You don't have another explanation anymore.
Her words echo in your mind unobstructed: there's no other sounds to distract you in your cell. She's wrong, of course. That was the first time you'd done that. You've had chances with other doctors, but you never felt the need to. She's different, of course. You don't continue this train of thought. Thought is a precious resource: you need to ration it in order to survive this place. You've found that it's better to take the actually interesting thoughts in small chunks, interspersed with idle musings. Watering down your liquor, so to speak. Between your "visiting hours", there's simply nothing to do here but think. There's no light or sound, certainly no furnishings. You are in a concrete box.
You don't know exactly how thick the walls are, but they're thick enough. You used to try to break through them constantly, chipping away at them and your claws in kind. Your claws regrow, but so do the walls. They just pump sedatives in every so often and then when you wake up it's all repaired. You don't attack the cell as often anymore. You heard from a doctor that the main reason they're giving you people to talk to is to save on the concrete bill, so you figure it's in your best interest to chill out. You still want to, though. The concrete is thick, but not soundproof. You're more than capable of hearing footsteps and voices beyond it, and they remind you of how hungry you are. Oh dear.
Your hunger is ever-present in your mind. It's a sharp background noise behind your thoughts that periodically stabs into conscious awareness. You can only distract yourself so long before you inevitably remind yourself of it. It's a uniquely terrible experience. The point stabs in and leaves behind a great chasm. Your stomach is empty space. All of your thoughts are accented by a black downward-ness. It feels like your mind is being pulled under the surface of a vast, dark ocean. You get lightheaded. Your thoughts slow down. Your skin feels cold. You're painfully conscious of how the muscle and sinew moves beneath your skin. You could go on like this for a long, long time; the great hole in you precipitates a thousand minor aches and pains across your body. Your saliva thickens. Your breathing becomes inconsistent. Your dorsal spines flex awkwardly. Eventually, you remember not to dwell on the pains. Now you just need to stop thinking about the hunger. Unfortunately, you can't just will yourself to stop thinking about something. You need to naturally segue out of it until you eventually forget that you're doing it. For that purpose, you decide to reminisce.
You've been sick again recently. The pit in your stomach is back, almost as bad as it was the first time. This time, however, it has friends. The headache has been boring into your skull for about a week. It's made focusing even harder, and pankillers seem to have no effect. The real problem, however, began yesterday: The itching. Since it started, you've been absentmindedly scratching at your arms whenever you aren't paying enough attention to stop yourself. Your arms are already raw and bloody, and the itching is only getting worse. While you were showering this morning, you caught yourself clawing at your back, gouging your shoulders. Your mother doesn't seem to have noticed yet, but at this rate she has to soon. You're wearing far more clothing today than you'd like in an attempt to prevent this. Right now, though, she can't see you. You're in the woods again, near where you took Amira's life. The shade of the trees is soothing: your headache has made the lights of your house feel too bright lately. You're here because you've been feeling an inexplicable impulse to find a body of water, and the stream you washed yourself off in is the best candidate you could identify. When you get there, your clothes come off automatically. You're not really thinking about what you're doing. The combined sensations of hunger, headache, and itching assailing you make it impossible to do anything other than run on instinct.
You dip your toes into the stream. It's pretty cold, but you don't really care. The water doesn't relieve the itching, but it still feels like a blessing. You hastily put as much of your body as possible in the stream, gasping at the temperature shock. The itching actually starts to get worse, but you somehow sense that staying in the water is necessary. Your hands wander, and soon the water has tiny rivulets of red leading away from you. Your nails feel sharper than they should be, and your fingers hurt like hell. Your skin parts effortlessly under them. You force yourself to stop scratching with one of your hands long enough to take a look. You feel sick. The nails are gone or almost detached, but under them you see much larger, sharper claws. You pull away at the skin of your ring finger and it comes off easily, revealing even more of the claw. You attempt to do the same for your pinky, but when you pull, the finger snaps backwards. You scream but it doesn't actually hurt that much, relatively speaking. It's more the horror and surprise that got you. You keep going, revealing the rest of your claws and snapping off your other pinky. What the fuck are you doing? Even in your fugue state you start to recognize that something terrible is happening. Once your claws are free of their packaging, you go back to your arms. Much of the water is stained red, but the current keeps carrying the blood away. You should probably be unconscious after losing this much blood. Your arms are soon stripped bare. You appreciate your new skin for the first time. So red. Next is the legs. They go as easily as the arms. You run your claws over your new thighs. Slimy from the ordeal, but pleasingly cold to the touch. The itching isn't nearly as bad anymore, but you're not done yet. You tear open your chest, leaving wings of slimy red. Your belly goes, and your entrails with it. You intuitively understand that you don't need them anymore. Your crotch is soon smooth, which delights you even in these circumstances.
You look up at the sky on a whim. Your eyes burn and you scream. The light is oppressive. You need to get rid of it. Before you think about it, your claws dig into your face, tearing away the offending organs. They keep going, tearing off your nose, tongue, ears, jaw. Eventually there's nothing left of your original head. But you have a new one. Your long teeth gleam in the light you can't see as you clack them together testingly. Your dorsal spines rise erect for the first time, taking in the sensations. It's you.
You would cry if you had eyes. Your head is still spinning, but at least the itching is gone. It's really you. You feel an odd sense of relief. Like a warm drink in your stomach, it wells up inside you. You place the sensation. Euphoria. You have an answer to what you are. You're in a body that feels right. Then your new hearing asserts itself. You want to cry even more. You can hear so much now. The babble of the stream was already audible, but now you can hear the contours of the rocks that make up its bed. Birdsong is now accompanied by tiny heartbeats. The rustle of the wind is made up of a million leaves. As you soak in the beauty, you hear footsteps. Human footsteps.