Chapter 6 -- A Tail and a Tale

"I remind you he will appear different," Betty's voice came from the doorway.
"I don't care, he is still my friend. No matter what has been done to him." She pulled the sheet back to reveal Chris had a lizard's tail. Silky dropped the sheet and backed away slowly. "What have you done? Did he even know what you were doing?"

"Of course not! He would never have allowed it!"
"Then why would you do it?"

Betty looked to the sleeping figure anxiously, "Let's talk out here so Chris can sleep."
"If we must." Silky fixed the blanket before following her out. As she walked out of the room she saw Betty had laid out the journals with the page open to a picture of her.

"What is the meaning of this?"
"This is the page I found last night. It was tucked in a folder labeled 'successful.'"

"I thought you brought me out here to talk about what was done to Chris. Why do you have this out?"
"Sit down, I have a long story to tell you." Silky sat down on the chair opposite Betty. "Long ago my family was called to see the king. He was going to entrust them with a special task."

"As charming as I'm sure this fairy tale is we have other problems to discuss."
"Just listen and you'll see why it is important." Silky inclined her head to tell her to continue. "The king needed a stronger army. His numbers had dwindled after his most recent conquest and he was in search of a more . . . durable army. He'd charged my ancestors with creating a super army. They were given no other instructions other than he wanted the soldiers to be indestructible. So they began to use formulas to strengthen new recruits. Those who didn't die were driven mad from the side effects. So they started from scratch and worked to splice different animal species with the human recruits. I'll only let you imagine the horrors that brought. They were just about to quit when they came up with the idea that perhaps they were going about it the wrong way."

"How many innocents died from the experiments?"
"I-I don't know, there was no tally."

"How many?"
"I can't be sure, but possibly in the thousands."

"THOUSANDS!!!!!"
"I know the numbers sound high but they are low for an experiment of this size."

"Did they even know?"
"No they just followed orders."

"So why did it end with me?"
"You weren't the experiment, your mom was."

"But you said I was."
"In a sense you are, the children she would have were to be the real experiments. You see they implanted special embryo injected with human DNA. When the litter was born you were the only successful offspring."

"What does that mean?"
"You were the only one to survive. Am I linking anything together yet?" A long pause began.

Just as the silence became awkward Silky asked, "Funny how everything is always connected?" She got up and went to leave.

"Wait Silky!"
"No I've heard enough. Tell me when he wakes up." She left the house and went back home. She had been given a good deal to ponder.

Good sleep eluded Silky that night as she remembered everything she'd learned that day. Her final thoughts before going to bed that night were littered with visions of the innocents that lost their lives in the name of science. All of it so they could make her. It was hours before anyone dared go near her home that morning. All feared the anger that would come of her guilt. Later that day, Noah braved a knock on her door. When she opened the door her face was a mask of sorrow. She invited him in to talk about everything she learned. Only an hour passed as fast as Silky relayed the story to Noah.

"What are we going to do? There is no moving on from this."
"Don't ever think that," Noah said quickly. "It will be alright, you'll see."

"Maybe everything will be forgotten by this time next week. Maybe Chris will magically return to normal too." Silky sighed and walked to the window.
Noah came to stand beside her, "None of this is your fault you know. Not Chris. Not the experiments that led to you."

"Doesn't stop me from believing it is."
"But it isn't. You have to move on from this if you want anyone else to."

She laughed some at his words. "How did you get to be so wise?"
He nudged her, "I learned from the best."

"Let's go see Chris."

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