As confusing and terrifying as that first night was, it was only just the beginning. The accident was just the start of a long, sorted list of nightmares I'd rather I never experienced. Shortly after that realization that something within me had changed, my nightmares truly began. And it started in Fusion Springs General Hospital.

It was quite some time apparently before the hospital staff trusted waking me. I remember very little of the few days following that first explosive episode. I was kept in a constant state of sedation, drifting in and out of hazy semi-consciousness and the total darkness of drug-induced sleep. I don't remember exactly what it was they drugged me with, but Dr. Freemont later told me that they were constantly increasing the dosage. Every few hours or so, my body would start growing again, and I would show signs of consciousness. They would increase the dose, and it would stop, and an hour or so later my size would decrease again. But I never went all the way back to normal. After 4 days of this back and forth, they had my height listed as “6’5”+.” It was at this point that they found at least a compromise as far as the drugs were concerned.

Somehow they had discovered a combination of drugs that would keep me calm but awake. Something about inhibiting my adrenal glands without completely shutting down my conscious functions. Truthfully, the explanation got a little too complex for me to follow. All I know is 10 days after I had been brought in to the hospital, they decided that it was time to wake me again and let the fates decide if it was the right time.

I remember opening my eyes and finding myself in the middle of a very large room that was, if not more white and bright than the previous one, just as blindingly blank and clean. I groaned audibly, and a noise to my right caused me to turn over. “Ah, and here we are,” said a voice I vaguely recognized as belonging to Dr. Freemont. “And how are we feeling?”

I groaned again, giving voice to both the dull, heavy headache I had and the overall soreness of my body. The bed I was lying in was larger than any bed I had ever seen. I felt absolutely tiny in the middle of it. It wasn't the most comfortable, built out of whatever hard, spongy substance hospital beds are made of. My bandages had been removed, and beneath a set of white medical clothing, my fur was growing in patchy over severely burned and disfigured flesh. The clothes I was wearing were more like drapes than clothes. The shirt was big enough to more than cover up everything important, and the pants had an elastic waistband that kept the waist tight while the pant legs themselves billowed out away from me, even while I was seated. This only added to the parachute-esque quality of the outfit. The material itself was surprisingly soft, and it didn't irritate my flesh too much. It appeared to be quite stretchy and flexible, maintaining its general shape as I rolled over.

For a brief, fleeting moment, I hoped it had all been a dream, as cliche as that might sound. The strange sensation of the room and people shrinking around me, the accident, the scene in Roger’s bedroom; all of it. I wanted it all to be just some fabrication of my mind, some coping mechanism to make up for whatever it was that really happened. Of course, the hospital room around me seemed real enough. So I was more than a little hesitant to answer the doctor’s question. “Dr. Freemont?” I hazarded.

“That’s correct, Miss Kazuki. Let me just check your vitals, then…” He walked over to the side of the bed to check the instruments beeping beside me. “Would you scoot along to this side for me please?” I did so, wincing more than a few times as flesh that was still healing brushed up against the sheets. As I moved over to the side of the bed, the doctor reached down onto the table, picked something up and handed it to me. “These ought to fit you just fine, I believe.”

The object was a pair of glasses. Certainly not mine, and a design quite different from what I was used to. The comically large, rectangular lenses were held together at the bridge by a small rubber band. Where the frames would rest on the ears, instead of solid frame, there were more rubber bands. Taking the odd things from the doctor, I couldn’t help but notice how small his hands seemed. Typically, men of his apparent stature had bigger hands.

Still dreading what I was going to find when I did so, I slowly brought the glasses up to my face. The lenses were far larger than anything I’d ever worn, and the rubberband frames felt odd dangling from my head. But finally, the world ceased being a collection of swirling colors and fuzzy outlines. Instead, my eyes were met with something resembling real life, though the setting still very much felt like an old Sci-Fi flick.

As I expected, the room was exceptionally large. It seemed like it was maybe a storage room that had been cleared out specifically for my use. It was around 30 feet across, and maybe a little longer than that. Outside of the massive bed, the 4 beeping machines, and the 2 occupants, the room was mostly empty. To my right, a collection of digital readouts told me that my heart rate was slightly elevated and my blood pressure was high. There were a few other numbers attached to strange medical codes I didn't recognize. The rest of the machines around the room were less identifiable, and I could only guess at what they were responsible for.

I turned my attention back to the doctor and was met with a pleasant image. The man I had quickly come to feel comfortable with was every bit as welcoming as his voice made him seem. A graying badger that wore his wisdom in his beard, his cheerful expression and plump shape somehow made him a completely comforting sight. His small, black eyes sat behind a pair of tiny moon spectacles that made him look like a doting grandfather. Quite a lot of my trepidation melted away in that instant.

Another thing was made very apparent in that instant, however; he wasn’t simply just a short man. The beeping computers, digital readouts, and something that appeared to be regulating an IV that I just noticed was inserted into my arm, were all just a little smaller than they should have been. And proportionately speaking, the good doctor was squat, but still rather large for all intents and purposes. Admittedly, I probably knew the minute I put the glasses on. This was real.

Dr. Freemont held his paw out and made a tapping motion in the center of it with a claw. Without a second thought, I placed my right paw into his. Mine dwarfed his almost comedically. As he hooked a small vial into a tube that I again just noticed was placed in my arm, I looked up at him, bewildered. “So… it wasn’t a dream?” I asked quietly. My voice was much improved from the last time I had heard it, but it was still a bit weak.

Dr. Freemont looked up and gave me a sad smile. “I’m afraid not, Miss Kazuki.” He unclicked the tube, capped it, and placed it on a tray to the side. “We’re still not quite sure what has happened, or why your body is reacting the way it does, but we believe it stems from your blood. As I said previously, we’ve had our fair share of issues even examining it. Shortly after your…” He paused, and it seemed like he was trying to find appropriately respectful words. “Episode,” he finally decided on, “we contacted every known blood specialist and microbiologist we could get a hold of. No one has ever seen anything like this before.”

I looked at him from my lofty position sitting on the bed, trying to figure out how to ask my next question. “And… what about the growing?”

His eyes met mine, and I saw a strange sort of sorrow in them. He struggled for words for a moment before finally speaking. “I wish I had anything resembling an answer on that front. Frankly, I’ve never seen anything like it. From your reactions, I take it you’ve never experienced that before?” I shook my head no emphatically. “I suspected as much. It was worth asking, given your unique markings. I’ve never seen a cat with markings like those.”

Instinctively, I reached up and touched my forehead. The M-shaped pattern of stripes on my forehead is pretty obvious, given how I part my bangs normally. “What do you mean? Everyone in my family has the same markings…”

The peppered badger shook his head gently. “Not those, Miss Kazuki. The ones going down your arms.”

I pulled my paws in front of my face to see what he was talking about. As the loose sleeves covering my arms fell down to my elbows, a faint green glow caught my eye. I turned my paws over so the palms faced me. From each pad, a green line shot to the center of my paw, and then up my arm, almost as if it were following my veins. Green lines I had never seen before.

But the glowing green color on my arms matched the same color I saw at the bottom of the truck the night of the accident.

As I reared back from this discovery in shock, an angry beep from the machine to my right accompanied a faint hissing sound. The IV machine popped off the ground slightly as the floor leapt a few feet away from my eyes and the room grew quite a bit smaller...