After the long process and various rereads and touch ups from me, it's finally here! The first short story set in the universe of Project Respeciation, and my first published literary work. I tried my best to eliminate typos and grammatical errors but English is not my first language so if there's anything off, there's my excuse! ^^'

The thumbnail image was created in SpaceEngine © Cosmographic Software LLC.
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All inventions have an inventor, and these inventors have their own stories leading up to that invention. Experiment Zero takes you to the roots of Project Respeciation and gives you more insight into the dystopian world first introduced by the art series.

Words: 3775
Reading time: 10-15 minutes

Project Respeciation:

The Undocumented

Experiment Zero

Written by Childolir

I can in good conscience say that what I did and the choices I made were done for science and for the chance that humanity will someday be able to live the same life we did centuries ago, on an Earth repopulated with life. But at times I can’t help but wonder whether I made the right choice, especially now that I know what my creation ended up being used for. It’s been years since I’ve been able to convey any of my more complex thoughts so I don’t even know where to start now that I have the chance. I guess the day it happened will fit as “the beginning”:

I was walking with Chymes towards campus. It was quite early in the morning and he was his usual self with his waggy, fluffy tail, happy chocolate eyes and slightly droopy ears that were occasionally turning towards the few sounds around us. The streets of Academia Station were especially quiet that day. Most lectures at the universities wouldn’t have started until later in the morning so most people were still at home.

My steps were determined but at the same time it felt like each step towards our destination put a little more weight on my shoulders. Up to that point, I had put my complete faith into my project but at that moment, as I was actually going to do something with it and test it on myself, I felt uncertainty wash over me. What if I had missed something and I’d end up disfiguring myself permanently? Even dying?

Walking a dog on a familiar route gave me little chance to hesitate. Chymes knew where we were going and he walked with as much if not more stride towards our destination. I now know that he almost certainly sensed my worry and I’d like to think it was his way of pushing me forward.

I don’t really remember entering the campus main building. It almost felt like I was sleepwalking the whole way there. I do remember the lobby smelling somehow different that day. I thought that the cleaner androids were likely using some new blend of washing liquids. A funny detail to recall because I don’t really remember much more from our walk through the building. I believe a couple people from the ones who were there that early stopped to pet Chymes while we were on the way to the elevators. At least that was what usually happened. If they did, I just don’t remember who they were. Chymes and I were the only ones to enter the elevator as it took us to the basement.

That particular part of the basement of the main building was filled with various small laboratories with thick glass walls. A couple had their blinds closed for privacy but most were vacant that early in the morning, with the light of the halls between the laboratories filtering through the open blinds, showing faint silhouettes of the various equipment inside. Once the elevator doors closed, we were left in almost complete silence. The only thing I could hear was the steady hum of the ventilation system. Chymes led me with certainty towards my laboratory: All the way to the end of the hallway from the elevators and then all the way to the right back corner. I thought my heartbeat was so loud it would echo in the empty halls alongside our footsteps.

I was so deep in thought I didn’t realize I had stopped in front of my laboratory door until Chymes gave a gentle nudge at my leg. I gave him a small scratch behind the ear and then pressed my palm on the scanner which opened the door and turned on the lights.

I went through my usual routine: Let Chymes go from his leash, add food to his bowl and fill his water bowl with fresh water from the sink, turn on the computer and the peripheral machines, and close the blinds. The laboratory felt quite loud after the silence of the halls. It was, in a way, comforting to me. It meant that I had less focus on my thoughts. I guess my usual “setting up the lab” ritual also helped take my mind off things. After logging in, it was time to begin.

I started by taking samples from the mouths of both myself and Chymes. Chymes never liked the swabs much so I made sure to bribe him with treats after I had taken his sample. I then went through the whole process of extracting the DNA from those samples which was then added as materials into the fabricator. I fired up the simulation program once more and tested the drug with various parameters. Exactly as predicted, in all cases the human DNA had been perfectly recompiled into canine DNA and the body was changed by accelerated cell regeneration, and the second round perfectly reversed the changes. In theory, everything should have gone perfectly.

Before actually running the fabricator, I went to the fridge to grab the snack bars I had prepared the night before. I refer to them as snack bars even though they were barely even food. They didn’t really taste like anything and were difficult to chew, but they had an extremely high calorie concentration. I knew that rapid changes in the body would require a lot of energy so I had to prepare for that to prevent literal starvation. That’s why I got the snack bars as a custom order from an android bakery and tried not to think about how much money I was essentially swallowing away.

After possibly the worst meal of my life, I finally felt ready to start the fabrication process for the first time ever. It felt like I hovered my finger over the “start fabrication” button forever before I actually pressed it. As the machine whirred to life, I sat down on the floor next to Chymes as he placed his head on my lap. I felt sick with anxiety. At least I think. It could have been the snack bars as well.

I absentmindedly sat on the floor petting Chymes’s soft head until I heard the confirmation spoken in a monotonous, well-articulated woman’s voice: “Fabrication completed.” It made Chymes raise his head and look around. I myself got up and shook my legs after they had gone numb from the sitting. There they were: Two vials labeled A and B, both filled with a clear liquid. The result of my years of dreaming and research.

It was time to do the final prep work. I prepared an autoinjector with the vial labeled A and set it on the lab table to wait. Another autoinjector, where I put the vial labeled B, I gave to a robotic arm which I had set to automatically inject anything placed on the marker next to it. At least that’s what it was supposed to do as I would not have hands to do it myself if everything went to plan. Then I took off my clothes and folded them neatly on the chair in front of the main computer terminal, placing my shoes under the table in front of the chair. Then I grabbed the autoinjector off the table.

There I was, standing in the sterile lab with machines whirring all around me, completely stripped down, tightly grasping an autoinjector in my hand. Holding the key to the future I dreamed of, I thought, while at the same time feeling like I had to actively stop myself from vomiting from anxiety. My hands were trembling and I felt cold sweat all over my body as I moved the injector towards my thigh. I faintly heard Chymes’s whines over the machines as I pressed it into the skin and felt the prick of the needle as the contents of the vial were emptied into my bloodstream.

I stood there for probably a few minutes with the injector still pressed against my thigh before I realized I hadn’t immediately dropped dead. An exhale of relief exited my lungs. I don’t even know how long I had held my breath at that point. I placed the now empty autoinjector back on the table and sat down next to Chymes again. He placed his head on my lap yet again and I felt his fur tickle my bare thigh. I remember saying something like: “I can’t believe I actually did that” to him as I was petting him to calm myself down.

Minutes passed and I started to believe that the whole thing had been a failure. I got up and started pacing around the lab, feeling a little cold with the lack of clothing. I checked the simulation results once more, thinking that I had missed something after all. I even thought about putting my clothes back on and just heading out to sit at some random lecture so I could come back later to double check everything. I even considered it to be a sign to scrap the whole thing and do something completely different, like the research I lied to the university I was doing. I thought that maybe some lucky fluke had saved me from making the biggest mistake of my life. Then it happened.

It was very subtle at first. I thought there was an electrical failure or something somewhere as I picked up the smell of electricity in the air. Then I realized it wasn’t just electricity I could smell. I also smelled traces of the washing liquid the androids used to clean the labs. I noticed the familiar smell of Chymes’s fur and even the sweat in the fabric of my clothes set on the seat, while standing quite far from each. I didn’t really realize anything was wrong before I started feeling small prickles on my face, arms and lower torso and saw my skin getting covered with fur of various shades of brown. It’s a difficult feeling to describe, seeing your own body changing so rapidly like that.

Then went the vision. Dogs have a reduced capability of perceiving colors compared to humans. It is very similar to humans with untreated deuteranopia, or red-green colorblindness, which means I didn’t really experience much change in the clean white lab with a blue hue. The only way I could tell was the reduced vividness of colors.

What was harder to miss was the pain of my tailbone extending out with skin barely keeping up with the pace while simultaneously feeling the nails on my fingers and toes fall off out of the way of my new, dark, canine claws. Even though what was happening was exactly what I intended, I couldn’t help but feel panic wash over me as I watched my body quickly getting stripped of anything that made it human. Chymes rarely barked but I guess he sensed the panic I was feeling at that moment and seemed to be barking louder and louder until I moved my hands to cover my ears and realized they were lengthening, becoming pointier and traveling upwards, with new fur taking them over as well, and my hearing considerably improving with the change.

I had a brief moment to process the fact that I had a short but ever lengthening tail, an almost complete coat of fur in different shades of brown, a pair of canine ears and a sensitive nose that was surely all black and wet at that point already. Then I felt the bones in my hands and feet start shifting. The pain in my feet forced me to sit down on the floor as I watched them and my hands change shape, turning into paws complete with dark paw pads. The changes traveled up my arms, shins and thighs, bones cracking as they violently changed shape, while I simultaneously felt my insides shifting around. I am assuming at that point, everything from my gastrointestinal tract to my reproductive organs changed to be identical to a canine female.

Then I felt pain around my face and jaw as I watched my new muzzle coming into the view of my eyes. My teeth were falling and hitting the floor one by one as they were replaced by new ones more fitting for the mouth of a dog. My hair had been slowly shedding up to that point but now I was losing large clumps of it as it was replaced with fur as my head changed shape. A scary realization hit me as my rational human mind started clashing with the instincts of a dog: I had never even considered the chance that changing my body could also mean completely losing my human self. I was trying to shout for help at that point but all I heard were the panicked yelps of a dog escaping my throat. Not that shouting would have done much as the labs were almost perfectly noise isolated.

I probably would have passed out from my panic-induced hyperventilation if Chymes hadn’t moved next to me. He had stopped barking and sat down next to me on the floor, pushing against me with clear worry. I could feel his body heat and smell his familiar scent, just amplified by my new nose, or I guess rhinarium at that point. His presence by my side calmed me down and brought me back from the edge of total panic.

The changes finished with audible cracks from my spine. Those cracks sealed me to a quadrupedal stance, and where there once was a dog and his owner were now two dogs sitting side by side on the floor, both panting heavily.

We both ended up lying down. I don’t know how long we remained like that but I started slowly realizing that my human mind was still there, and even though my rational thought had to actively fight against my new instincts, I felt at ease with the knowledge that I would not completely lose myself. This comforting knowledge got me to find the strength to try to stand up. Needless to say, that didn’t really work. I was effectively a newborn puppy in the body of an adult dog, with barely any control over my limbs. In addition to that, my entire body was still sore from the violent changes it had just gone through. As much as I wanted to get myself up to that robotic arm to change back, I wasn’t sure if I could handle another painful change so soon after the first one. So I settled back down next to Chymes and I was soon sound asleep.

Perhaps I properly passed out instead of just falling asleep because when I woke up, it was late afternoon according to the lab clock. Chymes was still next to me and gave me a gentle nudge as I lifted my head off the floor. My body still felt sore but I felt considerably better than before, so I went right back to trying to stand up with even more motivation. It was still a struggle and I was involuntarily whining and panting from the pain caused by straining my already sore body. It felt like I had to put the entire strength of my new body into this task. Chymes had gotten up and was standing in front of me with his head tilted. I would have called him a showoff if I had had the ability to speak.

Eventually, after a few minutes of struggling, I was up on my four new legs, panting heavily and trembling. I was afraid of trying to take a step. It felt like lifting even one leg off the ground would set me tumbling back into it. Chymes had backed off a bit and was looking towards me with clear curiosity. It felt strange to truly be at his level. I would imagine the whole situation was strange to him as well. To him, I was a dog with his owner’s scent.

I turned my head towards the table where the robotic arm was holding my key to salvation. I knew I would have to lift my front paws onto the table to reach it, but first I needed to get to the table itself so I braced myself and carefully moved my left back paw just enough to still stay upright. Then my left front paw, right back paw and right front paw. I had seen Chymes walk enough times to have the general idea and as I inched closer and closer to the table, it felt like I was getting more used to it.

Eventually I reached the table, and on a mental count to three, I lifted my forelegs onto it, almost falling to the floor immediately as the paws of my hind legs slipped. Luckily the front of my body offered enough support and I could keep myself upright, and after a short rest, I moved my right front leg onto the mark, waiting for the injection.

To my horror, and for reasons I still do not know, I watched as the robotic arm started gripping the autoinjector more tightly. I could hear the vial cracking under the pressure and in my panicked state, trying to save the injector from the arm, I lost my balance and ended up striking the floor hard as I heard the vial crack open and smelled the liquid spilling out of it. I was trapped.

I think I passed out yet again, this time from the shocking realization that I no longer had a way to return back to my human self. The next thing I remember was someone waking me up from the floor and the lab swarming with faculty, both human and android. I later learned that a cleaner android had found me and Chymes in the lab and made an alert as the situation was unusual.


The following days were difficult both for me and the university. The faculty almost immediately realized what had happened as I had left all of my accounts logged in and all of my research data was readable. I, of course, was expelled for gross violations of academic and ethical standards. I think I would have faced legal trouble if it weren’t for the fact that the only victim was myself and the glaring issue that I was effectively a dog.

A counselor from the university ended up taking me and Chymes into her home as my situation was being processed. The faculty remained very silent about the events that unfolded that day. Understandably, as the university had a reputation to uphold. Because of this, even though communication was difficult without the ability to speak or write, I had to convince the counselor to at least let my closest friends know about the situation, to which she luckily obliged. My friends were… a bit weirded out but sympathetic and visited me regularly during that time, trying to cheer me up as my downward spiral had started.

When it became apparent that I was not in legal trouble, it was decided that I would be transferred back to my parents’ home on Mars Orbital Station 11 as I was deemed incapable of taking care of myself. At first, Chymes was going to be taken into an animal shelter but when I refused to go anywhere without him, he was allowed to be transferred with me.

Meeting my parents under the circumstances was bittersweet. While I was happy to be surrounded by people I knew again, I knew that this was going to be very difficult for them to handle. At first they thought that the whole thing was a joke, but when my personhood was demonstrated through simple yes-no-nod-shake questions, I could immediately sense the shock that overtook them when they realized that their daughter who had a promising career ahead of her was now a dog.

The downward spiral continued after I returned home. I felt depressed, didn’t want to see my parents more than I had to and I barely ate. I could sense the sadness in them whenever they happened to see me so I stayed away. My mother eventually tried to form some kind of connection with me but I was very unresponsive, and the whole thing felt very forced to me.

This went on for months with me losing hope of ever being happy again and returning to relative normalcy. The change I so desperately needed came when my parents noticed that the residency record for the house suddenly changed from “three adults, one pet” to “two adults, two pets”. It honestly felt kind of insulting at the time. Even with my body the way it was, my mind was still effectively human, after all. I guess the reality of the situation became a thing to confront at that point, instead of something to hide away with. Witnessing anger instead of quiet acceptance from my parents also showed me that they were serious about making things work.

Of course, claiming a dog was a human was not as easy as just letting some agency know. Instead, we had to have a proper legal battle for me to be recognized as a person again. I had to go through multiple tests to prove my intelligence, and go through multiple questions to prove that I was who I claimed to be. Some of my friends from Academia Station were invited over to testify. The whole legal battle was something that had never been done before. I was honestly surprised that the media was completely absent from it. I was somehow expecting journalists to be swarming the house but we were left in peace. Perhaps it was just lucky for us, but it did feel weird at the time, and still does.

I was never granted my personhood back, but the whole ordeal brought my family closer together. If I am being honest, I don’t really care about being recognized as a human anymore. I no longer have to consider any of the usual human worries so life is a lot less stressful. And with all the time I’ve spent in this new body, I’ve grown used to and even liking most of the things it comes with. Chymes was a big help for me to finally accept myself the way I am. From him, I learned to just let go of my rational mind and let instinct take over. It makes life a lot more enjoyable and I understand him a lot better when I do. That is how he taught me that a dog’s life isn’t so bad.