Chapter 1: The First Measurement
The light was wrong.
That was the first thing N noticed. It wasn’t the clean white of a doctor’s office, but a cold, underwater blue that seeped from panels in the ceiling. It made the stainless steel table gleam like a frozen river and cast long, distorted shadows behind the machines humming in the corner. The air smelled sharply of alcohol and something else, something metallic that coated the back of his tongue.
He lay flat on the table, the thin paper gown crinkling under him. Leather straps secured his wrists and ankles, not tight enough to hurt, but firm. Unyielding. He tested one, and the buckle gave a soft, definitive click.
“Comfortable?” Dr. Evelyn Reed’s voice was calm, professional, as she entered his field of vision. She was younger than he’d expected, with severe auburn hair pinned back and glasses that reflected the blue light, hiding her eyes. She consulted a tablet, her finger swiping.
“The straps are a bit much, don’t you think?” N said, trying for a joke. His voice sounded thin in the wide, quiet room.
“Protocol, Nathaniel. For your safety and mine.” She didn’t look up. “We’re documenting baseline metrics before the episode. You reported a tingling in your sternum prior to the previous events, is that correct?”
“N. Just N. And yeah, a sort of… heat. Like heartburn, but deeper.”
“Mmm.” She made a note. Finally, she set the tablet down and approached the table. She pulled on a pair of nitrile gloves with a brisk snap. The sound was violently final. “We’ll begin with physical markers. Try to relax.”
Her fingers were cool through the gloves as she pressed a stethoscope to his chest. Her touch was efficient, impersonal. She measured the circumference of his bicep with a soft tape, calling out numbers to a recorder. “Bicep, relaxed, twenty-seven centimeters. Deltoid…” Her hand brushed his shoulder as she looped the tape. He flinched.
“Sorry,” he muttered.
“It’s fine.” Her expression didn’t change. She moved to his neck, her fingers tracing his jawline, tilting his head back to measure his throat. For a moment, her thumb rested in the hollow beneath his ear. He could feel the pulse there hammering against her touch. She held it a second too long. Then she was back at the tablet, logging the data.
“Now,” she said, her voice lower. “The catalyst. You said the previous transformations were preceded by… heightened emotional states.”
“Anger. Mostly. Once was fear.”
“And the other time?” she asked, her eyes now visible over the rim of her glasses. A pale, focused green.