was the reason for my transformation, and was connected to my dreams… should I get rid of it? What if my father went into my room while I was out, and found it? He had acted weirdly when I mentioned the monster fluid yesterday, so… I had no idea what he would do if he found it. 

I looked over towards the mirror, sitting across the room from my bed. The same feminine face stared back at me, slowly growing more and more familiar. If I threw the flask out, would I lose this form? On the flipside, I had no idea if keeping it around would result in me changing further somehow.

In the end, though… would it really be so bad if I was stuck like this?

When I was in this form, I didn’t get that unpleasant clawing at my heart whenever I saw my reflection. It might take a while for me to get used to how sensitive my hearing was, with these red-furred ears… and the tail, too. Having an entirely new limb was a very strange sensation, as I had found out yesterday.

We had spent the rest of the day after my sparring match going over some of the finer details, with Karla’s coaching. While I didn’t seem to have any trouble walking in this form, the vigorous movement that came along with fighting was a different story, and at times I felt like I had to relearn how to move.

My tail had completely thrown me off balance. If I wanted to change my stance, I’d have to pay attention to how it moved behind me. Figuring out how to move it in sync with the rest of my body wasn’t easy, especially since I had never even tried to move it through my own volition before.

Once I got the hang of it, my tail definitely seemed to help with my balance. I could shift around much quicker than before, which Karla had been very excited to see… though she then spent the rest of the evening trying to get me to fight in that form, rather than as just Matty.

Even if it did help me balance, the idea of telling anyone else in the village that I had suddenly become a girl with red-furred ears and a tail after getting splashed with monster fluid… it terrified me. Everyone had been taught to stay away from monsters, to not get hit by them, and to never come into contact with the liquid.

And there I would be, presenting myself to them after doing everything that they were taught not to do. 

In the end, I’d have to stay as I usually was… as a scrawny guy with long hair. As Matty. If I still wanted to stay in the village, I couldn’t reveal that form to anyone. 

I laid back down in bed, staring out of the window at the slight glow of dawn creeping into the dark night sky. There was still so much that I didn’t know about what had happened to me… Why did my body change in the way that it did? Why was I having those dreams? And even if I could figure all of that out… did I even want to? 

I closed my eyes, waiting for the inevitable transformation back into my old form.