If You Asked Me To (Completed)

One

A/N:

My imagination created this story based on one of my favorite songs (written by Diane Warren and performed by Celine Dion). It is set in a world created by Crystal Scherer in her work, 'Upon Wings of Change'. This wonderful and talented author has permitted me to use the book and her characters!

Please vote and comment with your thoughts or corrections! This book has a bonus chapter written that I will post once it hits 100 votes.

*******

Used to be that I believed in something

Used to be that I believed in love

*******

My name is Basil—and I love science.

Nothing else, including sex, gave me the high I got when I figured something out for the first time. Science was my ultimate passion.

It was also my downfall.

I sit in this cage, as I have for years, with nothing to think about but that downfall. For the first year, I tried hard to escape. It didn't happen. I watched and helped as many others as I could, but it will never stop the guilt. They are here because of me. Maybe we all would have been better off dead.

Maybe.

I keep telling myself there is a reason why we are still alive. I can't fathom why.

My past memories circle as if they were a dream, and I see the recruiter showing up days before my final class and the offer to work for the government. I had several offers on the table, but this one was just too much to pass up. Alien technology! I would be solving riddles no one could. I almost agreed on the spot, but knew to ask questions and get it in writing. I did, for what it was worth, but it didn't help me.

I was in my glory when I arrived at the dorms connected to my lab. I couldn't wait to get started. My folks thought I was crazy, and I promised to keep in touch via email, but they knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't. I get involved in my work and forget about all else, so they didn't expect me to contact them too often. I know my old supervisor emails them once every other month, just a simple two or three lines stating I'm doing well and am loving my job. He laughed as he told the others how he checked my old ones to know what to write.

The work had been incredible. The aliens had sent a formula to help the dying humans metamorphose into another type of creature while keeping their memories. Some of the steps seemed to be missing, and by the time I realized why, it was too late. I had fixed what they were doing wrong.

I had given them what they needed to complete the process.

I didn't know what they were doing with the formula, nor put the thought into finding out. It was assumed the subject had to have high intelligence and strive to do more than needed because that drive was required to transform. Without it, the body would give up and die. They were kidnapping athletes, artists, college grads—anyone who had endless possibilities because they had the mind frame to keep going after everyone else stopped. These poor souls would be drugged at the kidnapping site and injected with the formula back at the lab.

None of them survived the process before I came along. Once I completed the small part I was working on, I was told I would move on to the next part and work with the terminally ill subjects. That didn't happen.

It seems I was the only scientist there unaware of the truth. As soon as my research was completed, I was drugged and injected. I was the first to survive the metamorphosis. What they didn't know and will never know is what they created.

My predecessor in that department was angry and jealous when I was brought in to solve an issue that he could not. After I was injected, he 'tweaked' the formula. In doing so, only I had a unique ability. The others hatched without it. I never told any of them. I believe it is my cross to bear for what I did.

Some days, it was a blessing, and others, a curse. It has saved us many times from being killed, as I just knew what characteristics would be a death sentence from the scientists and how we would all die if they knew we were sentient and could talk through a mindlink.

My little mind trick also gutted me emotionally many, many times. I've learned to build 'walls' around myself, but they can't keep out the major stuff. Feeling someone else's pain and terror is my world now.

I wish... I wish for many things.

I wish I could go back and send them packing instead of rationalizing my life to take that offer. I wish my parents would look for me. I wish I had made friends who would know I was missing. I wish I hadn't been turned into a miniature purple dragon the size of a cat. I wish the others had peace in their lives instead of hearing the horror they are going through. I wish their lives weren't taken from them when they had everything to live for. I wish I couldn't see into their minds even when they are not projecting their thoughts. I wish...

I've been here in this cage for five years. Wishing is going to do nothing.

An explosion suddenly rocked the room we were in. I opened my mind and saw the scientists panic as they realized alien spaceships were attacking the planet. The dragonets were all talking through the group mindlink about whether it was an earthquake or an explosion. I knew better.

The next explosion ripped the side wall and part of the ceiling away, sending several cages flying. Some shattered, and those dragonets started opening the other cages so we could all escape. My mind felt the sudden terror of the scientists once more as they realized the attacking spaceship was giving off a yellow beam of light that was evaporating any human it touched. They were all about to die.

While I had no sympathy for them, I hoped it was just the scientists and not all humankind.

That hope was in vain. The aliens killed them all.

*******
Are you a first-time reader or a re-reader? Please note your answer here.