A Winds of Change Story

By: Trey McElveen

I knew what I was looking at, but not by any means that I had thought of "knowing" before. It was as if it had always been that way, like it was some basic instinct that was necessary for me to know to survive. All around me stretched nothingness, save for some faint light that quietly illuminated the infinity that I stood suspended in. Before me was the wall. Long, black, and penetrable: the wall I envisioned walking through when I norm-shifted.

But now, as I hung there, something almost imperceptible seemed to pierce the sterility of what I could only term a dream. I turned my head towards the feeling, gazing along the perfectly smooth black wall as I went, and squinting I saw a flicker of light along the surface of the barrier an impossible distance away. And it was pulling at me, beckoning me to come.

Before I even perceived any motion, the light began to grow in my vision. Even though the length between it and myself was still considerable, I could tell that it was not something above the wall, but that it was actually a part of the wall itself. The light shimmered brilliantly now, in almost every color of the rainbow that I could perceive.

But as the light hurtled towards me, I heard a very faint voice call from above. I looked up, and saw my mother. For some reason I was not surprised.

"Mano. Wake up," she said, and she took my head in her gently scaled hands and flung me headlong into the wall.

I came to in Mr. Niles’ office, propped up lightly in one of the three chairs that sat in front of the principal’s desk. My mother was standing over me, an incredibly angered expression set in her wings. My father sat in a chair to the right of mine, and the one to my left was empty. Niles was behind his desk.

Mom tossed a blanket over me as I steadily stumbled out of my stupor, not bothering to shift fully to my morphic state.

"I- I’m not cold," I protested. My mother said nothing and took the empty chair. I was surrounded.

"You’re naked, Mano. You tore your clothes to shreds when you norm shifted," Niles said sternly.

I felt the blood rush to my cheeks and I shifted in an attempt to disguise my embarrassment. I cast nervous glances about the room, trying to assess my situation, and from what I saw it was more than grim. Dad was sweeping the floor with his tail, his lips stretched tightly over his muzzle in an obvious effort to keep from screaming his lungs out. Mom drooped her wings, her beak pointed down towards the ground as she pierced me with her stern gaze.

But if there was a mood that could freeze one’s blood, Niles had it now. There are three distinct types of anger, one being furious rage, the other being saddened disbelief, and the third, which Niles exhibited, is calm justice. The bristles of his back stood practically perpendicular to his back, his eyebrows hunched over his eyes, what was left of his forehead furrowed in the most infuriated wrinkles I had ever seen.

I swallowed. Hard.

Niles started, "What is the last thing you remember, Mano?" My mother and father awaited my answer.

It was a good question, "I… I remember seeing Nate in the hall, and running up to him and kinda…" I hesitated here, debating on whether or not it would be a good idea to embellish my story or not. But at the moment, I wasn’t in any position to lie. "I kinda threw him against the lockers and started choking him."

"Why?" My father asked through clenched fangs. He was obviously beyond pissed.

"Because he made Todd go norm and almost sterilized Michael," I answered semi-honestly. So he didn’t "sterilize" Michael, persay, but anything that helped my position was what I needed.

Niles nodded and sat back in his chair, "Mr. Jacobson, do you have any idea where Nathan Hill is right now?"

I shook my head, "No. The last thing I remember is Nate trying to Induce my shift." Eyes lit up all around, but only for a moment. Score one for the home team. I thought, thoroughly defeated.

"He is in the hospital’s emergency room, Mano," Niles answered.

I blinked, and after the shock of what he said sank in, I breathed, "Oh shit."

"Young man, you have a lot of explaining to do," My mother said, crossing her arms across her lap.

"I… I don’t have an excuse. I just wanted to get back at Nate for what he did to Todd and Michael. I was mad. I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to…"

Niles was scratching canyons into his desk. "That’s quite enough, Mr. Jacobson. Taking revenge in this matter makes you no better than Nathan in this situation." He stood up from his seat, the volume of his frame made him rather imposing. He pointed at the rifle propped in the corner, "Do you see that? Never in the nine years that the State of California has required me to carry that tranquilizer have I had to use it. Until today. There are very strict regulations that rule when I can use it and when I cannot, not to mention that my record, the school’s record, this district’s record has been irreparably tarnished."

He was laying it on thick, which I could understand. His reputation had been shot to hell, and it was my fault. "I… I…" I stammered.

"Don’t even try to say anything, Mr. Jacobson," Niles commanded. "You are in no position to talk." My parents weren’t even coming to my aid on this one. I was really in the hole.

"It’s against my feelings at this point, but since you really are no better than Nathan at this point, I can’t punish you anymore than suspending you three days from school."

"But…!" I started, trying to say something to my defense. I had never been suspended from school before in my life!

Niles didn’t like that at all, "Four days!"

"BUT…!" I yelled back. I heard my mother whisper something under her breath, but I didn’t catch it.

Niles exploded, and pounded his fist on the desk, "Five days! Now if you want me to overlook the fact that Nate Induced your shift and expel you, I WILL!"

I shut the hell up.

After a moment’s pause, Niles regained himself and spoke calmly once more, "Get your books that you need from your locker and go. I don’t want to see you on this campus until next Wednesday." He walked over and opened the door to his office. I took the cue and stood, keeping the blanket wrapped around myself for modesty, and walked out the door with my parents in tow.

Dead man walking. It was all I could think about as I gathered my books and walked out to my car.

"You are grounded until next Tuesday! And when I say grounded, you are not to leave this house, use the phone, watch TV, play your DVD movies, get on the Net, nothing! The optical link comes out, the phone in your room comes out! The only thing you are working on is your English report and catching up on schoolwork you missed!" Dad padded around the living room like Patton, laying down the rules for the next week like organizing a frontal assault. My mother stood next to me, still looking down at me with those same chiseled eyes.

"And you can forget about the Halloween Dance, Friday! And band practice this weekend!" she added.

I didn’t protest. I couldn’t. They would probably add on a week for every word I said instead of Niles tacking on a day. I just sat there and nodded, my mane rustling as I did so. Since I’m going to Change into this anyway, I might as well get used to it, I decided.

Dad walked into my bedroom and came back with the cordless phone in one paw and the fiber optic to my Net link in the other. He put them in his room, God knows where.

Mom put a hand on her side and stuck out the other one, "Give."

"Give what?" I said, a little annoyed, but genuinely puzzled.

"The keys."

"Mom! What if something comes up? What if I have to go somewhere in an emergency?"

"You run."

"What if I can’t run?"

"The you use the phone in the living room and dial 911, if it’s that bad."

With a heavy sigh, I took the car keys from my paw and placed them into hers. Thankfully, she didn’t add insult to injury and snatch them away. But it had been the straw that had broke this lion’s back, and when my father came back into the living room, I muttered, "Seems you can both agree on making me miserable."

"You honestly don’t know when to quit, do you?" Dad said.

I looked up at him, my tears beginning to moisten my eyes, "Apparently, both of you do."

Mother sighed and looked away, "It was breaking up long ago, Mano. You know that."

"No, I don’t!" I screamed, the floodgates opening, tears streaming down my cheeks, soaking the fur, "What happened? Didn’t you love each other?"

Dad nodded, "Of course."

Mom folded her wings behind her, "Mano, your father told me he couldn’t love me anymore. A long time ago. It was over."

"Why? Why can’t I have a normal family like my friends? Why can’t we be together?"

"Mano, we still love you. Please, it just won’t work."

I stood up and sobbed, "You only love me because you have to."

My parents froze. Like statues, they stood literally rooted to the floor. Mom wavered slightly and caught herself after what seemed like millennia of standing transfixed.

Dad was actually crying, "Mano. That’s not true."

Mom broke out of her daze and hurriedly started gathering her things, trying to get out the door and into her car before she broke down in front of us.

I wasn’t finished yet, "And I saw you, Mom, huddled over Dad when he lost it, crying your eyes out, Did you love him then, or was that just for my entertainment?"

Mom clutched her purse to her chest and took a long glance and the furry man that was my father. She shuddered convulsively and literally threw herself outside the house, not stopping until she got into her car, and even then speeding off.

"Dear God, Mano," Dad whispered, "I had no idea…"

"No, Dad. You didn’t." With that, I stormed to my room and slammed the door. I collapsed on the bed, and wailed into sleep.

Only the speck of swirling light told me that I was hurtling through the nothing. The silent black wall that sped inconceivably past me still stretched far ahead and far behind, until it compressed upon itself and became nothing more than the infinity that spawned it.

But now that wall the held the key to my norm held something else, something that I didn’t know, and perhaps couldn’t, for the longer that I sped towards the light, the slower that it seemed to approach me. I felt that I was moving at the speed of thought; I had to be. But I was slowing down more and more as questions about the flaw in the wall cropped up. What was it? What purpose did it serve? If I walked through it, would I shift into something other than a lion?

Why was it there, marring the utter perfection of my barrier?

I had to know, now. I cleared my mind of questions, and again the light began to speed towards me once again. I could see now that it wasn’t just one color at a time, randomly switching between them, but it was all the colors at once, mixed into a patchwork of hues, melding and blending into one which would coalesce into another, a maelstrom of pointillistic tint.

Still, the expanse between us was immense, and before I felt that I had made any headway, the lights came on, and the dream ceased into consciousness.

I woke up late, my father letting me sleep in. But I soon realized that the next few days, I would have little reason to stray from my bed. The intense boredom I found after lying in bed for an hour or two was incredible. I had to honor my parent’s punishment, or be subjected to an even longer sentencing, which I had no intention of doing. So, to curb the boredom, I actually helped around the house. The dishes were dirty, so I washed them. The living room was cleaned, the bedrooms were made up looking all pretty, the bathrooms were polished nice and shiny, and I even risked getting caught outside later that day as I washed my car. I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t find the phone and optical fiber in my Dad’s room as I cleaned up, but no sense in making a bad situation any worse. But at least my Dad commented on how nice everything looked. I tried to bargain for a day of my sentence, but it was no go.

Thankfully, the menial chores helped the day fly by faster, but I as I finished up I wondered just what the hell was I going to do with the next few days. I plopped onto the sofa, exhausted more from disdain at my situation than from the work I had been doing. Still, I felt a bit of accomplishment at being able to make my home just a little more livable, no matter how broken it might be.

And then there was the dream that kept popping into my head. I had had reoccurring dreams before the Change, but nothing as vivid as this. I could remember every detail, right down to when that light changed colors and what color it turned to.

The second day, after cleaning the dishes from the night’s dinner and doing some Pre-Cal, I opened my journal on the Change and began looking for themes of reoccurring dreams. I couldn’t do any extensive research since my Netlink was taken, but from what little information I had amassed over the years, such dreams of visions often preceded a new Power.

Now that’s what I needed to break up the boredom! A cool Power! Something like Telekinesis or Telepathy or maybe even Healing, just something that I could fool around with instead of doing homework and being a maid. But nothing spoke of a multi-colored wall. Most Polymorphs visualize a long hallway with doors on both sides that denote different species they are able to Change into.

A scary thought popped into my head as I was doing my English on the third day. What if I had Polymorph, but couldn’t control what I became? What if each color stood for a different species, and I had to time it just so perfectly so I could get what I wanted? It was impossible to distinguish any one color in that amalgamation of light. Maybe it’s not that, I kept thinking to myself. But if not… what was it?

I stayed in my morph most of the time, only coming out of it just to see how far my Change had progressed. Every once in a while, I would feel a Surge coming on, and I would shift down to watch it creep up my waist and over my stomach. By Friday evening, the evening of the Halloween Dance, it was all the way up to my chest, and you could see a small stripe of very thin mane forming on the underside of my chin. I played with it for a while, running my fully Changed hands through it before that got boring too, and shifted into a full morph and played with the real thing.

My thoughts fleeted to Todd on Friday night, and I wondered how he was doing at the dance in crutches or wheelchair or whichever he decided to go in. I also wondered if David and Amanda had hit it off, or if David managed in holding one of his forms long enough to slow dance with her. I occurred to me that they all might be very different when I saw them next; for all I knew Jim might have wings and Michael some scales, finally. The thought only made me more anxious for the days to go by.

Saturday I spent mostly in my room, playing my horns out of my morphic state, the crease in my upper lip making it impossible to do so. With "Too Much" by Dave Matthews Band in the background, I played along with Leroi and the gang, matching notes with them and pretending to be on stage with them.

And then I felt a Surge coming on. I stopped for a moment as my head began to literally buzz. I felt a snap in my jaw as the bones in my skull began to push forward into a muzzle. My nose flattened out against the new facial growth, and I was bombarded with an olfactory overload that I wasn’t quite prepared for. I had been out of morph for a while as I practiced, and the new senses were a bit of a shock.

The Change moved up my head, and my hair turned color and texture, then shrank back to join the new fur that sprouted all over my face. My ears pointed and migrated to the top of my head, turning and swiveling to catch every sound that came my way. And then there was the uncomfortable pins-and-needles, and finally the eerie sense of completeness that finalized the Change.

I was done.

And to celebrate, I decided to hit the highest note I could on my clarinet. I wet the reed with my newly sandpapered tongue, propped it into the ligature, put it in my mouth, and blew.

The pffffft sound made was unmistakable. The crease in my upper lip was there. I couldn’t play. As fast as I could, I ran into the bathroom and looked, and sure enough it was there, plain as day.

Okay, calm down. Let’s shift Degree and make it go away. So I did. But no one can shift all the way into a human, no matter how strong their Degree Control Power is. Some defining factor still remains, like the stub of a tail, or talons for fingernails.

As luck would have it, as I shifted down, back to a human, the split in my lip stayed. I went down as far as I could, but to no avail.

I couldn’t play my horns anymore. So for the first time in three days, I started crying again.

Sunday was uneventful, except for the fact that Mom had actually called my father and asked him to meet him somewhere for lunch. My leonine jaw hit the floor when I heard where he was going, but he only reassured me that County Health Services was thinking about sending a majority of their ultrasound patients over to his clinic.

"This could be a major boon to my company if it goes through," he said with a vulpine grin in his tail as he prepared to meet Mom at the restaurant.

"That’s cool, Dad. But why Mom?"

He hesitated to answer, but finally spoke up, "She’s the rep they chose for the project. Her bosses think it can go through if we both know each other’s abilities."

"Aren’t you the one that insulted her when she was trying to help Todd?" I asked, treading precariously on thin ice.

"Yes," he admitted, "That was my mistake, just like you attacking Nathan. And I’m paying for it, just like you are."

That reminded me, "Have you heard anything about Nate?"

Dad shook his head, "I’m not keeping up with that. His parents haven’t called me or your mother, and we hope it stays that way." He patted me on the shoulder, "You’re taking this grounding very well, son. Practice up on your violin today since you can’t play the horns. There’s only a couple more days."

I nodded dumbly and sighed, "Sure thing, Dad. Promise me something, before you go."

He stopped in the doorway, "Yes?"

"Be nice to Mom."

He nodded, "I will. I need the patients."

I sighed again as he left. "Not the reason I wanted, Dad."

I hadn’t told my father or mother about my dreams, mostly because they scared me enough for all of us. The swirling mass of color was literally upon me every time I went to sleep. It was so close that I often couldn’t put a paw up to cover its brilliance. The fact that I could control myself in the dream was startling enough, but the immensity of the barrier and the confused morass of hues only terrified me more. With my Change over and done with, I didn’t want to undergo anything quite as traumatic for quite a long time.

And so, before I would go to sleep, I would prepare as best I could for what I knew was coming. I’d get ready with a paper and pencil at my bedside so I could write down whatever happened in the dream before I fell back asleep. It was superfluous, really, since I could remember each iota of the dreams, but it helped me fall asleep easier. I also found it much easier to shift to norm and sleep that way. I wasn’t certain why; it just felt good.

So, on Monday night, the next to last night of my imprisonment, I prepared in the same way I had. But this time, the dream was different. The glittering colors of the wall filled my view totally, only a speck of the blackness that was once my norm barrier remained, and it was as far away in the distance as the light had originally been. It loomed over me, and when I tried to look to see how high it reached, it never even filtered down into the vanishing point of the horizon. It just kept going forever.

I don’t know how long my dream self stood there, for time doesn’t really matter in such a state. But I do remember having to tear myself away from my gaze to stride up to the wall and look at it more closely. The surface was pristine, just like the black wall had been, and the closer I stared the deeper the colors became. The chaos of the hues was perfectly ordered. There was no deviation, no break up in the mixing, each color flowed effortlessly into the next. In fact, it did so just like the abstract pastels that modern painters created not so long ago. But unlike those, these seethed with a life of their own, changing shape and composition as they wished, moving where they wanted to, doing what they pleased.

The wall was alive.

I had to touch it. I had to see if it was tangible. And as I put my hand against it, the lights surged and morning came.

I awoke before Dad had left for work, and as I blearily rose from my slumber, I met him in the halls and bid him a yawnful, "Good morning."

"Morning! Guess what! The deal with county went through! I’m going to have to leave early tomorrow to finalize the papers, so I’ll leave the alarm on and your keys will be on the coffee table."

I smiled, "That’s great, Dad! And thanks for letting me know ahead of time."

He nodded and got ready to leave for work, "Go ahead and get your books and notes ready for school. You’ve got to head back tomorrow, so you need to get plenty of rest."

"I will." For the first time in a long time, I actually looked forward to going back to school.

But not as much as getting back to bed so I could finish my dream. The initial fear had subsided into near obsession. I wrote down what I could about the dreams, recorded every bit until my paws ached. But I refused to take a nap so I could dream again. I wanted to wait, even though the anticipation was incredible.

A new Power! I thought, giddy. That’s what it had to be, after all! There was no mistaking it, and if it was attached to my wall, it had to be some kind of morph or Change. I wasn’t even concerned that it might be a Polymorph that I had no control over. Only the fact that I would have a new Power really mattered; Degree Control gets old after a while.

I busied myself for the rest of the day by completing my final draft on my English essay almost a week ahead of schedule, something unprecedented even for me. But I had to occupy myself with something in the meantime. Luckily, the task took most of the day, so all I had to do until Dad came home for work was wash the dishes and do a bit of cleaning in the bathrooms.

Dad walked in the door a little late, but with a smile evident in the tail. I stopped what I was doing and hugged him with a bit of trepidation, but asked, "Can I use the phone? Just to call the guys and tell them I’ll be at school tomorrow."

"Mano…" Dad started.

I knew it was the answer before he had even said it. "I’ll wait until tomorrow."

He nodded, "It’s only a few hours. Why don’t you go ahead and finish your essay?"

"Done," I said with a smile.

"Pre-Cal?"

"Done."

He grinned, "Pred-Prey?"

I blinked, "Damn."

"Go on, Mano. Finish it up and go to bed. You’ve got school in the morning."

My night flew by like lightning. Pred-Prey was finished in no time, and luckily, I was feeling tired by the time it was. I had caught up on my schoolwork to where I wouldn’t be so far behind when I returned, and I even had a free ride on my English essay for the rest of the week. For being out of school, I sure was productive.

I got the pencil and paper ready, undressed, shifted to norm, and almost fell asleep instantly.

And there it was. Towering over me like a skyscraper, the swirling mass seemed to pulse with a new light. I edged closely to it, and raised my paw to touch it. My fingers sank into, rippling the surface like a pond, the colors changing as the ripples radiated from where I penetrated. It even felt like a liquid, flowing in between my digits like water, only a little thicker. I removed my hands and put them in again, experimenting, swirling them around and making patterns in the color. I spelled my name like a child would in the sand at a beach, and then watched it melt away in the waves.

I smiled and laughed. And then I knew I had to go through. I strode confidently to the wall, plunged my hands in, then my face. Instantly there was a violent sucking sensation, like a vacuum pulling me through the wall. I didn’t even get to close my eyes, and I was treated to such a display that it could only be replicated with an overdose of LSD. The word that comes to mind in describing it would be psychedelic. And before I knew it, the wall had flung me to the other side, and I was through.

There was the sound of something like glass being dropped heavily on a carpet, and then the light surged and morning came.

The alarm blared. I awoke with a start, lifting my head up from my paws and yawning widely, trying to shake off whatever sleep I could. But as I moved my head, I felt something odd, like something very, very important was missing.

Maybe I have Changed! I thought drowsily to myself as I padded out of my bed and stood before a mirror that I kept hung on the wall next to my desk, my eyes still shrouded in sleep. I envisioned the wall of my norm-shift in my mind, but it was different now. It was split in two, one half the black, flat wall, the other the shifting colors of my dream.

And over the colored wall, there seemed to be a plate of what looked like glass.

The sense of impending doom was insufferable. I almost threw myself at the norm wall and felt the warm flash of my norm-shift wash over me.

Something was definitely wrong. My weight was wrong. My balance was wrong. My body was wrong.

I wiped my eyes with the back of my paws and opened them fully.

And I will never, ever, ever forget what I saw.

There, where the mirror said I stood, was not me. Whoever it was was mimicking my movements, my short ragged breaths exactly, but it wasn’t me.

My partial mane was gone, vanished, and my pelt was a lighter shade of beige than the faded brown it once was. But nothing compared as I looked farther down the body. A perfectly rounded set of healthy breasts heaved as my breathing sped up, to a slim waistline and stomach that jaunted into feminine hips. My manhood was replaced with a set of female genitalia (which I dared not move more for fear of what I might be seeing be reality), and my legs had lost their muscular build and become very attractive and slender, but my no means weak. My tail was still there, but was covered in the same fine pelt as the rest of me was.

My complexion, my face hadn’t changed much, but enough to fool those that didn’t know me well.

I was hyperventilating by now. This was not me. It couldn’t be me. There’s no way in hell this could possibly be me. I had to be dreaming.

And there’s only one way to find out. I unsheathed my claws, watching the mirror’s image do the same, and chose one of the most obvious places that I could deduce. Slowly, I brought my paw up to the right breast, and pinched with my forefinger and thumb claws.

And it hurt. A lot.

And I screamed. A lot.

After which, I suddenly became violently ill and had to sprint to the bathroom. I bent over the toilet and hurled twice, and when I looked into the mirror in the bathroom, I returned for a third trip.

This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening.

I tried to imagine the walls again, and succeeded. I ran up to the colored wall and was met with a solid thump as I tried to pass through. I tried again and again. I tried so many times that I lost count. But that "glass" held.

I was stuck.

I emptied my stomach, and pitched myself up to my feet, swaying wildly. I thought aloud this time, "Dear God. What’s happened to me?" The answer was quite obvious, although it hadn’t sunk in. And since no one had heard me scream, my father must have already left for work.

I was alone.

I ran back to my bedroom and found the loosest fitting jeans and shirt I could find, and although the jeans fit as best they could, the shirt was a bit tighter around my chest that I would have like it to be.

My chest, I thought, tears beginning to well up in my eyes. Oh, God. My chest.

I ripped the car keys from the table, ignoring the phone and probably my chance to call my father before he got into a meeting at County. I stumbled clumsily out the door, leapt into my car and roared off to the only place I could think of that could help me.

"C- Can I help you, miss?"

I could barely speak, and when I did, it wasn’t in my voice. It was the high-pitched alto of a female morph, "I need to see Dr. Chin. Now."

The nurse peered closer to me, her tail heavily set in thought. "Dr. Chin is in the back… Haven’t I seen you before?"

I looked up at her, my expression bearing stark fear. I watched as her face went from thought, to realization, to horror.

"Oh. My. God." She breathed, "Mano?"

I nodded. She ran, literally sprinted, out of the waiting room into the back. I could hear her yell for Dr. Chin as she went down the halls, his startled caw as he was found. I followed her slowly, walking down the hall in stunned disbelief, using the wall as a support.

"Dr. Chin! It’s Mano! He’s… He’s…" I heard her stammer.

I turned the corner into the room the nurse and Dr. Chin were in, and heard him say, "He’s what?!"

I finished for him, although there was no need to, "I’m a lioness."

Dr. Chin stared at me for a moment, somehow accessed what I had been through that morning, and then asked, "Where are your parents?"

"They’re both at County Health Services," I replied.

"Phone his parents, get them here now," He said to his nurse and he came to my side, "Phone the school and tell them there’s been an emergency and he won’t be in class today." He draped a wing over me as the lupine nurse did what she could. "Mano? Is that really you?"

I nodded. It was all I could do.

"How?"

"A wall. Like my norm wall, just lots of colors." I still wasn’t used to my voice, so I spoke low to hide from it. I started to cry again.

He nodded and hugged me.

"Dr. Chin?"

"Yes, Mano?"

"I can’t change back."

"I know." I didn’t ask how. If I could change back, I wouldn’t be there.

The nurse came back in sometime later and told him that they were both notified, and my parents were on their way, but all that was lost in the canopy of feathers I huddled under and the sobbing that drowned out the world.

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