Avery Hargreaves bolted upright, clutching the pitiful rag she had to call a blanket close to her. Her face was beaded with sweat though she was partly convinced it was because of the appallingly warm temperature in the room. Her shoulders heaved up and down in rhythm to her heavy, ragged breathing as she tried to recompose herself. She was also shaking slightly, and she could feel herself tearing up, both as a result from the harrowing vividity of her dream.

Conscientiously, she dropped the blanket and examined her hands to see if she had changed like in the dream. Thankfully they were still as before: translucent and cracked, with the knuckles lightly bruised and small scaly patches on her fingers and round her wrists. They then moved to her lower back where she felt around for the tentacles that had become her signature mutation – a pair of long, ridged tentacles, coloured like rotten flesh, that was capable of extending from and receding into her back by her own will. When she found them in their dormant state, nothing more than a bump on each side of her spine where her virus administrations used to be, she revelled momentarily in their calm pulsating, knowing that everything was okay.

... Disgusting, how she had to think of having tentacles growing from her fucking back as "okay".