Free

I breathed heavily as I sped down the freeway, hearing the sirens of the many police cars wailing behind me. My security uniform was stained with sweat, an obvious sign of my utter exhaustion to what I had done just moments before. I'm not entirely sure what I had done, or what I had prevented.

I took in a deep, long breath, trying to stay calm as I ducked and weaved through the traffic. The amount of cars was unusually high for this time of night and I knew that I had to get off the freeway soon since I couldn't dodge cars forever.

I saw the next exit approach and took it, veering to the right to drive onto it, thankful that there were no cars on the narrow, one-lane ramp. I briefly glanced at my rear-view mirror and was both disappointed and unsurprised that the police cars were still in pursuit of me.

In my right hand clutched my pistol, a standard one that my, now former, employers issued for me. It was unfortunately out of bullets from my previous escape but I still held it tightly. I'm not sure why; maybe it just gave me some little comfort.

When I was off the freeway, I found myself driving towards a nearby forest. I got a bit hopeful. Maybe I could lose them in there.

A small, but audible gasp was heard from the passenger seat next to me. In its spot sat a woman, maybe in her early twenties, wearing some kind of plain gown, wrapped in a blanket that I managed to scavenge when making my getaway. Her face was twisted into the unmistakable image of absolute fear and confusion.

I suppose I should explain a few things now. Earlier this day I worked for a… well, I'm not really sure who I used to work for. They seemed to be some kind of pharmaceutical company, or perhaps a private military contractor but I could never be sure. Their company was practically invisible to the general public. They didn't have any website or customers that could use their products. The only people who hired them were practically anonymous to me.

I worked as a security guard at one of their researched labs. Nothing really happened to me there until just a few days ago when I was doing my usual patrol of the facility. I wandered past one particular lab that got me a little suspicious. All the windows around it were sealed with steel shutters and the door's lock was something I had never seen before. While I was studying the lock, I heard banging on the door. I gasped a bit in surprise and pressed by ear on the door. I couldn't hear anything else.

I sighed and stood back up straight and I was about to leave before the door opened. There was a scientist there who was shocked to see my standing there. Though his shocked was nothing compared to mine when I saw what was in the room. A woman was strapped to a table with metal bracers, her body lifeless and limp. Maybe she was sedated or worse…

I took a single step back as the scientist glanced at me. Gulping, I swiftly turned around and walked back to my office. 'Human testing!?' I thought, completely panicked by what I had seen. 'I need some answers…'

Needless to say, I never got any answers. I called my employers but they said nothing. At that point I began to get afraid. Was that something I wasn't supposed to see? Who was that woman? What are they going to do to me or knowing?

All these questions ran constantly through my head. I concluded that I was in danger. I became more uneasy the next day when I saw that my email had been shut down. The guys over in IT claim that the system had been buggy all day but I don't buy that. They're shutting me out of the loop.

The next night I sat in my office as usually, glancing over at my gun that was on the table. This whole situation needed action. I was going to save that girl.

A few hours later, here I am, driving for my life from the police, with a woman who had been experimented on next to me and an empty gun. I let out a long sigh and kept driving.

I suddenly gasped when the woman next to me grabbed my arm tightly, causing me to swerve the car a bit. Her grip was extremely tight, and sharp… Wait, sharp? I glanced over at the woman's hand and let out a little scream when I saw that she had grown dark, bestial claws that were digging into my skin. The woman's eyes stared at me, much more scared with what was going on then I was. What had they done to her?

The road up ahead soon turned from its usual pitch black colour, dotted with the occasional headlights from traffic, to flashing red and blue. They were trying to block me off. I felt my heart racing in my chest and a cold sweat going down the side of my face. This was it… I couldn't get past them. As I approached the roadblock, I saw a row of about six officers with guns drawn and pointed at me. Even if I did somehow make it though, they were probably going to shoot me anyway.

The woman next to me let out a sharp gasp in pain, making me glance over at her. I held my breath as she flailed in her seat, noting something dark and grey growing on her fingers, making their way down her arm. Whatever was happening to her was occurring faster than before.

Her voice became much more deep and 'animalistic', growling in pain as she tore at her blanket. Those bastards…

I heard a loud popping sound coming from her body, sounding like if you broke a whole bunch of sticks at once, or, more accurately, several bones breaking in unison. I shuddered at the sound as the woman roared in absolute horror. I saw her feet shifting into something not human. Her feet lengthened and snapped, looking digitigrade near the end. The dark grey infection had spread down her arms and was near appearing at, now completely different, feet.

She grabbed my arm and pulled in a desperate attempt to dissipate the pain, causing the steering wheel to turn sharply, sending my car through the roadside barricade and into the forest. I held onto the steering wheel with all my might, trying had to concentrate on not crashing. I had to admit I was doing pretty well in that regard, especially considering I had a mutating woman next to me, flailing about with every second that passed.

I felt her body press against me more and more and I looked over and saw that she was growing in size. Great, I thought as I started to slow the car down, she needs to get out now. I stopped the car right next to a small clearing and got out, walking around the car and opening the passenger seat for the poor woman.

Her body now was virtually unrecognisable from her old human body. I sighed and grabbed her arm, pulling hard to get her out. Her first reaction to getting some extra space was to stretch her burning body. She growled and tore off her clothes, making me look away briefly just out of decency. The scales had completely covered her body, making her body look more reptilian.

I gulped and watched her as a long, swaying tail grew out of her tailbone, to which she stretched like her legs and arm in the open space. Her face started to elongate into a muzzle, which her teeth in her mouth sharpening into something that a carnivore would have. Two, hard looking horns grew out of the top of her head, making her groan sharply.

When I thought it was over, I took a single step towards her and stopped when she flailed in pain again. She grew a little more in size, soon become the size of my parked car. She looked at me, her eyes changing into golden, slitted ones and gave me, what I assumed to be, a smile. I smiled weakly back as two new appendages grew out of her back. At first they looked like a pair of skinny arms but that was changed when their 'fingers' elongated and grew a thin membrane between them. That's when I knew that she was growing wings.

I made a slight gasp when I finally figured out what she had become. She had turned into a dragon, a creature from myth. Those people at the company must had been trying to create one, and succeeded. I'm not sure why they would have wanted to create a dragon but it certainly could not have been good.

She gave me a slight lick, making me shudder and chuckled before she stretched out her wings. I smiled as she took off. The way she took off was flawless, as if she had been flying her whole life. I gave her a slow wave as she flew away into the night, happy and free. I had exchanged her life as an experiment and, perhaps later on, a slave to one with endless freedom.

My smile soon turned into a frown when I heard footsteps behind me. The officers from the roadblock and the pursuit cars had caught up with me. I raised my hands and fell to my knees, thankful that I had given the woman's freedom back, in exchange for my own.