Hey there everyone! As you may or may not know, I recently started a comic on PFQ called Old Flames! You can find it here if you would like to read it! I've noticed that though conveying a story through art is great in some aspects, I also wanted to make a text adaptation for users who didn't want to bother with the comic or just prefer to read text. Alternatively, you can read this in addition to the comic in order to fill in gaps for confusing bits! I may mash up several comic pages into one chapter, so the total amount of chapters here may be different from that of the comic, just be warned! Just to be clear, this is a work in progress, so please don't leave any comments until I make it clear the story has ended <3 Once the story has finished, I will catalogue all the chapters in this first post for ease of reading! Feel free to message me with feedback or comments!

Chapter 1 It was dark. That was the only thing he was really sure about. Even with his eyes closed, he could tell that this kind of darkness was unnatural. He curled up into a ball, twitching in discomfort. The darkness felt like a thick blanket, wrapping around him and making it hard to move. His eyelids fluttered open, only to see... nothing. The blackness pressed in on his eyeballs, making him panic. Despite the dark weight pressing down on him, he forced himself to move. He turned and twisted, trying frantically to see something, anything. The silence roared in his ears, and he pressed his paws over his eyes and ears in a futile attempt to drown it out. It was hard to think. It was hard to breathe. A sharp crack sounded from somewhere above him, making him flinch. He cracked his eyes open, just a sliver. A gasp escaped him at what he saw. Actually, he wasn't sure what he was seeing. It looked almost like a jagged crack, a small rip in the darkness. It was strange-- beautiful, even. And so gloriously bright. Light poured down onto him from the tear, illuminating his face. It washed over his face, making him blink at it's brightness. At that moment, he only knew one thing-- he had to get to that light. He struggled towards it. Each kick and flail brought him a little closer, until he could almost reach it. Straining, he stretched his forelegs as far as he could, until finally his paw hooked onto the edge of the opening. He pulled as hard as he could. With a crunch, he felt the opening give underneath his paws. Deafening cracks rang through the silence as he pushed, widening the fissure more and more with every shove. He squeezed his eyes shut as white light spilled out of the newly formed hole, enveloping him in its bright coldness. Over the sound of blood rushing in his ears, he could vaguely hear jumbled sounds that arranged themselves into words. "Oh look. It's hatching."

Looks like we've got a stalker! I see you watching there <3 Enjoy the chapter! Chapter 2 He'd thought that the light filtering through the small crack was bright, but it was nothing compared to the ocean of blinding brightness he found himself in now. Reflexively, he dragged himself out of the broken eggshell and stumbled onto his still-wobbly paws. Broken fragments of shell were still clumped on his fur and covering his eyes. He shook himself to dislodge them, falling in a heap onto the smooth surface below his paws in the process. It was metallic and so cold that it stung his paws just a bit. He blinked, forcing his eyes open. "Hm. Odd." The sound of the same voice he had heard earlier came from somewhere above him, making him look up curiously. The speaker was a woman dressed in a white lab coat. She had long blonde hair, and as she leaned in for a closer look at his face, he caught a whiff of something artificially sweet, with an acrid chemical tang. "...This one has blue eyes." Before he could wonder about the significance of that statement, the woman continued talking, addressing someone--a colleague, perhaps?-- standing on her left; a young man with messy brown hair. "It doesn't seem to be a shiny..." The man on her left chimed in. "Or a delta, for that matter." The blonde woman glanced at him with a look of mild interest. It felt like she was dissecting him with her eyes. "We'll run some tests on it later," she decided dismissively, already turning away. "Take it to its holding chamber for now," she added to the brown-haired man. And with another sweep of unnaturally artificial air, she was gone.

Poll is up! Be sure to lemme know what you think! (All the he's and him's are probably getting confusing, don't worry! It'll be resolved in the next chapter or two <3) Chapter 3 As he's still glancing in confusion between the departing back of the white clad woman and the young man who seemed to be her assistant, he feels a pair of hands grasp firmly around his midsection and lift him up into the air. Reflexively, his body went limp as the man hoisted him up, his paws and head sticking out awkwardly over the man's shoulder. The man's shoes clicked sharply on the ground as they walked. With each step, the questions lurking in his mind grew louder and louder. Where are we going? What is this place? Where... am I...? The man holding him tap-tap-tapped his way through more hallways, all of them varying shades of gray. Finally, they turned into an even longer hallway, lined with... were those rooms? They were. Rooms, each one uniform and square, with glass panels stretching up the sides. He craned his neck, trying to see inside of them. What are all these rooms for..? The glass panels were all tinted, and for a moment he wondered why. It was almost like whoever had made them didn't want anyone seeing what was insi-- His thoughts were cut off by a flicker of movement in the corner of his eye. Twisting his head around, he could just barely make out a dark, hunched figure behind the glass. He brightened, ears perking up in excitement at the prospect of ending this mystery. Oh! Maybe I can ask them! With a quick twist and kick, he slipped nimbly out of the labcoat man's arms. Ignoring the indignant "HEY!" from behind him, he half scrambled, half hopped over to the room where the shadow-y shape was. From here, he could see the dark figure more clearly. It was faced away from him, but despite that he could tell it was some sort of large canine. Though it was nearly ten times his size, the fetal position it was curled up in and the occasional tremors wracking its body made it seem smaller and... almost in pain, somehow. Tentatively, he moved closer to the window. He set one small white paw gingerly on the glass seperating them, like that one small careful action might do something, set something off-- what exactly, he wasn't sure. "Um...hey! I need to ask you a question!"