"Scholars debate whether the transformed individual retains full awareness during the process, or whether consciousness is altered in ways that mirror the physical transformation."
I kept reading. About selkies and werewolves and swan maidens. About the stories people told to make sense of change, of loss, of becoming something other than what they'd been.
At some point, I stopped reading.
Started humming instead.
I didn't notice at first. It was unconscious — a melody I'd known since childhood, something Gregor used to hum. Soft and low, barely audible even in the quiet of the observation room.
But Stone noticed.
He went still.
Not tense-still. Not aggressive-still. A different kind of stillness entirely — like an animal that had heard something unexpected and was trying to understand it.
I kept humming. Let the melody carry, filling the space between us with something that wasn't words, wasn't analysis, wasn't trying to do anything at all.
Slowly, so slowly I almost missed it, Stone lowered his head.
His eyes stayed open for a moment longer. Watching me through the barrier. Then, gradually, they closed.
His breathing evened out.
Deepened.
He was sleeping.
I stopped humming, afraid to break whatever spell had settled over the room. My heart was pounding, but I kept perfectly still, watching through the window as Stone's massive body relaxed into something that looked almost peaceful.
He wassleeping.
In all the days I'd been visiting him — all the hours I'd spent in this chair, talking and reading and simply existing in his presence — he'd never slept. Rested maybe. But never this. Never the deep, vulnerable surrender of true sleep.
He trusted me enough to be unconscious in my presence.
The realization hit me like a physical blow.
I stayed perfectly still. Watched him sleep. Let the moment stretch into something sacred.
Fifteen minutes passed. Twenty.
Then the door opened.
I spun, hand raised to signal silence, but it was too late.
A staff member — one of the medical techs, here to check the monitors — stepped into the room.
Stone's eyes snapped open.
The transformation was instantaneous. One second he was peaceful, sleeping; the next he was on his feet, hackles raised, a snarl tearing from his throat. He lunged at the barrier, the impact shaking the wall, all that hard-won calm evaporating like it had never existed.
"Get out," I said sharply.
The tech stared at me, then at Stone, his face pale. "I just need to—"
"Get out now."
He fled.
