---

I've always been the luckiest guy I know. Not that plenty of people didn't tell me that on a near-daily basis. I had it all, good looks (everyone says that), tall, strong, athletic, good job, great family...you get the idea. I hadn't found the right girl yet, but I wasn't discouraged. I'd find her soon enough; that's the way my luck goes.

Or so I thought.

So there I was, going on vacation to Mexico for a week. I visited my parents for a couple of days beforehand, which was great as always. They drove me to the airport and said goodbye, and I guess that's the last I'll ever see of them.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. So, I landed in Mexico without any problems. Grabbed my luggage and checked into my hotel. It was late, so I crashed for the night so I could get started with my vacation in earnest in the morning.

I slept, for how long I have no idea. When I woke it was to a hard, thin bed in a dark room. The only light was coming from a bare bulb directly above me. The room wasn't even big enough for me to stretch out my 6'5" frame. The bed was just a really thin mat lying on the concrete floor. Three walls were solid, dank concrete. The fourth wall was made of bars, like a jail cell.

I was just trying to figure out where I was, or if I was dreaming, when someone walked up to the door (also made of bars). It was some puny guy in a lab coat who obviously wasn't getting enough sun. I stood to get a better look at him, and he looked me up and down like I was a particularly interesting bug. "Where am I?" I asked.

He ignored me. He had a clipboard with him and marked something on it. Then with a freaky grin he turned and walked away. He was tiny, I could break him in half without trying, but that grin combined with my surroundings really freaked me out. This was not how my luck was supposed to go!

I tried the door, but it was locked tight. I'm strong, real strong, but I could barely even rattle the door! Those bars were thick, too, at least two inches. I even threw myself against the door a few times, but I took more damage than the damn door did.

Tired from my exertions, I sat on the mat on the floor and thought about how I'd gotten here. The last thing I remembered was going to sleep in my hotel room. Why would these guys kidnap random people from right out of a hotel room? Seemed rather risky to me.

I don't know how long I sat there, it certainly seemed like a really long time, but eventually that creepy guy came back with a couple of mutants! This was only like the second time I'd ever seen a mutant in person, and these two were big guys. One had a horn sticking out of his head, but looked pretty ordinary other than that and his bulk. The other one had striped fur, claws, fangs, and cat-like eyes.

The creepy guy opened the door while the mutants stood guard. Once the door was open the guy with the horn came in and grabbed me by the arm. As soon as we were out of the cell I tried to break away but he was even stronger than he looked! He completely ignored my struggles, but it seemed to annoy the creepy guy.

"Subdue the subject." He said with a glance at the striped mutant. The mutant nodded and casually backhanded me. Most guys did that, I would barely even feel it. I'm pretty tough. But this guy was way stronger than he looked and it was only because the other guy held me up that I didn't fall on my butt.

My ears were ringing after that one blow and I found I didn't have the strength to resist anymore. Not that I was strong enough to get away, anyway. What were they feeding these guys?!

The creepy guy walked ahead with the mutants dragging me along between them. They acted like I didn't weigh a thing. Maybe, to them, I didn't. Anyway, they dragged me to another room a lot like the other one. Only, this one had no light inside but did have a gurney set up. The mutants effortlessly strapped me down on the gurney, despite my best efforts, and left. The creepy guy lingered long enough to inject me with something. Then he left with another of his freaky smiles.

I hate this place already, I thought as everything went dark.

---

I woke sometime later, but only for a little while. It was dark, and there was a lot of pain. Don't know much more than that. The next time was much the same. And the next. And the next. You get the idea.

Anyway, somewhere along the line I finally woke up without any major pain. It was still dark, but I could immediately feel that there was something wrong. Well, something else was wrong. I was still tied down, but the straps weren't nearly as tight as before. It was child's play to get my arms free, but when I did I bumped into something that shouldn't have been there.

Breasts?! What the hell?! I thought. That led to some more self exploration, which told me that I was now a mutant. A female mutant. I also felt like I was a lot smaller, and a lot less muscular. Oh yeah, and there were the wings. Feathery ones. What the heck happened to my luck?!

Okay, I'll admit it. I got kind of depressed at that point. Alright, alright, a lot depressed! I had everything going for me and suddenly I wasn't even the same person anymore! And I was still a prisoner, on top of that. I thought about trying to escape, but in the end I just stuck my arms back under the straps and went back to sleep.

---

Voices slowly penetrated my awareness, as if from a great distance. I heard words like "subject", "coma", and "non-responsive". There was other stuff, too, but it was obscure medical jargon I had no chance of understanding. I recognized the creepy guy's voice among them, so I decided to play possum.

I wasn't really sure if I was awake or dreaming, but I got the weird feeling it was neither. Everything felt odd, and not just the girl parts. It was like my brain was awake but my body was still asleep. As I was thinking about that I felt things start to move inside. I could hear my heartbeat slowly increasing. The voices started to notice, so I tried to calm myself back down. I didn't want them to pay any more attention to me if I could help it.

It worked! My heart slowed back down and the voices faded away after a few more words. It occurred to me that maybe this was some kind of weird mutant ability, to slow my heart rate down and keep myself asleep while still being aware. I decided to play around with it some and see what I could do.

Time flowed really weirdly while I experimented. Sometimes I heard nothing at all, and wondered if that was because there was no sound to hear, or if I had somehow cut off my own hearing. Other times I could hear okay, but the sounds were all slow and drawn out. Made it really hard to understand words, but it made me think I was getting somewhere.

Eventually I managed to reach a point where my heart was beating so slow even I could barely detect it. I thought maybe they'd think I was dead, and that would give me a chance to get away. After that, well, I didn't really think that far ahead. It just reminded me of what I'd lost.

Unfortunately, with my heart slowed that much, I couldn't hear anything. It was like being in a sensory deprivation tank, or so I imagined. I had no way of telling how much time was passing, so I waited as long as I dared. I knew I couldn't keep it up forever, because even at such a slow rate I'd eventually starve to death, or die of dehydration or something. Still, I pushed it as far as I dared.

Finally, I was starting to feel...off, somehow, so I knew I needed to wake myself back up. It took a while. Slowly, my heart rate increased and I could feel other things happening, too. Sound began to return, and I was happy to hear birds chirping in the distance. I was free! Well, maybe.

Eventually I was fully awake and opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was a big, white, fluffy cloud. I wanted to shout for joy, but I didn't know if any of creepy guy's cronies were still around. So I turned my head real carefully to look around.

Caution got thrown to the wind pretty quickly when I realized I was lying on a dead guy. Okay, I'll admit it. I screamed like a little girl. Especially when I realized I wasn't lying on a dead guy; I was lying on a whole heap of them!

"Over there!" I heard someone say between screams. I turned to look and saw one of the most wonderful sights I'd ever seen. A mutant, but one I knew wouldn't be involved in what was done to me. This mutant was famous all over the world as a champion for mutants. Kittyhawk!

---

To be continued in…