The stars overhead mocked him with their silence, while the cold pavement he sat on slowly sucked the heat from him. He couldn’t exactly remember where this particular alley was, though in the end it probably didn’t matter.
Nothing mattered anymore.
He could remember the opening of the Bureaus, their promises of being able to choose any form at all, and be able to change back at any time. He’d been skeptical of it at first; after all, it had been hard enough to believe that talking ponies, dragons, dogs, griffons and a dozen other species or more could exist at all, let alone let you turn into one of them. But gradually, as the number of Bureaus rose and the number of Converts along with them, he’d finally caved in and bought a bottle.
And it had been glorious. It still bothered him that he could not remember what it was that he’d Converted into. Sometimes, the memory of flight would return, soaring on powerful wings with nothing to hold him down. But as he focused on it, he realized that hadn’t been the first time, nor had the time spent deep underwater, underground, or any of the dozens or even hundreds of Conversions he’d undergone.
The worst had been the looks he’d gotten from his friends and family. He couldn’t blame them though, in hindsight it had been all his fault. Even his girlfriend had left him after the fifteenth Conversion since their relationship had started. Her parting words still stung as he lowered his head to stare at the object he held.
“It’s like I don’t even know you anymore...” he muttered, the words just as painful to hear as they had been when she’d said them. “She was right, though.” He shook his head. “Christ, I don’t even know what I am anymore.” He started shaking as he looked at the bottle of potion. “I don’t even know what I was, at first.” He wondered who he was talking to, but supposed that didn’t matter either.
Maybe... maybe he could just take the bottle, and then be done. Whatever form he wound up in, let that be it, and be happy with what he had. He supposed through all of it, he could at least say he knew who he was, if not what.
“Ah, the hell with it.” He tipped back the bottle and drank, as the first hint of sunlight came over the horizon. The empty bottle slipped from his fingers as his skin turned waxy. “Least it’s... a new... day.”