"Listen up everyone; we have a fully converted one in here. The notes say that it hasn't shown any sign of intelligent behaviour for the past two days. Once we open the door, it will attack. Everyone with riot shields, at the front. Everyone else, line up behind them, guns drawn. Shoot on sight. Don't stop after the first hit; these monsters are tough. Keep firing until you are out of ammo, or until I tell you otherwise. Remember, this isn't a kid in there. The bastards who ran this place murdered that kid already. All that's in there is a monster, so don't spare it a shred of pity, because it sure as hell will have none to spare you."

Well, that sucks. I didn't cling to life for this long just to be shot by my would-be rescuers. Why didn't they arrive a week ago? Harpy-me heard the voices too, leaping over to the area of wall where they'd come from, and kicking at what was presumably the door.

'Stop', I thought, as loudly as I could. 'Back away'. I showed harpy-me images of standing a little back from the door, waiting for it to open, and leaping over whoever was on the other side. It continued clawing at the door, ignoring me. I showed it how I would imagine a couple of rows of police would look, equipped with body armour, shields and weapons. I showed it how I imagined things would go if it pounced on them, its body riddled with bullet wounds. That got a response, causing it to stop clawing and back off.

I had just enough time to wonder if this was a good idea, whether I really wanted to let harpy-me escape, before the door started grinding open. With no time to reconsider, I decided to give it my all. Trapped in my own body or not, this was my only chance to get out of here. Harpy-me shuffled away to the side, hiding until the gap was wide enough to squeeze through, and then as I'd recommended, it leapt.

I had a brief glimpse of two rows of police in heavy duty riot gear below me, before we were out, sprinting down a clinically clean white corridor, with '23' painted in large lettering on the wall. So it really was the police who had come... I heard shouting behind me, as the police force scrambled to deal with their failed ambush, but we quickly came to a T-junction, taking us out of their line of sight. Harpy-me turned left, and I had no better suggestions, so I let it pick the route. Hopefully it could smell fresh air or something.

I'd heard a few gunshots and felt a few impacts during that leap, but there was no pain. I couldn't imagine harpy-me being so cooperative had it actually been wounded, so we must have only been hit by rebounds and ricochets, insufficient to penetrate. We continued running down the corridor, past another dozen side corridors leading to doors just like mine, all of which were open. Presumably the police were methodically working their way along.

We turned a corner and entered a large hall. There were police in here too, encircling a group of... I couldn't describe them as anything other than victims. Two dozen of them. Some were obviously unconscious, most were half transformed into various forms. Some, like me, were at least vaguely humanoid. Others were not so lucky. I saw no-one as far gone as myself, which made sense, given that the police would apparently have shot them. Harpy-me ignored the crowd, the concentration of half-monsters seeming to switch its analysis of the group from 'food' to 'threat'. Instead, it flapped its wings and leapt over them towards an upward sloping passage.

"Lily!"

Harpy-me turned towards the voice, and I saw Alicia. She looked in reasonable condition, far better than most, but her hair was white, her eyes were blood red and her skin was deathly pale. Next to her was Samantha, who did not look in a good way at all. She seemed to be trying to speak, but the condition of her mouth didn't allow it. The right side looked torn open, halfway up her cheek, but with two things that looked like little arms poking in from the top and bottom. She had a further two claw-tipped limbs poking out of the right side of her back, and her right eye was completely black, with no visible iris. She had no hair, and large chunks of exoskeleton were showing through holes in her skin. At a guess, I'd say she was partway through conversion into some sort of giant spider.

Harpy-me took a step towards them, realising that these half-finished monsters weren't the threats it had assumed. 'No!' I sent, pushing images of the three of us together, back in our human days. Of friendship and cooperation. The three of us just walking down the street, having fun. 'Friends!' Harpy-me turned back towards the exit and fled. I was thankful that my friends had been rescued, at least. I had no idea if whatever this was could be reversed, but even if not, they were alive and in control of their own actions, which was more than could be said for me. I'd made the wrong choice when I'd decided to deliberately accelerate my transformation, but it was too late for regrets now.

More police were standing guard at the entrance, all armed, guns drawn and facing inwards. Presumably they'd been warned about us by radio, and they started shooting the second they saw us. I felt a few more impacts, but again, no direct hits. Thankful that I was finally experiencing some good luck, I watched on as harpy-me burst past them and out into the night, shooting into the sky with a flap of our wings. Finally, after more than a fortnight, I was out of that cell. Now I just needed to get control of my body back.