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!

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Used to be that I believed in something

Used to be that I believed in love

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My name is Basil, and I love science. Or I used to, anyway.

Nothing else, including sex, gave me the high I used to get 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 never stopped the guilt. They were here because of me. 

Maybe we would all be better off dead.

Maybe.

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

Memories of my past circle around my mind like a dream, and I see the recruiter showing up days before my final class with the offer to work for the government. I had several offers on the table already, but this one was just too good to pass up. Alien technology! I would be solving riddles no one could. I almost agreed on the spot, but knew enough to ask questions and get it in writing. 

I did, for what it was worth, but that 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. I promised to keep in touch via email, but they knew me well enough to know that I wouldn't. I always got involved in my work and forgot about all else, so they hadn't expected me to contact them too often. 

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 laughs as he tells the others how he checked my old ones to know what to write.

The work was incredible. The aliens had sent us a formula to help dying humans metamorphose into another type of creature while keeping their memories. Some of the steps seemed to be missing, though, but 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.

It seems I was the only scientist there unaware of the truth. I hadn't known what they were doing with the formula, nor had I put the thought into finding out. 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.

They'd assumed the subject had to have high intelligence and a high drive to do more than was necessary because that drive was required to transform. Without that, the body would give up and die. They kidnapped athletes, artists, college grads—anyone who had endless possibilities—because those poor souls were in the right frame of mind to keep going after everyone else gave up. They drugged them at the kidnapping sites, and injected them with the formula back at the lab.

Nobody survived the process before I came along. I was the first to survive. As soon as I completed my research, they drugged me and injected me with the formula. 

What they didn't know and will never know is what they truly created.

My predecessor in that department had been angry and jealous when they brought me in to solve an issue that he could not. After they injected me, he tweaked the formula, ensuring only I had the unique ability. The others hatched without it. 

I've never told them. I believe it is my cross to bear for what I did.

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

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

I wish... I wish for many things.

I wish I could go back in time 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 knew 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 the horror I hear them going through. I wish their lives hadn't been 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 won't do anything.

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A sudden explosion rocked the room. I opened my mind and saw the scientists panicking as they realized alien spaceships were attacking the planet. The other dragonets were all talking through the group mindlink, wondering if it was an earthquake or an explosion. But I knew better.

The next blast ripped the side wall and part of the ceiling away, sending several cages flying. Some shattered, and the newly freed dragonets opened the rest of the cages so we could all escape. My mind felt the terror of the scientists once more as they realized the attacking spaceship was giving off a yellow beam of light, and that it 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.

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