The first prize story from my recent mini-contest!  azaiya really went above and beyond with her entry, drawing a piece of art and a partial story! At her request, I adapted her writing into a longer story with an open ending for her to explore when the muse strikes her. Please visit her fan art and story here. As before, the stunning art is by  RedDyeNo5.

Kess's Tale

Kess sat, long dark hair twirling between olive fingers, her gaze settled drearily down at the floor. She nearly missed her therapist's question a second time.

"What do you think, Kess?"

Slouched over, Kess hung her head ever-so-slightly higher. She brushed bothersome strands out of her eyes; it made her look like a girl from an old horror movie, her mane of ramrod-straight hair was useful for hiding behind when it was convenient to withdraw into herself and disengage from the world.

She'd been doing that a lot lately

"Sorry," Kess answered. "What do I think about what?"

Dr. Uncia, the latest in a long line of court-appointed therapists, sighed. "We've been meeting together for a while now, Kess. You've shared a lot with me, but we seem to have had difficulty gaining traction against your depression. Why do you think that is?"

Kess groaned. That was what it always came down to--the doctor wondering why their magic bullet wasn't working on her. They never cared about trying to help her; they just wanted to reduce her to a peg that would fit into the hole they'd prepared. "Look, I dunno. Do you think I like feeling this way? I don't know why, but…I just can't engage. Every time I start a new job, or try to go back to school, or anything else, after a while I just get this itch–"

"Yes, we've talked about that 'itch' before," Dr. Uncia interjected. Kess's deep brown eyes flashed in momentary annoyance--he was a therapist, she should be able to come back to a subject any time she wanted, and as many times as she wanted. But he was probably more concerned about which of his fancy words he could flash in front of her instead of the more prosaic 'itch.'

"Uh-huh," Kess nodded, raising her head and parting her brown curtain a bit more. "No matter what I do, I just get this feeling that what I'm doing just isn't right. I can't help it; life just doesn't feel right to me. All the stuff that you're supposed to do in a day," she waved her hands about nervously, "eating, drinking, cleaning, sleeping, walking, it…it bothers me. On a deep level, at my very core. I keep telling them that's what makes me depressed, and I dunno why. But they never listen."

There had been the therapist who was convinced that Kess's depression stemmed from deeply-repressed childhood issues. Months of hypnosis had done little except to convince that doctor that her parents had been distant--married to a zaibatsu on one hand and a patent law firm on the other, and she had said as much openly from the beginning. Another had tried to convince her that she was a man trapped in a woman's body, despite Kess's insistence that she would have been just as depressed and bothered either way. Wearing her hair short for a month had just left her with nothing to hide behind when she would rather have eaten ground glass than make eye contact with someone living the very life that had her depressed down to her core.

"I'm listening, Kess," said Dr. Uncia. "I just need you to work a little with me, to meet me halfway."

"It's not like I want to be this way, you know? I'm so tired of this. I'll try anything you think will work."

"That was my question, Kess," said Uncia.

"I'm sorry," Kess shrank back and scratched at her ear, cheeks burning. "I wasn't listening." In her defense, not listening to the last few therapists who had taken a swing at her had been her only defense. But they had been concerned about their careers, their pegs, their holes…Dr. Uncia seemed different, much more sincere. He was certainly controversial enough, though Kess hadn't paid enough attention to be sure as to why.

"That's all right," the doctor assured her with a smile. "I'll explain again, and I'm glad you're open to different treatments. I'd like to suggest something called Intensive Genetic Rehabilitation Therapy, and … "

That was where the controversy had come from! The memory came back: the interviews, the talking heads, the protestors, the magazine articles…all struggling to come to terms with Dr. Uncia's IGRT. "So, you think I'm an animal?" Kess interrupted, full of apprehension.

It was, more or less, the picture of Dr. Uncia that the media presented. It hadn't been important before when he had been going through the motions of normal therapy, the sort of thing that had led Kess to disassociate herself from the conversation and withdraw beyond her veil. But hadn't the magazine cover with Dr. Uncia trumpeted him as "The Man Who Thinks You're Really An Animal?" Hadn't the exposé interview with him been called "Unleashing The Animal Within For Your Own Good?"

"Well, to a degree, yes. But so am I. We're all animals, Kess. Just like people are occasionally born the wrong gender for their brain chemistry, and can experience intense depression because of it."

"I've heard that before," Kess sighed.

"We're starting to discover that species reassignment can have the same positive effects on a person's long-term mental health," the therapist continued. "And many of the things we've talked about have lead me to believe that this kind of therapy could have great benefits for you. And, in light of the previous…difficulties…with therapy mentioned in your file, I have to point out that it's a temporary process."

"It is?" Kess tried to focus, to cut through the grey fog of depression that made concentration and memory so difficult sometimes, in search of any memory of Dr. Uncia's Intensive Genetic Rehabilitation Therapy. "But there was this girl in my dorm at school, before I dropped out…we heard she got it, and we never saw her again. Somebody said that she couldn't live in normal places anymore." Suri had struggled with a lot of things, Kess remembered, tough she couldn't recall which species she had chosen to become...

"It's true that some who undergo the therapy elect to permanently remain the species that they transition to," said Dr. Uncia. "It's partly due to the way they learn to live with their altered bodies, and partly because of the way wider society--which is still getting used to the idea--reacts. But the process can be easily reversed up to a certain point, and those who have transitioned back to pure human form still receive lasting mental health benefits. Those who stay transitioned only do so because they are genuinely happier, and experience more fulfillment and vibrancy in life. Isn't that what we've been talking about all along, Kess?"

Kess nodded quietly. It was a lot to process, but the therapist's promise of reversibility--more than any of the other quacks could offer with their square-peg, round-hole solutions--made her curious. "How long is the therapy? Isn't it expensive?"

"It's a three month program," said Uncia. "A short period for the physical transition, and then a program to help explore the new form and make the decision whether to remain or revert. Most of the cost is actually taken care of by GeneCom, the owners of the facility."

"Why would they do that?" said Kess, suspicious. A few more memories bubbled up, of lawsuits and malpractice and recalls associated with GeneCom, which was as large as any genetic engineering company out there.

"Well, the GeneCom Foundation has actually gotten a lot of grants from those looking to build colonies of humanimals--not my preferred term, but one which seems to have caught on in the media--for long-term study. Basically, you can receive the treatment for free, and are welcome to stay if you decide to remain in your altered form after the treatment period. Many have, in fact. It's not a requirement though, and I have several patients whom have made the transition to hybrids and returned to society in human form--or as hybrids!--with no pressure to stay."

"What kind of…hybrid…would they make me?" Kess said, trying to imagine the pretty face that she was sick of seeing reflected in mirrors and drains and chrome as she tried and failed to go about the daily rhythms of life replaced by something new and feral, slick with glistening fur or scales. She couldn't quite visualize it, though the very idea of casting off the reflection that made so many boors and idiots seek her out despite her withdrawn misery did give Kess a deep and secret thrill in the innermost part of her being.

"I don't know what sort of hybrid you'll be, but it will be entirely your choice," replied Dr. Uncia. "They'll give you an assessment when you get there that will help narrow your choices and find something appropriate to you."

Kess glanced out a nearby window for a bit, lost in thought, staring at the bustling city laid out below Uncia's 77th floor office. Blinding, crammed, dirty…it was like a feedback loop, feeding off of her depression and returning it to her a hundredfold. Would escaping it for a little while be such a bad thing? She'd been fired from her last job at as a waitress a mere week ago--Kess's most recent inability to conform to what was expected of a beautiful human girl. Most of her 'friends' were too busy for her, fed up with her inability to be what they thought she should be, quietly whispering about how disgusted they were with someone who they perceived to have it all and yet remained mired in depression. What responsibilities did she really have? What was stopping her from saying yes?

"You're sure that this really helps people, and that people can live with the choice they make?" she asked. "That people can be fulfilled by the choice they make?"

Dr. Uncia took off his spectacles, leaned over, and looked Kess in the eye. With a start, she realized that he had yellow eyes with slit pupils. "I'll tell you this," he said. "It worked for me, and I've never been more fulfilled."

"All right," Kess said calmly, after a further moment of deliberation and a sidelong glance at the horrible megalopolis out the window. "I'll do it."

The GeneCom Foundation treatment center was located in a remote part of southern Africa, surrounded by 2,500 square kilometers of the deepest Kalahari in the form of a private reserve. Kess took a small, private flight to get there, shivering in the shorts and t-shirt she had brought until the very end of the journey, when the heavy African heat finally began to penetrate to her bones.

About ten other patients were onboard with her, mostly in their 20s to 30s--apparently the changes are still too physically stressful for those much older--but there was what looked like an eighteen or nineteen year-old girl on the aisle across from her, head plastered against the window. Aside from built-in tablet computers with some information about the organization ("the GeneCom Foundation presents: New Humanity"), the view was the passengers' only entertainment. They'd been asked not to bring any net-capable devices, tablet computers, or cell phones with them, presumably to keep from fanning the fires of controversy already stoked and blazing about the concept of Intensive Genetic Rehabilitation Therapy. The high school aged girl had clearly been crushed at the thought of giving up her beloved πPhone, even when she'd been assured there would be no signal to speak of.

Aside from a change of clothes, Kess came with hardly anything.

"There it is!" cried the highschooler. From her window, Kess could see the facility from above as the plane banked: a series of large, white domes that were connected to each other like pearls on a chain. If the domes were covered with glass, Kess couldn't see through them. There was no fence, no moat, nothing to separate the cluster of domes from the untamed wilderness stretching a thousand kilometers to every side.

Kess's plane rattled to a noise stop on an unpaved dirt airstrip not far from the complex. Upon landing, there was someone on the airfield assigned to each of the passengers. It seemed that they were all human; Kess was surprised to find herself a little disappointed. There had been a notable improvement in her mood since agreeing to try Dr. Uncia's treatment, and she was curious to see one of these 'humanimals' in person, at least before she became one herself. One of the dark grey clouds that she had previously banished floated back, and Kess felt her smile fade to uneasy pursed lips.

She was approached by a well-groomed woman who spoke with a glazed, liquid French accent. "Hello, Kess! My name is Dr. Melanie Delacroix, and I'll be your doctor while you stay with us on the GeneCom Foundation New Humanity campus. We're on a first-name basis, so please don't worry about any formalities." She extended her hand; it was also disappointingly human. Kess had been holding out for a claw or a tentacle or perhaps eyes like Dr. Uncia--anything but a well-manicured and too-peppy-for-her-own-good human.

Kess nodded, brushed the hair from her eyes in a well-rehearsed move, and said a weak hello. Melanie responded with a smile, "I hope you're not too tired from your journey? We can begin the hybridization procedure straight away, if you like, or I can take you to your room and you can rest until tomorrow."

"Straight away is fine," Kess said. "I'm not tired." In point of fact she was--bone-tired, and more than a little queasy and dizzy from what had been her first-ever plane ride. But she had come to feel better, to try being something other than herself. There was no point putting it off for a night of self-doubt, second-guessing, staring glumly at herself in the mirror, and finishing the half-read vampire romance that was one of only two books she'd brought.

Inside, the facility looked white and sterile, but had an organic design with few sharp edges. The walls curved gently to meet the floor, and everything was made of a soft material that was like a hard, durable felt. What furniture existed was simple, and looked integrated with the floor and walls. It was, fittingly, very much like an animal habitat. Melanie took Kess into a small examination room with a few chairs and an examination table, handing Kess a tablet computer.

"Kess. I want you to know that I read your file and, I have a long list of questions you can answer if you like...but to be direct, I think I have a species that will suit you nicely."

"I've … been here ten minutes, and you already have me figured out?" Kess said nervously, memories of the awful therapists and their attempts to make her fit their preconceived notions dancing around the edge of the haze that infected her perceptions at every level.

"Your therapist sent us your psychological evaluation, and I have thoroughly reviewed that. But I also have to ask for your trust: I've worked with over a hundred patients here. Take all the time that you need to choose, and feel free to explore other options, but I think you would make a most fantastic U. u. baikalensis-romanii."

"A what?"

"A snow leopard, to use the vernacular," said Melanie. "A certain rather rare subspecies in particular."

Kess paged through the tablet until she came to a page with a 3D humanoid model. It was human-sized, with human-like breasts and a bipedal build, yet covered with downy, spotted fur and a very long tail. A deep sense of disappointment rattled through Kess; she couldn't see herself in the computerized image on her tablet any more than she could the shy, sad, dark-haired beauty in the mirror.

"Based on the DNA sample you provided us with, this is an approximation of your new form," Melanie added, noticing what Kess was looking at.

Kess sighed. "You know…I don't even know how I feel about this," she said. "I don't see myself in this…computer-animated cat lady. It's so hard to put into words, just like everything I feel, but...I also came all the way here, so I guess that means I'm willing to try it."

"It's your choice, Kess," said Melanie in what she probably imagined was a gentle tone; Kess found it rather patronizing. "If there's another species that might interest you-"

"None of it interests me, Melanie," Kess snapped, much like she had at every quack therapist she'd seen before Dr. Uncia. "Nothing's interested me for a long time. I feel out of place in life all the time…there's no beauty or fulfillment to anything. It's all just unnatural to me, distant and sad."

Melanie smiled, "I think you'll find that here, things will be different."

"That's why I came," Kess said. Her rage deflated into quiet introspection, and the room was still for the next few minutes.

Kess, deep in thought, looked at herself in the reflection off the tablet's screen. She couldn't see that face, so sad and dark and exotic according to all the boys that she had sent packing, for another moment. If only for a little while, if only into something like the plastic feline on the screen, she needed to escape being…herself.

She shook her hair, combing it out of her eyes, and looked at Melanie with firm resolve. "All right, make me a snow leopard." She sat on the examination table, legs swinging freely a few inches above the ground.

"Wonderful," said Melanie. "The process won't take long, usually only a few hours, but the mind takes a little longer to settle in and access the new brain connections and react properly to the way new stimulations are processed. You'll be free to indulge in any instincts you may feel; that's what the remainder of your stay here will be concerned with. But if you choose to remain in your hybrid, humanimal form, your gene-map will resettle permanently in six months' time. There will be no going back after that; a further attempt at gene modification would be fatal. Similarly, if you decide to return to your human form, that alteration will also be permanent. Initial on the tablet if you accept these terms."

Kess had heard that boilerplate from Dr. Uncia, from a GeneCom representative at the airport, and from the flight attendant on the way in. But somehow, staring at the large needle in Melanie's hand, it suddenly seemed all the more real. With a trembling hand, she drew her initials on the page and set the tablet down.

"Would you like to remove your clothes?"

"No!" Kess cried, shrinking back from the idea of being in her birthday suit, on an examination table, under a geodesic dome, in the middle of the Kalahari, in Africa. That was the last straw the already reluctant girl needed to see the full Kafkaesque scope of her situation.

"Very well, but there will be more discomfort and you'll lose most of that outfit."

"I…just don't want to," said Kess.

Melanie saw the look on her patient's face, and nodded. Without a word, she swabbed Kess's forearm with rubbing alcohol and made the injection. Kess, biting her lip, was so nervous she barely felt the pain.

"I'll leave you now," Melanie said. "Buzz if you need anything." She vanished from the room, the door audibly locking behind her.

Left alone with her thoughts, Kess sat on the edge of the examination table. She wasn't sure what to feel, but the same dark cloud and lurking depression seemed to be just as strong there as they had been in the confines of that awful city. If only she could just get outside and run…

Kess cocked her head. Run? She hated to run, ever since that other therapist had encouraged her to run as therapy. Could it be that…? Yes, Kess was sure she could feel it, feel…something…stirring at the deepest level of her being. She couldn't describe it, other than it felt vaguely similar to the warm afterglow of swallowing fresh hot cocoa.

The retrovirus had begun its work.

After about fifteen minutes, the warm feeling had spread from head to toe. Kess felt dizzy and nauseous, even moreso than when she had tottered off of the plane. She trembled with nervousness and anticipation even so, and her heartbeat sped up with each passing moment to cope with the coming changes.

An hour in, Kess felt the first prickling sensations. It was like pins and needles all over her body even before the first tentative hairs began to emerge; then they did, the girl could only look on, spellbound, as her creamy olive skin was frosted with the first ticklings of fur. Playing with her hair out of sheer nervousness, Kess saw that it too had begun to change; the dark and exotic color seemed to be draining out of it, replaced with a grey that gradually shaded over into pure white. It seemed to be getting shorter, too; the strands were not the curtain to close out the world that they once had been.

Ninety minutes saw grey fur overtaking most of Kess's skin, and the first ghosts of darker spots here and there. But it was also when she began to feel things far more drastic happening to her. A soreness in her face gave way to painful swelling as the underlying bones were reshaped, drawing her nose up into a muzzle that, within the hour, was long enough for her to see by crossing her eyes. Kess's ears also ached, not only with the dark fur slowly emerging over them, but with the gradual change into the sensitive cones of a big cat, and their slow journey up the sides of her head.

Kess first felt her tail after two hours and change; she scootched back and forth uncomfortably on the examination table as it exerted more and more pressure against the base of her spine and swayed with her every change in emotional state. Too shy to remove her pants, Kess had to endure the agony of her tail slowly tearing out their seat; the final threads gave way near the three-hour mark. She took the strange new extension of herself in her hands, gently stroking it and watching as the fur responded to her touch even as it continued to grow.

Sneakers became unbearable at around the same time; Kess was less shy about peeling them off, revealing feet that were long and bony, nails halfway between the flat cuticles of a human and the lithe, retractable claws of a cat already poking through holes in her socks. Kess threw the ribbony remains of both in the corner.

The last hour of Kess's metamorphosis saw the blossoming of dark rosettes all over her new fur, speckling her face and back like divinely dark and artistic freckles. Her legs twitched involuntarily as new muscles necessary for digitigrade movement slid into place, and her hands grew pads and claws to rival those on her feet, though with much more of their opposable human essence remaining. As hear ears reached the full flowering of their new form, she could suddenly hear a thousand new and subtle sounds, from the humming of a nearby generator to quiet conversation in an adjoining room.

Eventually, the sensations of change slowed, stopped. The warmth in the core of her being drew down to a low ebb, and Kess blinked eyes that now took in more light across more spectrums than she had ever thought possible.

Tentatively, Kess slid off the examination table. Her new paws flexed, but she still had to brace herself against the wall; it would take practice to learn how to walk with them. And walk she would--Kess had never wanted to run more in her life, to feel the wind in her fur. Hobbling toward the exit, she paused before a mirror. The face that regarded her back was unrecognizable, with a short muzzle, a dusting of freckle-spots, and two large ears with dark rims that twitched at every sound. The upper part of her face was the game slate grey as her back, while her lower jaw was a creamier white that ran down her shirt and disappeared. The long and raven-colored mane that had been her sanctuary was now little more than a fluff of a bob about her face, and was an incredibly pure shade of white. Wide, sensitive eyes stared back, rimmed not in brown but in pale greenish-blue.

It was a stranger's face…and yet there was much of herself still in it. Kess could pick out a hundred familiar details that made the face, shocking as it was to see in the mirror, recognizably hers. She smiled, thrilled to see the leonine lips purse and draw back slightly to reveal teeth suitably sharpened and altered. It was disorienting, terrifying, stressful…and exhilarating.

Her shyness dying down a bit, Kess pulled off what was left of her human clothing. Her breasts, now suitably furred up to their now-pink areolas, remained; aside from the fur, the structure of her torso was essentially the same. But when she waggled her hips…a delightfully long tail, easily two-thirds the length of her new--and taller!--body, took on a life of its own.

The door to the compound opened at her touch; there was no one to be seen. Kess twitched her ears as a nearby door opened at the same time; a snakelike girl emerged, slithering naga-like on a massive tail where her legs should have been with a hood flared about her head and a forked tongue darting nervously between newly-minted fangs. Kess started at the sight and the smell of the queasy-looking newcomer--it was the girl she had seen on the flight in.

"How…how do you feel?" Kess asked. Her voice sounded deeper and more resonant, and she jumped a little at the sound.

"I'm…I'm not sure yet," the snake girl replied.

"Come on," Kess said, holding out a paw. "We'll go together."

As she led her new companion out into the blinding sunshine of the Kalahari, Kess wasn't sure either--wasn't sure if she liked the new sensations flooding her body, wasn't sure if her new form suited her any more than her human skin had, wasn't sure if she was prepared to make the momentous decision of whether to stay as a hybrid or go back. Kess was sure of something, though:

She was ready to give it a try. And she was ready to run.