A "Winds of Change" Story

By Brian Eirik Coe

Slowly, ever so slowly, I faded back into consciousness.

The room I was in was unfamiliar and smelled strange, like antiseptic and blood. There were sounds that could be screaming nearby. Slowly, as I came out of it, I realized that it was the cries of an infant across the room.

"You awake, young man?" asked a female voice.

I turned my head slowly to the source of the voice to see a woman, a low degree mammal of some type, who was also in a hospital bed. She had tubes running out of her arms to IV bags all around her. A quick look confirmed that I had the same. "A little." I said quietly. "Where am I?"

"You’re in the recovery room, of course." She replied in an awfully chipper tone. "You just got out of surgery. Don’t you remember any of that?"

I nodded. "Yeah, I remember now. Thanks." I laid my head back on the pillow to try and sort out the confusing messages my body was sending. I was in absolutely no pain at the moment, probably the result of a painkiller. In fact, I had a hard time moving at all. I didn’t even realize that I was twitching my fingers until I could see them move under the blanket.

"Don’t worry, son." Said the woman. "You’ll be fine."

A nurse walked over. "Good afternoon, Todd. Good to see that you’re awake." She picked up the chart and started writing on it. "The doctor will be in here in a couple minutes to check on you and let you know how things went."

"Can I see my parents?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Not right now. But since you’re awake we should have you out of the recovery room in just a little while."

I sighed and closed my eyes. At the moment, I felt so tired. I just wanted to sleep a little longer, shake off this feeling of numbness that filled me. The nurse ran her fingers between my ears and patted me on the head before she moved on to her next patient. I relaxed in that state for a few minutes until I felt a presence at my bedside. I opened my eyes to find Dr. Chin standing above me. "Morning, Doc." I muttered groggily.

"Afternoon, actually." He said in a bemused tone. "You’ve been under for a while. It’s already three o’clock."

For some reason the thought that I’d been out that many hours bothered me, but it was certainly better than the alternative: Being awake during surgery. "How did it go?"

Chin stood in an uncomfortable silence for a long moment. "The operation went well." He said finally. "As of this moment, your leg is in good shape. We pieced all the fragments together, which are all held at the moment with a variety of techniques. Given nothing unforeseen, your leg should heal well."

"But…" I prompted. I could tell from the tone of his voice that he wasn’t telling me everything.

He shrugged. "You’re not a normal case, Todd. There is simply no way to tell what will happen tomorrow. If you get norm shifted again, your leg could possibly be beyond our ability to repair to full ability."

I laid there, stunned. "I might lose my leg?"

He was quick to shake his head. "No, no! I didn’t mean it that way. If your Change progresses normally, at least as normally as we expect, and you don’t speed up appreciably, we should be able to handle anything that comes." He tapped the cast around my leg. "We’ll make adjustments as your leg heals. The hope is that it will heal as you change. It’s not unheard of for people to be made healthy by the Change, or at least have damage repaired."

I didn’t respond. Everyone knew that happened, but it was usually things like scars and deformations that healed. It was pretty rare for such major damage to simply heal. At least it was a hope, though.

Dr. Chin looked quickly at my chart and hung it from the peg at the foot of the bed. "Try and go to sleep. You’ve still got some of the anaesthetic in your system on top of some painkillers. I’ll see you downstairs later." He waved as he walked out of the room.

The woman in the next bed spoke up. "Oh, I like Dr. Chin, don’t you?" she started. "I came in here for…"

I didn’t hear her beyond that as my will to stay awake left and I passed out.

The next few days were pretty uneventful from my point of view. Everyone else still had school, of course. Most of the guys did stop by after class to drop off homework and keep me up to date on what was happening as school. Michael even managed to talk his parents into allowing a visit late one afternoon despite his being grounded. I found myself apologizing profusely for his situation. If I just hadn’t norm shifted…

"Don’t worry about it." He had told me. "It’s not your fault. Besides, you’d have done the same for me."

After the third day in the hospital, though, I started to wonder what I was doing there. Dr. Chin had declared that the surgery was a complete success with no complications they could find. As I continued my Change, the bones weren’t healing as he had hoped but they were lining up correctly. He was sure that my leg would be almost 100%.

Finally, that afternoon, Dr. Chin came in with my parents. "Todd, you’re going to be free to go in the morning. It looks like everything is going to work out okay. We just want to hold you one more night for final observation, but you should be fine."

I smiled. "How long until I’m on my feet?"

He shrugged. "I want you in a wheelchair for a little while, probably until you’re done with your Change. After that, you’ll probably be able to just use crutches for a few weeks. Maybe by Christmas you’ll be completely healed."

"When can I go back to school?" as twisted as it sounds, I actually was beginning to miss it.

"Not tomorrow, but probably Wednesday. Thursday at the latest."

I thought a little. I’d be out in time for the Halloween dance in a few days, but wouldn’t be able to actually dance. Not like I had a date, anyway. I looked at my mother. "Can I call up the guys and have them meet us at home tomorrow?"

She nodded. "Sure, but they’re all in school right now."

I knew that. Really. But my mind was already drifting a little. I was still not out of the woods regarding my Change. The chances seemed smaller now for some reason, but it looked like I had a chance to avoid the fate that had nearly befallen me the other day. It was unspoken, but Dr. Chin seemed more relaxed about the point.

With a little luck, things would be uneventful for the next few weeks…

My life the last few months was probably in the control of Murphy himself. Just when things start looking up…

I found out when I made my first call, to Jim. I barely opened my mouth on the phone when he burst in with, "Mano tried to kill Nate!"

I stumbled on my words. "What?" I asked stunned. "What happened?"

Jim started to explain, and it started to become clear quickly. Mano had apparently run into him just as school was coming to an end. In the course of the ensuing fight, Mano had norm shifted and Nate had come away with something broken in his shoulder.

"I’m just surprised that Nate’s still alive." Mused Jim seriously.

"Why’s that?" I asked curiously. I knew that Mano was pissed, but was he capable of actually killing?

"You didn’t see him, Todd. I did." He replied. "He ran right past me, and there was only one thing on his mind. I honestly don’t think that Mano was home at that moment."

I thought about this. "What’s going to happen now?"

I could hear the mental shrug on the line. "I don’t know. But Niles is pissed. He actually shot Mano with a trank gun."

I whistled. Well, I tried. Can’t do it with a muzzle. That was unusual. A lot of schools started keeping a few things like tranquilizer darts and stun guns on hand in the event that a student, confused by new instincts, went off. The simple fact was that they were almost never used. A principal could get into deep trouble if it wasn’t justified. I knew that if Mr. Niles used it, then Mano was a hare’s breadth from killing Nate.

A thought occurred to me. "Wait, where are they now?"

"Mano is still at the school for the moment, being interrogated by Niles. I’d guess that Nate’s down there at the hospital."

I smiled grimly. "Thanks. Look, get the guys together. I’ll be home before you guys are done with class tommorow." We said our good-byes and I hung up the phone.

I laid in the bed for a few minutes, thinking it over. Finally, I made up my mind and rang for the nurse. When she came in, I looked at her innocently. "Is there any chance that I could practice with my wheelchair?"

I found him waiting in the Emergency Room, his face contorted with pain. Mr. Strider, looking more angry than usual, was sitting in the next chair and glaring. It was clear that Nate was in it deep.

Strider was the first one to notice me. "Todd." He said firmly. "I see you’re doing better." I think he was trying to sound friendly, but was so angry that it wasn’t coming out right. If I didn’t already know it, it would have been obvious that he despised the kid he was sitting next too.

"A bit." I replied. "I’m getting released tomorrow. I should be walking again in a few months." I intentionally made the estimate sound long. No point in letting Nate off the hook at all.

"Sounds good." Strider said, biting his lip. I kept my eye on Nate, who was actively avoiding looking at either me or Strider.

"How does it feel, Nate?" I asked out of the blue. It caught Nate off guard and his head shot up at me. His jaw worked, but he said nothing. I noted casually that he looked a lot more like a turkey than he did the last time I saw him. "You enjoy it as much as I did?" Nate glared at me. He was smart enough to know that he couldn’t say what he wanted with Strider there, and Strider was sufficiently mad to let me a little leeway.

Nate finally found his voice. "I didn’t do anything to you." He sneered, sticking to the story that had kept him from getting expelled. "You were losing it."

I snorted. "Maybe, Nate. But you were the trigger. I just wanted to thank you." That caught both Nate and Strider off guard, and they stayed silent. "You’ve made me realize something important." I wheeled the chair a little closer. "I’ve got friends."

Strider snorted loudly in laughter and Nate looked sick. When he didn’t have a quick comeback, I just glanced at Strider. "I’ll see you later, sir."

He grinned as only a saber tooth morph could and nodded. Feeling much better, I turned away and headed back to my room. I had a long night ahead, after all. I had to think of the proper way to thank my leonine friend.

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