《Whispers of Aferum》


 01 - A Serious Problem

    The problem was, she knew, serious. The animals were dwindling, and her hunters had been unable to determine the reason. They knew better than to overhunt; the animals that they observed were not sick; there were simply less of them. With fewer animals available, more plants would be needed, and the more plants her harvesters took, the less there would be for the animals to eat.


    Balance was sometimes so very difficult to maintain, and while she had the memories of her sisters and mothers (and mothers¡¯ mothers, and back and back), there was something to be said for personal experience, and she was young yet. She would have to ask for advice. Perhaps the issue would be something that a more experienced Queen would be able to handle with ease, a bit of common knowledge or, more likely, common sense that she simply didn¡¯t have yet.


    Or perhaps it had something to do with those holes in reality.


    Either way, she needed help. As the youngest of the Queens, she had only a single point of contact, her spawning mother, and so she only prepared a single copy of her message. It contained every piece of relevant information on the problem she was facing, along with her sense of frustration and worry about it. The only solution that she herself could think of was to relocate, and that held its own dangers, an act of last resort, even if she was still small enough to manage it without self mutilation.


    A courrier was selected, the fastest hunter she had. It was given the message along with strict instructions to bring it to her mother as quickly as possible. To help speed it on its way, she assigned a contingent of two soldiers and a gatherer laden with food for all of them. Even if the gatherer was slow compared to the rest of them, not having to stop to hunt for food would make the journey faster still.


    Satisfied that an answer would come soon enough, the young Queen turned her attention to other matters, such as her research into why some plants grew better and stronger than others of the same type. Perhaps if more of the plants grew faster and larger, the animals would return.


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    The hunter accepted the message core from its Queen. It had never seen one before; its previous Queen hadn¡¯t made one since before it had joined Her Hive, and it had never expected the great honor of being presented with one and entrusted with carrying it to the next Hive. It weighed the soft, fleshy chunk of memory and thought in its tentacles, finding it light and easily held, before bringing it close to its back and wrapping its tentacles around it, careful to keep the barbed tips clear of the delicate core.


    Turning to the soldiers that would escort it, it used a foreleg to gesture to the smaller of the two, leaving the larger to guard the slow, plodding gatherer that carried their supplies. The group would have to stop and rest at least seven times before reaching the nearest Hive, and having a soldier go ahead with the hunter would allow them to find and secure a resting place with time for the near tireless gatherer to arrive.


    Having done the bare minimum of planning for the trip, the hunter turned toward the other Hive and took off at a run, the startled soldiers racing after it, trampling the underbrush under their heavy feet, leaving a clear trail for the gatherer and its guard to follow. The hunter barely paid attention to the crashing of the soldiers that followed after it as it tore toward its destination, only listening enough to ensure that it didn¡¯t leave them completely behind.


    The hunter bounded from tree to rock and back to tree, leaving clawed scratches in wood and dust as it hastened through the thick forest, all six legs pumping hard. Beasts scattered at the sound of its passage, heard but not seen, rustling the underbrush in their wake, as the broad, armored soldiers tramped after it. It was so focused on moving as far toward its destination as it could before the light began to fade that it almost, almost, failed to notice the weight of its precious cargo vanish from its grip.


    The hunter stopped and turned so quickly that it nearly fell over. There was a hole in the world, just where it had been, that must have appeared inside of it, hanging in the air. As it watched, the hole vanished, leaving only the familiar reds of the forest, taking the message core with it.


    The hunter was still standing there, motionless, when the gatherer and soldiers caught up to it. The soldiers had to pick it up and carry it back to the Hive to explain what had happened to the Queen, so shocked was it at a portal appearing inside its body to steal away the core it carried.

 02 — The Carters

    In an unremarkable bedroom in an unremarkable apartment in an unremarkable city, a young man was sound asleep in his unremarkable bedroom. He wasn¡¯t quite as young as he looked, but he was young all the same, only through his first year of high school. His hair was red and curly, and the spray of freckles on his pale face was hidden by his pillow. He slept shirtless and with his thin blankets pushed down to his hips in an attempt to remain comfortable in the late summer heat with the air conditioning broken. The slight sheen of sweat on his exposed skin suggested that, as measures go, it wasn¡¯t very effective.


    Down the hall, in another unremarkable bedroom slept a woman with the same red hair as the young man, though her smile lines and frown lines, along with the faint traces of grey at her temples, showed that she was well out of her teens and into adulthood. Unlike her son, she was bundled under her thick blankets as though she were trying to keep warm. Sweat soaked into her pillow, leaving it damp. alongside the drool from her open mouth, leaving it even damper, and her own freckles were on full display across her nose and cheeks.


    The boy¡¯s name was Jubal Carter. His mother was Mary Carter. They were the only people in the small apartment and they had no pets. So far, this hot summer night was just like every other hot summer night that came before it in the unremarkable apartment in the unremarkable city.


    That changed when a hole opened in reality directly over Jubal¡¯s bed and a fist-sized lump of...something... fell out of it and onto the mattress next to him. It changed even more dramatically when, shortly after the hole in reality closed, Jubal rolled over.


    Normally, rolling over onto something unexpected wakes you right up. Jubal, a teenaged boy who had been up late playing video games, snored on. Normally, if a lump of alien matter sears its way into your skin and, from there, through the rest of your body, you wake up screaming. Jubal, an incredibly deep sleeper with what could be described as a truly ridiculous level of pain tolerance, mumbled a little and rolled back over onto his belly, before going back to snoring softly. Normally, you wake up when you¡¯re hungry enough for it to hurt.


    Several hours after he should have woken up, Jubal woke up, feeling like his stomach had been replaced by a cavernous pit, and staggered down the hall into the small kitchen to make himself something to eat. As he walked, he absently noticed a handful of dull pains in his abdomen, legs, and throat, but he was too hungry to care about that. He turned at the end of the short hall, wobbled into the kitchen, still half asleep, and set about making himself a peanut butter sandwich more by muscle memory than conscious choice.


    It would have been peanut butter and jelly, but there was no jelly in the kitchen, so plain peanut butter it was. He started eating without bothering to close the jar, leaving the butter knife sticking up out of it, and picked up the pen next to the grocery list. Jubal clicked the pen one-handed and, without pausing in demolishing his sandwich, added ¡°jelly¡± to the list in careful, tidy letters. As he clicked the pen again and set it down, Jubal realized that the sandwich was gone and he was even hungrier than he had been when he made it.


    Jubal picked up the rest of the bread, carried it over to the table, and set about making himself another sandwich. As he pressed the slices of bread together around the thick, creamy peanut butter, Jubal realized that he really needed a glass of milk with this. So he got himself a glass and poured some milk from the half gallon bottle in the refrigerator. Impulsively, Jubal put the bottle on the table next to the peanut butter and bread, still open, with the cap next to it.


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    He was right. Peanut butter sandwiches washed down with milk were heavenly. It hardly felt like any time had passed before the bread was gone and Jubal was scraping the inside of the peanut butter jar with a spoon. He sat back to enjoy being full, with a slight cringe at the thought of the stomach ache that would inevitably come from overeating like that.


    There was an ache in his stomach alright. He was still hungry.


    He walked back to the pantry and pulled out a box of cereal. From the cupboard, Jubal retrieved the bowl with the least chips in its rim. He poured himself a bowl of cereal, picked up his spoon, and began to eat.


    When the bowl was empty, Jubal poured himself another helping. Even though he ate slowly to let his stomach figure out when it was full, he finished the entire box and drank all of the milk before that happened. Something else happened, though. The barely noticeable pain in his body became a sharp burning sensation that took his breath away and made the kitchen blur and wobble.


    No matter how hungry he still felt, this was much more important. Jubal stood up and promptly fell down when his knees buckled with a new wave of pain. He landed on the kitchen floor with a crash and a whimper, hardly registering the pain from landing on his knees. Unfortunately, his mother was a deep sleeper, and it was ¡ª he glanced at the clock ¡ª three in the morning. He was either going to have to go to her, make enough noise to wake her (or a neighbor, who would be more likely to make a complaint than to help), or wait on the floor to either feel better or for her to find him on her own.


    He tried to get up, leaning on a chair, and produced an even louder crash when he fell and it landed on top of him. Standing up was out, then. Trying to call out for help failed as well, when Jubal was only able to produce a croaking gurgle from his burning throat and mouth. It felt like the inside of his throat was rearranging itself, and was no longer able to make the sounds he needed to talk.


    Another wave of pain came, and he knew that he wouldn¡¯t be able to wait for his mother to find him whenever she woke up. He wasn¡¯t even able to scream, and by the time she found him, he might not even be alive any more. Jubal reached out and began to crawl. The cold tiles of the kitchen floor scraped along his arms and legs as he dragged himself out of the room, providing a bit of welcome relief from the burning sensation.


    The hall was carpeted, and dusty. So close to the floor, it was easy to see that it had been too long since the last time it was vacuumed. Jubal found himself dragging his flagging, aching body along it, dust and grit clinging to his skin and making him even more uncomfortable. It felt like his mother¡¯s bedroom door was impossibly far away, even though it was normally a matter of seconds to reach it.


    Eventually, he got there, and faced the challenge of opening the door. It was good that the door opened inward; it meant that he could crawl up it with his hands like a toddler, lean against it, and turn the handle to get it open.


    This approach also meant that he fell into the room, crashed against the bed with an enormous THUNK, and landed with a whimper. Fortunately, the racket woke his mother.


    ¡°Whazzat?¡± She mumbled. ¡°Jubal, is that you?¡±


    Jubal tried to talk, said something that sounded like ¡°gllargbbm¡±, reached up, and knocked on the baseboard of the bed. Thunk, thunk, thunk.


    The bedside lamp clicked on, and a pair of bare feet with chipped blue polish on the toenails slid to the ground.


    ¡°Jubal, if this is a ¡ª yawn ¡ª joke, it isn¡¯t a funny one.¡±


    She realized that it wasn¡¯t a joke when she stepped on him and he made a choking, gurgling noise. His mother took in a sharp breath and knelt down, hard and fast, knees slamming into the floor near his head.


    ¡°Can you breathe?¡± She asked.


    Jubal nodded and gave her a thumbs up.


    ¡°Can you get up?¡±


    He shook his head.


    ¡°Are you in pain?¡±


    Vigorous nodding.


    ¡°Right. I¡¯ll call for help. Bang on the bed if you get worse.¡±


    Jubal gave his mother another thumbs up and tried to relax as she walked away. If she wasn¡¯t panicking, then he didn¡¯t need to, either. He still hurt, though.

 03 - Whats Your Emergency?

    Mary hurried to the phone, the apartment landline, it was closer than her cell, and punched in the three number series that everyone knew and hoped to never need. Something was terribly wrong with her son. If he needed an ambulance, she would make it work somehow, cheap boss or no cheap boss. Better to have a live child than any amount of money in the bank. Not that she had much in the bank¡­ but this was not the time to worry about that. Hospitals let you pay on an installment plan if you had to.


    ¡°What¡¯s your emergency?¡± asked a calm man¡¯s voice on the other end of the line.


    ¡°My son,¡± Mary said. She took a deep breath to get her quavering voice under control. ¡°My son has collapsed and is unable to speak. He¡¯s awake, but he can¡¯t walk or stand.¡±


    ¡°Is he having trouble breathing?¡±


    ¡°No.¡±


    ¡°Is he responsive?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    ¡°So, he can answer yes or no questions?¡±


    ¡°Yes.¡±


    Mary was directed to relay questions to Jubal. She had to carry the phone into her bedroom and set it down on the floor, just inside the door. The power cord wouldn¡¯t go any farther, and Jubal couldn¡¯t go anywhere at all. It was a wonder he¡¯d even made it to her room when he started feeling off instead of collapsing in the hall.


    The emergency operator asked questions, and Mary relayed the questions and Jubal¡¯s answers (nodding or shaking his head).


    ¡°Can you breathe alright?¡±


    Yes.


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    ¡°Are you in pain?¡±


    Yes.


    ¡°Is it a sharp pain?¡±


    Yes.


    ¡°Can you point to where it hurts the worst?¡±


    Yes. His abdomen.


    ¡°Ma¡¯am, please press down on his abdomen and look for hard lumps.¡±


    Mary pressed her fingers into Jubal¡¯s abdomen. He felt warm and mushy. She reported this to the voice on the phone.


    ¡°Did it hurt more when your abdomen was pressed on?¡±


    No.


    ¡°Please feel along his legs.¡±


    Mary did. They were as warm as his abdomen, and oddly mushy, just like his belly.


    ¡°I think I know what¡¯s happening, and there is no need for you to panic, ma¡¯am. It sounds as though your son is going through a hybrid transformation. Once the pain stops, you should make an appointment with a doctor specializing in hybrid care.¡±


    ¡°A hybrid?¡± Mary shrieked. Absently, she noticed Jubal cringing back a little and covering his ears, but she was too distracted to care much about that. ¡°How could that have happened?¡±


    ¡°If I had to guess, ma¡¯am, I would say that a reality tear probably opened up and dropped a hybrid seed on him while he was asleep. But that¡¯s only a guess, of course.


    ¡°Try to make sure he gets enough to eat. The initial hybrid transformation is very resource intensive, and there is a risk of lingering malnourishment, or even deformation, if the changing individual doesn¡¯t get enough to eat¡±


    Then the emergency operator hung up, leaving Mary kneeling in her bedroom, holding the phone handle and trying not to scream again.


    Mary would be the first to admit that she was bad with feelings and words and delicacy, and there was a good chance that whatever she said, she was going to make her son freak out even harder than he already was. She¡¯d just have to try.


    She knelt down beside Jubal, opened her mouth, and tried.


    ¡°Well, you¡¯re not dying, and he said not to bring you to the hospital unless you start having trouble breathing.¡±


    Jubal nodded and gestured for her to continue. His eyes were alert and attentive.


    ¡°The emergency operator said that you¡¯re definitely hybridizing, and that it¡¯s very important that you eat.¡±


    Jubal gave her a shaky smile. She helped him to his feet and draped his arm over her shoulders. Absently, Mary noticed that her son was much taller than he was the last time he needed her help to get around. Together, they staggered to the kitchen, and she helped him into a chair.


    Before she could turn away to start making food, Jubal tapped the table to get her attention, then mimed thumb typing on a phone.


    ¡°You want your phone?¡± Mary asked, feeling a little confused. ¡°Honey, you need to eat, not play video games.¡±


    He nodded, then gestured for his phone again, so she went and fetched it for him. Once it was in his hand, he started messing with it, so she turned away, shook her head, and started cooking. Toast, eggs and bacon, fast things that she could get to him quickly, even as she started the oven preheating for some of the slower things that were sitting in the freezer.


    A delicious smell filled the kitchen, and Mary snagged a few bites for herself as well. The night continued in a flurry of cooking as Jubal ate everything she put in front of him at a steady rate, well beyond what should be able to fit in his stomach at one time, with no sign of slowing down or stopping.

 04 - Failure

    The failure of a courier was frozen. It was gone! The message was gone, and the queen wouldn¡¯t have sent it if it wasn¡¯t important! They were all going to die, the whole Hive, and it was all Failure¡¯s fault. It would be banished, left to its own devices again, or worse¡ª recycled. It really, really didn¡¯t want to be recycled¡­


    It stood still, waiting, unable even to shake in fear. It didn¡¯t resist when the soldiers came and picked it up. It went limp when they loaded it onto the gatherer¡¯s broad back. Failure¡¯s mind whirled in ever darker circles; nothing was left to turn into action, so it didn¡¯t act, only feared.


    Absently, Failure considered that the gatherer had a very steady gate, not even breaking its stride when it swallowed up small plants in its path. Sturdy would be a good name for it. Failure hoped that Sturdy wouldn¡¯t be punished for Failure¡¯s failure. Sturdy hadn¡¯t done anything wrong. It should be allowed to stay a part of the Hive.


    When night fell and the light faded from the forest, the soldiers pulled Failure down and set it on the ground. It still didn¡¯t move, going limp on the forest floor. The rest of the group moved around it, working to take care of whatever tasks they needed to attend to before resting. Failure paid them no mind.


    Sturdy opened its mouth and the soldiers pulled out some appetizing smelling balls, food rations produced by the Queen Herself for them to eat as they traveled. Failure didn¡¯t move. One of the soldiers pushed a ration ball at it. Failure turned its head away and made no move to take the food. The soldier keener in distress. Failure didn¡¯t move. That food would be better given to someone who wasn¡¯t such a useless waste of flesh.


    The soldier pressed the food against Failure¡¯s mouth and chirped like it was trying to coax a larva. Failure turned its head the other way and lay down, then parted its tentacles to reveal that the message was gone, that it had failed. Also, it wasn¡¯t a larva, and being chirped at like one was a little bit ridiculous. It wasn¡¯t sure where the energy to feel offended came from, but there it was. It might have failed, but it was still an adult!


    Now that the soldier knew that the message was gone, it would take the food back instead of wasting it on Failure. The soldiers might even leave it here, on its own, instead of bringing it back to the Hive to face the Queen¡¯s judgment. Then, it would be Lonely instead of Failure, and it wouldn¡¯t be able to let anyone other than itself down ever again. That would be the best possible outcome; Failure didn¡¯t want to face a Queen¡¯s judgement again. Maybe it would even be able to resist seeking out a new Hive to join this time.


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    The soldier backed off, leaving the food, and walked over to Sturdy and the other soldier. They huddled up to talk, probably about Failure. Failure waited patiently, unmoving, for them to make their decision and take whatever action they would. Probably, they would take the food back for Sturdy to store. That would make the most sense.


    Maybe they would cut the memories out of Failure to bring back, so that the Queen would know what had happened without having to see the disgraced hunter again. That would make sense, too, but Failure hoped they didn¡¯t do that. It didn¡¯t want to be reduced to memories yet. That was just as bad as being recycled.


    <hr>


    Carer was worried. Courrier wasn¡¯t moving or eating, and the message was gone. Carer glanced back at the stunned hunter and saw that it hadn¡¯t touched the ration ball. This was bad. It was bad, bad, no good, bad. Carer had sung and everything, and that had always worked with the larvae at the old Hive¡­


    Oh, but Courrier was a full grown hunter, not a larva, even if it was acting like a frightened little one. Maybe Steady would have an idea. Steady always had ideas. Carer went to talk to Steady, the gatherer that was holding their ration balls, along with what looked like a large bush that it was methodically biting into pieces small enough to swallow whole. Carer would have called Steady Hungry if it hadn¡¯t been so dependable.


    Carer walked up and leaned against the gatherer, channeling its mind through its friend.


    <I¡¯m worried about Courrier,> it thought-spoke, willing the message through its skin and into the gatherer. <It won¡¯t eat, and the message core is gone.>


    The gatherer paused its cheering and slid its eyes over toward Courrier, considering.


    <Maybe it doesn¡¯t like rations.> The gatherer¡¯s thoughts were, like its body, slow and heavy. <Or it could be punishing itself for losing the core. It had one job, and it failed. It might think that it doesn¡¯t deserve to eat.>


    <Maybe,> Carer replied. <If it won¡¯t eat the ration ball, we should put it away so it doesn¡¯t go bad. We can¡¯t let it die, though¡ªif nothing else, the Queen needs to know what happened, and Courrier¡¯s report will be vital.>


    <Then you put the ration away, Nanny,> the other soldier said. It must have leaned up against Steady¡¯s other side while they were talking. <I¡¯ll go find something fresh and meaty for it to eat, and you can work on convincing it to eat whatever I catch.>


    Carer sent its agreement back through the gatherer. It was a solid plan. Steady rumbled a thought-based assent as well.


    <I¡¯ll hold the ration ball and the leftovers from your catch, soldiers,> it told them calmly.


    The other soldier left to find food, and Carer returned to Courier, relieved to have a plan of action. Courrier hadn¡¯t moved, so Carer picked up the ration ball and leaned gently against the hunter¡¯s side.


    <The other soldier has gone to catch you something fresh to eat,> it informed the miserable creature. <I¡¯ll put this away, but you need to eat something. You¡¯re still one of us, and we need you strong enough to report to the Queen when we get back.>


    <Assent/acceptance,> Courier replied, before refusing to transmit farther. It didn¡¯t move, either, but Carer decided that this was the best they were likely to get for now, and carried the food back to the gatherer.

 05 - A Bit of Research

    Jubal was having a worse time than his mother. He was using his phone to do a little research into hybrid transformation, in between distracting stabs of sharp pain in his throat, he belly, his chest , and his thighs.


    He¡¯d never been particularly interested in them before, and now that was biting him in the butt. He needed to know what was happening to him. So he searched, and started tapping links and skimming articles, leaving the most promising ones open and tabbing back to the search list as he went, scouring the internet for new information.


    Engrossed in what he was reading, Jubal barely noticed the taste of the food he was putting into his mouth. Bacon, eggs, peanut butter sandwiches, toast with butter and jam, it was all a blur of nutrients as he learned about hybrids. Fats, proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals, he swallowed them all and chased them with water (and juice, and milk, and a bottle of vinegar that his mother put down for a minute, open, and that he drained without thinking about it).


    Gatherer hybrids had the most painful transformations, suffering from internal changes and feeling searing pain in their abdomens, mouths, and throats. Hunter type hybrids had transformation pains surrounding their backs, and sometimes the tips of their fingers and toes. Guard type hybrids usually had cosmetic changes, painful skin that erupted with armored plates. Since Jubal was experiencing pain in his abdomen and throat, he was probably turning into a gatherer. The pain in his legs was a little bit confusing, though.


    Tapping a link to a hybrid¡¯s personal account of what it felt like to change, Jubal took a bite out of whatever he was holding in his off hand. The food slid down his throat and caught on something. It wasn¡¯t uncomfortable, and he didn¡¯t have any trouble breathing or anything, it just¡­ wasn¡¯t going down all the way.


    Moving almost on autopilot, he took another bite of what he now recognized as being a head of lettuce. He chewed and swallowed, and the food caught the same way, in what felt like the same place, leaving him with two bites of chewed lettuce just sort of¡­ sitting there, in his throat but not. Under his throat. He was still really hungry, though. He kept eating the lettuce, feeling it build up without going to his stomach, which was starting to feel painfully empty.


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    Almost impulsively, he flexed his throat ¨C was it still his throat? ¨C around one of the lumps like he was swallowing it a second time, and was rewarded when it slid off to the right and down, then dropped into his growling stomach. Jubal set to tearing into the lettuce head, dropping a chunk of food into his stomach every other bite, trying to draw out his meal. It was surprisingly comfortable to have food waiting to be eaten. Like the safety of having a full refrigerator that he could raid any time he felt hungry, or the feeling he got when he looked into the pantry and saw box after box and can after can of shelf-stable food instead of bare shelves and cobwebs.


    When the lettuce was gone, Jubal noticed that his mother had put a large bowl of pea soup in front of him, as well as what looked like a stack of leftovers in sealed containers. He picked up the bowl of soup and drank it in one long go. Then he opened one of the containers, finding a chunk of moldy, blue lasagna. His stomach should have turned, but it didn¡¯t.


    Logically, he shouldn¡¯t eat that. On the other hand, he had just read that hybrids were nearly impossible to poison and hardly ever got sick, and it smelled really good. Maybe he should just lick it, and if it tasted as bad as it looked like it should, then he would set it aside and not eat it, simple as that.


    It tasted really good. Like, he wanted it, bad, and his tongue was already wrapping around it, but there was no way that was going in his stomach. Also, he was pretty sure his tongue wasn¡¯t supposed to stretch like that, or be blue and purple, or wrap around moldy lasagna and pull it into his mouth, which stretched (he wasn¡¯t sure how) around the lasagna, allowing him to swallow it whole. It landed next to the soup and chunks of lettuce, safe and soundand his.


    He had no idea what he needed it for. He didn¡¯t feel any particular urge to drop it into his stomach.


    Jubal downed the rest of the leftovers. Yesterday¡¯s beans were great. The elderly spinach that was more fungal fuzz than salad leaf was¡­also great, but in the different way that made him much more inclined to hold onto it than to digest it. Once he ran out of leftovers, he went back to his phone and typed a question into the search bar: hybrid eats rotten food.


    First, he skimmed the results. Then, Jubal slowed down and read more carefully. Words and phrases stood out: ¡°usually doesn¡¯t¡±, ¡°might, if starving¡±, and ¡°I didn¡¯t know hybrids could throw up from disgust, but¡± were among them, though the same summaries also mentioned that it was completely safe (usually), and often tasted as terrible as it did to humans.


    He sat up straighter and put the phone down. Then, he picked it up again and opened a word document that he could type in when trying to speak only produced a soft squeaking sound and a high pitched hum from somewhere inside his chest. He typed out I don¡¯t think the internet is going to tell us what kind of hybrid I am. Then, he waited for his mother to come back to the table so he could show it to her.

 06 - Worry

    Jubal¡¯s mom read the note on his phone. Then she smiled a shaky little smile and said ¡°well, that¡¯s what the doctor is for, honey. To find out and tell us.¡± She held onto the phone for a few beats too long before returning it, and tilted her face away from him while she did.


    Jubal nodded, even though she wasn¡¯t looking at him, then typed some more. Then he tapped on the table to get her attention when she didn¡¯t take the outstretched phone, because she didn¡¯t see it, because she was turned away and wiping at her eyes with her hand, sniffling softly.


    I don¡¯t match any of the descriptions I found. It¡¯s scary. What if there¡¯s something really wrong with me, aside from the transformation into a hybrid? Something the doctor won¡¯t know to look for?


    Her lips thinned and her eyes darted down and to the side. Her face grew paler, her freckles standing out more in contrast under the tear tracks she hadn¡¯t managed to completely erase. She took a deep, slow breath, but even that shook a little.


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    ¡°That¡¯s also what the doctor is for. I¡¯m sure there¡¯s nothing happening to you that they haven¡¯t seen before,¡± she said. ¡°How¡¯s the pain? Do you need more food?¡± She then asked, in a blatant attempt to change the subject to something that she could do something about immediately. Her eyes were wide, almost painful to look at, and shimmering with water. Her lower lip was between her teeth, and as he watched, a bit of skin ripped off of it.


    It hurts less now, Jubal typed, and I¡¯m still hungry. He didn¡¯t say anything to indicate that he noticed her distress. He controlled his own breathing, careful not to catch his mother¡¯s anxiety. Nothing would get done if they both panicked. Nothing productive, anyway, and the neighbors complained about the noise the last time they both freaked out.


    ¡°Where are you putting it all?¡± she asked with a forced laugh. Some of the tears she was holding back escaped down her cheeks. Jubal shrugged and looked away from her face, already pulling up the internet again to get back to trying to research.


    Maybe he could find out what people who have just turned into hybrids should do to make themselves safer or healthier or whatever. Maybe he could find out what could go wrong or, in his case, what already did. At the very least, he could distract himself from how his mother was acting.

 07 - Lunch

    Failure lay on the ground, waiting for whatever was going to happen. Food, apparently, if the condescending soldier had been telling the truth. If it wasn¡¯t telling the truth, there was no real loss. A day with no food wouldn¡¯t kill it. It had gone hungry before.


    It breathed in the musty smell of the forest floor, snuffing up spores and dust and bits of rotten leaf. It wasn¡¯t a very pleasant smell, but it wasn¡¯t really unpleasant either, so it didn¡¯t move. It wouldn¡¯t have moved if it had been unpleasant, but it probably would have thought about it.


    Some time later, time enough that Failure almost fell asleep waiting, a dead animal fell on it with a wet, meaty sound. Thick, cooling viscera dripped down its tentacles and flanks, and a loop of intestine fell over its face, covering one eye. The body was barely warm anymore, not yet cold or stiff, nice and fresh and pungent with the appetizing aroma of fear and death that clung to a fresh kill like thick mud to a gatherer¡¯s legs.


    A soldier stomped away, claws bloodied and dripping, somehow managing to exude smugness even with its back turned. Failure used its tentacles to remove the carcass from its back. It smelled amazing, and it had agreed to eat, so it dug in, starting with the soft parts in the middle, and kept eating until it was thoroughly stuffed and could eat no more.


    Then, reluctantly, stomach bulging, achingly full, it picked up the remains of the meal, mostly muscle and bone (the organs were the best part!) and dragged them over to Sturdy for storage.


    The meat and marrow would go bad if it wasn¡¯t stored properly, and Sturdy could give it to the Queen for processing, but Failure had had no idea of how much it had missed the taste of fresh, unprocessed food. It almost wanted to hoard the carcass in a tree so that it could gorge on muscle tissue the next day, and crack the bones for their marrow.


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    Sturdy slurped up the ravaged animal¡¯s body without complaint or comment, then went back to chewing on the underbrush, not seeming to consider one any different from the other.


    Failure lay down next to it. With the job done, it didn¡¯t have the energy to move farther away, even though its belly was full and it was unhurt. It closed its eyes and went to sleep, listening to the sharp crunching and snapping sounds of the gatherer collecting tough, woody plants for whatever the Queen did with plants, or maybe that was just what gatherers ate when they were on their own.


    It would be nice if plants tasted good. Then Failure could have something to eat that was nice and fresh meat every single day.


    ¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª¡ª-


    Some time later, Failure woke up, feeling tired still, as though it had barely slept at all. Something was poking at it, repeatedly, in the same spot. While not yet painful, the steady jabbing in its flank was very insistent. Opening its eyes and turning its head revealed that one of the soldiers was poking it with a stick. How the soldier was holding a stick in its claws like that without dropping it, and how it was manipulating it well enough to get the same spot on the hunter¡¯s flank every time, was a bit of a mystery. Failure stared at the soldier. The soldier poked Failure. The hunter reached out a tentacle and poked back, gently, careful of its own claws.


    <??> said Failure.


    <Funny,> said the soldier, indicating that it had been poking the hunter with a stick for its own amusement. It was the soldier that had brought the food, not the one that had treated Failure like a larva. It should probably have a name, but Failure was too tired to think of one, so it just lay on the gritty forest ground and stared up at it, absently trying to figure out how someone with such long, sharp claws and thick, meaty paws could handle anything as delicate as a thin length of wood so accurately.


    <??> Failure said again, calmly, feeling devoid of emotion or urgency. The leaves of the forest canopy swayed overhead in the breeze, dark purple against the bright green sky. Failure¡¯s eyes drifted away from the soldier and followed them back and forth.


    <Time to go,> the soldier said. <Up.>


    Slowly, Failure stood up. The soldier dropped its stick to the ground, turned, and started walking back the way they had come, toward their Hive. Failure followed, feet shuffling and tentacles dragging limply in the leaf litter of the forest floor. It felt gritty against its skin and raised soft clouds of debris, but it barely noticed any of that.


    It kept its eyes trained down, watching the ground more than what was in front of it, following the soldier ahead of it more by sound and its tracks in the soft, fallen leaves and crumbly forest soil than by anything else. Desperate to avoid thinking about where it was going, and what awaited it there, Failure focused on the moment, on the unimportant sensation of the breeze on its skin and the scents of the forest animals.

 08 - Go Shopping (No, Don’t)

    Jubal started typing into the search engine on his phone. First, he tried I turned into a hybrid what do I do. Then he started reading links, skimming his way past the advertisements for therapists and support groups and financial aid and not for profit organizations until he found the government websites. Not the ones that looked vaguely like government websites but were probably scams, but the actual government websites.


    He clicked the first one and summarized in his word processor as he read, taking notes to hand to his mother to read, tabbing between apps with the practiced thumb of a teen with a smartphone and no social life.


    So, it says here that the first thing we do is make an appointment with a hybrid certified doctor who can verify that I really am a hybrid, and then we qualify for hybrid assistance programs that can help us out with things like finances, education, and healthcare, and the doctor can help us find out what I need to stay healthy and happy.


    Most of the programs are for me, but a bit are for you, too, because I¡¯m a minor, and there¡¯s assistance for the guardians of hybridized minors. Then there¡¯s a list of programs that we may or may not be eligible for, depending on what the doctor finds out. Stuff like remote learning, government provided service animals, and so on and so forth.


    I¡¯m not going to be able to see Dr. Haley anymore, since hybrid certified doctors really only deal with hybrids, but there¡¯s links to websites we can visit to find me a new doctor, and a hotline we can call to get help with whatever, including finding a doctor and getting assistance with its money and food and whatnot.


    We are supposed to get everything started inside of a couple of weeks, though. Something about new hybrids being emotionally unstable due to altered instincts and posing a potential threat to the general public, as well as a potential threat to themselves. If I go on a rampage or something before we get me registered, you could be in real legal trouble, and I might get taken away and put in government care, which neither of us wants.


    Jubal sat back and considered the remaining pieces of decaying leftovers in his¡­ what even was it? His crop? Was that what the organ birds store food for their babies in was called? A crop? Why did he have a crop?


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    He looked it up. Yeah, it was called a crop.


    He didn¡¯t want that stuff in his stomach any more now than he did before, but he felt like there was something he needed it for. Something that didn¡¯t have anything to do with food. Something important. He just didn¡¯t know what it was yet, so he held onto it.


    ¡°We can¡¯t call your doctor for a few more hours,¡± his mother said, interrupting his thoughts,  ¡°and we¡¯re more or less out of food. Will you be alright on your own if I run out to the grocery store and buy some more?¡± She put a box of crackers on the table in front of him, and he started eating them without really thinking about it.


    The thought of more food was much stronger than the (very faint) worry about being by himself. Jubal didn¡¯t need to think about his answer for very long. It felt obvious that someone should go and get food for him when the supplies ran out.


    He nodded his head and gave her a thumbs up.


    His mother went down the hall, presumably to get dressed before going out, since there was no way she was going to go shopping in her nightclothes. Not after what happened last time. Jubal turned back to his phone and opened one of the game apps on it, both to pass the time and to give him something to distract himself from the knowledge that he was about to be alone in the apartment, undefended, which was bad. He ate some crackers to take his mind off of the fact that he was about to be alone.


    He could do more research, and he probably should, but he really didn¡¯t feel like it if he was going to be by himself. He could learn more later, with company. By himself, he didn¡¯t think he would be able to focus, which was weird because he¡¯d never been really clingy before.


    Mom wouldn¡¯t leave if she knew he was anxious about it, though, and that meant that she would order groceries, which they almost never did because of how expensive it was, and that meant that she would get anxious about money, and then they¡¯d both be upset. So he put on a calm front and watched her leave.


    Once she was gone, though, he got up and slid the bolt home on the door. Then he locked it, then he chained it, and then he made sure all of the windows in the apartment were locked, with their curtains drawn. Then he sat down, dumped the rest of the crackers into his mouth without pausing to chew, swallowed them whole and dry, and settled in to wait, phone in hand, glancing between it and the door and contemplating the things that he was holding inside himself.


    His stomach rumbled and an ache that he couldn¡¯t locate made itself known. It was somewhere in his legs, no, in the air between them, like a phantom pain in a body part that he had never had, dull and throbbing. It felt like he was still transforming, like a second wave of change was upon him. He dumped the crackers into his stomach to give himself more fuel for whatever was about to happen.

 09 - Anxiety

    As the pain got worse, and not knowing which part of him was hurting was worse than the throbbing ache, Jubal got hungrier. The crackers had taken some of the edge off, but they weren¡¯t enough. Fortunately, the pain wasn¡¯t bad enough to stop him from moving around or thinking, that is, it wasn¡¯t as bad as it had been before. He forced the rest of what he¡¯d eaten into his stomach, foul as it was, bloating it uncomfortably, and introducing him to the unfortunate sensation of being simultaneously very hungry and absolutely stuffed.


    Jubal¡¯s stomach gave a rumble and cramped hard. For a moment, he thought that he would puke. Then, with a mighty heave, everything in his stomach shot to the left and down. His legs burned and twisted. His belly was on fire. He fell to his knees.


    He burst out of his clothes with a ripping sound, and absently noticed that the pulsing ache of his body altering itself was now out and to the sides of where his skin had been, but was now clearly inside of him. His lower body had been replaced by a grayish, fleshy mass, spread out to the sides and in front and behind him. He was lower to the floor, as though his legs had melted into goop and lost all their bones.


    His pajama pants were ruined, nothing but shreds. The bottom of his pajama top was in tatters. His mother was going to be so angry about the ruined clothing. She hated shopping for clothes.


    Jubal tried to walk forward, and found that that didn¡¯t work so well without any feet. He could sort of scoot forward slowly, undulating, but it was uncomfortable and exhausting. If this was an indication of whatever he had inherited instincts from, then it was no wonder he felt anxious at being left alone. He was too big to hide from anything, and too slow to run away! Just a huge, meaty target for anything that wanted to come and take a bite out of him, unless he had someone nearby to protect him.


    Just thinking about it was enough to make the parts of him that still had sweat glands break out in a cold sweat.


    Maybe he was like a poison dart frog now, and he was compelled to eat poisons so he could make himself toxic, so nothing would eat him. Maybe that was what the rotten food was for. That didn¡¯t explain why he needed a separate organ for it, though, or why he was such a dull color instead of bright with warning.


    He looked down at himself again and felt sick. He wasn¡¯t even human shaped anymore. He was just a human torso attached to a grey, pulsating blob. The pain from changing was gone, as was everything in his stomach, which seemed to double as an intestine. He was strangely aware of everything inside his body, every organ, especially the ones he didn¡¯t have before. He stretched his strange flesh and found that he could easily slide his torso around on it, from one end to the other, no different from waving his arm.


    It was creepy. He could move his organs around, too.


    Jubal tried to pull the extra mass in, and much to his delighted surprise, it worked. With a feeling like sucking in his gut, the disgusting gray lump snapped into a humanoid lower body, kneeling on the kitchen floor. He could feel it, somewhere else, and knew that he could change back any time he wanted. He didn¡¯t want to. Not right now.


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    He was half naked, and still grayish pink from the waist down, but he¡¯d take it. Some hybrids were covered in scales, or had tentacles with claws on them growing from their backs and always went shirtless because of it. Being gray in places that he could cover with a pair of pants wasn¡¯t so bad,when you thought about it, and neither was the occasional urge to eat literal garbage. Nobody had to know about that one.


    Jubal was still telling himself that when he half ran, half stumbled to his bedroom to find another pair of pants to put on. Also, tall socks, and shoes, and a baggy shirt to cover any discolored skin that might show over his pants, and a tight shirt to wear under the baggy shirt in. In case it rode up or he had to bend down or something. He quickly shucked his torn shirt and tossed it over his shoulder.Then, he dressed himself, and then he went back to the kitchen to wait for his mom. Finally he realized that he¡¯d ruined more than just the tattered shirt sitting on his bed.


    There were shredded rags that used to be pajama pants scattered across the kitchen floor. Jubal pulled out a broom and dust pan and set about sweeping them up. Then, because his mother wasn¡¯t there and he was curious, he dumped the cloth bits out on the table, picked one up, and put it in his mouth. Surprisingly, it didn¡¯t taste bad. It wasn¡¯t exactly chewable, but then, he didn¡¯t feel any urge to chew. It was easier to swallow everything whole, and the cotton cloth had a pleasant texture on his tongue, even if it was bland.


    Impulsively, he swallowed ¡°sideways¡±, to the left, and stored it with the spoiled food. He had a feeling that he could do something with it. He ate another piece and was surprised when he was able to comfortably swallow it to the right. Maybe he could digest the cloth? Well, it was made of plant fibers, so it was worth a shot, and it wasn¡¯t as likely to make him sick as the other trash he¡¯d eaten, so Jubal downed the rest of his ruined pajama pants, some to the left and some to the right; then went back to his bedroom to swallow the shredded shirt. Then he silently vowed not to say anything about it to his mother. She¡¯d just get upset that he was eating non food items.


    He was working on figuring out a way to move something from storage to stomach without first regurgitating it (which, while easy, was disgusting and messy) when he heard muffled cursing from the front door.


    ¡°Jubal!¡±


    Oh, it sounded like Mom was home. And angry. He should probably let her in before she started kicking the door and annoying the neighbors.


    Jubal got up, walked to the front door, and undid the chain (and the bolt, and the regular lock). Then he opened the door to let his mother into the apartment.


    ¡°Why did you chain the door?¡± Mom seemed tense. Her voice had that dangerous kind of quiet to it.


    I get anxious with you gone, he typed. Locking up helped.


    ¡°Oh, Jubal, I told you to tell me if you weren¡¯t comfortable with me leaving!¡± She leaned against him for a moment, and probably would have hugged him if her arms hadn¡¯t been full of bags.


    Jubal stepped aside to let her into the apartment. She headed straight for the kitchen, and he closed the door before following her, sliding the locks back into place before joining his mother.


    I¡¯m fine, Jubal typed. Nothing serious happened while you were gone, and we did need the groceries.


    ¡°Did something not serious happen, then?¡± Mom fixed him with a serious stare, and Jubal cracked near instantly.


    He nodded. I look a little strange now, and I can shapeshift enough to break my clothing. Also, I need new pajamas.


    ¡°I think it¡¯s time to call that hotline now.¡± Mom was looking a little stunned. Jubal handed her his phone, word document with the hotline copied to it open, and started putting away the groceries, leaving her to do whatever it was she thought she needed to.


    ¡°And Jubal?¡± She called from the next room. He poked his head out of the kitchen to look at her. ¡°Clean up that slimy mess on the counter.¡±


    Jubal gave his mother a thumbs up and got to work. He probably should have cleaned it up right after making it, but, well, he was more interested in figuring out what went wrong¡­

 10 - What is That?

    Failure didn¡¯t know how long it had been trudging through the forest, following after the soldier that had fed it. Not too long, the light hadn¡¯t changed; it was still daylight bright, and the shadows weren¡¯t much longer than they had been when they started back to the Hive.


    It glanced up at the others. The two soldiers were walking on either side of Sturdy with their paws on its sides. They must be talking about something. Rather than worry about what they could be discussing, Failure cast its eyes about to find something, anything, distracting to look at.


    Twisted, spiked plants with waving, tendril stems covered in thorns and reddish purple leaves¡­no, too ordinary. Tall, orange barked trees with sprawling branches that merged into the blueish forest canopy¡­no, too common. A fluttering insect with broad, brightly colored wings, drifting lazily along the breeze¡­oh, what was that? The disgraced hunter had never seen anything like that before.


    Failure was so entranced by the strange bug that it stopped walking entirely. What was that thing? Why was it so colorful? Was it toxic? Was it tasty? Was it both? Where did it come from? We¡¯re there more, out in the mountain forest? Why had it never seen one before?


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    The strange, colorful thing fluttered this way and that, and Failure watched it. It landed on a tree trunk and spread its wings out, brilliant yellow and black against the orange bark, then folded them together, like two leaves pressed against one another. Failure slowly stepped closer to get a better look.


    The bug slowly flexed its wings again, mesmerizing, beautiful.


    Failure reached out.


    A set of thick, meaty paws grasped it around its middle, long, sharp claws pressing into the soft skin of the hunter¡¯s belly and drawing thin beads of blood. Failure was hoisted into the air, wriggling, unable to move toward the strange insect and its bright wings.


    <Got you!> a familiar mind exclaimed, gleeful. <You¡¯re coming back with us!>


    It was the soldier that caught breakfast for Failure. It seemed far too cheerful for someone that was lugging a full-grown hunter around.


    <Strange bug,> Failure told it, sending along the sight-memory of the thing.


    <Don¡¯t care,> the soldier answered, conveying a sense of amused derision. <Tell the Queen when we get back, if it¡¯s so important.>


    Failure didn¡¯t reply, only slumped in the soldier¡¯s grasp. It loaded Failure onto Sturdy¡¯s broad back and briefly touched the gatherer¡¯s side. Sturdy clumped forward, Failure on its back, seemingly unbothered by the hunter¡¯s weight.


    <Away we go,> Sturdy said as it walked. Its mind was friendly, but the hunter was too distracted to return pleasantries.


    Failure watched the bug as it was carried away, facing back toward the alien thing. It fluttered back into the air and drifted away, colorful and foreign, dancing on the breeze like nothing the hunter had ever seen before.

 11 - Phone Call

    Mary collapsed onto the couch next to the apartment phone while Jubal put things away in the kitchen. Mechanically, she picked up the piece of paper where she had written the number for the hybrid hotline after Jubal handed her his notes. She stared at it for a long, long moment, then picked up the receiver and started dialing, making sure to keep her body loose and her breathing even. Panic helped nothing.


    ¡°Hybrid Helpers Hotline here! If you have questions, we have answers! If you have an emergency, please hang up and dial 911!¡± The voice on the other end had the kind of false cheer commonly found in the voices of people that answer phones for a living, are recorded by their bosses, and could be fired for any perceived lack of friendliness. She sounded like a recording.


    ¡°Um, I got this number from a government website about hybrids. My son just changed this morning, and I want to know, is it normal for his skin to change colors? Only, he¡¯s turned grey from the waist down.¡± Mary¡¯s voice had the kind of desperate waver that was commonly found in the voices of people who have just had unusually hard days, and have yet to see the end of the tunnel. She sounded like she was about to cry.


    The woman on the other end of the phone became a bit quieter and calmer, more soothing and less mechanical.


    ¡°Oh, honey, that¡¯s rough. Don¡¯t worry, though, most hybrids have an unusual coloration. It¡¯s not a sign of anything dangerous to your boy, and it can probably be covered by clothing if he finds it embarrassing.


    ¡°Do you need the number of a doctor licensed to take care of hybrids? If you give me your insurance information and location, I¡¯m sure I can find one near you to help get your son registered and checked over.¡±


    Mary nodded, then remembered that no one can see her over the phone.


    ¡°Yes, please,¡± she said. ¡°I have a pen and paper with me right now.¡±


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    She spent some time giving the woman on the other end of the phone information, and promised to call back after Jubal had his first appointment with his new doctor if they had any follow up questions, or didn¡¯t like the doctor. The hotline lady spent a similar amount of time asking questions, and finally provided Mary with the information that she needed to get her son looked over by a medical professional.


    Mary carefully wrote down the number and address for Dr. Kennings while Jubal bustled around in the kitchen putting things away, occasionally clinking glass jars together in the refrigerator, sometimes running water to clean something.


    ¡°Can you help me get an appointment with her?¡± She asked the woman on the other end of the phone.


    ¡°Oh, definitely! Dr. Kennings has an opening this afternoon, around four, if that works for you. You¡¯ll want to get there at least half an hour early to handle the new patient paperwork, but I should be able to set you up. I can handle the online portion right now, if you¡¯ll answer a few questions.¡±


    ¡°I think I can do that.¡± Mary was nearly collapsed against the back of her couch in relief.


    The next few minutes passed in a haze of questions, Mary writing down the occasional piece of information, hoping that it would be enough to get everything done later, when she could think clearly.


    Mary hung up the phone and slumped over on the couch. Her head hurt, and she had no idea what she had just written down. She should get some sleep before driving anywhere, to help her focus, so she didn¡¯t do anything dangerous while behind the wheel.


    Jubal came in and sat down next to her.


    He gave her a thumbs up. She gave him back his phone.


    ¡°All done in the kitchen?,¡± Mary asked.


    Jubal nodded.


    ¡°I got you an appointment with a new doctor later today.¡±


    She gave him the paper with her notes on it and hoped that he could make sense of it.


    ¡°I¡¯m going to go lay down for a while.¡±


    She stood up, a bit unsteady, and walked down the hall with great care to her bedroom, where she closed the door, removed her shoes, and collapsed into bed with all of her clothes on, sock clad feet sticking over the side of the mattress.


    It took some wiggling, but she managed to get the covers out from under herself without falling out of the bed. Could she have gotten up, moved them, and then lay back down? Probably. Should she have? Definitely. Did she? Nah.


    Mary closed her eyes and burrowed under the covers. It was time to sleep for a while, secure in the knowledge that her son would wake her up in time to get where they needed to go. He would probably have directions for her, too.

 12 - While We Wait

    <h2>12 - While We Wait</h2>


    Jubal set an alarm on his phone for two thirty. He¡¯d have to wake his mother up, but that was hardly unusual. She was a deep sleeper, and got tired quickly when she had to deal with people, which was often. He was used to making sure she got up on time and reminding her to do things. He was also used to letting her sleep as much as possible, to minimize the number of headaches she suffered. The less headaches she had, the less she yelled at him.


    Doing things ¨C that reminded him, he had a list to make. Mom¡¯s note said that Dr. Kennings wanted a list of things that had happened to him , changes to his body and mind, preferably in the order that they had occurred. He also needed to look up directions to the address, but he had an app for that, and it talked, so that was alright. He wasn¡¯t going to be able to tell her where to turn anymore, after all.


    Jubal decided to start by writing things down in the order they happened, to help him remember everything, so he started with waking up hungry and went on from there, writing about the pain, and eating more than he should have been able to fit in his stomach without making himself sick, and collapsing in the hall.


    After thinking about it for a while, he decided to include the parts he hadn¡¯t told his mother about. They didn¡¯t seem like the sort of thing that he should be hiding from his doctor, so he held nothing back, even how much he liked the texture of cotton cloth. He also drew a picture of how he experienced his insides, something to show his prioperception of his organs, that could be checked agains x-rays and CAT scans or whatever tests doctors did on new hybrids.


    Then he turned his paragraphs of prose into a bulleted list and stapled the diagram to the back.


    Once that was done, Jubal checked the time. It wasn¡¯t even noon yet. He had hours to kill before he had to wake his mother. So he went to his room, took his clothes off, and practiced his transformation. It was a lot easier the second time.


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    Looking in the mirror, he was struck once again by how unpleasant he looked like this. It was as though someone had tried to make a centaur, but instead of the body of a horse, they had used a puddle of living vomit, all grey and lumpy, spread out in a pulsating puddle on the floor.


    Experimentally, he flexed what used to be his toes, and was nauseated when a set of wriggling tendrils rose up and waved around aimlessly. He had no idea how to move those on purpose, and they looked like something out of a horror movie.


    He could feel the new change clearly, now. It was finished, and he had a new pair of empty sacs inside himself that he could feel just as clearly as his veins and heart and bones. One of them was connected to the storage organ, where the moldy food and shredded pajamas were sitting. Experimentally, he pushed some of the rotten stuff through, and his body started doing¡­ something to it.


    Jubal wasn¡¯t sure what it was that was going on in there, only that it felt nice and he wanted more of it, whatever it was. He pushed the fabric through and the feeling intensified. It was a little like having a full stomach and a little like kneading something soft and squishy and a little like nothing he¡¯d ever felt before, and it was really, really pleasant.


    Returning to his human shape, Jubal noticed that the feeling stayed, but was more muted, and whatever was happening seemed to have slowed down, as though it were off to the side from reality and maybe half asleep.


    He could barely feel the other new organ, maybe because it was empty and he had no idea what it was for. He would figure it out eventually.


    As he turned to pick his pants back up, Jubal caught sight of himself in the mirror and froze. The gray color from his transformation extended up to his chest and down to his toes, and his crotch now had more in common with a Ken doll than an anatomical model. His face grew hot, and he turned red in the mirror, all the way down his chest.


    He made a few notes on his list of changes, blushing all the while, then put his pants on, sat down at his computer, and played mindless video games until the alarm to wake his mother went off at two thirty. He decided that he needed the distraction, and calming down before waking his mother was always a must. If he was agitated, then she would be agitated, and her nap wouldn¡¯t have done much; she¡¯d yell anyway, sooner or later.


    He could always think about how much he¡¯d changed later. Much later.