> Is This Me? > by The-Third > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Chapter 1 The Transformation Begins > --------------------------------------------------------------------------         I woke in some kind of black room, around me were a few creatures. they were bug like creatures with a hard other shell, and small slits for pupils, but they also looked like some kind of equine, like a horse or maybe a mule. What really confused me was what was happening before. They weren't bugs before, some were humans and a couple were dogs that the others were walking, I was out in the park when they attacked me. Knocking me unconscious and dragging me here, where they were engulfed in green flames and showed this form, which by my guess was their natural form. I noticed a female in the group, taller than the rest, that also had hair-like web on her head, similar to the haido she wore in her disguise.         She finally looked over to me after whispering to the other creatures. "w-who are you?" I asked her trembling, trying to figure out what exactly was going on. "Me?" The female asked in a raspy voice similar to how a snake would sound "I am Queen Chrysalis" I figured that that was the case, well, at least that she was the queen, I had no idea what her name was, I may not like science but I know enough that I know that most hives have a queen. One of the bugs walked up to his (or her) 'queen' and asked her something. She replied with something that confused me "Give him a cocoon" The drone nodded  and walked over to me dragging the chair I was tied up to, and brought me to another room, inside I could see a green cylinder that was most likely the cocoon the queen was talking about. I was untied and forcefully pushed into it. Not being able to breath I slowly lost consciousness and. . .         I woke up in my bedroom I grabbed my phone and looked at the time, It read 5:45 AM, It was all just a dream, I found myself second guessing that for a second but my brain decided to go along with it, and I drifted back to sleep.         My alarm was blaring as I tried to turn it off, it always confused me why someone invented the alarm clock, was it just to torture himself and everyone else. I arose from my bed and headed into the bathroom and got into the shower, as I came out I first noticed something was up. "What the heck?" I asked myself looking at a patch of skin that turned black, not african american black, like pure black, and it was hard. when I touched it, I didn't even feel anything, like it was growing over my skin like some kind of shell.         That was it! It was like the bugs in my . . dream? I was even more confused than I was before. Was I turning into a bug? How does that even work? Did it have to do with the cocoon? Luckily, it was a very small area, about the size of a dime, so it was really easy to cover up with my shirt. Although I did try to pick it off, but it seemed as if it was impossible to do so.         After getting dressed, I walked downstairs to breakfast and saw the normal chaos that was going on, mom giving pancakes to everyone as my two younger brothers fought over each one of the pancakes my mom finished, and my younger sister, Lily, had a little stuffed bear sitting in another seat as it was 'having breakfast' with her. Lily was actually quite the adorable little thing, and she wouldn't even hurt a fly, but if you mess up her plans with her toys, you are in for a world of hurt.         "Good morning, Lukas" my mom called to me from the kitchen. "Good morning" I replied "In a rush, don't need any pancakes" I called to her as I grabbed my backpack from where I was keeping it and started heading to high school.         My high school is pretty small, only about 700 kids go there, so compared to some other high schools, this one is just a speck. However, we are pretty well known, our sports teams are the best in the state of Virginia, and we have a higher percentage of  A’s and B’s than most of the other schools. One of my friends, is one of the oddballs in my school that don’t get amazing grades. His name is Clayton, and usually, he is just a class clown.         When I got to school, I went to the cafeteria, they were serving breakfast. Grabbing a bagel, some cream cheese, an apple, and Orange Juice, I sat down next to Clayton. “Hey, Luke” I was surprised that Clayton wasn’t being all funny and calling me some weird names. “Hey Clayton, what’s going on?” I asked him, “Nothing really, just got here before you, and now I’m thinking about today, and how I’m going to annoy Mr. Orsak” Mr.Orsak the Science teacher, that honestly, everyone hates. I never got why exactly, but he just gives off that negative feel, that nothing is wrong per say, but that nothing is right either.         I looked down at my chest, it was slightly bulkier than usual because of the shell, and I thought that Clayton might have noticed it. I was debating about telling Clayton about my, well, new development is probably the best word. But, if you found out your best friend has turned into a bug, you would probably be freaked out. For right now I had to keep it a secret, at least for as long as possible. > Chapter 2 The Secret Meeting > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- One Month Later         I cannot keep this up any longer, the black chitin has been spreading like wildfire. Luckily, it’s summer vacation, so I don’t have to go to school, but it’s still impossible to hide it from my family and Clayton. Now the black area covers my entire chest and is crawling down my left arm. I need to find answers and fast, so I looked for some on the most reliable source ever, Yahoo Answers.         I posted a page that asked something that would sound crazy to anyone who read it besides me “Hey, I have a black shell growing around me please help”As I expected the 'answers' were basically "You're Lying" and a couple of "Lol". However, there was one answer that did help a bit. "Hello there, I had this problem too, however we can't discuss this online, come to the park by your school, and expect to see someone you know" It was mysterious, it was shady, but it was also the only lead I had.         That night, I tried doing something I hadn't tried yet, you see, I actually grew wings from the back of my chest. My best guess is that it had to do with my new body. Anyways, I tried to fly, and just to let you know, I don't know how bugs do it, make their body just float through the sky when their wings are so small compared to the rest of their bodies, except for dragonflies. Dragonflies have giant wings. I ended up just walking as I tried three times to fly from my second story window, and it wasn't successful any of those time. My walk to the park was not exactly a walk in the park. I was nervous, what if nobody showed up? what if I find out I'm dying or something? What if I have to run away because I would be a danger to my family.         When I reached the park, I was met with a silhouette that ran,  followed by a flash of green light. "Hello?" I called out. "Hey Lukas!" I heard a cheery voice that felt familiar. The voice was definitely a girl's and sounded like, Emilee? Emilee is a girl that lived next door to me until she moved a couple years ago, although we have been able to stay in touch, I haven't seen her much. "Emilee, is that you?" I saw her and confirmed that, yes it was Emilee, unless it was one of the bugs in disguise. "Yeah" She said in a quieter and more somber voice. "Why did this have to happen to you too, I'm sorry that it did" I was confused, what was she talking about, did something happen to her too? until it clicked, she was one of the bugs, the things that made this all happen, but she was still the Emilee that I knew. She went through (or was going through at the time) the same thing as I was.         “Where have you been?” I asked, I hadn’t seen her in a couple years so I was confused on why she showed up  now of all times. “Did you leave because of . . “ I gestured to my arm which was now covered in the black exoskeleton up to the elbow, although it was still easy to bend. In reply, she nodded, and began explaining “it was 2 months before I left, the same thing happened, kidnapped, cocoon, the whole shabang. The shell started at my shoulder, instead of the chest like it was for you, but that wasn’t even the worst part. About a week after I left the entire shell covered my skin, and I haven’t seen it since, the skin I mean, I've seen the shell daily, anyways haven't seen the skin since then, well sort of. You see, when the entire shell enveloped me, I was able to change form, like they did” she paused for a second thinking about what to say next “But what really was bad was, the entire time, I had terrible pain. Changing from an Anthropomorphic skeletal system to a more of a beast like system can take a toll on your body, ” I didn’t exactly think of that, and the thought of it made me not want to think of it. I thought she was done, but she continued even more “andthatwasn’t even the worst part. More than your physical body changes Luke, there are mental changes, and other stuff that I don’t even want to mention. I will warn you about one thing, you aren’t going to like the dietary changes, the good news about all this, is that I’ll be with you the entire time because we are moving back in” I smiled, finally seeing Emilee after multiple years of not being able to excited me, although it wasn’t perfect that of all times, now was when she had to, when I was going through a gigantic change. “Can I . .” I stopped asking my question thinking that it would be an embarrassing thing to ask. She actually answered it though, even though I didn’t ask it fully. “See how I look now?” She asked. I simply nodded Green flames that showed that her form was changing surrounded her, slowly eating at the faux appearance that she had created, leading way to a small bug like creature that wasn’t exactly like the other ones I saw when this whole nightmare happened. She still had the black shell and dark green abdomen, but instead of having slits for pupils, she had no pupils and instead had magenta eyes, her wings, were not fully transparent like the ones on me and the bugs, however they still glistened in the moonlight.         After looking at her for a bit, she turned back into the form I knew. We both decided to head home, her parents never left but also never mentioned her, so seeing her back would probably relieve them, or maybe they knew and they let her do this. As we walked we caught up on each others lives “Why was it so long before you came back?” I said to her “Did your parents find out and, kick you out or something” She shook her head in response "No, they haven't found out" Luckily, she didn't get in too much trouble, as She's eighteen compared to my sixteen. When we got to both of our houses, we headed our separate ways and I walked Into my house, quietly heading up to my bedroom, climbing into my bed. Trying to make my wings comfortable was a pain,but when I finished, I drifted off to sleep > Chapter 3 The Search > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had been a couple weeks since Emilee returned, and I have been living in her basement. The shell has fully covered me and my whole body feels like it is being snapped in two. My parents are starting to see that something is up. Luckily, Emilee has been covering for me. Even though it's kind of creepy to see your friend shift into yourself. I think that Emilee isn't quite fond of it either. She has been trying to get me to be able to correctly shift into my own form as soon as possible. I can almost do it, but I can never get rid of my wings. I look like Maximum Ride or something, looking like a normal human being except with wings, the only difference was hers being avian and mine looking like I'm some kind of beetle. "Luke?" I heard Emilee calling down for me "I'm here" I said in a weird voice, my voice has changed similar to how Emilee in her new natural form, a bit of a squeaky voice, it usually sounds like it was put through some kind of voice changer, although I do have voice cracks. My life now feels like I'm going through an even worse version of puberty. "Alright, Luke. Did you get any closer to it working?" she asked. "I don't think so, I can get my shape and details down, even my voice. The only problem are these damn wings." "Alright, I just want you to get used to our new form, we're going to have to stay this way." I nodded, that was the most likely outcome "Unless, Emilee! what if we don't? What if we try to find whoever did this to us, and find a way to fix it." "I don't know Luke, is that a good idea." I took another attempt, once again a failure, I couldn't change form correctly to save my life "Why wouldn't it be? What do we have to lose that we already have lost. do you want me to list what we have lost. Freedom, we lost the ability to eat. Eat, eating anything can kill us! We lost the ability to have children, unless we marry each other, and honestly I don't think I like you like that. We might have years taken from our life, we don't know the life expectancy of changers or whatever you said we are" "You mean changelings?" Emilee corrected me on my mistake "Yeah, but my point is that if we just sit here we lose so much, but if we try we can be humans again" I took one last attempt, this time succeeding, having a silent victory, Emilee and I started heading upstairs. "I guess your right" Emilee finally caved in. "Then we start searching Friday night" I said Have I mentioned how disgusting a changelings eating habits are yet? Love, belch! Not only does it taste terrible, but my entire family is weaker than usual just because my new body needs to survive. How my family doesn't notice the pink stream slowly moving from me to them at random times is anyone's guess. What my real question is though, is how the hell I can survive off of love, I'm may not be a biologist, but I'm pretty sure that love doesn't hold any energy. Whatever it is I'm sure it makes no sense, just like the rest of the living hellhole that is now my life. Which is why I want to not be a changeling, I'm sure it would be great if it was temporary, or even if I didn't have to eat love, that's really the only drawback. I mean, I do look kind of badass. That's basically what I was thinking about when I went to meet Emilee at the local Park, I was taking a jog outside when I was kidnapped, it was funny, I was training to join the Cross Country team at my school, and I would of made it if I didn't go on that jog My thoughts were interrupted by Emilee "I think I found Something" I ran over to her pushing away some brush, revealing a small shed with an open door, leading down to a dim room. "Shall We?" I asked as I went down the stairs, motioning for her to come along She slowly closed the door behind us as we ventured down into the unknown