//------------------------------// // Chapter 3: A shocking turn of events // Story: [Insert Bad Pun Relating to Change] // by 78_Percent_Eggs //------------------------------// Changelings. Changelings everywhere. He could not see an inch in front of his face. Buzzing. Lots of buzzing. Holes. Black. He closed his eyes. He opens them. They are gone. No more changelings. Just white. White everywhere. He was confused. Then he saw them. A person. Floating. Below was a red pentagram. It glowed. A lot. Person looked at him. Red robe. Smile. He was scared. He tried running. That usually worked. It worked in the movies. It did not work here. He couldn't move. He panics. More changelings. No No NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO…. Drake EVERYWHERE ON TOP OF HIM HE IS ON THE FLOOR EVERYTHING HURTS HE WANTS IT TO END MAKE IT STOP Drake? He can't do it. Lights. Noise. Stop. Stop!!! Drake! He reaches a hand up. Like something might be there. Like something could save him. He sees his hand. It's not there. Something else is there instead. Black. No fingers. Holes. It is a hoof. A changeling hoof. His head is splitting. He screams Make it stop. Drake!!! No more. “Drake!” No! “DRAKE FOR GOD’S SAKE WAKE UP!!!” Drake sat up and screamed, body thrashing in every direction. He had to get away, he had to he had to he had to he had… Wait. This was his room. This was his bed. That was his dad. It was all a dream. He smiled and let out a sigh of relief, flopping onto his bed, and curling up in his thick white blankets. His heart was still hammering and his skin was sticky with sweat. He stared at the ceiling, black in the darkness. He took a deep breath then let it all out. A small glow came from the digital clock on his bedside table, which read 12:03 AM “Drake, what the hell happened?? You just started screaming like a banshee, are you okay?” He stared at the outline of his father, sitting on the edge of his bed. The only light was in the hallway, and Drake couldn’t make out the features of his face but he knew that he was worried. “Mm fine,” he responded. “Just a nightmare. Not a big deal.” His father warily but the back of his hand to his son’s forehead. After a couple of seconds, he pulled his hand back. “You don’t seem to have a fever. Are you sure you’re okay?” His father asked anxiously. At that moment, Lena came walking into the room, her mermaid pajamas on and her favorite baby blanket in her hand. She let out a loud and obnoxious yawn. “Hey sweetie, what are you doing up? You should be in bed.” She shot a pointed glare her dad. “It’s hard to sleep when your big brother is rolling around in his bed and screaming bloody murder.” Their father sighed. “Alright Drake, you sure you're fine?” Drake nodded. “Do you want to tell me about it.?” Drake shook his head. “Okay, try to get some sleep. You have school tomorrow. If this happens again let me know, kay? We’ll go get a therapist or something.” Drake nodded again. “Goodnight Drake.” His father gave him a quick hug then left the room, Lena trailing behind him. Once they went back into their own beds, Drake looked down at his knees in thought. His back was against the wall and his feet were wrapped in blankets. Eventually he sighed and hopped out of bed and to his small personal bathroom, where he wet his face and dried it with a towel, extinguishing any remaining sweat or panic. He wrapped himself in his covers once again and laid on his stomach, trying to fall asleep. Yet he couldn’t shake the feeling that something just happened. Something important. He didn’t know what, but something. He rolled over onto his stomach. Get over yourself, it’s just a dream. This is what happens when you stay up till 2 in the morning, burning through seasons at a time of MLP. You get some wacko dream about a changeling swarm. You’re fine. After all, dreams are just a bunch of random information and memories that your brain hodgepodges together. Nothing to worry about. But he did worry. It felt real. Most dreams, when one tries to recollect them, come out fuzzy and unclear. Drake’s memory of it was crystal. To him, it didn’t feel like a dream, more like he had really been there seconds ago. The pain felt real. He was in control of himself. And that person… He rolled back onto his stomach and groaned into his pillow. He’d probably forget all about this in the morning. It was just the aftershock he was suffering from. After all, it was just a dream. 6hrs later… “...couple of days ago, numerous sightings of a large reptilian came into the Slivercliff police station. Residents say that the beast was the about the size of large dog, and dug through their trash cans. One says that it had large wings on it’s back, describing it as a dragon. Although this is unlikely, experts have been sent to search the area, trying to find and identify the creature many have been complaining about. Dr. Hofstadter reports that nothing was to be found, and that the people of Silvercliff are merely inventing it for attention. Until we can officially clarify what’s going, on residents are encouraged to lock their doors in----” Drake’s father shut off the radio and sighed. “Load of hogwash, that’s what it is. The people there have always been paranoid. Would you really believe that some sort of dragon is roaming around? Ridiculous.” “Don’t Arbor and Debbie live there?”, asked Drake. “Yeah, but I’m not worried. Ain’t nothing gonna harm my sugar dumpling. Someone probably just had there pet lizard escape or something.” Lena piped up. “I hope they find a dragon. That would be awesome! I’d take it home when no one is looking, and name it Spike! Just like from My Little Pony! I wonder if he would be able to roast my marshmallows…” Drake turned around from the passenger seat in his dad’s car and turned to his sister. “Seriously? That’s what you’d do with a dragon? Make it roast marshmallows? If I had a dragon I’d ride it to school and have it burn Miles and his goons to a crisp.” His dad turned a corner, Drake’s high school coming into view. “Is that the guy you’re always complaining about? I hope he’s not still giving you trouble, son.” “Nah, he’s kinda over me. He found this one transfer student that knows 1000 digits of pi.” The van came to a stop in front of the school. Kids came in and out of the school's main gates. Cliques of girls in designer clothes huddled in one corner while the “bad boys” with the loose jeans and hoodie jackets stood somewhere else. Friends talked and smiled, backpacks slung on every shoulder. “Okay, so thanks for the ride dad! Bye!” Drake hopped out of the car and bolted in the doors of the school, navigating the crowded hallways to get to his locker. However, he didn’t go far until… “Drake!” He internally screamed and turned to his friend with a smile. “Hey Jason. How’s it hanging?” “Good good everything’s good. Yesterday, my mom took me to Gamestop I finally got that one Planeswalker that I’ve been missing. Kiora, Master of the Depths!” He looked like was about to combust but then took a breath in and regained his calm. “How’s your dad doing?” He knew this would come up somehow. “Oh, he’s doing good. Almost better! Heh heh…” Jason smiled warmly, then began talking about his Magic: The Gathering club after school. However Drake was cut from listening, because it happened. It happened so fast he was barely able to register it. He was only fully aware of what happened a couple of seconds later, and by looking at Jason’s curious expression. Jason was talking and Drake had been listening. Drake closed his eyes to blink. When he opened them, he felt like he was in completely different world. The school hallway was filled with different colored mists. They swirled around people, constantly in motion, and appeared to have the texture of smooth paint, yet they were slightly transparent. It looked like someone had pulled them out of Vincent Van Gogh's Starry Night painting. Some were yellow, some were blue, and some were pink, but were most were gray. Only one in the background was fiery red. Some were large and spun very quickly around their host, while others were simply small wisps. Whether the were a solid a liquid or a gas, he couldn’t tell. Each color had something unique about it. The yellow ones had bright white cores. The blue, moved in wobbly and wavy lines. Occasionally, a purple spark of electricity would surround someone. He saw so many things, he couldn’t process them all at once. Jason’s colors were yellow and orange, small little circles popping out of the orange’s tail. But something about the pink aura’s, mostly shining off the girls, pulled him towards it. A small voice in the back of his mind told him that he needed it, and he took a small step forward. But then he blinked. The world was reverted back to it’s uncolorful demeanor. Drake shook his head and stared at Jason like a blind person seeing the world around him for the first time. His geeky friend was looking at Drake with an almost frightened expression. He took a step back, slowly and cautiously. “Dude…?” Drake was looking frantically around, looking for any sign that the madness he had just witnessed wasn’t just in his head. When nothing had changed or looked remotely abnormal, Drake turned back to his friend. “DID YOU SEE THAT?!?”, Drake screeched. Jason gulped, looking visibly uncomfortable. “What?” “The-the…colors! Colors everywhere! Swirling and…everywhere...WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT? There were everywhere!! Pink and lightning and paint colors and...lots of stuff...No one moved NO ONE!! The pink stuff was like...uh-uh-uh-uh really….colorful clouds….everywhere….bubbles rainbow... Was that magic? Is this fuggin HOGWARTS?” He screeched last word, causing a couple of other poor students to start walking faster away from the two boys. Jason took three more steps back, and Drake realized he was scaring the crap out of his friend and everyone else around him. Drake looked at his friend pleadingly. “Did you seriously see none of that?” Jason took a deep breath in, looking everywhere except his friends eyes. “Listen Drake, I don’t know what you saw, but I know what I did.” “...I don't understand. What did you see? Did you see those colors too?” “No. I have no idea what in the hell you saw, but dude, I swear to god, your eyes.” Drake felt a nervous pit in his stomach. “Wh-what about my eyes?” “They were blue.” “No they’re not, they’re brown. Are you color blind?” Jason began growing impatient. “They were blue. They’re normal now, but that’s not why I'm freaking out. Not only was the iris blue, but the entire eyeball! Like, there was no white in the sclera! Or pupil! You looked like an alien!” Drake’s heart began to pound. His head began to spin. It was almost impossible to believe that that whole conversation even happened. Before either him or Jason could say anything else, Drake turned on his heel and began sprinting down the hallway, ignoring Jason’s protest of “Wait!” He shoved through the crowd trying to make his way to the place he was originally trying to go: his locker. As he ran, thoughts swarmed in his head like a bunch of flies banging uselessly on a window pane. He felt like he was on the verge of a migraine. He pushed his way to his locker, then put his head against it, blocking out the rest of the world and leaving himself alone with his thoughts. Great, he thought to himself. You start hallucinating and then you scare your friend half to death. He chuckled to himself, although he found nothing about his current situation funny. I think you probably put weed in your cornflakes this morning instead of milk. What the hell. What. the. Hell. Hell. Hell. hell hell hell hell hell hell hell hell. He began banging his head slowly on the wall, unsure of how to walk away from this. Well, like mom used to say, the past is in the past, and there is nothing you can do except change the future. He really missed her. Maybe after school today he’d visit her. Sighing, he opened his locker about to get all his things for the first class of the day: English. Which, by looking at the digital clock on his arm, he only had 30 seconds to get to!! Panic shooting throughout his entire body, he hastily jerked an arm inside his locker and grabbed a handful of books, turning on his heel and dashing down the hall like a complete fool. He burst inside of his classroom in the nick of time, all the other students turning to look at him. It was a rather dull classroom, with nothing more than a white board and the teacher’s desk adorning it. A small globe sat on the wooden desk, and the desks were set up in a perfect symmetrical order: 6 rows and 4 columns. But even more boring than the whole room put together, was the teacher, Ms. Pente. Emphasis on the Ms. She is a sad, lonely woman who has no children and no spouse, and she blames everyone for her miserable life. People avoid her whenever they can, as she will likely snap at them for not breathing properly or something. She eyeballed him when he walked into the room, finding his desk and putting his books inside of it. “Ah, Mr. Traffer. Late again are we? Detention.” “But it was only 5 sec-” “I don’t care. Late is late. Detention is detention. Now open your textbooks to page 107. Now!” The sound of pages turning filled the room as everyone was frantically trying to find the right page. “We were learning about the proper way to use who and whom. Something even this class full of 15 year-olds can still not figure out!” Everyone began slinking in their seats. Until Pente spoke up. “SIT UP!” They sat up. Ms. Pente growled like a bulldog then began writing notes on the board, which the class was supposed to copy down on a separate sheet of paper. However, right after one sees a hurricane of magic colorful blobs swirl through the room and their friend tells him his eyes changed colors, it makes it hard to concentrate on something as mind-numbing as pronouns. Why the hell would my eyes change? Maybe it was a trick of the light or something, cause that stuff doesn’t happen! What am I, slowly evolving into a Martian or something? This is stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Mom would know what to do. There’s no one I can talk to about this. Dad’s a giant pinhead, Lena’s a brat, I don't want to even mention Debbie, Arbor will think I’m insane and so will the rest of my friends. Jason probably went and told them already about how I lost my mind in the hallway. Was I really the only one who saw that? No one else even moved. Hell, did it even happen? Am I just going insane? Am I sniffing drugs in my sleep or something? Are- “TRAFFER!” Drake sat bolt upright, staring straight at Ms. Pente. She looked absolutely murderous. Her eyes were bloodshot and too wide to fit on her head. “May I ask what might be more important than proper grammar?” Drake thought quickly. “Nothing, Ma'am! I was just thinking about how... wonderful your hair looks today!” She stared at him, her nose 6 inches away from his, piercing black eyes looking at his very soul, when… She stood up and began running her fingers through her hair, bright red and in a messy curly bun. She practically radiated with pride. “Why, I just got it colored yesterday! I’m so glad you noticed!” Drake let a breath he was holding in loose. She really was thick, wasn’t she? “Now, for your wonderful compliment, I think I might just revoke that detention of yours.” Drake internally did a fist pump as Ms. Pente turned back to the board. He looked around. His classmates were staring at him with open mouths, incredulous looks on their faces. He swiveled in his chair, so his legs were facing his right, and he mouthed to everyone: “That, my friends, is how you get it done.” A smug look adorned his face. He turned back around in his seat, to face his teacher. If Drake had a quarter for every time something weird happened today, he would have $0.75. He was about have a dollar. Absentmindedly, Drake ran his tongue over his teeth, half listening to Ms. Pente lecture. What he felt made him gag on his on spit. His tongue. It felt forked. He sat bolt upright, moving his tongue around his mouth, trying to produce an accurate picture in his mind of what it looked like. He could feel two split ends flailing around in his mouth. Yep. Definitely forked.    He could swear his heart stopped beating for five seconds. He did the most reasonable thing he could in that instant. “Ms.PenteIhavetogotothebathroomokaybye!” He was so scared and had so many thoughts going through his head at the moment and was running so fast that… He was in the bathroom. He hardly even remembered getting there. He did a quick scan of the room around him, back to the door. He was alone. Good. Slowly and shakily, he stepped up in front of the dirty sink and looked at himself in the mirror. His reflection stared back at him. He looked normal. He opened his mouth and let his tongue fall out of his mouth. It was long and slender, two split ends making up the end. It hung a little ways past his chin. It looked exactly like a snake’s tongue. Well poop on a stick, his expectations of how the day was going to play out had changed dramatically. His vision blurred and a pang of nauseous excitement ran through his body. Okay, Okay, Okay, no reason to overreact. This is a dream. It must be! This stuff only happens in the movies! Or bad Fanfictions! Not real life! Maybe I’ll wake up if I pinch myself…… Ow. Nope. Maybe the movies aren’t always right. I just need to calm down and keep my mouth closed and ignore the fact that I’M TURNING INTO A GODDAMN SNAKE. He slid his god awful tongue back into his mouth, where it somehow fit. He just shouldn’t talk. Yeah. Maybe it will go away. Yeah. But what if it doesn’t? What if you start growing scales or creepy eyes and then the throw you in a lab and run test on you and- @#$% this. He didn’t know what to do. He had no @#$!ing idea what to do. But at that moment, the bathroom door opened, and a kid that looked like a junior walked in. Good thing Drake’s mouth was closed. As he came in, Drake went out, and was greeted with hallways full of students. 1st period was already over. Only 6 more to go. And then, if the tongue stays, maybe his whole life. Yippee. “Can someone tell me what the cell membrane is made of? Anyone? Luke?” A boy in the back of the class spoke. “Phospholipids and...um… uh… is that it?” Mrs. Clare sighed. “Close! There are also protein channels as well. Now, last week we were talking about transport between these channels. If a particle floats into the cell membrane and happens to pass through these channels, without the use of energy, would that be active or passive transport?” A couple of students raised their hands, but a boy in the back of the classroom caught her eye. He was nervously glancing around the classroom, and judging by the way he kept tugging on the collar of his shirt, she could infer that he was probably sweating. “Drake?”, Mrs. Clare tentatively asked. When she called his name he gave a small jolt in his seat and stared at her with eyes as big as dinner plates and pupils the size of pinpricks. His reaction reminded her of her son, and how he likes to play this weird indie horror game in his free time. What was it...uh...Five Nights at Fred’s? Something like that. She had often poked into her son’s room while he was playing the game, and the way Drake reacted was almost equivalent to they way her son would jump in his seat when one of the creepy overgrown teddy bears would jump in his face. “Drake, do you know whether the example I gave was active or passive transport?” Drake shook his head. “Are you sure? You always come in my class so well prepared. Is something wrong, hon? Do you need to go up to the nurse’s? You’re not looking too well…” Drake shook his head again. “You sure?” He nodded. His lips, she noticed, were pressed so tight together that the red from them was almost completely gone, they were thin and white. “Okay…” She turned back to the rest of the class, sighing. Poor kids. They must be so overwhelmed with school. Drake was overwhelmed with life. Someone had tried to talk to him, and he was scared half to death that even if he answered with a hand over his mouth, he might hiss when he makes the ‘s’ sound. Everyone was already looking at him funny. He was lucky none of his friends were in Biology with him. He was just about ready to flip a pretty little bird at life. But then it happened. Right as the teacher turned her back, everything went to shit. A sudden, jarring pain exploded from his hand, causing him to shout out in surprise. He clutched his arm and hissed in pain through his teeth as the exploding sensation kept spreading. He was faintly aware of someone calling his name, and many eyes on him, but he was busy focusing on something else. He felt the skin on his hand stretching and hardening slowly, as if crusting over and peeling off, it being constantly stretched and remolded. The world was spinning. His vision blurred and his mind was having trouble producing a single coherent thought. Despite his situation, he stood up and bolted for the door, slamming into some walls on the way out. He ran once again down the hall. He ran as fast as he could muster. He could feel that burning sensation in his hand...spreading. It all seemed like a dream. He didn't even know whether he was breathing or not. He found the bathroom door and scrambled inside, quickly locking himself in one of the stall doors. Out of weakness, he fell to his knees as the most pain he had ever experienced in his life took place. His bones felt as if they were snapping in half, his muscles were moving against his will, his skull was becoming elongated and it took everything he had not to scream like a newborn baby. His very eyeballs felt like they were on fire and his skin felt like something was crusting all over. His fingers were melting into his hand. He laying was on the floor now. His teeth were growing, his tongue was splitting something was sprouting from his head, his tailbone, his shoulder blades, he wanted it all to end. Make it stop. Stop STOP STOP... “STOOOOOP!” He screamed the last part. As fast as everything came, it stopped so suddenly that it jarred him to suddenly not be in excruciating pain. Everything was quiet. His senses returned to him. He could feel the cold, hard slightly-wet tile floor underneath him. He could hear the faint ticking of the clock above the sinks. But something was wrong. He wasn’t him. In other words, he didn't feel like Drake. His body didn't feel right. His legs felt jointed in the wrong way. He took a breath in through his mouth, heavy and satisfying. Even the way the air got to his lungs felt off. Slowly and cautiously, he cracked an eye open. His vision swam but straightened itself up momentarily He stared at the dull white paint of the ceiling, a small circular light bulb in the center. What the Hell…? Why…? He began to try and sit himself up by using his hands to push himself off the ground. He put one “hand” in front of his face and his mind shattered into a million pieces. Right in front of him, there was a slender black object filled with holes. At first, he didn’t know what it was supposed to be, thinking it was a broken pipe or something, but his realization came when he gave his arm a shake. The thing shook instead. In less than an instant, he was more alert a police dog on focus medication, sleepy and dizzy demeanor instantly gone. He sat up immediately, ignoring how wrong it felt  and the fact that he was sitting on his haunches, legs curled up at his sides like a dog. He brought his trembling Swiss-cheese resembling appendage up to his face. With his hours of time holed up in his closet and surfing the web, he was fully aware of what black object that replaced his hand was. It was a hoof. A hoof he knew very well. No... Breathing heavy, he glanced his head down at the rest of his body. Drake fought the urge to vomit. His skin was black. He had no hands or feet. He had the body formation of a quadruped, and they way he sat confirmed it. Everything was full of holes. His clothes hung loosely over his now much smaller body. He twisted his head around and turned to look at his back. A small tail protruded from his tailbone. It had the appearance of spider silk, short and holey. No…! With a small gentle shimmy, his clothes came loose and slid right off his back, allowing him to get a full look at himself. His back was made up of a light blue shell, resembling a beetle in some ways. But the main thing that had his interest was a pair of translucent insect wings, perched innocently upon his shoulder blades. Staring at them intently, he gave the an experimental twitch. They fluttered a few times. NO… He reached a hoof up, feeling something long black and pointy resting in the center of his forehead. NO…! No thoughts were running through his head. He had nothing to say. He didn’t know what to do. Time had stopped. His breath came quicker, he could feel his tiny little heart beating as fast as a mouse running from a 10 foot tomcat, barely able to distinguish the intervals in which it beat. Standing up, trying to get a hang of the new pair of limbs he was granted, he raised a hoof to the locked bathroom stall door, slowly bringing a hoof behind it and flipping the latch open. A small part of him was thankful this hadn’t been any other lock, or he’d be screwed. The door swung wide open, and Drake clambered on top of the toilet seat, new joints not cooperating with what he wanted them to do. He looked forward, for right across from the toilets were the sinks and mirrors, and being on top of the toilet helped him see. He looked in the mirror. A monster stared back at him, and that’s when everything began to fall back in place, and everything began working again. His panic levels began to skyrocket. Not the ‘what the hell’ delirious panic, but the ‘AHHHHHHHHHH’ run-in-circles-need-to-be-slapped kind of panic. Staring back at him in the mirror, was a changeling. From the kids show My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It had piercing blue eyes with no pupil, fangs that jutted out from its upper lip, and an insect-like form, black chitin covering every surface. It also had a absolutely terrified look on its face and eyes so wide, they took up almost his entire face. Thank God the bathrooms were empty then, or the boys that would enter would act like bats outta hell. Drake tilted his head to the side. So did the changeling. Everything began coming together in his mind as it finally registered what was happening. That Changeling. That was him. He was a changeling. Sitting on a toilet. In a heavily populated middle school. Fan-fucking-tastic What the hell? I’m a changeling?? HOW? WHY? WHAT?!? This only happens in fanfictions written by overly energetic bronies! Nonononono How do I change back? Wait change… Can I change into something else? Can I turn back into me? That won’t fix the problem though because I’ll still be an EFFING CHANGELING. He hopped off the toilet and wobbled as he stuck the landing, slowly peeking out of the stall and glancing at the clock hanging above the entryway. Everything seemed so large seeing as he was much closer to the ground now. It was about 10:55. 5 minutes until 2nd period ended and the school was given a 10 minute break. 5 minutes until the school would be flooded with students and he would no longer be alone in here. Could it get any worse? A pound came from the door, causing him to flinch, news ears flattening against his skull, eyes intently staring at the door like a terrified puppy. WHY? Why did you have to jinx it you moron?! You’ve watched enough TV to know that everytime someone says that, it UNDOUBTEDLY gets worse!! What do I do ohhhhhhhh… He began trotting in place glancing around for somewhere to hide. The gentle voice of Mrs. Clare was slightly muffled behind the bathroom door. "Drake, sweetie, are you okay? Is everything alright in there? Are you sick? Should I come in?” Of course she would be worried. He had bumbled from her classroom like he was about vomit, bleed and have a stroke at the same time, of course she’d want to come check on him. Well done, Drake. “Honey, are you there? I’m going to come in okay?” There was only one word to describe his current situation. Screwed. Drake was completely and utterly screwed. Oh joy.