The change happened when I was actually seven years old. I wondered why dad was suddenly turning all green and scaly, while mom was turning all reddish and brown, but my sister and I weren't changing at all. I found out a little later that apparently, the Change wouldn’t affect us until we started to hit puberty.

I just wish I knew it then. So initially, my sister and I ran away because we thought our parents were turning into animals. She woke me up to scream about what was happening. Then another wave hit, and we spotted mom’s ears getting big, and dad’s teeth getting sharper. So...well...since I was only seven, my sister was nine, we weren’t thinking correctly. We thought dad was going to eat us.

So we ran. We ran because we were scared. We ran because we didn’t know. We ran because we weren’t alone. Somehow my sister knew that there were other kids going through the same things we were. Our parents were turning into animals. We were afraid this was happening everywhere. So we sort of had clothes on and we met in the park, all scared.

To this day, I don’t know why my parents didn’t follow, but well, they were a little...pre-occupied. Some of them were probably trying to get their spouses or older children under control as they turned into a complete animal. Others were probably animals themselves. Or they were too distracted. Whatever the case, the park behind the house suddenly turned into lord of the flies. At least...in terms of kids who thought that all the grown-ups were gone.

So anyone who seemed to be above thirteen or whatever was now growing scales, feathers, or fur. Jessica said she saw her grandmother grow an elephant’s trunk even. We were all terrified, basically. Some kids were even still in jammies, and I know Michael still had his security blanket with him. I might have taken my favourite pillow with me if I had the time. I just threw on the only clothes we had.

It was nothing short of chaos. We all gathered in the park in a group. Awkward silence for what seemed like the first few hours. Apart from some of the crying and frightened whimpers. I mean, put yourself in our shoes for a minute - we’re like, between the ages of three and twelve. We’re scared. We think our parents and older siblings are now animals and probably eating each other if not us. Nobody says anything for a little.

Until someone stands on top of the slide. Clark, the oldest. He was twelve at the time. He shouted to get all of our attention. It didn’t work, until he just shouted louder. That finally got the small horde of children to shut up for a few minutes so they could pay attention to him.

“Well, to state the obvious, you saw what’s happening. It looks like we have the end of the world. But we survived for some reason.”

We didn’t know exactly what he was talking about. The end of the world? How could the world have ended if we were still alive? This wasn’t like some kind of biblical rapture or whatever. We knew where the adults were. We just didn’t know what would happen. We were afraid to go back into the house. Some people probably would take this to mean some kind of mental phenomena to think they were chosen by some kind of supernatural thing. But we took it to mean we just got lucky anyways.

So for what seemed like a whole day, we tried to align what we could do for the society. I mean, we’d all grow up without our parents. We all instantly decided to switch to vegetarianism just because if we had to hunt, we might kill somebody’s father who turned into a cow. (That, and we didn’t know how to cook!) After that, I know that our parents never had any problems having to make us eat our broccoli. I even still remember that vow. And even today some of the kids who were around for that little event (the original Change Day) can still recite that vow that we all took together.

“I promise never to eat another animal ever again for it may be somebody’s parent.”

It’s sort of a meme with us now. But yeah, it left an impact. I didn’t even know all of the kids who were in the park with us. Sure, I knew most of them. I still remember this one instance where a girl seemed to be hiding under the gazebo, away from everyone else. She must have been the “New Girl” who moved in just a few days ago. Just imagine what was going through her head...you move in a few days ago, then your parents start turning into animals.

It wasn’t long after Clark tried to organize us that we started to hear our parents calling our names. At first we all didn’t respond. Well, we were scared. We actually didn’t run at all. I know a few kids tried to take off, only to be grabbed by some of the older ones. Many of us clung together.

Then came the zoo. Walking down the aisles in the park, we spotted a regular zoo of animals calling our names. We even spotted more animals coming from our right. All of them were wearing clothing too - at least, of some kind. It was all ill-fitting. And a few didn’t even bother - why should you wear clothes if you’re covered in feathers and are a giant bird?

Well, just imagine for a second what might have happened. I mean, you start turning into an animal...and your kids run away because they’re scared. Then you find them in the park instead of taking refuge in a friend’s house. Large group of children inside the park clutching each other out of fear. And they don’t recognize you. We didn’t know what it was like...we were scared, but many of us were later reminded of how much we scared our parents. The weird thing was, we weren’t punished...I mean, who could have possibly known what to do when they start turning into animals?

My sister and I clung to each other as kids started to walk to their parents, nervously. We spotted some who walked towards a steer and a goat. We saw a dog and an orca picking up children who looked even more small. We spotted Clark’s parents...an anthropomorphic eel and a frog. (He later moved away...gee I wonder why.) Some of us still were afraid. We couldn’t hear our parents’ voices amongst the sea of strange animalistic and children’s crying. Eventually, we heard our dad shouting. That was them.

There they were...an anthropomorphic crocodile and a kangaroo. We stopped for a moment, but we knew. They knew. We walked to our parents and went home. We still haven’t forgotten that night...even when several of our number ruled away. Our story even got to the media. We got rounded up after people called the rather canine news station and were told to collect in the park, just like we did that morning, on Change Day. We were all asked about what we did, and why we ran. Just because people thought it was impressive about how the kids reacted. Or how one group of kids thought to collect in the park, thinking of what the worst possible scenario was.

Yeah, yeah, I know there’s a page of us on the internet about that weird social phenomenon. The Park Kids. The children who thought to try making a post apocalyptic society when the Change hit. I’m one of them. Of course, times have changed massively. We’re starting to grow up now.

Now it’s 2000. The new millennium came just as predicted. The world once more didn’t end. Even then, I couldn’t help but feel like my world was going to come to an end. The Change happened when I was in second grade. Now I’m entering sixth, and have a huge challenge ahead of me: Middle School. I wasn’t going to fear Middle School that much when I was seven. I felt like I could take on the entire world.

Middle School is, in my opinion, the stupidest idea ever to have come after the Change. It was bad enough when we were all human, but now that we turn into animals when we hit puberty, it’s even more harrowing. First thing we were told in growth and development, aka health and sex ed class, that people mature at different rates. And this is what makes Middle School such a retarded idea.

You have people like me who are completely human, and then you mix them with others who’re going through changes, or have already changed. And now that you have people who’re fully changed into morphs, then you got people who’re often twice the size of the people who’re just entering and haven’t entered puberty yet. I’m really really not looking forward to it at all.

Especially since I’m unchanged. I haven’t had any first sign in awhile. I’m supposed to be entering middle school in a few months, and I’m not changed. I haven’t had any first sign at all. My sister was lucky she matured fast...well the girls always do allegedly. Everyone who has the first signs are usually females.

Well, because of the whole “I’m the only one in my immediate family who hasn’t changed yet” thing, mom and dad are trying to push me to change my diet. Unlike some of the old “Park Kids” who became carnivorous enough, I’ve kept my vow. So has my sister - after all she did turn into a llama. But even though she can eat meat, she just doesn’t like it. And it would just give us some dirty looks.

“You really need try getting a taste for meat. You never know what you’re going to become,” Dad told me.

We were once again at the Greek place in town, something that was purely omnivorous. I simply never bothered to try any of the steak or chicken (Especially since it might have been that synthetic stuff...I was afraid to try even that.). I always just stuck to portobello mushrooms, salads, hummus, and falafel. Especially Falafel. Mom was simply eating chicken - something unusual for a kangaroo, but not the degree morph she was.

“I made that vow, remember?” I looked at my sister, who nodded at me.

“That was four years ago,” Dad told me, “I’m not saying this because I’m 70-30 carnivorous, but because you don’t know if you’ll be forced to go fully carnivorous. Those like us are lucky. Alex, I’m just saying this before you wind up having to make a major change.”

“Colette, what did you learn about the species distribution when you were in school?” I asked my sister.

“Mostly herbivores,” She said.

“See? The odds are in my favour that I’m preparing for a lifetime of vegetarianism. And I’m just fine with that. I don’t mind.”

“You still should be prepared. You never know what’s going to happen. You shouldn’t assume,” Mom piped in.

“Do you have to talk about this in public?” My sister said, putting her hoofified hand over her eyeridges. A few morphs were already looking. It was weird enough being the only human in here. But did we have to start talking all about dietary concerns? I was happy just having pieces of falafel and greek salad.

“While we’re on the mind of food, of course,” Dad said to me.

“Please, just no, look at Colette there.”

* * *

The end of summer was getting nearer and nearer still. I mean, can you honestly blame somebody for not getting anxious? I was already one of the few humans around where I was. There were some who had children that were younger and unchanged. I’d ride my bike through the park and notice them with their kids. If only they knew what things would be like for them down the road. Even if they wouldn’t have survived the Change itself, they would still have to grow up with the thought that any day around my age, they could start turning into an animal.

I know I was supposed to go to orientation soon. Changeyear or Pre-changeyear, they call it. Yeah, I’m not that interested. Fifth grade was so simple - just the standard stuff. Now, you had to learn all sorts of stuff like what would happen when you started changing, AND on top of all the other sorts of stuff. Herd dynamics, pack dynamics, whatever. Ugh. I still kept thinking back to that day, about how scared we were. We didn’t think it’d happen to us, but now, it was.

I do legitimately miss most of those kids. See, we became fire-forged friends when we ran to the park thinking we’d have to fend for ourselves. But so many kids wound up moving for whatever reason. Others just kind of grew distant from us. Almost all the time, you’d see one of them here, but not today. I crawled up to the top of the slide on the playstructure and just curled up. I didn’t want to be doing this. I didn’t want to turn into an animal. It was scary. I just had to keep telling mom and dad that I’d probably turn into a mammalian herbivore of some kind...but then there were some who were ruminants. (Thank goodness my sister was lucky.)

I don’t know how long it was, but I heard mom calling my name. Oh great - just my luck. Dad normally came to fetch me from the park. And if I didn’t want to be caught, I could sort of avoid him. (Until I got a tad too close to where he was hiding. Never doubt a crocodile’s ability to hide somewhere and ambush you) Mom could easily outrun me...or rather, outhop me. At first I was completely motionless. I was out in the open practically - the playstucture had only a roof covering it, not walls high enough to hide behind.

“Aleeeex! Alex! You better be out here!” Mom called.

I still didn’t move. I could hear her getting closer. Eventually, I spotted the red kangaroo that was my mother walking down the sidewalk to the park. I don’t know why I did this, but I somersaulted back a bit, down the bright red slide, into the tube. And yet I caught myself. That easily would have given me away. I didn’t move, shoes still holding me in an awkward upside down mess inside the slide.

Mom was outside the slide. She clearly heard me. Then again, she had probably seen me too. I couldn’t exactly see outside the slide, I was just looking down, upside down. I heard some knocking noises on the slide. It was her.

“Alex, you in there?” She asked.

I didn’t respond, You know I was a kid. I didn’t think straight. She knocked a few more times on the plastic. She didn’t even bother to look up the tube slide - she knew I was in there. I don’t know if that was her power or not. Because it was a spiral slide, she couldn’t have seen me anyways. All the blood was rushing to my head.

“Well,” She said out loud, as if I wasn’t already inside, “I was going to take Alex to his Middle School orientation...but it looks like he’s not here. I guess that means Alex isn’t going to get any CHOCOLATE!!!”

There were several more thumping noises as I finally lost my grip. It wasn’t the mention of chocolate - it was the fact that the blood was rushing to my head. I could deal without chocolate...if it meant I wouldn’t have to walk around a new school and possibly see how many of my other friends might have changed.

I tumbled out of the slide head-first, looking up towards the sky. There she was, right above me, with her hands on her thick waist. Before I could do anything else to get away, she grabbed onto my shoulders and pulled me out, not even minding if my feet fell on the ground uncomfortably or not. Like, ouch.

“I know it’s scary, hon,” She said, guiding me to my feet, and grabbing my hands with a paw, “I know you were here on Change Day so much, and you came here several more times to just hang out by yourself. But it’s August. You need to go to orientation. Don’t think of it as being scary - think of it as being exciting!”

I couldn’t really walk away or do anything else. I still didn’t wanna go. Maybe some part of me was clinging to the hope that if I stayed in the park, I could remain human my whole life. I didn’t say anything else, as mom walked me home. I was put right in the car, doors locking as she stepped in the driver’s seat.

Then we were off. Off to my new school, The Bacon Wildlife Academy. Who the heck named these schools? They tried to sound ungodly pretentious. The school itself had a white looking exterior, and made me think that it looked a little more like a prison than it did a middle school. So many hallways looked to be nothing but windows - that must have gotten ungodly hot in the spring and cold in the winter.

The sign on the outside, right before the school, looked at best, tacky. It used to say “Bacon Jr. High” but the words “Jr. High” were removed and replaced with “Wildlife Academy”. It didn’t have near the amount of space for those two words, and they weren’t even the same font (or colour) as the word “Bacon”. The word “Bacon” was up for decades...and looked almost faded, but you could still read it from a distance.

The campus had all sorts of changes to it. They had put up some kind of perverted ropes course. Apparently there was a playground, but now they abolished recess in favour of putting in another period. I hated it. This was one of the reasons I was afraid...when I started to Change, I was going to be forced to be somebody I didn’t want to be. Recess for me was the time where you could be yourself.

“Well this is it, Alex. What do you think?” Mom looked at me.

“I hate it,” I said.

“You’ve never even been inside!” She protested.

“Yes I have,” I said, “Remember you made me watch Colette’s softball games.”

“That was different - you get to see all the stuff in here, like the classrooms, the ropes course, the new powers lab. Come on, give it a chance.”

“And if I don’t like it?” I said.

“Well, you’ll have to get used to it. Come on - let’s go.”

I didn’t move.

“I want to go back home,” I said.

“We all have to do things we don’t like. And you’ll have to make the best of it. You’re going to turn twelve soon. You’ll be changing any day now. Come on, all your friends from Tarry elementary school are here.”

I got practically pulled out of the car by her. I looked around the parking lot and spotted a blonde girl being tugged out by a rather vicious looking spinosaurus morph. It was somewhat of an amusing sight. As we walked to the entrance of the building, I could even hear a few people crying. I looked towards it and recognized something familiar. Some kids around my age (probably younger) didn’t want to go in either. Who could blame them. This is essentially saying goodbye to your childhood.

“Don’t make a scene like the Cheng triplets,” Mom told me, dragging me into the front door, “Come on - I know for a fact that Fiona is going to be here.”

I turned red. Why did mom have to mention Fiona. I had this massive crush on Fiona since the third grade. I think asking Colette for advice on how to talk to girls was probably the stupdiest thing I have ever done. Instead of telling me what girls like to hear, she went to tell mom that I had a crush on Fiona and...well, yeah. Ever since then they’ve been trying to get me to do something like go on a mock date with her. The closest we had was the valentine’s dance in elementary school. And...well...she was my first kiss. We kissed each other on the lips.

“You haven’t seen her all summer, think about it!” Mom said, taking me into the lunchroom. I could already smell some of the animalistic smells - as well as too much shampoo. These were my new classmates. Some I didn’t recognize, and some I did. Several of these people were already changed in various degrees. And somehow, I recognized a few.

I didn’t budge. Like a terrified six year old, I practically clung to mom. Look, put yourself in my shoes for a moment...you’re eleven. You’re going to a new school. You’d be scared too. Not scared enough to retreat into your mom’s pouch. (Because well, that’s where she keeps her purse, anyways and I never actually did that.) But yeah. I’m scared, I wanna go home.

I then felt a tapping on my shoulder. I looked behind me, only to see nobody. I was tapped again. I kept looking around, and I didn’t see anything. Finally, I saw a rather weird hand waving in front of my face. It was some kind of bluish green hand, with strange little grooves on the fingers. Like....like a gecko’s.

“I’m up here!” A familiar voice said. It was...Fiona?

I looked up above me and gasped. It sounded like Fiona...it dressed like Fiona. But this was not the Fiona I knew. It was a fully transformed middie gecko of some kind, lying on some kind of invisible platform above me. She waved a hand at me, smiling a somewhat familiar (if not reptilian) smile.

“Heya there Alex!” She said, “It’s me - Fiona. Remember?”

Alright, now, seriously, just consider this...the girl you had your first kiss with had brown hair. Now, after she’s gone for about two months, she’s completely bald. And she’s using some kind of power that lets her lie on invisible platforms like some kind of mime from hell. It’s like she’s looking down from me while relaxing on a platform above my head. She used to have sort of a darkish tan skin, but now it’s all scaly and is bright green, blue, and has some red markings, too. You know, she doesn’t look like anybody you’ve ever met. Yet it is still her.

“See Alex? Fiona changed, and she’s accepting it!” Mom said, “Look at that, she’s even using her power like that, too. It’s not going to be so bad, is it?”

“It was actually after memorial day,” Fiona said, “You wouldn’t believe this - first my hands started to stick to things. Then I noticed a tail started developing behind me.”

“Oh! Yes! That was just like what I had happen! Did you ever get it stuck in doors?”

“It happened only a few times,” Fiona continued.

“You should tell Alex - you can help support him. He’s not even had his first sign yet. Right Alex? Alex?”

I had my hands buried in my face. It was just too much for me. I didn’t want anyone to see it, but I was crying. Just like some of the other kids who were scared, namely the Cheng triplets.

“Alex? Are you okay?” Fiona asked.

“Alex?” Mom asked.

“I wanna go home!” I finally said.

* * *

Well, that’s how we found out I had an anxiety of some kind. Specifically, prechange anxiety. It was some new disorder that showed up with kids who were just afraid of the change. It’s called “Prechange Anxiety”. Very common amongst young children and teens who hadn’t changed yet. There was even postchange anxiety because well, not everybody liked it.

After my disastrous orientation, mom didn’t let me leave the house. Dad told me that the next day, I was going to see a psychologist about my Prechange Anxiety. At least my dad was understanding about it. I had assumed that he would be mad about it and just try to beat it into me - but no. When mom told me about how scared I was at orientation and how I broke down crying after Fiona appeared above me using her power, he actually didn’t shout at me for being a wimp or something like that. I was ready to get an earful about how horrible it was that I’m twelve years old and I’m crying. Now that people can smell emotions, it’s not exactly a good thing when you do that. Because teenagers are cruel.

But I didn’t get an earful at all about how wimpy that was to be crying over something as little as puberty and change. I braced myself for impact, but it didn’t come at all. I thought maybe he was being slow, but then I felt it. It was a completely different impact.

“You have a perfectly good reason to be scared.”

So that’s when I was taken to Dr. Van Uyl. He’s a child psychiatrist and a rather middie Oryx morph. So I’m put in the room with him by myself, expecting some kind of psychology thing like what I’ve seen on TV. Where someone with a German accent asks how something makes me feel, and then tells me about something in my childhood or how I have some kind of repressed sexual urges hiding inside my body.

I’m in the room with Dr. Van Uyl, who has some rather amusing toys inside here. It’s almost stereotypical. Squeeze toys, punching bags, rock-em-sock-em robots, doll houses with human and morph dolls...yeah. I just sat on the couch, waiting for the oryx to try and tell me something. I was waiting for the inkblot test at aaaany moment.

“Well, we’ve been introduced a little, Alex,” the Oryx said in a rather silly sounding accent. Oh god, it even sounded German. Just any moment now I was going to hear about some kind of repressed sexual urge, just like Freud.

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I said, sitting on the couch, “What do you think?”

“From what I hear, you’re having some kind of Anxiety. Prechange Anxiety. Are you afraid of your upcoming Change?”

“Look,” I said, lying down on the couch, “Let’s get this over with so you don’t need to be repeating yourself. You already heard what mom told you. I’m having to go to another school that I don’t like. I’m going to be mixed with people who are already changed. And I’m going to have an upcoming change. I could always become some kind of chicken - I’ll never hear the end of it. Or maybe I’ll wind up spitting up all my food because I’m a ruminant.”

I looked at the oryx.

“Uhm...no offense.”

“You can say whatever you want here. I just want you to know you should be honest with me. That way we can figure out how to best help you conquer your Anxiety.”

“Look, just do what you guys normally do - put me on some drugs that’ll make me not care at all and I’ll just become a sheep. I’d be happy with that. I can still stick to my diet.”

“What is this about your diet?” the doctor asked.

“I promise never to eat another animal ever again for it may be somebody’s parent,” I said. It was like a mantra by now.

“Are you a Vegetarian, or a full-blown Vegan? Or a Pescetarian?”

“Vegetarian,” I responded, “Look...during the Change, we thought we’d have to hunt and gather again for ourselves because we don’t know how to use the technology, or at least fix it when it’s down. So we thought we’d just go to vegetarianism - that way we will never eat something that could have been mom or dad.”

“How important is this to you?” He asked, “Do you let your diet define who you are?”

“What, I’m Alex. I’m not Vegetarian Alex. It’s just something that’s important to me.”

He wrote a few things down.

“Well, this is a rather amateur conclusion, but that is but one of your sources of anxiety. You’re afraid that you’ll have to change your diet within the next two years. It’s a major change...how long have you been a vegetarian, Alex?”

“About four years now. Ever since the Change.”

He gave me a bit of a look, now.

“You were one of those Park Kids, weren’t you?”

“Yes yes I know,” I said.

“I thought I recognized you,” He said, “Your generation is growing up fast.”

“Look,” I said, “I know what you’ll say. You’re going to say that the Change left me psychologically disturbed for life because of what we did. We thought we were all alone.”

“I wasn’t going to say that, but does the thought of being alone make you scared at all? That there will be nobody for you?”

“Not really...okay, okay yes. Fiona changed over summer - she’s fully changed now. And she’ll be with new friends. I’ll be with the people, away from her and...well...everybody else.”

“Do you think that your friends will care that you’re unchanged?”

“Yes!” He said, “I’ll be scorned. Do you know what they’ll do to me? I’m a human! They’ll eat me alive.”

He wrote several more things down on the clipboard he had.

“But, are you afraid of changing too? At the same time, it sounds like you want to change.”

“...I just want to fit in, that’s all,” I said.

* * *

Now, both my parents were in with me, talking to the doctor. I don’t know what exactly he was doing but it sort of gave me a few different outlooks. He told me about how I should try deep breaths, and how the school had plans for people like me. It might hurt, but I could make new friends...and keep my old ones too.

“What shall we do?” Dad asked.

“There are several different options,” The doctor said, “I know that one thing that’s possible is to give Alex anti-anxiety medication, but I don’t believe that would be a wise course of action. Certain medications haven’t been proven on changing people. The one thing that is for certain is that you should cut back his caffeine consumption.” he gestured to the empty bottle of coke that I drained in a few minutes.

“I believe something that might work would be cognitive behavioural therapy,” The doctor continued, “This will be a rough time for him. The school has a program set in place just for giving children with Prechange Anxiety some therapy and motivation.”

Mom and Dad nodded as they heard this. I was half expecting dad to talk about why this wasn’t going to work, but he seemed surprisingly open. As if he knew psychological disorders were in fact real and not just something made up for attention, like most men his age did.

“What about when he does start changing?” Dad asked, “That’s what I’m most worried about. Can dietary changes contribute to anxiety disorder? He won’t even try to eat chicken nuggets...”

“They may be somebody’s parents!” I said.

“You’ve been told, no, those are often synthetic chicken or in fact, real chicken. Not a chicken morph,” The doctor said, “There is nothing to worry about. However, if you want to be a vegetarian, then you should be a vegetarian. Unless he changes to the point where he needs meat to function, you should support him in this. It’s something that’s very important to him.”

Mom and Dad both nodded. At least they understood that much about me - the only reason dad was even mentioning the possibility of eating meat to me was because he wasn’t aware of the change. After all, I could get by if I became something like a raccoon or an omnivore. But not if I turned into a strict carnivore...well, maybe things will change then, but I didn’t want to.

“I think a good course of action would be to bring him here once a week. He’s already in the prechange group. Most importantly, make sure he knows that you are there for him.”

* * *

Of course, being told they would be there for me was a little bit hypocritical given that they wouldn’t go to school with me. For the first few days, Dad was going to drive me to school. I could have just ridden the bus, since it was going to stop at the end of the street, but they wanted to know if I was ready for it. Which I don’t think I was, really. But I changed within a few weeks.

So on my first day of school, I walked into the front door, waving bye to my scaly dad. Well I was on my own, but I was told that the guidance counselor was there and I was having that class with the prechange anxiety kids. Yeah, like the Cheng triplets. Whatever. I walked into the school through the front door and walked by the restrooms.

The Lunchroom was a zoo like it normally was. Apparently it was standard procedure for students to congregate in the lunchroom before class begun. I think I must have been the only one who wasn’t actually in there. I figured maybe I should have hidden out here until I was ready to take a few steps into the lunchroom. Changed people. And they’re my age too. I took a deep breath and walked towards the lunchroom.

And walked right into a wall of shag carpeting. I bounced back, covering my eyes. After taking a few steps, I opened them back up, just so I could see what the heck I ran into. What kind of school had a shag carpet hanging from the ceiling? Then I noticed what I walked into exactly. It was a rather large bison morph of some kind, with his arms crossed over his bare chest. (Well with that amount of fur around your chest, would you wear one either?)

“Uh oh,” I said.

“Do you need to use the bathroom?” The bison said to me, “All students are to be in the lunchroom until classes begin in twenty minutes.”

“N-No,” I said. Although I’m sure I might have had to use the restroom. I wasn’t exactly short for my age, but this guy towered over me. And with the amount of muscle he had, he could have really really ruined something. He probably could have picked me up and threw me across the room like a basketball. I hoped this wasn’t a student.

“Then in you go,” He said, “We need to make sure you aren’t up to any funny business,” he gestured a thick finger to the lunchroom. Nobody spotted me yet. I didn’t budge for some odd reason. Maybe I was still scared.

“I said, in you go,” the bison said, giving me a gentle nudge on the back with his other hand. Thankfully for me I didn’t lose balance. I stumbled right on in, earning a few looks from people.

I looked behind me, then poked my head out of the door. Where in the heck did he go? He was standing right there...and I didn’t feel any shaggy fur. With a power, you should learn to expect someone possibly being able to appear right behind you, tapping your shoulder and making you shit yourself. I just turned around and went back into the lunchroom.

A few people were still looking at me. I didn’t recognize a good number of the students in the school. I could see there were a few kids who were unchanged, some who might have looked older than me, and some who looked my age. I could see kids who were already fully changed, a few high-degree morphs here and there, a few low degree morphs, and even some people who were starting to change. At least it wasn’t dead silent. The rest seemed to ignore me.

I looked for a corner to vanish into. I kept my back to the wall, just in case that bison was still behind me. Eventually, I managed to hit a wall next to me. I stayed there, not bringing any attention to myself. I so hoped I wouldn’t bring attention to myself at least. That was until, however, I heard a somewhat familiar voice.

“Whoa! Hey! Alex!”

That was Dan. I looked around for where Dan’s voice might have come from. He used to be a friend of mine when I was in elementary school. I couldn’t see anybody who looked like him at all, until I looked to my left and spotted someone waving at me. That must have been Dan.

Only Dan looked a little different than I remembered him. For one, he looked a little more brown. He still looked human, but there was something off. His skin had started to develop a tanned look, and his hair looked like it had grown a lot. And he had facial hair, too - human style facial hair.

“It’s me!” He said, “You’re still the same ol Alex I remember from school.”

“Uhm...you’ve...grown...brown...”

I remembered what I was told by Van Uyl. When your friends undergo the change, they’re still the same friends you knew. They may have a different body, but they’re still the same people down underneath. Don’t let physical differences get to you.

“Yes, something wrong with that?” Dan asked.

I now realized that I was thinking to myself a little too much. I tried not to see Dan as this changing human in front of me but as the same Dan I knew. Only I found that a little hard to do. Well, with that much brown hair...that was hard. I eventually just reverted, trying to associate his face with a rather odd looking one.

“Uhm, no, no, it’s just the change, but you’ve...had your first sign. What are you becoming?” I asked. That was always a good go to conversation.

Dan smiled, and reached behind him to his backpack, pulling out something odd. Strange, he didn’t seem to reach in. I looked at what this thing was in his hand. Eventually, I could get a good look - it looked to be some kind of old fashioned wind-up toy of some kind. It started to bang the cymbals it was holding together, and then I heard a synthetic voice speak.

“Hey! You! Yeah you! Hands up! Spread your legs! And do the Monkeeeey! Dance!”

Now I realised that in addition to the hair on his head, Dan had a brown tail poking out from behind him - a monkey tail. I could now spot what exactly this toy was. It looked to be some kind of monkey dressed as a police officer...except he was holding fake cymbals that didn’t make any noise when he clapped them together. Dan had a rather ecstatic grin on his face.

“You wouldn’t believe what I can hold with this,” Dan said, taking his tail around to his front, wrapping it around the monkey ordering me to put my hands up, spread my legs, and do the monkey.

“Uhm...uh huh..” I said, “Can you put that thing away?”

“Not until it wears off,” He said, “Now do the monkeeeey!”

“If you don’t put that damn thing away, then I will throw that thing on the floor, stomp on it, and then sit on it for good measure. Or I’ll just give it to that bison guy out there.”

“Oh shit, is he around here?” Dan said, tail reaching to his backpack to conceal the toy.

“...What?” I asked.

“Hey! You! Yeah you! Hands up! Spread your legs! And do the monkey!”

That was most definitely not that toy’s voice. It sounded way too deep and familiar.

“That better not be Mr. Ivonho...” Dan said.

“I said, do the monkey!” I heard Ivonho’s voice say again. It was then I noticed him right behind Dan. Dan looked behind him and jumped a good twenty feet in the air. Okay okay, he didn’t jump that high. But that was him again. How the heck did I not see somebody that big?

The other students looked to be afraid of him as well. Several people backed up, as the bison held his hoofified hand out to Dan.

“The toy. Now. No toys that make noise.”

“What toy?” Dan said.

“The one that’s telling people to do the monkey. Hand it to me before I take your backpack and take it out myself. No toys that make noise in the school.

Dan reached behind him and pulled the wind-up toy out. He handed it to the bison, who held it up to his face. The toy still continued to order people to do the monkey. Definitely annoying. Some part of me wondered if he was going to crush it - which he could have easily done in this hands of his.

Instead, he simply grabbed the key in his fingers, stopping the monkey in motion. He then turned it forward slowly, sending the monkey’s mechanism into fast forward. It rapidly clapped the cymbals together, voice even speeding up.

“Hey-yeah-up-legs-do the-dance!”

He then placed the toy monkey in his pocket, after it had finished moving, or making any sound.

“You will get this back. After school. Don’t bring this here again. Do you have that?”

Dan nodded nervously. And with that, the bison seemed to vanish out of sight again. Could he turn invisible? I definitely had a reason to be paranoid right about now. At any moment, he could be right behind me, and possibly throw me into the wall.

“Who was he?” I asked Dan.

“Weren’t you paying attention at Orientation? That’s Mr. Ivonho! He’s the gym teacher!”

“Uhm...okay so why is he invisible?” I asked.

“I don’t know! I just don’t notice him until he’s right in front of me or something!”

We were interrupted by the bell ringing.

“Who’s your first period teacher?” Dan asked.

“Uhm...Health...Ms. Panazzo.”

* * *

I noticed Fiona in some of my morning classes. Because of the way our schedules worked, we would have every class on Monday, but then alternate between evens and odds the rest of the week. I waved a little to her, but she seemed to just look away instead. I think maybe what I did at Orientation sort of scared her. After all, she did wait all summer to say hi to me and tell me how she changed over the summer. The bell rang for our lunch period, and all the sixth graders walked to the lunch room. The way it worked was that the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders would all have different lunch periods, something kind of weird for me, really.

I noticed Fiona was hanging out with some of the girls. A few of them had already shown their first signs, while some others were unchanged, or even fully changed like Fiona. I shyly walked over to the table, away from where Dan was. Immediately we made eye contact with each other, as she stopped her conversation. Probably talking about her power.

“Uhm...Hey Fiona,” I said.

She tried to dodge my glance again, only for her unchanged friend to elbow her. I recognized her as Chelsea, the “Farm Girl” of our old school, and probably still “The Farm Girl”. Fiona looked back at me, then stood up and walked over to me.

“Hey...Alex...you feeling alright?”

“Well...better than at orientation.” I tried to again picture the gecko as Fiona. Just in case this would have made me feel a little bit better.

“Why did you freak out so much?” She asked, “I thought I scared you!”

“You did! You showed up out of nowhere like Mr. Shag carpet did to me earlier! Uhm...so I’m...sorry about that. I came to apologize for that.”

“Well eat lunch with us!” She said, gesturing to the table. Some of the girls started giggling again. Seriously, why was I once more the only boy in the group? Well, things happened that way I guess. I did sort of associate better with the girls better than I did other boys, except for Dan.

Speaking of which, where was Dan? He wasn’t in all of my classes.

* * *

Knowing Fiona was alright with me kind of made my day a little easier. I walked off to my final class of the day - it was the prechange anxiety support group. It was inside a room tucked away from everything else, sort of at the end of the hallway. It looked...far less diverse than the other classes did.

There were virtually no changed people in here at all. That was probably to be expected. I recognized the Cheng triplets from Orientation, several other people who were crying at Orientation but seemed to be a little better now. Though some people appeared to have first signs. I recognized Allen from Elementary school - though he had small goat horns poking out of his head. Boy, that must be embarrassing.

The desks were arranged in a “U”. I didn’t know where to sit, so I just sat down on a random chair that seemed open. There were multiple empty seats. Maybe we weren’t the only class...at least I would have liked to hope we weren’t. The door then opened, admitting the teacher - Ms. Paxton. She was rather surprising, a skunk morph of some degree white and purple fur.

Instinctively I covered my nose, but then she held up a hand with pink padded paws.

“Relax. I’m scentless,” she said, walking up to the whiteboard.

“You already know me as Ms. Paxton,” She said, writing her name on the dry erase board, “So we should just introduce each other and ask a question about one another. We’ll start by asking questions about me.” She erased her name with her massively fluffy tail.

“I have one,” a kid I didn’t know said, “How’re you purple?”

“I can change my fur colour. I like this colourscheme, what do you think?”

Nobody else had anything to say. That was one weird teacher already.

“Well, we’ll start with you...how about...you with the blue binder?”

Everyone looked at me. I gulped a bit.

“Should I stand up?” I asked.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to,” She said.

“I’m Alex...uhm...yeah. What questions? Uhm...yeah.”

“Do you always say that a lot?” I recognized this as one of the only girls in the class - Candice Wilkins.

“Yes,” I said, “When I don’t know what to say.”

* * *

After school ended, everyone ran right on out. It didn’t seem to be so bad, so far. I did want to find somebody in particular though. I wanted to know when Dan would pick up that monkey toy that the gym teacher confiscated. I actually didn’t have any Gym class, thankfully. The Prechange Anxiety support class basically replaced my gym period. Which might have been good...seeing as the gym teacher freaked me the heck out.

Which made me really wonder why the heck I was walking to the gym with Dan. Our bus didn’t leave for another twenty minutes thankfully, so we had a bit of time. He told me that was where Mr. Ivonho told him to come after school so he could get his toy monkey back.

The gym was just as large as I remembered it - the bleachers were extended out, and people were sitting on them. The rest of the people inside the gym seemed to be people playing basketball.

“What’re they doing in here?” I asked Dan.

“They’re just sort of playing basketball,” Dan explained, “Maybe they’re going to have tryouts for JV Basketball or something. I wasn’t really paying attention when they told us about sports teams tryout.”

“Well let’s get the hell out of here then,” I told Dan, “I don’t want to run into that guy again.”

“Really? He’s not that bad.” I heard Fiona above me again.

I looked up - there she was right above me again, lying on some kind of invisible platform with her hands and feet spread out on it. That was her Power. Apparently to produce some kind of invisible platform to lie on or climb on.

“What, they have co-ed gym here too?” I said.

“No, it’s mostly because he happens to live in the duplex right next to me,” Fiona said, lowering herself down to the ground next to me, “He’s going to be driving me home of course.”

“...Uhm...wow...” Sometimes I wished I did live in the same neighbourhood as Fiona did.

A few seconds later, I felt something hitting me in the back. I turned around and spotted a basketball bouncing right next to me. Some idiot threw it and it hit me in the butt. I knelt down, picked up the ball, and tossed it back in, turning back to Fiona and Dan.

“Anyways, we’re just going to get Dan’s toy back. Mr. Ivonho told him to see him after school to get it back...and I don’t know why I’m here. He kind of scares me.”

Dan and Fiona gave me a rather weird look all of a sudden.

“...He’s right behind me, isn’t he?” I said.

Dan nodded nervously. I turned around slowly, expecting to see the shaggy brown bison right behind me, probably a little too close for comfort like in the morning. Instead, he seemed to be comfortable distance - enough that I didn’t have to break my neck to get a look at his own head. It took a lot to not laugh at what I saw next.

Attached to one of his horns was a partially deflated basketball. He didn’t look to be too happy about this. Suddenly I realized - oh shit, did I throw that? That probably was why he wasn’t very happy all of a sudden.

“Nice throw,” the gym teacher said, pulling the basketball off of his horn with one of his hoofified hands, “I do not mean that sarcastically.”

“Uhm...Thanks?” I whimpered a little.

“Did you see where it went?” He said.

“Uhm...it hit me in the back and I just tossed it away. Look...Dan?”

“Our bus leaves in fifteen minutes - can I have my toy back? You said you would give it back to me after school.”

“Indeed - and you have time. What’s your name again, Alex? I didn’t remember seeing you in my gym class.”

I didn’t bother to say why. Ivonho gestured for a scaly human to toss the ball over to him. He caught it in only one hand and tossed it to me again. I instinctively held up my hands and caught the basketball, breathing out a little bit as it kept going into my stomach. I still held the ball though.

“Try tossing it from that line right there,” Ivonho gestured to the free throw line on the court.

Figuring I had nothing better to do, I walked over to the line, putting my feet right on it. There were a few people looking at me - but for the most part, the people in the gym were busy playing their own games. Or were reading, or doing something else that had their attention. I just sighed a bit and tossed the ball right at the basket. It arced a little and hit right on the square, falling right through the basket onto the ground.

“Good throw!” Dan said.

“Try that again,” Ivonho said, picking up the ball and tossing it back at me.

I caught the ball and tossed it right into the basket again.

“Hm, not bad,” Ivonho said, picking up the ball and tossing it at somebody else.

“Can you give Dan his toy back?” I said, “We need to catch the bus.”

“Sure thing,” Ivonho said, “I was hoping you would show up.” he reached into his pocket and pulled out the toy monkey. He handed it to the changing monkey morph.

“Uhm bye!” Both me and Dan said as we walked off. Great, was he impressed at me throwing basketball hoops? It wasn’t that hard. Maybe I did hit him on the head.

* * *

My sister and I were always the first ones home from school, so I guess you could have called us Latchkey Kids. That term was pretty much in-name only by this point. Usually we would just enter through the garage because we knew the code to enter it. It was because our house was old fashioned, and dad didn’t want to pay for a newer garage door opener - well, it worked anyways.

I was actually pretty hungry. Maybe I didn’t bring lunches big enough, or I needed to get something to snack on. The second I got inside the door, I walked right off to the microwave and slipped in a bag of popcorn. I sat down on the island counter and listened to it popping. Colette walked right over to me and looked at the microwave.

“Seriously?” She said.

“Yes, seriously,” I said.

“You’re going to get so fat.”

“I don’t care,” I said, “Don’t you know you I’m supposed to have a change around the corner?”

“Says Mister Change Anxiety.”

“Can’t hear you!” I said as the popcorn started to pop.

“Lies, you can hear me!”

“I said, can’t hear you!”

“Yes you can!”

“Can’t hear you!” I said as the popping became more frequent.

She just sighed and walked off. Bugging Colette was always a favourite past time of mine. Same with eating an entire bag of popcorn that was meant for morphs with larger stomachs...ie my dad. But nothing was wrong with that.

I scratched an itch on my neck. Hm, was I getting facial hair already? Better not be anything like a coat of fur...it was my first day of school. I didn’t want to already start changing before people had a chance to know me. I shrugged it off when the microwave beeped, followed by some more popping from the popcorn.

* * *

The floor was right in front of me. My face was wet with something, but I didn’t know what. I put my hand to my face to feel over it. Wait, what? What happened to my face, and my hands? I held my hand in front of my face and gasped.

It wasn’t my hand in front of me. It was some kind of talon. Tipped with vicious claws...and completely covered in blood. What was down on the floor...I screeched. There was a dead body of some kind on the ground. Blood. Everywhere. What the heck was I doing?

Now I noticed the void in my vision. With my other talon, I reached up and felt something hard. And large. Rubbing over it, I felt...a beak. A beak! I turned into a bird! But...I had hands and feet. Not just wings on my back. But I was a bird! I looked down at my stomach and found blood spatters over my white frontside. Blood! What have I done?

I blinked several times and looked around. It was the park...that wasn’t the floor...that was the ground. But the dead body...what was it? I could see the playground right there. The playground we all retreated to on the first Change Day. I walked towards the playground, and hopped back.

“That’s close enough!”

Right in front of me was a wooden stick. I looked up towards the playstructure. Out of nowhere, there were people. Humans. Young humans at that. I couldn’t make out some of their faces. Only one who was hiding under the slide...Michael. The one with the security blanket. I took another step towards the playground and a stick landed in front of me.

It had been thrown like a javelin. Maybe it was a spear. I looked up to where it could have come from. Right there was Clark...and another person. Candice!

“That’s close enough!” Candice shouted, “You murderer!”

“What did I do?”

“You murdered my parents you hawk! Get back!” One of the kids shouted as a stick was tossed at me.

I stumbled away from the javelin. What was happening? Why did I have a beak all of a sudden, and feathers and wings. And blood. I looked over at the corpse...it was a morph. A morph that had been hideously mutilated. I looked down at myself, seeing the blood all over my talons. No. No...NO!

“I DIDN’T DO IT!” I screeched, stumbling away from the dead body, “I didn’t do it!”

I now spotted my reflection in the water. Looking back at me was a morphic hawk of some kind. Completely covered in blood. The same blood as what came out of that corpse.

“OH NONONONONO!”

I immediately woke up screaming. I immediately checked myself for any feathers or a beak. It was another one of those dreams...I hated them so much. This wasn’t the only dream I had of turning into a predatory morph and killing somebody’s parents.

* * *

“...Then when I wake up, I check to make sure that I’m not instinctively sticking my tongue out or trying to swallow something whole.”

I was once again inside Dr. Van Uyl’s office. I had been going in here about once every week, sort of talking to him about what was troubling me. It was kind of weird, I didn’t think he was an actual therapist. He asked me to keep a dream journal if I could remember about them. And yeah...I’m pretty sure describing those predatory dreams of mine wasn’t doing any good.

“Are these dreams of yours common?” Van Uyl asked.

“Yes,” I said, “I’ve had dreams where was all sorts of different predatory species having eaten some kind of morph.”

“Do they all follow the same pattern?”

“I don’t know, maybe? I don’t remember all of them. Just that I was a killer.”

“That may be a reason that you hold your vegetarianism so dear to yourself,” the oryx said.

“Let me guess, because I’m afraid that I’ll become some predatory species and have to eat meat all the time, or that I’ll succumb to my instincts and kill somebody?” I just looked at him.

He nodded his antelope-like head.

“Of course. You’ve become quite savvy to how these work. How long have you been having these nightmares?” The doctor asked me.

“Oh I don’t know,” I said, “I think...uhm...several years? Maybe since I learned that I could also change?”

“And you’ve still yet to change. That’s a perfectly reasonable reason to be afraid of your upcoming change. I’m no Change doctor for sure, but one thing I do know is that unless you change really fast, you’ll usually be able to control your instincts.”

“That’s refreshing,” I said.

“I know it may sound obvious to you,” he said to me, “But that’s one known way to help deal with Prechange Anxiety. Inspeaking of which, have you had any problems at school?”

“I only started two weeks ago,” I said, “So...I haven’t really had any problems at all. Yeah, the gym teacher kind of scared me and thought it was kind of cool how I could shoot hoops but you’d think he never saw anyone shoot hoops before. I’m not even in gym...we’re just doing other exercises in the whole ‘you haven’t changed yet so let’s keep you away from the changed ones and the normal kids’ class.”

“And what of your friends who have started changing already, like Dan and Fiona?”

“Well...I don’t know,” I said, “They seem to be doing fine.”

“They’ll happily support you through anything, if they’re really friends. You should possibly be talking to them about it.”

“Boy golly, then maybe I’ll get some of those stories of how they first started changing and how fast they did,” I responded, “Just like how everybody else is. You know what it’s like.”

I put both my hands out, miming mouths speaking. Or rather, like some kinds of muzzles now, which had become the norm for describing mouthing motions with your hands.

“‘Hello there! How are you doing today mister doggie?’” I looked at my right hand and spoke with a fake falsetto, maybe even mimicking a very poor accent.

“‘Oh I am just fine miss Jane Doe! Say, I remember what it was like when I first started changing!’” I said in a fake male voice with my left hand.

“Oh good! I remember it too. When I first started I was feeling my feet change.’” Mister Doggie said.

“‘Oh and I remember when my fingernails turned black and then I suddenly started craving all sorts of odd things! And then let’s get into the Too Much Information stuff too!’” Miss Jane Doe said.

“‘Oh I happen to love Too Much Information. Never mind that there are actually children around here as well as people who do not give a flying shit about this!’” Mister Doggie continued.

I half expected Dr. Van Uyl to just give me a weird look. Most grown-ups, when I talk about that annoying quirk they’ve developed, just tell me to shut up, while some go so far as to say that I simply “did not understand” what had happened. Especially since that as an unchanged human, don’t have any idea what it was like to actually be changed.

Instead, a smile spread across his leathery face, followed by a hoofified hand that touched his mouth. I heard several gentle snorts coming from his mouth, as his ears twitched. I was half expecting him to be taking offense at something, but he didn’t.

“I know I should not be amused by that, but I am,” he said, finally holding back the laughter enough to speak clearly.

“Well, it’s kind of unnecessary to me,” I said, putting my hands back down, “It’s like I’ve already heard it. I’ve already seen it. I was seven. And I used to be asked all the time why I retreated to the park.”

“Indeed it is, but like your vegetarianism, what happened on change day was just as important to them.”

“Yeah, but I don’t go around and doing this,” I put my hand up again in the mouth / muzzle and started to speak. “‘Hello Alex. I’m Mister Doggie.’ Hello there Mister Doggie. Did you know that on the Change Day, that I have decided to become a vegetarian? I decided after I walked to the park that I should become a vegetarian, and I remember my first three bean salad just as much as you remember all your pants shredding!”

I put my hand back down again, expecting another odd face from Van Uyl. He instead actually raised an eyeridge and poked his lips out a little bit. He pointed a finger at me.

“Good point,” he said, “You actually act pretty passively about it - you only mention it when it’s relevant, correct?”

“Duh.”

“That’s always good. Are you also afraid that you might become obsessed with the change when it does happen to you?”

“No, not really. I know what not to do. Heck. I know what not to when I have kids of my own. You know, talking about them like they’re not there like mom and dad do.” I raised my hands to mouth out some of their things, but before I could say anything, Van Uyl raised his own hand.

“That’s a little unnecessary right now,” He said.

I put my hands back down again.

“What, confidentiality after all. It’s not like mom and dad are going to be hurting you if I say what annoys me about them.”

“It’s just not relevant to what we’re talking about,” the oryx said.

* * *

You know, I didn’t know what I was worrying about. September went by just fine without a hitch. We’d have lunch with Fiona’s clique without them minding about boys in there. Things seemed to finally have some kind of schedule. Well, except for the fact that Dan was getting more and more hairy every day with the whole monkey thing. I don’t think I even noticed when he had a small muzzle on his face, until Chelsea offered him a banana.

October also went fine without a hitch. You know, a few nightmares here and there, but the Prechange group was actually pretty good about things. Let me tell you about this - you know Candice, that late bloomer? Well at the start of the school year, she wouldn’t go anywhere NEAR some of those changed people. But after I told Fiona to try talking to her, she started to open up to everybody else.

We actually started exchanging phone numbers with each other. Until mom told us to try just getting on an IRC server of some kind. Maybe because she wanted to talk to some other people and I was tying up the phone. (Man, Fiona and Candice can talk for hours.) Since none of us really knew how to use IRC we just downloaded this program called skype that let us make free calls with each other. Take THAT, Phone company!

Halloween was getting closer and closer. And we were having one of those skype chats with each other.

“So what are you going to do for Halloween?” Dan broke the ice on the subject.

“Well you can probably guess what I’m going to do,” I said, “I’m going to go trick-or-treating. Dur.”

“What’re you going as?” Candice asked.

“I don’t actually know,” I said, “I do have these uhm...fake ears.”

We didn’t have video feed between all of us. You could have one-on-one video, but even that would start to suck up all the bandwidth and mom didn’t want to splurge for a bigger cap. Or you had to have some other kind of software with a decent webcamera...which Candice didn’t have at all. So of course they couldn’t see my

“What kind of ears are those? Were they wolf ears?” Fiona said.

“Yeah. The Chengs were looking for them. I just got ‘em from a prop store...along with this rather weird fursuit tail.”

“Ooooh! Are you going to dress as that Volaq guy from that anime? The one with the werewolves?” Fiona spoke up.

“Yeah! Although I doubt I could walk around with no shirt on. Because they only care if changed people do that.”

“Hey!” Dan and Fiona said at the same time.

“Even >I< can’t do that and I’m fully changed. They’re like ‘ah my gawwwd you must wear a shirt!’ Seriously what on earth do I have to hide?”

“What, they don’t seem to mind if one of THEM does it,” I said, “You saw Mr. Howe walking around with no shirt on whatsoever. And they didn’t seem to mind Jessie doing it.”

“That’s because Jessie is a six limbed bird morph,” Dan said.

“Say mind if I add the Chengs in?” Candice said.

“Go right ahead, I don’t have a problem as long as they don’t try to talk over each other.”

The call became a little more loud as all three of the Chengs were added in.

“Heya!” They said.

“Time for more chaos.”

* * *

Thankfully for me, the school allowed you to wear your costumes to school for halloween. As in, you were able to wear your costumes for the entire day. It was actually something I didn’t expect - back in Elementary School, we could only put on costumes for a little while during the little “party” we had.

There was actually a “party” that was after school this time. Apparently they couldn’t be bothered to have an actual “Dance”, but hey, there was nothing wrong with that. It did sort of mean that I couldn’t just get my usual bag of popcorn of the big bowl of ice cream, but it wasn’t like they wouldn’t have had some kind of snack there. (Just not the jerky...I wouldn’t touch the stuff even if I could eat meat.)

So for an entire day, the school was even more colourful than before. All I had was simply the fake wolfish tail and the fake wolf ears. I walked right on in and found the Cheng triplets in matching costumes - apparently they decided to dress as the “Cerberus” from that TV show. The triplets whose “powers” were to merge into one body with three heads or something. And I thought that my fake wolf ears and tail from that anime was odd enough.

I laughed way too hard at what Dan’s costume was. He was wearing some kind of orange thing with an obvious fake chinese tunic in the back. Apparently he dressed as Son Wukong the Monkey King. (I’d have to read that Journey from the West sometime...apparently there is some live action movie about it coming out soon.)

I looked for where Fiona was. I had to see what kind of costume she was wearing. I also made sure to check above me in case she was “climbing” on some kind of invisible wall on top of me again. I stepped past a strange “Timon” costume and found the gecko morph right there.

“Foooound you,” I said.

Fiona smirked as she turned to face me, lowering her hat a little bit. She wore a brimmed hat with a fake white feather poking out of it, and copious amounts of red. I almost immediately recognized it as a Red Mage from that Final Fantasy game she played a little bit.

“Nice costume,” She said, “You really were dressing like Volaq from that werewolf show.”

“Well duh!” I said, “I think Dan’s costume is the most elaborate though.” I pointed over to where the apparent Monkey King was standing.

Surprisingly, right in front of him was Candice. She actually didn’t tell me what her costume was - she told me that I was just going to have to wait and be surprised. Somehow I probably shouldn’t have been. She had dyed her hair completely purple, and had worn a pair of fake ears on her head, just like myself. Attached to her joke schoolgirl outfit was a plush cat tail. Ahaha, that was Michiko from that same anime series we watched.

“Oh did she seriously do that?” I said to Fiona, looking over at her.

Fiona smirked at me.

“I say we sneak up on her and surprise her. I bet you anything she pieced that suit together at the last minute.”

“What, hard to put that together.”

Both of us smiled and weaved behind a crowd of morphs and morphic students. Fiona kept an eye on Candice, gesturing to Dan in the Wukong costume to keep her looking away from us. After we made sure to avoid stepping on a few people who could have simply been morphs, I finally had a clear shot at her.

I snuck right up behind her, making sure to act all overdramatic about doing so. Dan spotted me, but looked back at Candice to keep her talking. I got closer and closer, yet closer still to the girl in that sailor-moon schoolgirl outfit and...tapped on her shoulder.

“Hello there Michiko,” I said.

She proceeded to jump higher than several Serval morphs I saw. Okay, that was an exaggeration, I admit. She still jumped anyways. Three of us started to laugh as she immediately turned around, giving me a small whap on the head.

I reeled back in shock. She didn’t actually do it very hard, but I still kind of felt it.

“What on earth was that for?” She asked.

“What, your costume is Michiko after all and I’m Volaq.”

“That was still not funny,” She said.

“Yes it was!” Dan said.

* * *

The halloween party was actually pretty darn stock. You know, we mostly danced (And got hit by people who weren’t used to their tails yet, or had to dodge morphs who were still getting used to their feet falling onto the floor) and listened to silly music like the Monster Mash. Somehow I wasn’t surprised to find Ms. Paxton acting as the D.J. She didn’t exactly conform to a specific standard like the other teachers had - what else would you expect from a skunk morph who liked to have purple and white hair?

I admittedly pigged out a little bit. Well I’m a growing boy, and someone who’s going to start changing no doubt. I ate so many cookies and cheese-crackers. Also, the celery sticks didn’t even last ten minutes. I recognized Rodney the “early bloomer” dressed in his somewhat-authentic Bugs Bunny costume nomming down all the carrots and celery.

Chelsea seemed to be trying to be really careful at the “party”. I guess with that “Dorothy” dress, you had to be. That thing was probably at least fifty years old. She also kind of facepalmed when Candice told her that R.J, who was on his way to becoming a lion morph, had dressed as the cowardly lion. I never really understood what it was she had with or against R.J. He wasn’t exactly mean at all.

It was getting a little bit loud, so I had to walk outside and cool off a little bit. The party was supposed to end at four thirty. (School got out at two thirty). Plenty of time for me to get back home, eat something for dinner, then head out for trick or treating.

A few minutes later, I was approached from behind. I didn’t actually see them, but I hopped several feet up in the air when I felt a finger tapping me on the shoulder. After I landed from low orbit, I turned around to see who this was behind me. It was Candice.

“Payback from earlier!” She said, “So are you going trick-or-treating?”

“Sis claims she’s too old,” I said, “But at least I get to go by myself this time. It’ll be awesome, she was always such a lazy pants anyways.”

“Well...you actually kind of live by me,” Candice said, “You don’t suppose that we can meet up somewhere, can we? See how many people don’t recognize us?”

I reached up and scratched behind my “Ear”. I imagined a bit of a cartoony sweat-drop appearing on my head. Yeah, I hadn’t actually considered that - maybe I probably could have after all. I did want to sort of go by myself, since I wouldn’t have had to walk with my mom or my sister, who always got way too tired way too early. But maybe Candice was different.

“Well....okay...like where?” I asked.

“The park, maybe?” Candice suggested.

“Sounds nice, what time though?”

“Well, probably six.”

“Sounds perfect,” I said.

Shame Fiona didn’t live near me, same with Dan. It would have been cool to go trick-or-treating.

* * *

“I have my phone!” I shouted as I walked out of the house after dinner. I wanted to be a little bit early. Just because the less time we spent at the park, the more time we had for trick-or-treating.

“Be back before nine!” mom shouted as I closed the door. Pshaw, I had my phone, and almost everyone in the neighbourhood knew me. The only people who probably wouldn’t have were on the other side of the train tracks. But that’s where I wanted to go first.

I headed right on down to that park. It was starting to get dark earlier out here - but we thankfully had a lot of streetlights. I hadn’t actually been around here since August when school was supposed to start. I remembered just what it was like the last time...I was so afraid of everything.

Come to think of it, why WAS I so afraid in the first place, I wondered. Maybe I was just being such an oversensitive little fraidy cat. I went to middle school just perfectly and everything was fine - yeah, Dan was a monkey now, Fiona was a gecko, Allen was turning into a goat, but who cared?

I sat down on one of the swings and begun to swing. I remembered about how I used to jump off the swings to see how far I’d go. At one point, I claimed to have jumped right next to the little shovel thingie that was across from the swingset. I tried to go higher and higher, like that one time I tried to swing over the top of the swing.

Eventually, I felt something...or someone right next to me. I looked to my left to find that out of nowhere, there was Candice. She was trying to swing up to the point where she was swinging right next to me - like we were “married”. GAGH! I remembered doing that in elementary school.

As soon as the swing arched backwards, I let go and fell straight down. Jumping off the swings backwards was an art I was a little proud of - even though I didn’t always land on my feet and stay there. This time, however I did. Way better than the numerous mouthfuls of sand that I had gotten in my mouth over the years.

Candice simply put her feet down and slowed the swing down, before getting off.

“Where in the hell did you come from?” I asked her.

“Over there,” She said, “I’ve lived here for four years now. Didn’t you know?”

“Uhm...” I looked towards the house she pointed to, “No.”

“Well now you do,” She said, “Gosh...it’s been so long since I came here myself.”

“Really? I come here all the time...at least...until August,” I said.

“Well...the last time I came here, it was because the news wanted to do some kind of story about the ‘Park Kids’ or whatever...honestly I didn’t even want to do it, but it was some kind of sensationalist bullshit.”

“Really? You were one too? How come I don’t remember?” I asked. I knew some of us had moved away in the years, or just sort of grew apart (Namely the older ones) but most of the people my age who were here on that day I knew.

“I was sort of that awkward girl who walked in not knowing everyone. I sorta just looked out the window and there was everyone. I mean, you lived by here...you didn’t know?”

I shook my head. I remembered almost everything about that day - even though I didn’t feel like talking about it as religiously as our parents did when they started growing limbs or had fur all over themselves. Why didn’t I remember it?

“Well, this sounds like some kind of awkwardly written romance thing....shall we trick or treat? I got the bag!” I held up a pillowcase to be filled with candy.

“Yes!” She said.

“I say we start over on the other side of the train tracks. Just to get those guys out of the way first.”

* * *

I had so much fun trick-or-treating. Candice wasn’t restricting me at all. She didn’t outwalk me or outrun me, like my sister did. And she didn’t complain about feeling cold or how bored she was. I should really do this again - it was so fun.

I couldn’t shake off this strange feeling of itching on my left arm. Maybe my shirt had some kind of thread that got loose, or something that got in and was poking me, leaving an itch instead of a pricking sensation. I have gotten a twig inside my clothes that had done that before. Or maybe I had sand in there from somewhere. I don’t know.

It was almost nine by the time we went back to Candice’s house, the one right by the park. I must have had like ten pounds of candy. Both of us were practically carrying it on our backs like in those old movies of workers carrying heavy bags over their shoulders.

“I had a really fun time tonight,” Candice said as she placed it down, outside her house.

“Me too!” I said, “I really gotta go home.”

“Do you think maybe we can meet again sometime?”

“Well possibly,” I said, “We got school tomorrow, right?”

“Oh, right!” She said, “Well...uhm...see you tomorrow?”

“Yeah!” I said, “I gotta go now before mom starts coming looking for me. Dad might bite my head off.”

* * *

Thankfully mom and dad didn’t get too mad at me. The whole “Nine o clock” curfew was somewhat of a suggestion anyways. Most people I know usually don’t get in trouble if they arrive within ten fifteen minutes of the curfew - and that’s how I dodged really getting in trouble. I was only eleven. The fact that they let me go out this long was impressive enough. Of course, if I told them I went by the train tracks they’d flip.

So I just didn’t. I took my loot directly upstairs and went to divvy some of it up. I knew mom was going to sneak in and steal some of the chocolate first, so I went to hoard it inside my room. But I left a few pieces in - that way she wouldn’t find it suspicious of I had all that candy but didn’t get a single bag of M&Ms or a bar of Hershey’s.

Thankfully the Cookies and Cream was safe. After my little sugar rush, I made sure to brush my teeth extra thoroughly so mom wouldn’t bitch about it. (“Don’t assume because you have a Change around the corner doesn’t mean you can’t take care of your teeth.”) At least I didn’t have to brush my teeth for like half an hour like dad did.

I noticed something a little strange at the bottom of my neck in the mirror. I thought for a minute it looked like I had a few hairs around my shirt. Really, strange. Was I getting facial hair around the same time as I should have been getting a fur coat of some kind?

I thought nothing of it and went to sleep.

* * *

This time I was on all four legs, inside a forest. Somehow, I was aware that I wasn’t really on four legs. I looked down at myself, spotting fake paws on the ground. They had to be. Thankfully I wasn’t covered in the blood of someone’s parents this time.

“Alright Alex,” I said, growling, “Wake up.”

I tried to will myself to wake up harder and harder. Harder still.

Until I finally did. It was one weird surge, too. I seemed to feel myself actually going back on two legs or something, or like I fell through a tunnel of some kind. Back in my own room. My arm felt something really itchy on it.

This time I couldn’t ignore it. I walked to the bathroom and turned the lights on, ignoring how much the light hurt my eyes. I finally looked over at my left arm...and then my jaw nearly dropped on the floor.

Right there, covering my arm like a blanket, was a mat of white fur. And on the palm of my hand, were several black blotches. They were forming just the right pattern...a paw pad.

“FUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCKFUCK!!!!” I rapid-fire swore, eyes widening.

“This has to be a dream this has to be a dream!” I threw water over myself. I tried to command myself to wake up.

But I didn’t. I wasn’t even twelve.