I slowly awoke from a deep black sleep. Strange dreams had plagued me and I remembered them as if they were part of my actual past. Terrible things of personal loss, a girlfriend and mate, parents too but they I can't remember even a face of them.
Moving I sit up on the cot which has been my bed for so long. Hands, hands grasp the sides to the bed to help hoist me up. I feel strength and solid muscles in my arms and an awareness of the habitat I'm in.
Sounds of vent fans drone far away, the rush of air from the vents as it refreshed the room about me. A drip of the leaking faucet out in the blackness of the room somewhere. The sound of people scurrying about in some hall outside my room. The ticking of a clock mounted high over my head makes me smile, it's so nice to be alive and hear again.
A slurp of my tongue over teeth and lips makes me think of thirst. I look out into the dark room where the only light comes from security lights out in the street. I swing legs to the side of the cot and prepare to stand if I can! The thought of that faucet and it's water will quench the horrid thirst in my mouth, so I must walk to it.
Inching forward my feet make the touch of a floor. Neither cold nor warm the floor offers little feeling. I bend forward and push off with those strong arms and straighten my legs. "I stand!" Yet the feelings are uncertain as balance seems to be way off and grabbing things, walss, a chair, a door and the sink with that lovely leaking faucet.
Fingers fumble about in the blackness of a room without windows and no light at all. "A glass!" I think there must be a glass to hold the water as one hand instinctivly reaches for and turns on the flow of water. "Clank and the tinkle of a bouncing glass along the counter."
I grab for it before the thing can break! Yes, it's in my grasp and the feeling is so very good. My hand with the glass slips into and under the running faucet as the glass fills.
It runs over and the cold water chills my hand. I lift the glass to quench the thirst and pour the contents into my dry mouth. Damn it, the water goes in but most runs out of the corners of my mouth and soaks lips and chin.
A noise, someone is coming, the room door opens and ERK, the room light comes on with summer sun brightness. I scream of the blinding light and stand my ground unable to see. Slowly eye focus as the light is evened by pupils.
"Hands, I have hands, fingers, so mobile the black skin is smooth and small square finger nails look so cute. Wrists, look boney but rather human as I sight farther up my arm to see the beginning of a shaggy hair."
Hair, something I hoped not to see but it is still with me even in this D.N.A. recreated form. It's black mostly with flecks of silver gray and look rather neat in contrast to the color I was when a satyr and then the goat.
A step back from the counter as the person who entered the room comes to just behind the door and speaks, "Are you alright in there?"
I'm silent as eyes peer down and see for the first time what the regeneration process decided I was looking like before I stepped off the clift, and died.
I see what one sort of might have expected, hooves' cloven and black as the ace of spades which is now the mark of my life to come. Fetlocks and shaggy black feathering hairs cover the bones which help make my footing sound. Feet black too, and lightly haired but black in the color. A haunched leg made for bursts of speed in running over the turf which covers the fields where I might have lived.
One can not stand the anxious feeling as my head flicks up quickly and the sink's mirror tells me what face will look back that is mine.
"I cry a scream of unbelief as blue eyes look into blue eyes in the mirror. A part of my human face which makes me distinct over the animals of the world, except that is the only part of my face which is human! The bold large ears of some huge goat hang long, hairy, and pointed from the sides of a beastial head. My skull is all goat, but quite large! Two great horns sprout from above my forehead and make a slow curve toward the back. Eyes are to the sides of my head and spread the face out, yet narrow as the nostrils and squared mouth show why the water poured from a mouth made to lap water and not drink from a glass."
The question of my rightness still hangs in the air and I strain to make a response that would be of human origin. A squeak and a groan comes out only to be followed by the most horrindus beastial bleat ever issued on the earth. The human response is of laughter and this makes my strong arm lash out at the door.
The clatter and sound of a body falling rings the air and I offer a beastial laugh at this person's folly. A half step and then I turn again to see more of me in the small mirror.
A Goats strong head and human eyes adorn the broad shaggy haired neck of a stout sized goat. Yet almost human shoulders and arms which are human in form but covered in hair and hide of the beast.
The moan of the taunting human makes me almost smile over those lips made only to grasp for food and hold as teeth bit the grass from it's roots. Then a strange thought comes to me and I take another half step back.
The view of what type maleness and the heritage to which this strange form shall behold it's passion to be. My belly is flat but strong with solid muscles. Shaggy of hair my bliack fingers comb through the thick goat hairs. As the feeling of one finger lodges into the open end of a pouch the other hand purses the shaggy hair to find the long and large sheath of this big buck like form that is me!
As the finger scratches into the end of my male organ the other hand reaches down to cup two hairy orange sized globes to which carry the seed I shall spread and build my herd.
"Oh my... God, my herd! If I were a man the word should be to build a family! Yet the word herd must describe the only life for a creature of mostly male goat and only parts of humanity."
I turn to face the Doctor and hold out my arms in the terror of that moment of truth.