1
“Look at what you’ve done” I made a gesture towards the computer screen across the room
“I figured it was time to bring you back here. It’s been eight years since you left, so-“
“So why didn’t you just forget about me?”
A hand immediately slapped on the glass, interrupting me just as fast as I had to him.
“Because you were making a circus of yourself! You can’t just pop out of nowhere and prance around the United States claiming you’re a winged horse from another planet that’s been brought here due to a freak accident!”
A pause.
“Don’t say it like that.” I grumbled.
“Why?” He stabbed. “Because you know it sounds ridiculous?”
“But it’s true! I am who I say I am; I am Rainbow Dash!”
“Bullshit! You’re name is Grayson, you have a job here working for me as a human guinea pig, and you’re life means nothing. Those were your words, boy.”
“But that isn’t me anymore.”
“That isn’t true. Starting now it is you, and will be for the rest of your life. I’m changing you back.”
“You can’t!” This was a battle I was losing, I had to bounce back. “I-I won’t let you! Yeah, I remember how this works. You can’t make me listen to you.”
Now there is a brief chuckle from him.
“You think I haven’t toyed with the machine? It’s different now; much better than before. In fact, the first thing I added was what I knew I needed.”
My anger receded to fear, denial, and false curiosity.
“What would that be?”
“A reset button. When I first made the machine, I thought, ‘why add one? why add a button that takes everything you’ve done and sent it back to square one?’ well, you are the answer to that question. It’s time you return to your natural form. the form God gave you.”
“God screwed me over.”
“No Grayson. You screwed yourself. You did it before, and you did it again.”
His tone made it clear he was done talking.
Boyd, (Or Professor Miles Boyd, as he prefers it when I waste five syllables, even though I’ve known him forever,) turns off the intercom between him and the air-tight display case-esque chamber I stand in now. It hasn’t changed at all since eight years ago; At least, not visually. Yet, it still had sort of the same feeling as then. It’s like when you arrive back at the airport in your hometown after a one, maybe two, weeklong vacation. It looks like, sounds like, smells like how you remember it, but you know you’re here because your adventure has come to an end. Since the room was completely escape proof, (at least for anyone without hands,) I had been freed from the rope tied around my waist, plastering my wings to my back. un-stretched wings feel just like knots in your back, so I extended them for what I hoped to not be the last time. My feeling of relief was soon eradicated by the gentle, but noticeable whirr of the machine. First thing I notice, is feeling numb, and tingly. Then I tense up, and tip forward like a crane holding too much weight. Well this is new. Granted, I was sleeping through it last time, and apparently Boyd’s changes to the machine made it go considerably faster. I guess I had to be as stiff as a board before the machine actually did its job. My ears began to shrink and slide down to the sides of my face. At the same time my wings shriveled down into my back. It was like a tree growing, but in reverse. My muzzle pushed back into a proper nose and mouth. Then all at once, my bones and joints started rearranging. Needless to say, I have no idea how I slept through this before. This was painful. I clenched my fist, though it didn’t really close with stubs of still-growing fingers. That mess eventually stopped, and I could feel again, and the first thing I felt was cold. No more fur and feathers for me. Is it over? I moved closer to the reflection in the glass, trying not to make eye contact with Boyd, who must have been watching me the whole time. creepy… A pale, bipedal figure was staring back at me. It was me. I ran my fingers through my hair. Short and brown. I internally sighed to myself. I started for the exit and waited for Boyd to let me out.
“You might want to put that on first?” He pointed to a latex suit in the corner.
Right. The machine doesn’t clothe. Wait; That means Boyd was watching me, and I was butt naked. Okay, creepier.
“You’ve aged.” Boyd noted.
I took a look at my reflection, this time in a legitimate mirror. I had indeed aged.
“I nearly forgot how I looked.” From how I looked eight years in the past, I was now considerably taller. My father was a towering giant over my mother, and relative to puberty, both of them bloomed late. I figured it would take this long for me to get taller. I also had a fair amount of facial hair, which again, wasn’t really present at nineteen. Eeyup. I was nineteen with a baby face.
“So what does this make me? Err… 27?”
“26 at the moment.” Boyd said. “But in three days…”
And I thought I had problems remembering my friends’ birthdays.
“So this is my gift, from you, for my 27th birthday, which I forgot?” I say forgot because I wanted to get away from everything pertaining to human me.
“If you want to call it a gift, go ahead. If not, well then theres that stuff over there.” He pointed to a pile of things. My things. From my old room.”
I gave him a flat look.
“You can’t give someone their personal belongings for their own birthday.”
“Okay then, take it anyway. I don’t want it, nor do I need it.”
“Then put it back in my room.”
“Yeah, it’s not your room anymore. Congratulations, Grayson, you’re fired.”
Happy fucking birthday to me.
“I can’t keep you in this sort of environment,” He continued. “and I can no longer trust you with anything of mine.”
“Now just because I use one of your machines, which is my job, and then decide to leave,” I stopped. I realized I didn’t have such a strong argument.
“Just grab your things. Just grab them, and go. There’s a cab outside.”
If there was an award for worst goodbye ever, given the time I spent with this guy, Boyd wins it. After that he was done. No more talking, no more eye contact, nothing. he just walked out. The back door was propped open, as if the building itself was waiting for me to leave. Boyd at least had the decency to give me a duffle bag to put my things in, which there wasn’t that much to begin with. The only thing left in the room was me, the door, the machine (which was shut down and locked,) and the monitor. The webpage on the monitor, a local news website, had big letters on the front page. “Rainbow Dash, kidnapped during presidential party.” I shut off the monitor, even though that wouldn’t stop me from thinking about it. I’ll never forget about it. And I probably won’t be able to for years. The whole country will be having seizures over it anyway.
I stepped outside into the sunlight, and closed the door behind me.