"My headache is gone!"

That was my very first thought on that day; I never have understood why that has stood out as the marker for the date in my mind, instead of other, more directly affected points. I had been suffering from mind-numbing pain for at least a week. I couldn't think straight, I didn't want to be social, I just wanted to be free of the pain. I tried everything we had available in that day - medicine, chiropractic work, getting more sleep, changing my diet, among other things. Nothing worked.

Perhaps I need to give a bit more background; I should be assuming that whoever may read this has no recollection of my name or who I am - or who I was. My name is Jadyn Tzeki; before the world changed, I was Derek Jacobs. A moderately tall human male - five-foot-ten - with long, 'dirty' blond hair, blue eyes, and five digits on each hand and foot. Fingernails that kept collecting odd bits of grime. And - worst of all - no fur. No; even that isn't the worst part.

I was pink.

I was human for the first eighteen years of my life; knowing no other form, I didn't think I had things too badly - notwithstanding what I may have told anyone on any given date. I had a decent job with strange yet infinitely interesting friends, a room to call my own, food, warmth, and my imagination.

My imagination was one of the most important things to me; it still is. If I went into every reason why... Well. It would be a complete story in itself explaining what lurks in my head. It is a complete story in itself. But, not this story.

I don't recall the exact date it happened. It. That should be It, capital I. Anything deemed 'it' is just another item to catalog in the memory, or perhaps only meriting a passing glance. This 'It' was a life-altering event. This 'It,' this profound, wide-ranging upheaval to our culture and society was more than just a trifle event to glance at and state, "Gee, that would be interesting on the end-table."

If you woke up as someone else, what would you do?

-

I think I need to digress back to the previous evening before I go on with this record. I was always a better writer than I was a speaker or student or cellist - though others did commend my playing the cello. I was never as confident in my own abilities as everyone else was. The only thing I did better than writing, though, was anything I did in the technology field. Specifically, the personal computer systems of the time are what I made my forte. In hindsight, I might have been an addict; I knew what I was doing with a computer. Installing something new? Check. It doesn't turn on? No problem. Won't boot? Covered. Some smoke rolling out of the case?

Well, you get the idea. I worked on the business end of an 800 number, giving support instructions for hardware over the phone and directing clients though checks and changes and other troubleshooting at no cost to them. I had found a niche in life.

So I thought.

I had been released early from work that night, on account of both my headache and the fact that we were at a period where there were more people staffed than needed for the volume of calls coming in. I took one of the back roads to get home; bright lights only hurt my eyes and added to the headache. Stray thoughts floated around from my story works-in-progress, ideas I hadn't thought of before gliding by for a mere moment before something snatched them back up.

It took me a good twenty-five minutes before I was pulling into the driveway and shutting of the lights. Normally, it was a ten to fifteen minute trip, but I didn't trust myself at that point. I made my way into the house, where my mother and brother were watching an old Star Trek rerun; I sat down and watched fifteen minutes of it before my eyes hurt from the light and I went to bed. The computer in my room had one of the news pages from the Internet loaded, a headline regarding some supernova scrolling across the screen. It had been brightening over a week or so - the nova, not the screen - and I had spent more than one night outside staring at it, enraptured by its pulsating glow. It seemed to be the one light that hadn't hurt my eyes.

I called downstairs that they should go look at it again if they got the chance, but I didn't get an answer. I figured they were engrossed in their program, so I undressed and crawled into bed after peeking out the window and watching the nova. Watching it seemed to dull the headache somewhat; it was one of the few lights I could look at without making my eyes hurt that week.

Looking back I wish I had gone downstairs. To say, "I'll always remember you," or "I love you." To even give the two of them a hug would have been something to remember fondly; all I did was go to bed. That fifteen-minute stretch before I went to bed was the last time I ever saw either my brother or my mother.

Of course, none of the Firsts, myself included, had the faintest idea what would happen on that night. I can berate myself as much as I want, but the fact is that I assumed the next day would come and go just like every other day. Wake up, eat breakfast, go to work, come home, and go to bed. The next day came, as usual; the wail of my alarm clock jarred me from the most interesting dream I have ever had. It was a review of sorts; they say that when you are about to die, your life will flash before your eyes. My dream had the best parts I could remember: time at the lake, learning to ride a bicycle, getting a driving license, attempting to learn to water ski. Learning to swim, snowboard, downhill ski. Learning how to play chess, checkers, cards. How to build these intricate creations with Lego blocks and other tiny details that put fun into everyday life. How to simply engross one's self in a book and forget the rest of the world sucks.

Sorry, that's bad grammar. 'To forget the rest of the world doesn't exist.' The rest of you can abridge the passage if you like when this gets placed with the other records.

It was that genre of things that drifted through the first half of the dream. The one face who had always been there was mom. She taught me most of what I accredited to be my store of knowledge regarding non-technology areas; she had been around more than just a block or two. She knew more on cars than I ever cared to learn. She had seen the country much more than myself. I know every bit of it was true, the fact that this was my mom, my mother who was doing it... Hitchhiking cross-country. The same, except on a motorcycle. Dumping the motorcycle at plus sixty miles an hour. Having a single memory of it sliding along the highway with sparks flying while she was somewhere slightly above it. Landing, not having more than a scratch or two and wondering where the bike was. Then another time, hitchhiking in Europe with her sister. She once told me she ate a rose out of the British Royal Gardens, just to say that she had. I think she said it was the worst tasting rose she had ever eaten.

What of my father? ... No. I'm not even going there. I'll break down crying. Again. I will say this much: he was around enough so that I can remember his face. That's about it. Don't get me wrong; he was a good man. Everyone has their own difficulties to deal with, their own life to live. His life - his job - drew him to other parts of the country, and he wasn't home much. It had been for a long time when he was home, all he did was smoke and drink and watch television. There had been a point where things almost got better.

But, I digress; this record is for the time after the Change, not my personal family history.

The second half of the dream was the most confusing part, until shortly after I woke up. All the images shifted to... other things. Other memories. Memories that were vaguely mine, but not really mine. It was as though my mind had been joined to another and we were sharing notes. Crystal clear images floated in parallel with those from my dreamscape, showing a distinctly different yet strikingly similar childhood. A cabin in the woods, instead of one by a lake. A sister instead of a brother. Both parents present - plus someone else, unclear whom - instead of a single parent. Technology everywhere - in the walls, floors, ceilings, even sometimes the actual walls and floors and ceilings - instead of being a limited box on or under a desk. And leaning how to draw on something.

That something was - is - nearly indescribable. The most beautiful warmth... I'm getting ahead of myself again. I didn't know what it was I had seen, or touched, or felt a memory of touching. It was there, all the time, waiting... ready, but not pushing. Patient.

Those were only a minuscule handful of what I saw. To describe it all would nearly require a telepathic link; it was not just images, but feeling and scents and sounds and idle thoughts laced into every detail. It was perfect, down to the buzz of a bee picking golden-yellow pollen from a deep purple flower right next to a moss-covered river stone that had been pulled out on a date I didn't quite understand. Emotions of love, and joy, and sadness, and everything else. It was amazing. It ended all too soon. It wasn't until the images had faded to only memory that I realized a crucial point in everything that I had seen.

Not a single person in the second half of the dream had been remotely human.

I was still floating through slumber as I realized this small detail. They had all been vulpinoid in form: some humanlike qualities, like bipedal walking and arms and feet and toes and fingers, but distinctly non-human characteristics - claws, foxen ears, tail, fur! - were apparent. The one who didn't feel like a parental figure had been some sort of skunk, but her tie into the memory - other than being a close friend or relative - wasn't clear from what I had received.

As I was saying. Sleep was shattered by the alarm clock, and as I woke up and shut it off the dream hung with me. Most dreams fade like a morning fog once the sunlight warms the body - even if it happens to be dark outside - but this stayed as though I had been in actual contact with someone, completely outside of sleep. I felt overly warm, as though my bed had been turned up much too hot, and my room smelled... peculiar. I didn't understand what it was I smelled; it was as though everything in my room had a new scent and all were trying to fight their way in at once. And I needed to bathe, too...

I realized at that point that my headache had finally left me; I felt refreshed, as though it had been some sort of flu or fever that had broken and faded in the night. The sun hadn't even risen far enough to give twilight, but I could see my room clearly. It wasn't in broad, definite colors, but more as if the small bit of light coming from the gas patio lamp below my window had flared up just enough brighter to create perfectly clear silhouettes of every item in my room.

I stood up slowly, attributing my instability to the fact I was still waking up. I stretched out, feeling every muscle in my body tense and relax as if for the first time. It was near ecstasy; I let the feeling subside, and walked out of my bedroom.

After living in a house for eighteen years, and having the same bedroom for the greater portion of half that, I knew my way around. I knew there were exactly sixteen steps to get upstairs from the living room, and thirteen plus a quarter turn to get from the kitchen to the basement. I knew that it was exactly six paces from one set of stairs to the other. I knew, from eighteen years of mucking about in the dark so my parents - excuse me, parent - wouldn't hear me crashing into things as I snuck down to get a snack or whatever it was I thought couldn't wait until daylight. I knew exactly how much taller the doorframes were than I was. I knew. This is why I ran into the one joining my room to the upstairs hallway and nearly knocked myself out cold.

I didn't realize it then. I just accounted it to my personal giddiness to being rid of pain as that concussion faded into memory. Perhaps some part of me joked for a moment that I needed some pain to tide me over for the day.

By some miracle, I didn't trip or scratch myself or even feel anything more than being shaky on my feet as I made my way to the basement. It's like some cuts and bruises: sometimes you don't notice until you see the blood. Then, the pain flares and you finally pass out from the three pints you dribbled on the way to where you were. I stumbled into the bathroom and flipped on the small overhead lamp; when I looked in the mirror to see how badly my hair needed washing, the reflection I saw made me shut off the light and sit down on the tile floor in the darkness.

There were four basic things I expected every morning. First. I expected to wake up. Given, I wouldn't realize if I didn't wake up, because I'd either be in a dream or coma or perpetual harmony with some other realm. Second. I expected to know what time it was; my clock had stated roughly five A.M. Third. I expected to be able to look in the mirror and know who I was looking at. This was touch-and-go while I sat in the dark; it also is my basis for my next point.

Fourth. I expected that face in the mirror to be mine.

I think everyone has a right to that last point. When you wake up, you expect to be you; you do not expect to be someone else, and you certainly do not expect that the someone else - should such a thing even remotely be possible - not be human. That's how I thought. I was human, and I think the others will agree that the majority of us were not completely comfortable with wild, abrupt changes. An earthquake in North Dakota would easily have pushed us to insanity. In California, where such things are more common, people were more prepared in the event one might happen. However, if California - the southern part - were to have a North Dakota blizzard, people would be out proclaiming the End of the World as We Knew It while others froze to death waiting for a bus. We, on the other hand, still had to make it to classes in Fahrenheit temperatures to past twenty degrees below zero, even if it meant bumping said classes back an hour so the plows could clear the main roads and allocate time to allow people to defrost their tires.

My point is this: I preferred having a choice with a major decision. Most people would. Sometimes it's understandable. Say, should the place where I worked suddenly issue mandatory overtime to take care of call forecasts - yes, our call volume was forecasted, with a bit more accuracy than our weather forecasts. That action would be understandable, even if they didn't give us the choice to volunteer for the hours first. But something like one's family deciding it would be a good idea to just pick up everything and move to another country? I'd like to state my points for choosing Ireland over Italy for a destination, and perhaps even toss in something on my reluctance to leave the country, state, city, and house I was living in.

I hadn't moved, and I hadn't been sentenced to overtime helping the seventy-three-year-old nearsighted arthritic grandmother of sixteen children install a hard drive, CD-ROM, new RAM, and a replacement motherboard for the one she had shorted out trying to do the same thing with the system plugged in and turned on. I reached up, flicking on the light switch. I didn't look at my arms or legs; I kept my eyes fixed on the mirror and watched as the face staring back at me came into view.

Gray eyes. Dark nose, set on the end of a short muzzle covered in blue fur. Gray hair between my blue-furred ears - which had relocated to the top of my head. Gray tufts at the tips of those ears, ears that could only be on the head of a fox. A muzzle that could only have been that of a fox. Teeth... nose... whiskers... all attached to a fox. An indigo fox. An alien indigo fox. It had to be; there was no other possibility.

Fate had saw fit to twist reality inside out; what had only been a thought inside my head, a character for the Internet and for stories, it - he was now encasing me. I was Jadyn Tzeki.

First thought. "I'm dreaming."

Counterpoint. "My dreams are not this clear."

Second thought. "I'm dead."

Counterpoint. "Why would I be in our bathroom if I were dead?"

Third thought. "I've been sucked into a plot."

This one I couldn't counter. There was no denying the fact that I had dreamed of being him, if even only for a little while. The grace and dexterity of a fox, the intelligence of a sentient creature, and the wisdom of a creature nearly forty times my senior. I never dreamed that it would even be faintly possible. And then, using a very technical term: I freaked out.

Abridged version: I declared myself insane.

I don't know if it was from terror or joy or horror or pure rapturous amazement. I screamed long and loud. Something screamed with me, around me, inside me. Something welcoming and complete; something like jumping into a vat of warm tapioca, with only a hint of a black oil that had tainted the container long after the tapioca had been there, and eating as much as you could regardless of the oily taint before you had to come up to breathe. It was a flood. And then something happened.

The lights exploded in perfect sequence, each one of the seven above the mirror strobing a single time before it shattered, followed in a duet by the two in the ceiling. It could not have been conducted any more perfectly.

Watching the display bade me to fall silent as darkness consumed the greater part of the light in the room. The warmth was gone as well, and I thought I could almost feel - though not quite - that it was still there, somewhere. I waited for the debris to stop showering on my head before I dared to move an inch. I hadn't screamed loud enough for anything to break. I knew that much. I'd screamed louder than that just by having someone jump at me in the dark.

I didn't even have a pitch high enough to crack glass, let alone shatter it.

The light by the steps outside the bathroom was still in one piece and emitting light; I could see that not a one of the mirrors was cracked. It was only the light bulbs in the bathroom that had blown apart, and only the ones that were screwed into a socket. The three spares were fine.

I began to think about what was going on. I had been transformed to that of a character I had written about. Notice: I do not state that I created or imagined him; only that I wrote of him. Some believed that a book created a world, others that the book merely was a rediscovered link to a world that already existed. A third group - who made a game and a trio of books about it - thought that at one point, the book could literally take you inside that world. Not just with the imagination, but physically draw you across the barriers between such worlds just by touching a page. I didn't dare take the chance of calling myself his creator. I thought of myself as seeing the possibility that such a universe might exist out there somewhere.

As I said, I was thinking about the fact that the lights had blown up for no particular reason. The switch for the seven above the mirror was off; had it been a surge, they all should have come on at once. The two in the ceiling were on different circuits. One, a heat lamp, had a timer, and the other was a simple on-off variety that had been on.

After roughly five minutes of standing there, trying to figure out what I wasn't seeing, it felt as though my entire body had opted out for a blood transfusion. The only difficulty? Liquid oxygen instead of blood. I'd always enjoyed winter; I'd learned to live with the frigid temperatures one can expect and turn it into fun. This... sensation... It was above and beyond jumping into a frozen lake. This was... No. To get the full effect, you'd have to cut a hole in a frozen lake, then jump in and wait for three hours before you reached a level of chill still not quite what I was subjected to. Somehow - I don't know how - I knew a hot shower wouldn't help. It was almost like a feverish allergic reaction, but other than the cold I was completely clear-headed.

I managed to creep out of the bathroom without getting any shards of glass in my feet. The chill began to fade as I went up the steps, and by the time I had reached the top of the flight I wondered what exactly it was like to be inside a microwave, which just happened to be inside a smelting furnace in low solar orbit. I drank at least three pints of water - two went on the floor because of the fact I no longer owned a mouth made for human cups - but it didn't alleviate the broiling of my flesh.

Within another minute and a half, I was cold again. All through it, this disgusting, foul, greasy flavor crawled through my mouth, almost as though something I had eaten had been fried in SAE 10W-30. That's motor oil, just in case Those-Who-May-Be-Reading are not historians. Definitely not something you use in a wok for the best results.

I did the only thing I had mind enough to do; to keep from falling over onto something that would not be good to fall on, I lied down in the middle of the kitchen and endured it. Hot, cold, hotter, colder, warmer, cooler. Temperatures suited for cremation, with hypothermic freezes on the tail end. It made me want to vomit, but I couldn't.

It was three hours later, according to the microwave clock, before I could open my eyes and not feel sick. The sun was already well above the trees, and I could clearly make out the sound of birdsong outside. The room was no longer dancing around my body and I was only a little chilly from being on the floor. We - my human family - avoided turning on the furnace until the water pipes threatened to break or there was frost on the floor when we woke up, being as it saved on the cost of heating our home. We all had down comforters on our beds - my apologies to the avians, but at that time it wasn't seen as wrong.

I stood up slowly. Out of a then-new reflex, I shook out my fur. A flurry of glass left me, flying around the kitchen, but by the time I realized what I was doing or what was making the noise it was all out of my coat. I didn't bother to clean it up; I had to get to a room without glass on the floor and a mirror that I could look at myself with.

I ran upstairs, still shaky on my legs, and stopped in the bathroom. This one had a full-height mirror on the door, and I'm glad for it - without that, I would have had a difficult time finding out what I looked like.

It was... peculiar. I was taller, and I knew it. I remembered to duck before I went in there, that time. The only time for three days following, as I recall. Very dark blue fur covered my body for the most part. In dim light I could see where it could be seen as black, or a simple trick of the light. In the morning sunshine, however, there was no way to mistake it. A splash of silver-gray, almost identical to that of a spider's web, ran from under my chin - muzzle, I corrected myself, I don't have a chin now - from there and down. It spread out over my chest, darkening slightly as it dropped and ended just under my tail.

Tail. That was a shock in itself. It looked like a huge dead furry serpent had attached itself just over my posterior. It was just as responsive; the only way I moved it was by picking it up with my hands. It was as long as I was tall, or just about; it had been a feature of his species of vulpine, but his had been longer than most by about a foot. The indigo fur was thick, almost downy. A small bit of gray on the tip made it look like I had dipped the last five inches in a bucket of paint.

It was completely wrong - yet completely right - as I felt the sensation of touch several feet further out than it was supposed to be. Humans did not have tails, as a rule set in stone by Nature itself. I never had lost any appendages, but stories I had heard of people who had getting ghost pains from the missing limbs came to mind as I ran my fingers through the new appendage grafted onto my body.

Another sight caught my mind, pulling me away from the study of my tail. My hands had lost one digit each - I now had only three fingers plus a thumb. They looked rather strange near the end, like there was an extra joint, and out of curiosity - though I did already know what it was, somehow - I tensed up my hands. Razor sharp claws extended in place of fingernails. I tested one on the wood cabinet, and it left a deep gouge that no one could miss.

Looking at the wood cabinet, another thing caught my attention from the corner of my eyes. My feet were no longer the flat-footed variety I had grown accustomed to after eighteen years of walking. It explained my problems with staying steady: my bone structure had shifted significantly, and I was now up on my toes - digitgrade, I recalled - instead of being level on the floor. I had lost a toe on each foot as well as gaining claws.

I realized my shoes were not going to fit.

It was while considering this that the thought of what I was going to do in society - human society - finally came to mind. Even those thoughts kept straying to fascination at what I was looking at. I didn't think anything of my lack of attention to any given point; for me, it always was normal. I consider myself to be a good standing definition of Random Access Memory. I could... disable it, in a way. It wasn't hard to focus on one specific thing, but it wasn't any fun.

I finally decided I was in over my head; perhaps I was going mad and imagining that I looked like a character I had written about? People were admitted to wards to help with such things for less than I was seeing. I needed a second opinion. I needed... something. Something that someone could tell me that stated I was either seeing what I thought I was seeing, or to sign me away to a padded cell.

I rapped on the door to my mother's room, and cracked it open slightly to peer inside. A paper-like light rustled quietly as the moving air reached it; there was no other sound in the room. The bed was ruffled as though it had been slept in and abandoned; a cold cup of tea sat next to the phone. Wherever she had gone, she had been in a hurry.

I checked my brother's room, just out of curiosity. His bed was always in a state of being unmade, so it was no surprise to see it that way. His alarm clock was beeping softly, and I shut it off before I went back downstairs. It didn't come as a shock that neither was home at that moment. He had a paper route, and she usually drove him along it. Afterwards, they sometimes went to get breakfast.

I managed my way back downstairs. I knew that my feet were different that time, and something in my head clicked. I was still unsure about walking, but I was much more stable. Making a turn into the living room, I hopped onto the couch -

And got back up with a yelp. Something bit me.

It took me at least a full minute to realize that the sudden pain I had been graced with had been my own fault. Now equipped with such vulpinoid things like, say, a tail, it could have been thought that by sitting down on it I might indeed bend it the wrong way and hurt myself. In my case, I had completely forgotten I had the thing. It was only the first of many times over several weeks...

I began to make a mental summary of the four hours since I had come out of the dream. I woke up as a creature not human. Hence, I was no longer a human. However, I was a character I had imagined and written about in what I thought to be fiction.

I wasn't worried about that.

Why should I have been? I had been abruptly dropped into a new body with different abilities - the likes of which I hadn't even seen the surface of, let alone scratch it - and I didn't seem to be going crazy. The most surprising thing, though, is this: it felt absolutely correct. In fewer words, it fit. It wasn't uncomfortable - other than the throbbing of my tail, of course - and it made me wonder if being human had been wrong. I still question that.

However... Certainly such a social society as paranoid as we were would take poorly to accepting a six foot tall indigo fox. Such things were not keeping with the status quo, and humans as a unit for the most part were stubborn to accept changes. The likely outcome of being seen would have been the capture and extensive study of my person. A loss of freedom, because I was what they would have called 'a freak.' I realized this back then, too, and considered disappearing that night. I actually began planning for it in my mind before something dropped a question of what was on TV into my thoughts.

As usual, I completely forgot about what I had been thinking prior to that and began to question on what made me think to check what was on. It was rather worthless when I turned it on; it seemed that the cable company was having problems with their equipment - as usual - and there was nothing but commercials or blank pictures or snow on every channel except the digital music. I left it tuned to the 'New Age' channel and flicked on the stereo, relaxing to the beat of something distinctly Celtic.

After another hour, I began to wonder what had become of the rest of my family. Pulling myself to my feet, I made my way back into the kitchen and glanced around. My mother's cellular phone was on the table, next to mine; again, not surprising. It seemed that the times one really needed to get in touch with her, she forgot to take it with. There were no messages to be seen. Even the answering machine was devoid of anything new.

The one thing that did concern me was that her purse was on the table. She never left that behind if she went somewhere. Her keys, money, credit cards, everything was in that leather bag - and it was on the table.

I was beginning to get a total value not equal to the sum of the parts. I knew what I was looking for, and probably expected it as I looked out the front window. I was hoping I wouldn't see them there; to not have seen them would have been a ray of hope against what something in the back of my mind was beginning to push towards me. It wasn't the cars; both Harleys, my Explorer, and her Jeep were there. No, those were not the problem. The big sign that something was severely amiss was much smaller than that, and was made of two bundles on our front step.

The papers hadn't been touched.

-

Within fifteen minutes I had called fifty-seven phone numbers. Ten of those were comprised of family and friends, one was my place of employment, and the rest were numbers picked randomly from the phone book. No one answered a single one. A new problem presented itself while I was making those calls; humans were designed with ears on the side of the head. As such, any communications device made for the head was built with that in mind. My ears were now on the top of my head, and did not fit the standard.

I left the computer to dial numbers randomly and decided that if there was anyone around, I didn't have any resignation at that point to letting them see me. My hopes were slim, though, and I knew it. I didn't think I'd be able to handle my motorcycle right then, with the way my feet had been rebuilt; shifting was all on the left toes. Figuring out how to handle the Explorer was a task, as well. After nearly slamming my tail in the door - I saw it at the last moment - I managed to shift around enough to allow for somewhat normal driving. Thank the Light that I went with an automatic transmission...

My first stop was just down the hill to a local hospital. Ten minutes inside presented no patients, nurses, maintenance people, no one. The medicine smell made me sick to my stomach, and I had to get out before I left a mess on their floor. I didn't need to witness my breakfast again.

After finding no one there, I crossed the street to the county jail. No one was at the front desk, and I didn't think it would be good form to break in. I did a tour of what was open, then left and went to my next target.

The shopping mall. It was locked up tight, lights out, stores closed. The parking lot had a few abandoned cars in it, as usual. To add an unusual twist, six were running, and had been parked against things and left in gear - one was conveniently parked inside the mall, so I didn't even have to break in to look around. The roll-away gates they used to cut off moviegoers from the rest of the mall after closing were still firmly in place, and there wasn't a trace of anyone around. All the shops were locked up tight.

Next stop: my place of employment. I worked for a company that did a number of 'out sourcing' tasks for companies - for example, taking a portion of technical support calls for various computer vendors. Ours was running 24 hours a day, every day of the year - save for those days we got snowed out, of course. There was a nominal number of cars parked in the lot from the graveyard shift, so whatever had happened hadn't been so gradual as to scare everyone away. The fact that it had to have been sudden was a welcome thought: if everyone was really gone, at least it had been quick.

I keyed the electronic lock and took a loop around the inside. The light on the phones indicating there were calls waiting was on; other desks where people had likely been seated varied from indicating a break or an open line with a range of notes on each computer screen. I stopped at my own desk and logged in; call after call that was in the queue I took, only to be presented with dead silence on the other end. All except the last one.

I had given up on an opening script after the second call, settling on a simple 'is anyone there?' After sixteen dead ends, I had considered logging out - for all the good that would do - but picked up the last line anyway.

"Hello? Is there anyone there?"

Silence. I reached for the release button, when someone answered. The line was filled with static as though it was ready to drop, but the voice was unmistakably there:

"Yes... Oh, thank God... Please, you've got to tell me that I'm not going insane..."

"That depends. Did you wake up as someone else too?"

Static filled the silence, cutting up parts of her somewhat relieved reply. "You too? Is - anyone - - - where you are?"

"Not that I've found. The line's breaking up - where are you at?"

More static clouded her reply; all I made out before it went completely dead was 'South Dakota' and 'Please.' The inbound call light shut off, along with the queue light. There was no one left to talk to. The knowledge that there, in my home town, I was completely alone, finally sunk in.

I sat down under my desk and cried.

     /Jadyn. Lift your head, young one./

     That was the first thing I heard - that I felt, rather - in several hours that had made any sense at all. The mix of thought and sound was calming, soothing, caring... Understanding. I looked up to find my place of work gone; what I did see made no sense whatsoever. The area that I found myself in was a contradiction. It was day and night; there was fog, but it wasn't humid. There was no wind as it swirled past me. The place existed, for I was there, but I knew it was all in my head. I looked at my hands momentarily; it took effort to realize I was human again.

     You see yourself how you think you still are. You cling to it like a person does a log after a shipwreck.

     "Who's there?"

     The voice was strong then, both in my ears and mind, and a shape coalesced out of the fog. It was the form of what I had waken up as, worn by a distinctly different persona. "The one who is also you."

     I screamed for the second time that day, more out of surprise than anything. The effect was still the same; the entire vista shattered around me, plunging me back into reality. I was still under the desk. The fur around my eyes was wet with tears; a nearby clock stated it was near four PM. Pulling myself out of the gloomy melancholy, I spent time passing off what I had seen as nothing more than a daydream. My self-preservation had been trying to shake me out of depression, that had to be it. Right?

     Well.

     I gathered my personal items, setting the outer door to remain open while I took things out individually. Two clocks; one that was backwards and ran that way, the other a unit that used gravity to show the time. Some scribbled art that I had made, along with books I kept with me for reading in slow times. The various recognitions that I had earned by doing good work. A string of plastic purple Mardi Gras beads that a very peculiar lady I worked with had given me before she quit.

     I also broke into the training lab and commandeered a decked-out PII-450 with all the software I thought I might use at some point or another. It wasn't going to be put to any use just sitting there, after all...

     After loading up the things into the back of my vehicle, I shut the door to the building and walked around it twice, knowing that I wouldn't be back to look at it anytime soon. Just before climbing into my car to leave, I took my door badge off, and nearly tossed it aside. It had been two years of enjoyable employment, a period of time definitely marked as a good memory. The beginning software accounts; the training of the permanent account; the people who had made it fun and lighthearted.

     I clipped the badge to my rearview mirror, where it had traditionally hung, and drove home.    

     A correction. I made a side trip. Minot was sprawled out over a river valley; I went to an edge on the north end and parked, sitting on the hill and watching the sun set. It hurt to look at the city. Not because of what it had been, but rather, it hurt for what I remembered it as. Home. It was silent, save for the breeze blowing westward and rustling leaves and blades of grass. It felt empty, and I could almost hear the sounds of life if I listened closely. They were all imagination, all memories of what had been.

     I knew then i was leaving it. I didn't want to go, but my life as I had known it had ended. There was no one here, but there had been someone else on the other end of that phone line - someone, it seemed, who was in a situation similar to mine. Possibly alone, transformed, left with a hollow shell of what had been a lively, thriving city.

     Someone somewhere in South Dakota.

     I had about as much chance at locating them as I did learning to fly. Little did I know the probability of the latter actually happening... but I digress. I didn't discover that ability until several years after making it here, to Williamsburg, and it's not a part of this recollection.

     It was nearly dark before I made it home. I fed the cats, who seemed to accept me - barely. But, I was giving the food, and I must have had some scent similar to who I had been for within an hour they were tolerating my presence. It was a week before they'd let me touch them without hissing. I turned the snakes loose in a coolie several hundred feet beyond our backyard, and they slithered off to their freedom expediently. After that, I fed myself, then plopped down and pulled out my cello for what felt like the first time. I began simple; having one less finger, I had to adapt my playing and shifting. I churned out a decent play off of 'Twinkle twinkle little star' before I went to bed.

     I did not dream that night. At least, no dreams that I remembered. I half wished I would wake up and find everything normal again, as though the entire day was perhaps a dream. I knew better, but I had hope. When I woke up that next day, hitting my head on the doorframe again, I knew that it was as real as what had been before it.

     I began making preparations to leave over the next several days. Packing, and repacking, then repacking again. I took my favorite tee-shirts - they were all huge over my toned vulpine form, but I liked them - as well as several pairs of jeans and shorts that I had picked up and adjusted for a tail. I couldn't work a needle and thread, so I just used a claw to rip a gouge out of the seat and threaded my tail through there. Shoes were a lost cause. Sunglasses nearly were as well, until I found a store that wasn't out of the elastic bands most people used so they wouldn't lose their glasses. They kept them on my head, since there were no ears for them to rest on.

     I also picked up a lot of straws. I had made enough messes to figure out that a muzzle wasn't made for cups. It made me wonder why I hadn't considered it in any of the stories I had written.

     Three days after the Change had occurred, the utilities - power and telephone - finally died. Water would last as long as the towers were full, and I wasn't sure when to expect the natural gas lines to falter. I packed up the rest of the computer equipment- comprised of three Macs, an Amiga, and a Nintendo 64 - as well as some of the stereo equipment and every piece of music in the house. Following that over the next four days was our extensive library of books, which I sorted neatly in shipping boxes and taped shut. All thirteen hundred books, divided among five huge shipping boxes, were strapped down onto a small flatbed trailer and hooked to the back of my vehicle.

     The two Harleys went on right behind those. There's just some things you CANNOT leave behind. I knew I'd find a way to learn to ride them with my new feet. I was determined. I eventually won.

     I stuffed what space I had left in the back of my Explorer with food and water. The two cats, placed neatly in porta-kennels to keep them out of the meat despite their thoughts on the matter, went up in the front passenger seat. Blankets were stuffed into what space was left after that. My cello, clad in a weatherproof case, went on the trailer with the motorcycles and books.

     There is one small thing I forgot to mention. On the day after the Change, I was making the beds of both my brother and mother. It seemed to be the right thing to do, to leave them in a condition of order. While I was making hers, I found one of her necklaces on the pillow, arranged neatly with the focus at the bottom center: a fine, golden four leaf clover, with a small diamond sitting between the four leaves. She wore it all the time. Only when doing something like water-skiing or swimming did she take it off, only to keep from losing it. A close friend had given it to her, and it was symbolic for their relationship. I haven't taken it off more than five times since I found it.

     Call me a sentimental fool if you will, but it's kept me out of trouble more times than I can count.    

     Minot, compared to the rest of our state, was a decent sized city. Thirty-thousand people is a lot in one area, in my opinion. The streets were not busy at night, so I had seen fairly few vehicles the day after the Change that were running and 'parked in motion.' Only one was wrapped around a tree. For the most part, the ones that had been going were either in ditches or against the curb, idling peacefully.

     That was different when I made for the highway connecting our city to the state capitol, a hundred and seven miles south. What normally was a two-hour drive took me five and a half hours, simply because there were seven overturned semi trucks. One had obviously been gasoline, by the scent, and had burned a good portion of the surrounding land. There was no way to move it, leaving my only option to backtrack and go south on the other lane. The next three were grain trucks, then another gasoline tanker, another grain, and the last one was a moving company. Furniture was all over the highway. It wasn't in very good condition by then, of course...

     I pulled into Bismark at about two in the afternoon, stopping at five different RV lots as I made my way around. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep using the Explorer for everything with the amount of stuff I had. I needed living space, and it was hard to do that with a vehicle lacking a kitchen. I wasn't disappointed: the fourth lot had a huge RV - a veritable Land Train - that none of the other could match. A family of eight could have lived in there for a vacation, or a travelling fox with two cats and too many possesions. Lucky for me that I fell to the latter.

     I did some shopping locally for the rest of the week. There were certain essentials one has to have: food, water, power, gas, music. I stocked up on canned goods and non-perishables, filling the cupboards and refrigerator and every other space that didn't get used for things like clothing, computers, or cello. I also picked up several gallons of distilled water, filling the water tank of the Land Train - I think I painted that on the front bumper of the RV - and storing full bottles back in the Explorer. I also found a very handy water distilling unit, which conveniently fit in one of the under-floor storage compartments.

     Power was a problem. I wanted to run a single computer; the RV's power system could handle it, so long as it's generator was running. The caveat? I couldn't have the crystal-clear and perfect sounds of the Land Train's inegrated audio system on at the same time, as it overloaded the generator. The solution was simple. Pick up a bigger generator, and lash it to the trailler if necessary.

     I got two instead. Hey, they were inexpensive. Needless to say I had to get a bigger trailer. I wasn't leaving my Explorer behind, and I did not consider for the breifest moment to part with either of the motorcycles. Plus, there came the next element: gas. I picked out a three-hundred gallon spare tank - made of light but strong plastic - and mounted it to the front of the new trailler, then moved the Harleys behind it, then pulled the Explorer up as far as I could. It worked out well, and balanced out perfectly when the tank was filled with fuel. The generators? Don't ask. It wasn't precisely safe.

     It was hauling the generators - one at a time - that I realized something rather disturbing. As a human, I would have barely been able to get one end of the bulky things into the air, let alone carry it. They were still heavy as it was, but I knew that I was not supposed to be able to lift them. After I had them moved, I pulled out the manual and flipped to where it stated the specifications. The figure still haunts me: ;;;;;;;REM GET A WEIGHT (sorry, I'm a CS major in progress, and semicolons are what I think first);;;;;;

     The cats had adapted to me by the end of the week. Lint - as I liked to call him - was always the calm one; Calamity tended to keep his distance until he got something to eat. They had free run of the Land Train, save for the bedroom in the back, and I made sure to keep all the food securely locked up so they wouldn't get ideas. I had left out a bag of potato chips - not opened - and came back to find a shredded bag and no chips. Conclusion. If you want to lose weight, get a pet and leave what you want to eat in the open.

     Finally: Music. This was no problem. I brought in all the tapes and CDs, sorted them alphabetically - a chore, to say the least. But, I could find what i wanted to listen to. I fell asleep to the sounds of Pachabel's Canon, and woke to rain the next day. I always liked rainstorms - especially thunderstorms - and as I went south, I wasn't disappointed. The lightning, the thunder... nature's very own symphony, and I had the front row seat.

     It was a good day.    

     I left Bismark, heading southward. It was slow going, simply because I hadn't used the route I was on more than once, and that once I had been a half-sleeping passenger who had just rolled a car onto a side you don't normally park on. Wheels up is bad. There was another route I could have used, but it required backing up about fourty miles, and I didn't care to do that. Regardless, I made it to the place I was looking for: My grandparents' farm.

     No; not a farm... Calling it a ranch would be more appropriate. Perhaps just 'homestead' will do... They did little growing of plants, other than flowers in the front of the house and possibly hay for the cows. It wasn't the picture of a big cattle ranch like you read in books. It just felt more like a farm.

     The house itself sat a mile or so north of the State border; their mail came from Morristown, South Dakota, a city not so much as an eighth-mile south of the border with a Main Street roughly half that length. I remember as a kid being utterly confused by how they could get a South Dakota address for a lot on North Dakota soil. To an eight year old mind, it didn't map out. South Dakota was like a foreign country in that mind, and Canada was local.

     Canada being local? We had a lake that sat right on the international border, and one didn't need a passport to sneak over for some really good ice cream at the little resort. They had neat money, too.

     Meanwhile, back at the ranch... The cats that always hung around the door seeking scraps shied away from me as I got out of the Land Train. Even the grandparents' old dog Muffin kept a fair distance as I walked up to the door and knocked on it. There was no answer, of course, but it was unlocked. I let myself in. The place was still the picture of order that I remembered. The kitchen was spotless, the countertops clear save for canisters of flour, sugar, and other cooking goods. The living room with its red carpet was neat and tidy, not so much as a speck of dust on anything. The only thing that seemed alive, though, was a browning bowl of salad in the refrigerator. Right before the rotting scent forced me to close the door, I think it winked. My nose was hard at work in the interim, though: tomatoes, lettuce, carrots, and green peppers had all gone into that bowl, and would not be coming out anytime soon.

     My main goal, however, was their store of frozen meat in the cellar. The deep freeze there was still quite cool, as its insulation was somewhat better. Being in the cool of the underground likely helped as well. I was not disapointed with my findings in there: ground beef and pork were the prime items, while various cuts of steaks were also present and accounted for. I took as much as I could and filled the Train's freezer and fridge - I had to turn it as cold as it could go, and it easily went just as low as the freezer - as well as using up space in a trio of thermoelectric coolers.

     By the time I finished rearranging and sorting and picking what I wanted, I figured the supply would last me about eight months if I took it easy. I had discovered that true to the way I had imagined Jadyn, I had stayed a full omnivore. I love food; the preparation and serving of a meal is as much of an art as painting. A meal that tastes good comes out better if it looks better. I loved salads as much as meat; I was very much pleased that I could still eat both.

     I stayed at the farm for a just over a week, taking walks out through the pastures, enjoying the clean air and sunsets over the prairie, letting my mind clear and the stress of everything vaporize. When I was certain there was no more I could carry, I set out what was left of the meat for the cats and dog to feast upon. I had planned on opening some of the gates so that the cattle could get to the bales of hay and the other pastures of grass, but I found the main ones already open. Even the cows kept their distance from me; only one thought about charging, and it made a final split second choice and swerved around. I hadn't been scared as it ran, for some reason - I could feel that it wasn't going to hit me, and refused to move out of the way.

     Looking back at it not five minutes later, my knees gave out as I realized how much of an idiot I had been. I could have touched it as it went by. I could have been very much a flat fox, too.

     I spent the last night sleeping on the roof of the Land Train, searching the faint flickers of the stars above my head and watching the Aurora Borealis. The supernova had long since faded in the weeks following the Change, but its image was still burnt into my memory. The soft, pulsating glow, the strobing warmth I had begun to feel each night that I watched it... The warmth, however, had shifted, and was now there just out of my sight and grasp. The more I focused on it, the further it seemed to drift away, but still always was there... And for some reason that I did not understand, the taint was all but gone. Out in the country, the energy had distilled to a pure state; when nearing urban areas or other major structures, it either faded away or became coated in the equvelent of ethereal crude oil. I didn't have to touch it to feel the disgusting blackness crawling around it. At some points over the entire trip, the blackness itself had felt nearly sentient, and seething with hate...

     Sleep came slowly on that final night at the farm, most likely due to the fact that I was not going to be back in my State for some time - if ever. I still have several dozen snapshots of prarie sunsets around somewhere, but a photo of a sunset is nothing like a real one. They're simply beautiful, ever-changing natural works of art, and those out on the open fields of the prarie are quite nearly spiritual. The browns of the land, combined with the golden rays of sunlight and the ornages and reds and purples cast upon the clouds... Words can only harm the image, I'm sorry.

     When I finally did drift off, it was a restless slumber filled with uncomfortable dreams. Lost friends and family, fears of what might happen, dreams along those lines. A replay of the first night nearly flew by, then came the one I remember most clearly. Even if I had not written it down, I would still have it up in my mind. Jadyn - not myself, but a different one, perhaps *the* one - was there, examining me, apprasing me as though I was some sort of art. I could see through my peripheral vision that I was human again, but not much else was visible in the rolling fog. I could not move, nor speak; even thinking was difficult. I had never been drunk - I was only eighteen, after all - but I wondered if my mental capacity was equivelent to that state.

     "This is the mind I have to work with? ... I've seen better. I've seen worse, too. Not bad, I must say... I suppose we can work things out over time. We do have a lot of it."

     A grey vixen appeared next to him, glancing at me momentarily with a smile before facing him. "At least I was able to find you. Though, I cannot stay long. Visits to you will be few and far between if we are lucky."

     "I will pray that luck will shine upon us. I do thank you for what you did tell me."

     "I only wish I could say more -"

     "Don't. We both know you can't without pushing 'do not interfere' any further than we have. I do believe they only make the exception because of our bond... Such a disturbance as this universe experienced must have put holes in the Tapestry a ship could fly through."

     "Bigger, she tells me. I must go. Until later, my love." The vixen vanished, and the fox looked back at me after staring at the fog for several minutes. He had been crying, it seemed, but was only slightly red-eyed as he turned back in my direction. I wasn't sure what to think, but I felt I was most certainly going mad. I decided frozen pizza was not a good bedtime snack. Cooking it would have been a good idea too, but I had been lazy...

     "I do hope you don't panic again... What to call you? You are no longer who you were, and neither am I... I suppose, in light of your new form, 'Jadyn' will do quite nicely." He was beginning to fade, and I realized I was fuzzy and blue again. "It took me days to collect my wits after you shattered what little communication I had built to you. A domino effect, you might call it... Tonight is a simple 'heads-up' to let you know that you really are not going mad. Buhbye."

     Everything disappeared. What would classify as normal sleep began again. I woke up the next morning soaking wet; it had apparently been raining for several hours, and somehow I slept through it - thunder and all. My blanket was missing, but I found it in the mud when I got down from the roof. It took me a few hours to dry myself out, and by then the sun was out again and making an attempt to dry everything out. Such is the weather in North Dakota. Wait half an hour and it will be different.

     I made my way across the border into South Dakota, stopping at a small town called Lemmon to check for any signs of life. I had been there several times in the past: family reunion of dad's side, a few weddings, grandparents' anniversary. All I found was broken-in shops and some wildlife that had crept into town. I picked up some more water and left everything else behind.

     The next several weeks of travel were nothing amazing. I went down through Belle Fourche, Sturgis, Lead, cut east and went through Pierre and Huron... Then I crossed over the James river and continued south along its banks. The scenery was beautiful, the towns devoid of life. Several places looked as though some sort of firefight had gone on, though no bodies or anything more than vehicles with bullet holes hinted at who or what had exactly happened. Every place was a veritable ghost town, until I reached Sioux City. It was there that I found my first friend, and made a first enemy. But, first things first.

     I arrived in town a bit after midday in late August. It was far too warm out in my opinion, but instead of wasting gas with air conditioning I had a trusty supply of ice water by my side. I had never been to the city before - very few were the towns of South Dakota that I had actually seen - and it took several hours of driving around in circles before I figured out where exactly I was on the map. All that time, I kept getting glances of what seemed to be a fuzzy van. The only problem with this van is that every time I managed to figure out where it had turned, there was no sign of it. I began to get a feeling that I was being hunted.

     It is NOT a pleasant feeling to be hunted. Sure, some of you might still play hide-and-seek, or have friendly run-by-pouncings. Those, I even enjoy. This, however... I knew in the core of my being that this hunter was out for blood, and I wanted to keep mine right where it was.

     It was well past four in the afternoon when I finally took the correct sequence of turns and pulled up to the Gateway computer plant. I wanted to get some spare parts for the one I had taken from my place of work. And since everyone had seeminly taken leave of existance, who would miss them? I could pick up some other software and accessories as well. Or not, as it turned out.

     After driving around their facilities, I picked what was likely the front entrance and pulled up to it. No sooner did I shut off the engine than a feeling of dread crept up my spine. On a level other than physical, a dark cloud had slithered into a ray of sunshine - my very own personal ethereal sunbeam - throwing a cold shadow over my skin. A thought rode out in front of the chill, waving a mental red flag, forcing its way to the front of my mind and pleading with me to listen. The only result was to spark my curiosity with what could be wrong with the place, and that tiny spark flared and burnt away my common sense.

     I hopped out of the Train, locking the doors and heading to the building. The main door was secured well, but a large window nearby had been smashed with a rock for entry. There was blood on the ground near it, my nose immediately placing it to be only a few hours old. It also registered another scent mixed with it, that of a lady vulpe. I don't know which surprised me more - that I could tell how long it had been there, that I knew what sex and species it had been that left it, or that I knew she was scared to death.

     Knocking off more of the glass along the bottom of the window to keep from slicing myself open, I gently pulled myself up and over the frame. The floor inside was covered with broken shards of glass; without thinking, I leapt from the window to a desk, then down to a clean section of the floor. Glancing back I realized: I, as a human, would never have landed on a desk nearly ten feet away with any grace or accuracy.

     Not unless it was at the bottom of a ten-foot-deep hole. Maybe not even then.

     There wasn't as much blood on the floor as there had been outside. I only had the vixen's scent and ocassional crimson to lead me, and true to her fox heritage she led me on quite the tour of the building. Three times I got caught on what seemed to be a route that did not loop back on itself, and three times I found myself back where I started. It twisted and turned and crossed itself so intricately I finally decided that whoever she was had mastered such mazes as one found on the last page of Discover magazine in her childhood.

     After two hours of touring and sniffing and getting lost, I was to the point of declaring her the winner and leaving to find what I came for. Stopping at one last intersection where her scent went all four ways, I picked a direction that I was half-certain I hadn't checked, and vowed it would be the last room I looked inside. Opening the double doors, I found myself in a sort of shipping warehouse; several dozen cow-spotted boxes were awaiting a delivery truck that would never arrive. Sunbeams let in by skylights made bright squares on the concrete floor, as well as creating pillars of light in the dusty air; birds rested in the rafters and on the boxes, having entered through one window that was left open.

     Even as I shut the door behind me, the thought with the flag presented itself again, waving ever more feverently. I pushed it away, eyeing all the piles of boxes and shipping crates warily. I could smell that she was in there; it was the strongest her scent had been anywhere in that entire complex. It was fear made tangible by smell. I can't explain it any more accurately. I could feel that she was in there too, by some sixth sense occurance. I spoke of the warmth already, and this sensation was directly related to that. The taint was thicker than usual - I assumed due to the area having been something of a larger city and the fact that this place had been teeming with electronic goodies - but the underlying warmth was acting as a... a connection. Something told me that whoever it was had a potential to reach that warmth. I could feel she was in there, nearby, but not where.

     I stepped into one of the pilliars of light, forcing myself to relax and wait. I was sure she was watching me; it was what I would have been doing, and I had the creeping sensation of eyes upon me. After a minute, I spoke up. "Hello? Is there anyone there?"

     I thought I might have heard a gasp. It was too short to be certain.

     "Please, I'm not armed. You can come out -"

     A gunshot and crash sounded behind me, and I spun quick enough to watch as a silohuette lowered a very large smoking pole that had apparently been pointing at a hole above the door. A pile of rubble was laying in front of the exit, blocking the only unlocked access to the room. Every single bird lifted into the air with the sound, then resettled on the rafters as though they were to be witnesses. The mental warning began beating me with the flagpole and calling me obscene names in a language I didn't speak but somehow understood - or so it felt.

     "Look like Graff get two trophy now." As the silohuette stepped into the sunlight near it, I wanted to bolt. He was what appeared to be the combined offspring of a bulldog, pig, and Mack truck, with no pants and the voice of sandpaper arguing with gravel. Several stallions I know would be jealous of what this male was sporting. I thought it was disgusting. However, of more concern was his jacket - or, rather, what was on and in that jacket. This 'hunter,' for lack of a better term, was quite literally armed to the teeth. He looked able to either start or stop a war at a whim, were there any countries left to have a war with. Rounds upon rounds of ammunition, various sizes of knives, six guns at the equivelent of hot standby... The seventh gun, a very nice rifle with a laser sight, was ready and pointed at my chest. I could nearly feel the red dot.

     "Be good fox and hold still while Graff shoot you." He lifted the rifle to his shoulder.

     I'd seen bad things done with guns. Not personally, of course - always on the news or in a television program. I did not want to be the first true-to-life example to examine, nor did I want to test my thoughts on if immortality had followed my new body. THe only thing left was to make a feeble attempt at hiding my terror. An eerie calm swept over me as I watched the Hunter, and I suddenly knew I was not alone in confronting him.

     "I think I'm lost, sir. Did you happen to see a bathroom?"

     He blinked, lowering the gun slightly, then grinned in much the way a rock doesn't. He looked as though he could eat that rock, and call it delicious. "Where is vixen?"

     "I don't know. Why?"

     "Graff plan on having fun first, then get new pelt. Two pelts now."

     "So why do you want us as trophies, anyway?"

     He laughed madly. To imagine the sound, picture a scene of someone dropping bodily organs into a wood chipper and enjoying it. "All life Graff dreamed of getting ahead! Others use Graff, throw aside, step on Graff as they go by. Now Graff turn!"

     "Being a bit literal with getting ahead, aren't you?"

     The Hunter blinked stupidly. "Litter alley?"

     I took on the tone I had used when trying to explain something to a stupid, stupid client. A good example of such a conversation:

     Client. "I'm having trouble installing Office."

     Me. "What have you done so far?"

     Client. "I click start, run, and type D:\setup. It can't find it."

     Me. "Take out the CD and read me what it says."

     Client. "'System Restoration CD.'"

     Me. "Let's put in your Office CD."

     Client. "What?"

     Me. "You did purchase Office, right?"

     Client. "Well... No."

     They usually went downhill from there.

     I adjusted my stance slightly, meeting the Hunter's gaze. "You are trying to get ahead by getting heads."

     "Oho! You funny!" He cracked up laughing; sadly, the gun did not waver. "Blue pelt look good on front of van, cover bug goo -"

     /OKAY! MY! TURN!/

     The voice shattered any thoughts I had been putting together, completely destroying what I considered a reasonable idea of reality. By the time I could think two thoughts in a row that were related, I found myself no more than a spectator in my own body. Someone else was in control. It was like looking at a flower through binoculars - it looks close enough to act upon, but it isn't there when you reach for it. I found my attempts to speak coming out as thought.

     /What is -/

     /I apologize in andvance, but SHUT UP!/ The Other one in my body interrupted, then began speaking to the beast. "Don't I even get a chance to defend myself, Hunter?"

     The Hunter picked one of his knives, dropped it, then kicked it towards me... him... us... I really don't know what to call what we were at that point, so please bear with me. The Other picked it up, looked at it for a moment, then thought at me. /Watch and learn what you can do, even with a Taint./

     The other mind was engulfed in the warmth, reforming it and channeling it into the knife. The taint stuck within the Other as it worked, but within moments, a beautifully crafted glowing sword sat in his hands. I was stunned. So was the Hunter. The Other wasn't.

     "Your turn, fat ass."

     The Hunter growled, raising his rifle and firing twice. Two swift twitches of the sword, and both bullets ricocheted back towards where they had come from. One knocked the rifle from his hands, the other grazed his arm. He took a larger gun; it had a similar result. He pulled out a few throwing knives; they were caught and returned - both very nearly gracing him with a free vasecotmy.

     Whoever this other mind was, it knew how to fight.

     "My turn for an offensive, I do believe?"

     What was left of the warmth was absorbed into the Other, then released in a bar-shaped blinding pulse through the glowing blade. It struck the chest of the Hunter, surrounding him in snakes of light as it impacted, and threw him back with unbelievable force into the concrete wall. He fell down, coughed once, then collapsed onto the floor with a bleeding nose. There were cracks in the wall where he had hit.

     I found myself suddenly back in control, with no sign of the Other's presence other than a feeling of being worn out and a disgusting taste on my tongue. It had filtered most of the taint through itself, leaving the body with very little to deal with. The knife was back to normal save for the fact that it was melted up to the hilt and glowing orange. My arms were smoking slightly as I pulled myself upright. The constant feeling of the warmth was gone, save for a tiny spark that was clearly untouchable.

     "What in the Hell..."

     "Can... Can you control... Whatever you did?"

     I looked around. It was a female's voice, most definately. "If I knew half of the how of what just happened, I might be able to make an answer. Are you alright?"

     There was a long pause, then a quiet shuffle off to my left. "He managed to shoot me in the arm before I made it here."

     I stood up stiffly, walking towards the stack of boxes I thought she was behind. No sooner than I had gotten to the other side did I see her: a short, light grey furred vixen. I took in her appearance briefly: violet eyes, black eartips, hands, and legs, black denim shorts, a darker splash of grey running over her breasts and down her belly. I admit freely: before the change I likely would have stared at those uncovered fuzzy female orbs with nothing but thoughts of reaching out to them, but this had no draw on me at that point for one simple reason. This vixen had four fluffy grey tails, each one tipped in black. All were wrapped around her person similar to how a nervous person would cluch their coat about them. My heart immediately went out to her for whatever suffering she had been forced to endure.

       The first thing that entered my mind was the irony of the situation, and I did mumble something regarding it. The next thing that caught my eyes was the once-white teeshirt wrapped around her right arm, just above the elbow. It was ready to fall off as bloodsoaked as it was; she had her left hand trying to hold it on, and held a pocketknife ready in the right.

     "If you so much as move towards me..." She waved the knife.

     "Tell me this. Would you rather try and stab me, or let me put a fresh torniquet on that?"

     She eyed me carefully, then lowered the knife slightly and switched it to her other hand. Her shirt fell off with a soggy plop. "Don't try anything."

     "Suits me fine." I pulled off my shirt, carefully wrapping it over the bullet wound and pulling it tight. She winced as I finished tying it, then waved me back with her blade. I sat down several feet from her, not moving my eyes from hers. "Do you usually greet people at knifepoint?"

     She glanced at the knife, sighed, and threw it over her shoulder. "With what you just did to the Hunter, this won't help me much. I suppose I'm at your mercy." The look I got next was back to pure intrepidation. It was clear she wasn't sure what to expect, but was assuming it to be on the bad side. "Are you... You're not... like him, are you?"

     "I'm still awake."

     She smirked, shaking her head slowly. "That isn't what I meant."

     "No. I'd prefer to think I'm more mild-tempered than that very dillusional freak. Yourself?"

     "I hope not... If I was like him, he wouldn't have been there, and you wouldn't be here..."

     "Sadly, he was and I am... I hope you don't mind, but can we get out of here before he wakes up?"

     "That sounds like a good idea..." I helped her to her feet; after she slung a bulging backpack over her left shoulder, we made our way back out of the building. It was getting close to sunset; the temperature had dropped greatly, and I was thankful for it. I helped her to the Land Train, unlocked the side door, and let her inside. SHe stopped on the step, facing me at eye level for the first time. She was only about four and a half feet tall, but strangely didn't look like a child. Just a short lady of indeterminable age.

     "What is your name?"

     "Jadyn. Yours?"

     She hesitated. "Was that your given or chosen?"

     "Chosen."

     "I suppose I'm more of Shayla than Kira now... Thank you, Jadyn. I likely would be dead if you hadn't found me before he did..."

     I nodded slightly. "Please, have a seat. You might want to lie down on the couch... I don't know how much blood you've lost, and I'm not exactly a medical student."

     "That sounds like a really good idea..."

     I shut the door, padding over to the driver's side door and opening it up. As I lifted myself into the seat, my foot kicked the shotgun under the chair, and it gave me a thought. "Be right back."

     "Where are you going?"

     "To disable his transportaion." I took the gun and walked over to where the pelt-covered van was parked. There were at least twelve different skins plastered on that van; it made me angry enough to try to push the damn thing over. The fact that I actually did get it to roll is what surprised me later. I didn't have time to be surprised then, I knew for a fact. Walking a good distance away, I lifted the shotgun, aimed at the fuel tank, and fired. The audible pain made my vision blank for a moment, but I fought it off. The first shot was way to the right; the second time, I was dead on. The vehicle was enveloped in an inferno, giving those who had contributed to his decorations something of a proper goodbye.

     "To those who I never knew, I bid you farewell... May your next incarnation have a more pleasant ending than this one."

     The Hunter came screaming out of the building. I didn't think; I simply ran for the RV, started it up, and tore out of the parking lot. He nearly caught up and hopped onto the trailer, but a toolbox took that moment to leap off and quite squarely hit him in the head. I didn't see him get up.

     "Is there anywhere you need to stop, Shayla?"

     "No... There isn't anything left for me here. Just drive... Pick a direction and go."

     We went. We went all night, and through the next day as well. It wasn't until that night that I finally had to pull off at an Amoco station and fill the tank. Shayla had slept on and off, fixing us both a sandwich or other snack once in a while, and did well at hiding the pain of her arm. I wasn't hungry, but ate anyway. I only wanted to put as much distance between us and the Hunter as I possibly could.

     The warmth gradually came back the further we got from the city. It had been normal to have sensations of it being stronger in some areas than others, but that was the fisrt time I had felt it completely disappear in one area. That night while Shayla was sleeping, I took some time to dig through some books regarding different methods for magic: ley lines, tapping natural elemental forces, using runes, things like that. Some spoke of how certain areas only had so much elemental power to use at a given time before it had to be left to regenerate; it made sense, then, that the Other who had taken over my body must have used up all that there was in that part of the world. The concequence was that it had overexerted itself and been forced out of control of the body.

     I noticed other things too that set into place. Alternating current - AC - which most of our world had been based on, seemed to destroy the natural powers around it. The stronger the flow, the more damage was done. Every time I started one of the generators, a five foot radius around them was always devoid of the warmth.

     It was the afternoon of the third day that Shayla began to show definate signs of continued blood loss. She was a bit feverish, somewhat dizzy, tired... The bleeding had slowed but not stopped. I had swapped to a different shirt over her wound; the cats had dragged off the bloody one, and I later found Lint sleeping on the tattered remains. So I did something really stupid. Perhaps it was fatigue that pushed me to it; I did not feel at all tired, but I'd been on multiple-days-without-sleep before. You get this sort of giddy feeling which I can only loosely call a high, and pretty soon you simply collapse into fifteen-plus hours of dreamless sleep.

     "Shayla?"

     "Mmmmm...?" She opened her eyes slowly, blinking off her light sleep. I knelt down next to her, untying the tornequet.

     "I'd like to try something."

     "Sure, whatever..." She yawned sleepily.

     I wasn't sure what I was doing, but after tossing the bloody shirt to the side I slowly put my hands around her bullet wound and shut my eyes. /If you can hear me at all, please help me heal her arm.../

     There was no response, so I made my own attempt. I'm a quick student, and tried my best to duplicate what the Other had done to reach that power. Every single muscle in my body locked as soon as I knew I had touched it. The warmth enveloped me, permeating my very soul, encasing me with brightness. Power coursed through my veins; every sound, smell, and sight was refoucused and sharpened to an extent I cannot place into words. It was just like the point where the lights had blown up in my home bathroom - when I had cried out then, I had somehow touched it. That time, it had been accidental. This time, I had a focused intent.

     I forced myself to think of healing rather than awe at the power. It began to collect, flowing down my arms and through my fingers. I could feel something happening, and just as I realized what was going on my right arm exploded with pain. By the Light, it was horrid... I had no knowlege of Healing then, nowhere near what I know now, and I could not feel the Other there. I was, essentially, on my own. The light and the pain dragged onward, folding and bending my mind while climbing in intensity, and just when I felt I was going to be lost between the wonderful brightness and the bleak pain I fell into someplace completely void of everything. In a sense, I ceased to exist.

     I wasn't sure how long it was that I was nowhere at all, but slowly I found myself lying on the floor of the Land Train. My entire body ached, but my right arm specifically was numb. Shayla was there at my side, taking a damp rag from my head and dropping it into a pan. "Are you okay?"

     "That's... That's supposed to be my question for you..." I tried sitting up, but was overcome by nausea and quite nearly vomited. That taint was much weaker there in the country, but what was present had been filtered through my body and stayed within. I could taste it; it matched the combined scents of coffee grounds plus oil on a hot engine quite perfectly. "How long was I out?"

     "Three hours. That was really stupid."

     I grunted in a failed effort to sit up again; stars floated through my vision. "Trying to help?"

     "Trying to help by unleasing something you had no idea how to control. Don't even try and lie, I could tell... Somehow. You did manage to heal my wound, though." She smiled slightly, showing her arm. The only sign of injury left was a large purplish bruise. I reached out to touch it, and my own arm screamed at me. Upon checking, I had a bruise that was identical, if not worse. The truth was told: to heal her, I had somehow taken much of her wound and reinflicted it upon myself.

     "So stupidity did have a reward."

     Shayla shook her head, leaning down and kissing my cheek. "I'm getting deeper and deeper in debt to you."

     "You don't owe me anything, Shayla. I mean that. A life saved or touched in friendship is never owed. I wish I knew where that phrase came from..." I tried one more time to sit up, managing only to get far enough to pull my sore body to the couch. It was a battle to even get onto it. "I'm glad I could be of service, but right now I don't think I could get up if I had to use the bathroom... You can have the back bedroom if you like."

     "Are you sure?"

     "Yeah. I only slept in it one night since I last washed the sheets, so it won't even stink bad."

     She giggled. "How thoughtful. Thank you, Jadyn... Really."

     "No problem."

     She picked up the pan from the floor, then walked back to the bedroom. I had tried to imagine what one tail would be like to watch on a sentient, but four was simply amazing to see. They danced around each other in a beautiful array of motion, but I pulled my gaze away to make sure she didn't mistake my wonder as anything else.

     I was asleep in less than two minutes.    

     It was sometime after eleven A.M. when I woke up; Shayla hadn't come around yet. I peeked into the bedroom to check on her, seeing her nestled into the comforter and sleeping soundly. I tried to place the name or the image of the character, but no online personas came to mind. I had been slowly becoming weaned of the MUCKs as it was, and lost several close friends from them due simply to not ever meshing times online. That's when I really got into writing stories about my character, trying to imagine myself as him, amplifying what insanity and oddities I already owned and reshaping it as his personality. It wasn't hard.

     I tossed a big steak on to cook, scrambling some eggs and setting them aside to mix in once the meat was done. I was no cullinary expert, but I did like to cook, and I liked to think... I like to think that I do it well. Bacon was good, especially mixed with eggs; so was steak. I added a few light seasonings to the meat, not sure how my guest liked her food done.

     While I waited, I checked on my arm. The swelling had passed quickly, and the wound was fading in color. The fur had been missing - just as though the skin had really been missing there - but was showing signs of growing back. The entire speed at which that deep injury was healing was nothing short of miraculous; I wondered how hers was doing.

     I pulled up a map program on one of the computers to take my mind off it, and stared at the screen for a while. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go; heading south had just been a thing to make a run from winter. I already spoke of our winters, though, and won't bore you again. I considered my options: head for Cupertino, off in California, to visit the headquarters of Apple Computer; go south and then east, and take a grand tour of the areas along the eastern costal States; perhaps go due east for a bit and aim for New York City?

     No. That one I wrote off right away. With who-knows-what possibly lurking there, and the fact that every city I'd been in had a Taint on the powers of the earth that floated there, I was afraid to get near NYC. With all the crime that I'd heard about, all the strange souls that lurked there, who knew what was left in the shadows of civilization? The shadows there might have literally been alive and crawling to my perceptions.

     I scanned over the states of the eastern seaboard, wondering what seemed to be appealing. Disney World in Florida was always one of my favorites. Going north, I hadn't been to any places unles you counted flying over them at several miles up. There was Washington, D.C., the nation's long time capitol. That sounded interesting, especially since I had never been there and could theoretically have free run around the White House to look around. Then, of course, at one or more of several different states, there was an ocean to swim in.

     I paused in my thoughts long enough to get up and check the meat. Slicing it open revealed that it was just to a perfect shade of pink, so I cut it into smaller pieces and mixed in the eggs. It didn't take long to finish, and as I took a small portion for myself and began to eat I decided it had been worth the effort. Shayla came out about an hour later, and I took what was left and served it to her. She looked like she was still mostly asleep, but when she began to eat her eyes opened wide.

     "Wow." She shoveled more into her mouth, then grinned at me. "A man that can cook. And well. Quite the lucky find."

     "Glad you approve."

     "Oh, this definately has the Shayla seal of approval. An A plus for breakfastliness. My dad couldn't even make toast decently."

     I sat down at the computer again, picking four states in the east and scribbling them down: Florida, Virginia, Maryland, and Georgia. I challeneged her to do the same.

     She blinked, swallowing what was in her mouth. "Any four... Okay: New York, Maine, New Jersey, Virginia. What do I win?"

     "Free ride to Virginia." I circled the match, then looked at her curiously. "How did we manage to match just that one?"

     "Dunno. What else was on there?" I read her the list, and she shook her head. "I considered two of those, but decided to go further north."

     "And Fate yanks the threads again. Well, now the question comes to if we go straight there, or if we take the big loop and avoid most of winter."

     "Avoid winter. I want to see a Christmas without snow just once. Besides, I've never been to the ocean."

     "You're kidding."

     "Nope. Can't swim either, so it isn't a big loss."

     "Miss Shayla, if it kills me, I am going to teach you how to swim. That is, if I still can with all this fur."

     We began making preparations for our tour of the southeast, and used most of the afternoon doing so. I remember distinctly one moment while I was typing stuff up, making several typos and backing up, that she took my hands and looked at them questioningly.

     "Where is your other finger?"

     "This species only had four digits on each hand. Makes typing difficult, mapping out their calendar a pain, and relearning my cello is something of an annoyance."

     Shayla's eyebrows lifted slightly as she let go. She stood and walked to the fridge to get someting to drink. "A cook and a fellow orchestra player. What else?"

     "Well, I wrote stories and fixed computers, and managed to work sleep and school in."

      A smirk tugged at the corners of her mouth. "Did you work on a technical support line...?"

     Her voice finally clicked in my head. It had been bugging me for a few days, as though I knew I had talked to her before. I had in fact done so, on that first day when I lost only the third call in two years I couldn't call back. "That was you?"

     "Yeah... Funny thing, actually getting through to someone after the end of civilization only by waiting on hold for an hour..."

     I'd joked with clients before regarding the fact we'd be open after nuclear winter when only the cockroaches roamed the planet, even if it was only one radiation-stricken person and a queue of fifty. I never thought how true it might bave been in a toned down sort of way.

     That night, she insisted I take the bedroom back, citing the fact that I was going too far out of the way for her and that the couch was really quite comfortable. I finally conceded, but made sure she was settled in before heading off to bed myself. Even when I got myself comfortable I found I couldn't sleep; her scent was imbued throughout the sheets, and every time I had just about pushed it out of my mind it came back and reminded me that she had been here, and was now out on that couch. I knew how comfortable the couch really wasn't. It's a little known universal law: only an ugly couch is comfortable. That one wasn't ugly, was lumpy, and was as hard as a rock.

     It was close to four A.M. when I heard a quiet tap at the partition that did for a door, and glanced up. I hadn't shut it all the way - otherwise it got too warm in there - and found her peeking in. We regarded each other for a moment.

     "I hope I didn't wake you up," she said quietly.

     "No... I couldn't sleep."

     "Me neither. Can I come in?"

     I nodded slightly, and she shut the door behind her to keep the cats out. They had taken to me okay, but they did not like this 'stranger' at all. I was surprised they hadn't been hissing as she had come back there from the couch.

      "I'll ask first." I sat up, arranging the pillows behind me and leaning back. A brief flash of pain hinted I had gotten my tail in the stack. "Why couldn't you sleep?"

     "The couch was a lot more sleepable when I was suffering from a loss of blood. That thing is completely... horrid. Plus, the cats kept staring at me, as though they were waiting for me to fall asleep so they could slit my throat."

     "They'll get used to you."

     "Maybe. Never was good with cats... Or dogs... Kept a hedgehog for six years, but dad stepped on it about six months back..." She sighed quietly, her tails lying calm and still on the bed like a fuzzy quilt. I nearly reached out to touch one, but didn't dare. What would she see it as? Me making some sort of advance? I never liked taking a large and uncalculated risk.

     I realized she had fallen silent, and was waiting for my excuse. "Your scent is clear enough in here that I kept thinking about how uncomfortable that couch is, and that letting anyone try and sleep on it could be seen as cruel and unusual. I think I need to take it out and set fire to it." We eventually did, too.

     "I get to light the match." Shayla giggled quietly, then looked at me through the darkness. It was nearly a new moon out, but it left just enough light for our eyes. "I just don't understand why you've been so outgoing. I mean, a week ago you didn't know I existed. I started out by threatening you with a knife."

     "I'd have been holding a knife at anyone who came near if I had been hunted for who knows how long. How long was he after you?"

     "Two weeks. I've never been so scared... No matter where I went, he was there... I saw him kill others in town that had transformed... He... He killed them one at a time, skinned them, while the others were tied up..." She swallowed dryly. "That warehouse was my last chance, and I knew if I didn't make it away afterwards I was as good as dead... I was ready to just give up. Then you showed up, and... and..."

     "What?"

     "I... I thought you were with him. At first, that is. I hadn't seen you before. Then when you called out, asked if anyone was in there, I recognized your voice from the phone. I wanted to warn you to get out of sight, but he showed up... He's still out there somewhere, isn't he?"

     What could I say? "I don't know. Maybe."

     "He'll probably be coming for us specifically, with what you did to him..."

     "His van dun blew up, remember? He'd have to go steal a new one and I don't know if he has the mental capacity to figure out how to hotwire a car."

     "You'd be surprised... He seemed pretty stupid, but he always managed to find me." She turned her gaze to the window, shaking her head slowly. "I always figured an all-furry world would be so tranquil, peaceful... Like we had overcome some of the differences in life and crated our own litle haven. And then this happened. How people like that could come about... How many more like him are out there?"

     "Let's not count what we can't see, Shay... We'll deal with problems as they arise. Can we try not to create things that wouldn't happen?"

     A smile pulled at the sides of her muzzle, and she nodded once, slowly. "I almost wish we would have met online, to know each other better... But I'm glad we didn't."

     "Run that by me a little slower..."

     "I was completely different online. More promiscous, more flirting, more... unreserved. Two months ago I would have laughed in the face of anyone who would have suggested the idea of me, in real life, joining up with a roaming traveller and sitting on his bed, talking to him at blank-A.M. about life as we know it only a few days after we had met and not finding it at all... at all..."

     "Disturbing?"

     "Yeah." Shayla sighed, standing up. "I'm sorry... I suppose I should let you sleep."

     "If you want to avoid the felines out there, you can sleep in here. I'll go back out."

     "No! No, I couldn't impose... I mean, I feel like I should owe you something, even if it is just so little as lying in wait for those furballs to make a move..."

     Thus comes the sentence that I would likely never have spoken to anyone female and still something of a stranger before the Change: "Would you like to share the room?"

     "Like... How?"

     "There's plenty of space in here - one of us can take the floor. I do have a personal reason for it, as you might be thinking..." She looked at me hesitantly, and I finished my thought: "I really don't want to clean up the mess left when they kill you."

     Shayla burst out laughing. "Trying to make less work... Okay, I think I can handle sharing a room with a guy if you can handle sharing a room with a girl. And neither of us is going to sleep on the floor - I'll take this side of the bed, if you'll scoot over."

     "A management decision that works." I slid over to the right side of the bed, and waited for her to settle in before touching her hand lightly. As we regarded each other through the darkness again, I smiled at her. "Everything will be fine. You'll see."

     She smiled back at me, then closed her eyes and curled into the pillow. "Somehow, I think you're right."

     It was slightly into midday when I woke up, some sudden feeling beginning to push me to get moving. I slid out of bed, being careful not to wake my four-tailed companion, and made short work of packing things away. Within fifteen minutes we were rolling down the road again, and she hadn't stirred an inch. I nearly felt proud.

     The sun had set before I pulled off into a farmyard somewhere in Nebraska. There had been what looked to be thunderclouds moving in, and I didn't think I'd be getting much further that night anyway. I hadn't been paying attention to the signs, but simply angled in a fairly southward direction. In the five hours moving on the road I had driven just over two hundred and fifty miles. It wasn't really a lot, but for someone who typically didn't put in a lot of road miles I thought it was okay.

     Shayla woke up just as I shut off the engine, and padded slowly out of the bedroom. "What time is it?"

     "About eight P.M. Sleep well?"

     "Eight... at night?" She blinked, looking outside and confirming the sunset was actually in the west. "I was asleep for sixteen hours...?"

     "You're probably still recovering from whatever it was I ended up doing. I'd still be sleeping given the option... Ever get the feeling that you should do something before you've even imagined doing anything close to it?"

     "Not really... Sometimes, I guess. Why?"

     "That's what woke me up. I just felt that we needed to get going."

     "You are one peculiar blue fox." She shook her head, turning and going into the bathroom. "A cute one, but still peculiar."

     "Thanks. I think." I wasn't really sure what to think as I began tossing together a quick meal - BLT's, I recall... I sat in the drivers seat after I finished, kicking my feat up over the wheel and being careful not to hit any switches as I looked out at the approaching lightning. The rain began first; the light show didn't hit us for a good time after the windsheild had been dampened. I was glad I had put a tarp over the bikes.

     As soon as the first loud crack of thunder ripped through the air, I heard Shay scream. I don't recall getting up; I simply was standing next to the chair and saw her tails coming out from under the table. It was pretty clear what was wrong as the second bolt of lightning gave us its much quieter sound and she squeaked again.

     "I'm... I'm sorry," she rattled. "I just... just don't like thunder..."

     "I'd say this is a bit stronger than a dislike. I dislike eating seafood. I'm terrified of being eaten by seafood." I offered my hand, and she slowly pulled herself out.

     "You're... not helping..." A flash outside made her clench her teeth in expectation, but the rumble that came could have been someone's stomach growling. After a few deep breaths, she tried to explain: "Ever since I was little, I've been scared of it... I can stand most loud sounds, symbol crashes, thunder on tapes and TV... just not like this..."

     "It happens. I -"

     "No, it does not /happen!/ This can't be normal! Look at you, you're not scared of it! Why should I be? Everyone else thought it was funny! 'Look, there goes Kira, off to hide from the thunder! Little girl scared of the big sound? Oooh, look out!'" Tears were streaming down her cheeks as the next bolt hit someplace nearby, the thunder following it enough to shake the windows. She fell down to the floor, clenced in a fetal position and shivering violently.

     I wasn't sure what to do. I was the kind of kid who loved thunderstorms. I'd be outside in the rain with no shirt, running through the street and having a good time with the raw electricity coursing through the clouds above me as the rain fell; mom didn't get upset, so long as I dried after I came inside before I did anything else. I still love thunderstorms.

     Kneeling down, I picked Shayla up gently and carried her into the bedroom. Setting her down in the plushness of the down comforter, I found myself gently running my fingers through her hair as she sobbed her fears into the sheets. I wasn't sure what else I could do, except just be there. It was at least ten minutes later when she finally looked up at me with less fear in those violet eyes, pulling her hair out of her face.

     "Jadyn... I really don't want you to take this the wrong way... But... I think it might help if you'd hold me... Please?"

     "That, I'm certain, is inside the scope of support." I sat down next to her in the bed, back against the wall, and she climbed into my lap slowly. Looking up at me after getting comfortable, she gave a nervous smile.

     "I feel like a little kid, asing a big brother or dad to help me... I don't know what prompted me to make my character so short."

     "You're fine, Shay." I put my arms and tail around her, resting my muzzle between her ears lightly, and held her close as the storm raged on around us. Her tails were split - two on my right, two on the left - and flicked slowly with her quiet breathing. About half an hour later, I realized she had fallen asleep, but couldn't bring myself to try and move out of our friendly embrace. Instead, I zoned out and  found myself listening to the rain, letting nature's symphony play out to the two of us.

     Even with all the thunder and lightning that the storm threw around for the rest of the night, Shayla didn't so much as squeak again. A few large crashes made her flinch in her sleep, but that was all... It gave me a warm feeling to know I was in some way helping her and doing a good job of it. More than that - it felt right to have her there in my arms... Comfortable, somehow. We both slept like that, and it was the most relaxing slumber I'd ever had to that day.

     By dawn, it was simply raining with an occasional rumble of thunder. I didn't want to trek a gravel road while it was sodden and muddy, what with the trailer and everything upon it, so we explored the farmhouse and the barn for a few hours. There wasn't much that was really of use to us - overall, we had everything we needed. I set up one generator, hooked it into the RV's system, and refueled everything from a tank next to the barn.

     By the time I got back inside, it was only a bit after one o'clock. Shay had dried out from the heavy rain, and insisted that I do the same. As soon as she was satisfied I was as dry as I was going to get, she pushed me onto the couch and took over my lap again. It wasn't a forced thing; more of that I went along with her gentle prodding. She couldn't tip me over without help, even today as I'm writing this.

     Routinely does she get that help.

     "You're comfortable," she said, as she reclined against my chest and ran her fingers through my tailfur. "I did this a lot online, cuddle with people... I never thought how nice it really was until last night..."

     "Glad you approve." I hugged her gently, looking out the window at the grey sky. "I think I like this better than online. Did you ever have a boyfriend or anything?"

     "Online or reality?"

     "Either or."

     She giggled quietly. "Online, I had a lot of different partners, but no really long term relationships. I was a nympho, more than anything, and had fun with it. In real life, though... I wasn't exactly the first pick. A bit too tall, not really girlish enough... It was all the popular girls that had dates and stuff. I was more of a she-geek and spent my time with the Mac lab. I could have been mistaken for a boy if I would have trimmed my hair differently and worn a baggy shirt to disguise my hips a little. What about you?"

     "About the same, though after two years of mucking I was beginning to wean myself of it and write stories. Had an online 'mate' for a while, but we ran through some rocky times and she was eventually idlepurged. Someone out in Great Brittian. Still miss her, really, but I doubt I'll see her again. She probably doesn't even remember me..."

     She nodded slowly. "What about offline?"

     "I wasn't a top pick either. I wasn't overly heavy, but I was carrying a bit too much... Otherwise, I either had my nose in a book or on a screen most of the time... Too shy to ask anyone out, but not so much to not have good friends."

     "Same as me, then? It was so much easier when we didn't have to worry about people holding things against you face to face. In a way, things were almost better on screen."

     "Fewer concequences," I aggreed. "And now..."

     "Even more here and now than before we got fur, I think."

     I took a deep breath, gathering as much of her wonderful scent as I could and memorizing it. "I'd ask you out to dinner, but I'm not hungry and there's no place open."

     Shay laughed, hugging my tail. "I'd joke that my parents aren't home this weekend, but it doesn't feel as funny as it should. Can I ask you something?"

     "Sure."

     "How old are you, really?"

     "Nineteen at the end of November. Yourself?"

     "Seventeen, twelve days before Christmas. Don't you dare break into song."

     "Fa-la-la-la-la, la la la la." She elbowed me in the stomach lightly, and I fell silent.

     "By what was law in several states, I'm too young for certain things that I'm curious about... Law's been next to dissolved, until anyone else who's left decides to start new ones, though. Curiosity is a bad thing too, might be the death of me." Her whiskers twiched slightly. "What do you think?"

     "Let's start simpler than that. I was in no hurry to be with anyone before this, biblically or otherwise, and I don't want to rush now. I feel lucky just to have found someone to cuddle with."

     "So do I." She pivoted in my lap, wrapping her legs around her waist and hugging me. I hugged her back, and we stayed that way for what felt like too short a long time. It was a tiny flit of light and blur of motion that caught both our attentions. I knew she had seen it, just by how she tensed up. It wouldn't have been a problem had it been a cat - however, both of the felines were in eyesight. I thought I had seen it go behind a breadbag over by the sink, but wasn't sure. It was definately not an insect, though - I had the sensation of being watched again, but this time it felt different. Plus, I had gotten a fairly good glimpse of the blur, and the blur became clear as I looked at my memory.

     My mind pulled out the quickest excuse it could to allow me to get up nonchalantly. "Should I put on some rainy-day music?"

     "Yes! I think some music would be great." She slid off my lap and reclined along the couch; with only four and a half feet of height, she did not need a lot of space to do so. I stood up, walked slowly to the stereo cabinet, and picked out a cd of varied chamber music - Handel, Bach, Mozart, and others. She nodded as I held it up at her, and I put it in the player. As the music started, I walked over to the kitchenette, taking out three glasses. I took my time filling the first and second from a jug of distilled water. As I picked up the third, I stared at it as though it posed a great mystery. In actuality, I was attempting to expand my senses slightly by touching the warmth, and succeeded on two fronts - I managed to reach it without *any* difficulty, and I found the blur to be where I had expected. The surprise caused me to break the tap, but I had felt what I needed to.

     "What are you going to do with that one?" Shayla asked, jarring me back to reality.

     "Well, I can either wear it as a hat, fill it with water, or..."

     In a swift motion, I grabbed the sack of bread, tossed it over my shoulder to Shay, swung the glass through the space behind where the loaf had been, and clamped my hand over the bottom. A small glowing creature with shining teal wings stared at me with shock from behind the crystal of its prison, not having been given a chance to flee. It took about the space of a second for the entire motion.

     "Or I can catch a fairy in it. Good afternoon, you little eavesdropper. How are you? Care for a drink?"

     She looked at me with fear, her eyes the same strking teal as her wings and her hair. The rest of her body was clearly female, quite white, and rather short - somewhere near four inches tall. She was quite literally quivering with terror; her irridescent wings shook as much as her hands as she pressed against the glass. It seemed as though she coudn't believe she was seeing the clear wall in front of herself. My companion touched a finger to the tumbler as she approached, apprasing its occupant silently, then looked at me. "You knew what that blur was?"

     "Not right away. We both saw the motion, but it seems the Powers that Be have given Jadyn's perfect recall the ability to catch information the senses can't register on the mind with first glance. I seem to be inheriting things of his, a bit at a time. Functionality following form..."

     "I think you and I really need to share notes on exactly what we wrote ourselves as, so we know what to expect when odd things happen to the other." She tapped the glass lightly; the fairy backed away from her finger and dropped to her knees. If her wings would have bent that far - which they did, we later discovered; those wings are more durable than they look - she would have wrapped herself up in them to try and hide from our view. "What are you going to do?"

     "Well, the cats look hungry. I should probably feed them."

     Shay smiled. "Very nice. And then, what about her?"

     Ah, the wonders of having someone who has a feeling for humor the same as myself... I had watched the one under glass carefully as I had made my remark, and her shaking had grown even more violent as she glanced towards the felines. There was a light dust that had began to fall from her wings as well, stirred by their expedient twitching. It's almost like us fuzzy ones shedding when we get heavily stressed. I really did feel sorry for her - whoever she was, she was quite a bit smaller than any sort of original human form. We had to look like gigantic fuzzy monsters, and through a distorting material like a glass? Even worse.

     I brought the fairy up to eye level, and looked directly at her. "If I promise that we will not hurt you, will you promise not to bolt when I lift the glass away? Perhaps, even to talk to us?"

     She nodded so quickly that sparkles of what could only be 'pixie dust' left her hair in a cloud. I kept my end of the bargain, and slowly drew the glass off my palm.

     "What's your name?" Shayla asked softly, as I brought my hand back down to her level.

     "I'm... I'm Felicia..." Her wings twittered anxiously as she looked between us and the cats - who had taken up spectating as a sport and were sitting side-by-side on the nearby table. "Please don't feed me to them... I'm sorry I didn't say anything when I snuck in... I really didn't mean any harm, honest..."

     "I'm sure you didn't," I replied. "I was joking when I said I should feed the cats, just so you understand, and I do apologize for scaring you so badly. How long have you been a stowaway?"

     "Since Lemmon..."

     "That long?" I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed her for a handful of days shy of a month.

     "Yeah... I saw a chance to ride instead of flying cross country... Rather than chancing weather, birds, other eaters of bug-sized creatures, you see... I didn't want to be any sort of a hassle, so I kept quiet and snitched crumbs here and there and avoided the cats. You really don't leave many, Jadyn... Crumbs, I mean. A few times I took pieces from your plate when you got up to do something else for a minute. You do make good steak and eggs."

     "Having as much fun avoiding the cats as I am?"

     She giggled quietly. "At least they can't eat you, Shayla."

     "Not all at once," I murmured. Shay tsk'd and batted my stomach before looking back at Felicia.

     "So now that you've heard us giving up details, can you give us some of your own?"

     "Sure... Jadyn? Would you mind if I sat down on the counter?"

     "Not at all."

     She flitted, for lack of a better term, up into the air and circled the glass once before sitting on its inverted bottom. "Yeep! It's cold... Anyway... Felicia was my real and online name, but I was more on IRC than the muds and things... I'm the same age as Jadyn, but my birthday is in April so he's older. Windows user, don't hold it against me? Let's see... Music, I played the piano. Often had dreams of being able to fly, and that's how I settled for this form online. Uh... What else did you talk about... Oh. Had a boyfriend, but after he managed to talk me into bed once he left for someone lighter blond and bigger chested. I'll tell you two this much - I would have enjoyed it more had it lasted more than four minutes. Bang, he was done, and I wasn't even started..."

     Shayla snickered, and I elbowed her to get her to be quiet. Felicia giggled, shaking her head. "It's okay, I can look back at and laugh too. I've had more fun just by myself lately, and now that I'm so much smaller than everyone I'm kinda stuck with just that for an indefinite amount of time. I hope neither of you minds that I'm not wearing anything - Levi's doesn't exactly carry this size, and I couldn't come up with anything that I thought was suiting."

     I smirked at the pun she had made, and wondered if Shay had heard it. "Not a problem... I really hadn't paid attention. Were... No, are you a good fairy, a bad one, just mischevious? I want to know what to expect."

     "I don't want to tarnish my welcome, so I'll try to stay out of trouble... I suppose I'd be a good fairy, though it's not really the right term. Fairy, that is. I usually considered myself a nymph, like a forest nymph or something similar. Hence the green hair, wings, and aura...  Liked being a bit mischevious, though. " She flexed her wings a few times, looking back at them. "You know, it took me about a week to learn to fly? Different muscles, but they seem to go pretty well on their own once I get started. I woke up on my pillow in this giant's world, and nearly wet myself... I finally saw my reflection and figured it out. Glad I had a mirror over the bed... I'd almost prefer having fur like you two than being tiny."

     "Hey, a least you can fly," Shayla retorted, and looked ready to continue with 'we.' I ahemed softly; she looked at me, then snorted. "What, you too?"

     "Well, theoretically... I mean, I wrote a few stories where I... er, he was flying using his magic... I might have to do it differently, learn to shapechange just enough to get wings and not suck the power in any area dry trying to keep aloft."

     "I can nearly picture you plummeting from five thousand feet up." She pulled over a chair, shaking her head. "I might just have to learn how to use my abilities, just to try and keep up with you two."

     Felicia flitted up off the glass, landing lightly on the end of my muzzle and straddling it. "I really didn't know what to expect if... when you two found me out - I figured one of you might have seen me this time, but I tried to go fast enough so you wouldn't be sure." She pulled out a single hair right by my nose, somehow finding one rooted to a nerve. It stung for a long three seconds as she turned around and looked me in the eyes, and I fought the urge to shake her off. "If it hadn't been for your perfect memory or whatever you called it, I think I would have been safe, too."

     "Don't blame me. If you would have come forward right away, we could have avoided all of your sneaking around and had some good conversations, maybe played chess or something, even if I would have had to move your side for you."

     "I'm stronger than I look. I did pretty well at that game... Not a pro, though. I think I could manage a single chess piece as long as it wasn't stone, but an entire game would wear my wings down some. I can almost pick up a CD if I'm above it and pulling hard... Got out of the house by ramming a vase and making a whole bunch of stuff shoot through a window."

     "Maybe one of you could teach me how to play it?" Shayla asked.

     "Looks like a good day for it, really." I smiled, stretching my arms. "Could be fun."

     "Okay. Get the board, and I'll be the proxy for the short one."

     And so our night went. I lost the first game to the duo after a half hour; the second one lasted only half that, but I took it easily. After about the fourth game, Shay tried to play on her own, and did a really good job - nearly beat me, but I cornered her first and forced her to retreat her offensive. After that game, she beat both Felicia and I once, with myself as the proxy for the nymph. We had a really good time, and didn't notice until after two different games - Monopoly and Uno - that it was past ten, it had stopped raining, and the stars had come out. Shayla was tired - still from the Healing, I assumed - and decided to go to bed; I took a collapsable patio chair and went up on the roof to watch the stars for a while. Felicia came with, and we were both silent for a time.

     "You had your stories on a web page, right?"

     I was going to ask how she knew I had been writing, and then recalled I had worked repeatedly on them since Lemmon - looking at them in web format, adjusting their appearances to pass the time... Since I don't know who is reading this, I'll leave the references to the world wide web, the internet, et cetera to the library history books for more information.

     "Yeah. Did you ever read them?"

     "Think so. Yours was the one that was never updated, even though the stories were. Right?"

     I snickered. "Yeah. Never had time. Now that I do, there's no Internet left."

     She fiddled with some of my fur for a bit - she had decided to perch on my chest - before looking up at me. "I... I want to get this out now, in case you're wondering how much I saw while I was hiding..."

     "I wasn't actually, but I expect you saw me in what might be some pretty blackmailable moments."

     Her cheeks flushed red, and she nodded as she looked away. "Did you write that... that size?"

     "Never really decided, so whatever template existed for the Jadyns of the omniverse was what this plane chose."

     "Oh. I... uh... sometimes, at the same time... uh... I imagined... me and you... while I... you know..." The more she tried to say it, the redder her face got, until it was splotched all the way down her neck. Her skin was bleached white to start with, and the red stuck out clearly. Even the green glow of her wings had a tiny hint of red in a few places. I wanted to laugh, but it felt like she was trying seriously and failing to apologize. Ever so lightly, I ran the back of a finger between her wings, just barely brushing her skin with fur. She shivered, her wings spreading apart, and looked back up at me.

     "You don't have to make excuses. It's okay, really. I almost should be embarassed, but I'm losing a lot of my self-consciousness as I spend more time like this. What's it been, a couple of months or less? I could swear I'm beginning to get more and more of the mindset I imagined the 'real' Jadyn to have, and I'm not trying to do it. I know everything from before, remember it all, and seem to be filing it off to the side... If I assisted your pleasure during my own self-rediscovery, great."

     "I suppose wouldn't have been caught dead in the nude with wings on my back talking to two giant foxes even so much as a month ago, either, let alone play chess with them... Huh." She laid back with a yawn, wings to either side of her, and nestled down in my fur. "You're far more comfortable than where I've been sleeping. Warmer, too."

     "Where was that?"

     "Well, when you left the stereo on, it was nicely tepid there but a bit solid... Took some down out of one of your pillows and tried to make something of a nest where you wouldn't see and the cats couldn't reach. Rather itchy, that stuff, even when it's big enough to make boots out of one piece..."

     "I suppose I can extend the same offer I did Shayla - if you want to avoid the cats, we can find you a spot in that back bedroom out of their reach, or anywhere else you happen to find that's comfortable... I don't know if I toss and turn in my sleep anymore or not, so you might not want to choose that spot you've got there for a permanent bed."

     "Oh, I know that... Hey, next time you brush yourself out, maybe save the fur - I might be able to use that somehow."

     "Sure." I scanned the sky again, looking for something, but what it was I didn't know. It was the kind of item you know as soon as you see it; I was not seeing it, so I didn't know what it was. I almost felt as though that other mind which surfaced from time to time was looking for some specific point of light, but I didn't know for certain. Not then, anyway.

     "Jay?" Felicia tugged at some of my fur, giggling. "Blue-Jay... Hey, nymph to fuzzy one. Come in, fuzzy one!"

     "Hmm?"

     "Can we go back in? I think I see a bat, and I'm sure I'm a menu item."

     I offered my hand; she climbed into it, and I closed it around her securely. Folding the chair and tucking it under my free arm, I hopped down to the grass without thinking of the distance and landed easily. I went inside before releasing my grip and letting her fly freely. "No bats for you. I can't lose a good chess opponent."

     "Glad I'm good for something." She darted off towards the stereo, pushing the volume down on the Apocolyptica CD - Metallica on cellos - a bit. (That one might be in the library, if they found their own copy. I like mine, and am not parting with it.) By the time I had put the chair away, she was hovering next to the closed partition. In the bedroom, her glow hilighted Shayla in soft green light, making her stir momentarily before the nymph turned herself down. I set one of my pillows next to the bed and pushed down the middle; she dropped into it, curled up, and shut off her glow as she drifted off. "Pleasant dreams, Jay... And thanks for accepting a stowaway."

     "You're welcome. Goodnight." I snuggled up with Shayla, whispering "Goodnight" in her ear.

     "Nfft..." Shay mumbled through her sleep, buring her head under her pillow.    

     We left early the next morning, continuing south. Felicia and Shay tried their hands at checkers, and seemed to be getting along well. I tried to think of something we could use for Felicia's 'home' - just a pillow or lump of fur for a bed didn't seem polite. Various things came to mind, and I seriously considered a fishtank with dark paper or possibly paint on the outside could work. I wasn't sure if she'd like such a thing or not, though, even if some sort of bed was fashioned for it. Consider the idea of living in a fishbowl. Just the thought. (This, of course, excludes those of you who actually are fish.) The phrase implies that everyone can see you, point, tap on the glass, et cetera.

     Shayla handed me a sandwich near two, and sat down next to me with her own. "You've been quiet today."

     "I've been considering lodgings for our short companion." I slowed down, passing a lump of scorched red and blue metal that had once been two separate vehicles. "Look at it like this: if everything was nearly fifteen times your own height, what would you pick for personal space?"

     "Me personally? Hollow out a Mac Minitower and put carpet in it. I'll sleep in a drive bay."

     "Not one of these Macs, sorry... I had actually considered a small fishtank. Make it opaque, put some carpet in it, maybe a hakey-sack with a whole bunch of beads missing to make a beanbag chair, and some sort of matress and sheets for a bed."

      She bit into her own sandwich, looking towards the back of the RV. I took a moment to glance back as well - Felicia was teasing the cats, darting around just out of their pouncing reach. "Thinking of asking her, or as a surprise?"

     "I was really considering it as a surprise. Might have to ask her though... I don't know if I'd want to be living in a glass house."

     She opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head. "Silly boy. I think she'd like it, though. I mean, if I was suddenly all of four inches tall, everything around me huge, I'd appriciate it if someone considered giving me some things designed for my height. Heck, right now I even have to grab a chair to get in the cupboards, but I don't think she could open them if she beat her wings to death trying."

     "Point. I suppose I'll have to get a small fishtank in one of the next pet supply stores... I'm nearly afraid to go in a regular pet store."

     She nodded slowly. "Hopefully some of the others who changed thought of it in their home towns and where they pass through. I think it's probably too late for a lot of creatures..." I had already finished my sandwich, but she looked at hers as though she was suddenly no longer hungry. I would have done the same. "To get off the topic, let's consider what we were talking about before being interrupted yesterday."

     I looked over at her, then back out at the road. "The last thing we both aggreed was that we liked being able to cuddle."

     "That we did... Are we like... Er... Do you think... Do you think we might be okay as a couple?"

     It took me a half-minute of silence to complete an answer in my head. "I think so."

     She sighed with what felt like relief. "I wasn't sure if you'd agree with me or not. Do you think kissing might be difficult with muzzles?"

     "Leap in with both feet, huh? Dunno, but I might get too distracted while we test the theory while I'm driving - if you'd want to test the theory, that is... I suppose nuzzling might be what takes its place."

     "Theories have to be tested sooner or later." Felicia hovered up to the dash and started swinging on a string of purple beads hanging from the rear-view mirror. I had put it in myself not for functionality, but just to hang stuff and put stickers on. The Land Train had a camera instead of a mirror in the initial configuration. "I told you he'd say yes."

     "Figures." I smirked, glancing at the two of them sidelong. "Guilty on which count?"

     "Conspiring, assisting the possible formation of a couple showing clear signs of beginning to love each other, so on and so forth. You sometimes need that third person to give one side a push toward the other. Otherwise you have to wait for one to trip and be caught by the other, and all that crap that I went through... Blah." The nymph smiled, flipping over and hanging on the beads from her knees. "Now me, on the other hand, I've been quite happy to be single now. But that's just me."

     ???????

     That night was a strange one - both for me and for the girls, albiet separately. I had an encounter; they saw... a whole new side of me. I've debated writing it here or allowing them to put in their accounts of it in only their histories and leave mine blank of their half of the event. For now, it's just what I saw.

     It was a dreamless sleep; there was a lot of nothing, but I wasn't completely aware that it was nothing. It's too far abstract to say it other than that. Sometime closing on morning, I found myself walking through some sort of maze. I could feel that there was a goal at the center, something I wanted desperately to get to, and yet every time I concentrated on what I was doing I came up to a dead end. The harder I tried, the more twisted the dead end I found. I even tried the trick of following one wall - it didn't help. I came past the same place nine times, identifiable by a 't' I scratched into the ground.

     I finally stopped at the same intersection, looking down the four possibilities and wondering where I had gone wrong. Anger swept over me; I was good at mazes for the most part. They took time, yes, but they weren't this bad. And then I noticed something.

     One path rearranged as I got lost in fury.

     It still ended in a dead end.

     In fact, the more furious I got, the quicker it was to a dead end, until it was just four lanes leading to walls away from my X. I sat down and closed my eyes, considering the evidence, and slowly let my new hatred of mazes boil away. The more I tried, the less I accomplished. The more unbalanced my emotions came, the quicker I came to a wall. THerefore, the opposites would be the best choice: be calm, and don't think about doing a maze. Just *do* the maze. And as soon as I realized that and opened my eyes, I found the walls of the maze no more than lines on the ground.

     It was startling, but I saw the middle: a giant sphere of softly pulsating light, beating in time with that of my own heartbeat. I stepped toward it in awe, stopping just outside the perimeter and feeling the radiance upon my very soul. I didn't even have to touch it.

     "So, you found the simple way."

     "Apparently. You've been in the back of my mind ever since this transformation happened, and I still don't know what to make of you." I turned around slowly, coming face to face with a mirror image of my new self. "Am I just so stressed out that I'm imagining you?"

     "Perhaps. Or, perhaps I'm imagining you, or someone else is imagining us... or maybe none of this is real."

     We were suddenly on a familiar schoolyard swingset, gliding back and forth in perfectly opposite arcs.

     "See what I mean? Your mind has some very interesting images like this. Some pretty cool horrors, too."

     "Thanks. What are you?"

     "Who."

     "You."

     He laughed. "No, who as in not what."

     "Oh. Okay. Who are you?"

     "I am who I am."

     I snorted, leaping off the swing and landing in a pool full of styrofoam packing peanuts. He was doing laps. "Give me something a bit less cryptic."

     "I'm you, and you're me, and we are still ourselves."

     I blinked, and found myself on a cloud. "That's not much better. Let's go for who or what you were before this."

     "That, I actually know. You already think you do, too. Come on, spit it out."

     "THe original Jadyn."

     "See? Wasn't hard to get to the truth. I'm the original that you thought of, but not the first original. I'm apparently one in a line of many, you are the next. Call me Elon, so we don't get confused. You're Jadyn, now."

     Next scenery was a talk show set with a full crowd. He was behind the desk. "So why are you in my head?"

     "Ask the Powers that Be. Who knows? I thought I had found my way into the Light, and wound up in the strangest slide show I'd ever seen, then woke up with you at the helm." The audience laughed as he drove the desk around the set - not just a bluescreening trick; it actually had wheels and did two loops. "Didn't help when you nearly shattered my attempts to talk to you twice. One of those you succeeded. Now that your mind has opened to some of the stranger probabilities, I felt safe approching you again."

     "How quaint."

     "Isn't it." He sneezed and everything blew up, leaving the maze and sphere of light again. A hammock appeared, and he lied down in it. I glanced around, and found a comfortable-looking chair to sit in.

     "Okay, why did all this happen?" I asked.

     "It was needed and requested."

     "By whom?"

     "Dreamers, believers, and the world itself. Your cultures were destroying the very life on this world, knew it, and couldn't do anything to stop it. Something had to be done. It was. Don't you dare ask me how. Even my associate whom you had a glimpse of hadn't a clue how. Perhaps this is all one grand hallucination."

     "Was that... Her?"

     "Astute of you. Yes, that was Serin. Quite the gem, hmm? Especially since she's dead and all..." He sighed. "Wish she was a part of this plane so I could talk to her for a while."

     "How old -"

     "I stopped counting at ten thousand. Ah, let me guess, you want to know how much you inherited. I don't know. I think you are immortal to at least the extent of having a healthy immunity to death, quick healing, agelessness, and so on. Your life span... since you never quite decided, the Tapestry likely chose for you, and I'll bet you'll end up like me some day because of it."

     I glanced back at the sphere of light, watching the reflectionless surface ripple smoothly. "I never imagined something like this."

     "I haven't picked over your mind enough to know if you even considered it or not. This is a new one on me, however. The source was life itself before our symbiosis began, and now it seems to be perhaps the spirit of Gaea you channel from. The good news it that I think it can regenerate. I think."

     "You think," I snorted.

     "Keep in mind I'm new at this too. You know those odd feelings you wrote me as having for or against things? That was the Jadyn prior to me. She -"

     "She?"

     "Don't interrupt. I met her for the first time right before I was dropped into your head. Her spirit was accepted into the Light, and I thought I was following... She apparently never spoke with me because that was her opinion on how it should be done. In your case, since you were somewhat incompetent to start with, I decided coaching was necessary. You cannot imagine the powers I had finally grasped. By opening the doors to not just one or two masteries in the Art, but to all of the elements equally and fully in your writing, you have destined yourself for phenomenal abilities if you ever fully realize the possible potential. If."

     "If is a little word with a big binary meaning."

     "True. Anything else you care to ask about?"

     "Is this the only way we can speak?"

     Elon smirked, shaking his head. "Now that you know I'm here, no. It's easier, but it's not the only way. Now, I want to make one request."

     "Okay..."

     The landscape began to disolve, and the energy faded from sight. "Allow me to use the body once in a while. It won't be often, and I'll try to do it while you sleep. Those forced takeovers do strain me a bit."

     "I think I can manage that."

     "Thanks." He began to disappear as well, and the floor I was on was rapidly vaporising.

     "How do I get back?"

     /What do you think? Look down and see where your mind thinks you are./

     It was suddenly a checkerboard, and the side furthest away was breaking apart. I glanced down from the end I was on -

     And saw the Land Train some distance below. A very long distance. A hurting distance, should one normally fall through said span.

     "I'm still technically asleep."

     /Yep. Oh, that was a statement? Sorry. I'm going to sleep. Oh, by the way... the other two know I'm here now, too./

     "What fun." I glanced back one more time, seeing the row behind me starting to fall apart. Striking my best diving posture I leapt off the edge just as the tiles cracked and shattered, and screamed a single word as I fell towards the Train.

     "CANNONBALL!"

     It was interesting, seeing myself sleeping for one fleeting instant as I passed through the roof. It was also disrupting, slamming into my own body and being caught in something almost like a net but not quite as pliable. Imagine landing on a net that was thrown out over cement or brinks or anything like that - not elevated, but just sitting on top of it.

     I found I had fallen out of the bed as my senses realigned. Felicia was sleeping on the nightstand; Shayla sat up as the covers disappeared and looked down at me curiously. I noticed she had donned a shirt for the first time, and assumed it was because of the stranger in my head.

     "That was completely odd."

     She visibly relaxed. "It suits you then, oddball. Gimme a blanket, or get back up here with them."

     It took a few minutes of quiet untangling before I could comply. As we settled in together, I stared at the ceiling quietly. "Are you still sleepy?"

     "No." She sighed queitly. "Had a heck of a time getting to sleep."

     "Because of Elon?"

     "Yeah - He talked to you too?"

     "I don't think it was a dream." A chill ran down my spine as the first real meaning to what had happened seeped into my mind - I likely had very little privacy in my own head. For the first time, I could feel his mind in the background; he had gone to sleep. "I don't think I like this."

     "You're schitzofrenic."

     "At least with that, the minds don't typically have conversations. I don't know what to think. Am I going crazy?"

     "I'll follow along. Hey, I'm with you, Jadyn. All the way, even if you aren't always yourself." She giggled quietly. "Elon seems pretty nice, though a bit peculiar."

     "What happened?"

     "I woke up to use the bathroom, came back in and you weren't here. Felicia heard me rattling around as I went outside, followed me out. Who we thought was you we found lying on the grass, staring at the sky with this look... It wasn't an emotion, but it was something that seemed more mature than you've been. As soon as he spoke, I knew it wasn't you. The voice... Accented slightly, and a bit more mellow and deep than yours."

     "What'd he say?"

     Shayla sighed, running her hand along my arm idlely. "'Good morning.' That's the first thing he said... didn't even look at us. It went somewhat downhill from there... When Felicia asked him who he was, he said it was a long and dull story, addressed her as a child... Boy, she blew up at that. I began to wonder if it was a joke - I really wasn't sure - but he proved it..."

     "How?"

     "He had us each pick a star, just by looking at it, and... showed what was going to happen... Mine went supernova, hers just went out... and then they were back." She shivered. "He knows exactly what he's doing with that force, Jadyn. Be careful."

     "I think we've worked out a compromise." I stretched out lightly, relishing the sensation.

     "How's that?"

     "He's sleeping, I'm not."

To be continued...