Strange Happenings
Midnight. They always came at midnight. The chimes from the old grandfather clock in the den jolted Daniel out of his restless dreams. It wasn't the chimes that woke him so much as the knowledge that They were coming. It was the same horrifying ritual, every single night.
The room was illuminated by an eerie pale green glow. Three figures in haz-mat suits stood around his bed. One of them held a large briefcase, another held a gun, and the third--the apparent leader, from the way he acted--was making entries into a large handheld computer. Daniel tried to escape, to run, to even move, but some unseen force held him in place, as immobile as the bed itself. The leader looked up from his computer and signaled to the one holding the briefcase, who set the case down and began to open it. Daniel strained to see its contents, but couldn't from his position. If only he could move...
The leader reached forward, grabbed the bedcovers and--
The shrill blast of Daniel's alarm clock filled the room. He'd had that dream again, the same one he'd been having every night for nearly a month. Except that it didn't feel like a normal dream. It felt more like a memory, but one that had been partially forgotten. Anyway, Dan had more important things to worry about, so he pushed whatever it was aside for the moment. Today was the last day of school, finally. All he had to do was survive his last few final exams, and he'd be home free. He wasn't about to let a creepy dream get him down.
***
Dr. DiCaoz glanced over his biology classroom. "Is anybody still working on the final?" he asked tiredly. He paused for a moment, then said, "If everybody is finished, you may talk quietly amongst yourselves for the remainder of the period." As the class erupted in chatter, he went back to nursing his hangover.
Daniel loved his biology class. It wasn't just that he was good at it, or that it was the last class of the day. By some bit of luck or fate, he happened to be in the same class as his four closest friends, Gassan, David, Pammy, and Jake. Gassan, David, and Pammy had become absurdly popular since coming to high school. Gassan was Lebanese and therefore "exotic," David was a star swimmer, and Pammy was a cheerleader. In retrospect, popularity was an inevitability. To the other popular kids, Jake an avid follower of the Furry subculture (he called it a craze, but nobody else did) and Daniel, the introspective writer, were social liabilities. Still, Gassan, David, and Pam never let their newfound "friends" keep them away from Jake and Dan. Privately, Daniel was grateful that he had managed to befriend the four people who appeared to be immune to high school drama.
"So, what'd you guys think?" Pammy whispered.
"I'm pretty sure Dr. Di is a nutcase," Gassan answered quickly. He was met with a chorus of approval from his companions.
"Anyway," Pam continued, "are we having our annual Thank-God-The-Schoolyear's-Over party tonight?"
"I can't go," Jake said, "I've got a convention."
"I can't go either," said David, "My dad's taking me camping. He's on a back-to-nature kick."
"I'm visiting my grandma," Gassan said. Pammy rolled her eyes.
"Alright," she sighed, "when do you guys get back?"
"Sunday"
"Sunday evening"
"Sunday, but it'll be late."
"So," Pammy continued, "is Monday night alright with everyone?"
***
The days passed quickly. By the time Monday arrived, he had gone an entire weekend without his mysterious dreams. He was mostly relieved, but part of him wished the visitors would come back so he could find out what they were up to.
The streets were charged with an eerie calm. A summer storm was coming. As Daniel reached Pam's door, he couldn't help but feel a strange foreboding. Something was decidedly wrong. He rang the bell.
"Come in," called Pammy. Dan opened the door and found friend sitting on the floor in a tidy circle. They were all staring at him, an unsettling hunger in their eyes. "We are playing Truth or Dare," Pammy intoned mechanically. "Please, join us. Truth or Dare?"
"Please choose Dare," Gassan said, in the same unearthly voice.
"The Truth is never any fun," agreed David, still in the same tone. Throughout the exchange, none of the four took their eyes off of Daniel.
"Is everything alright?" he asked. "You all seem...different."
Pammy answered in the same monotone as before: "We are collectively unnerved at a series of recurring dreams we have been having. Perhaps you too are experiencing these visions?"
"Yeah," Dan said, "but I'm not acting that weird about it."
"Perhaps," Pammy said, "All will be made more clear if you answer this simple question: Truth...or Dare?"
Written by Zodiac on 31 May 2008
Before school ends
“It´s been just a dream, just a dream…” Daniel muttered to himself, pacing around his small bedroom. His short hair was damp with sweat, his breathing coming out in small gasps.
“Just a dream…”
The problem was that Daniel didn´t even remember his dream. Only the unsettling presence of them, and that they wanted something from him. During the last few weeks, he had this dream again and again and he never remembered who they were or what they wanted from him.
Only that they wanted it badly.
Running his fingers through his hair, Daniel tried to calm down. It was just a dream, whatever it was about. It probably meant something in dreams theory too, something silly like internalized guilt for not studying hard enough for his tests. It was no big deal.
But he would be really glad if the dreams stopped finally.
Eventually, Daniel went back to bed. No point in loosing whole night worth of sleep over some stupid dream, he thought. He had chemistry test tomorrow, he should sleep a bit before it.
Written by lulu-illussions on 01 January 2018
Surprise Delivery
Daniel had overslept a few minutes, no thanks to the dreams wearing him out, and had to cram down his egg-and-toast to make sure he'd make it to school on time. He was just finishing his breakfast when he heard the harsh signal of the doorbell.
Daniel bounced to his feet and rushed to the front door, brushing his chin to make sure he didn't have any toast crumbs stuck. On the front drive was a delivery-girl, a corrugated board box by her feet. She was short, hardly bigger than a child, and her uniform didn't have the logo of any delivery company he recognised. (But all those were things he would only think about later, after he'd opened the box.)
She asked for his name. “If you'd like to sign here, thank you very much.”
Daniel put a squiggle on her electronic clipboard, his glance resting on the package while he did. It wasn't particularly big, with no markings to hint at what was inside, only an address label with his name.
The woman flashed him a smile and turned back to the road. Daniel hefted the package. Whatever was inside didn't weigh much.
As he carried it up the stairs, he nearly bumped into Mom.
“What's that you got there, Dan?”
“The package.” He couldn't remember having ordered anything. A surprise from one of his friends? That seemed like the most plausible explanation. “It was for me.”
“Which package?” Mom said.
“You know, at the door right now.” He juggled the package to one hand so he could gesture toward the door.
Mom shook her head. “Huh? I didn't hear the bell.”
She shrugged and stood back to let him pass. Daniel stopped for a few moments in the sunlight falling into the upstairs hallway, out of steam, almost forgetting where he was going. Weird recurring dreams were one thing, but it wasn't possible that one person could miss a signal that he'd heard loud and clear.
He dumped the box on his bed. It was real, for sure, tangible enough to leave an impression in the quilt. He gave it a poke, just in case there was a bomb inside – as if that would make a difference after he'd moved it about and carried it. When he looked at his alarm clock, he had a couple minutes to spare, at least enough time to see what was inside.
He cut open the cardboard flaps and folded them back.
Written by on 02 April 2019
White Suit
Inside was a swathe of white cloth and a subtle smell, like an exclusive fashion store.
Daniel pulled out the cloth. It was an outfit: a slim-lined white shirt and a pair of white slacks. When he held the pants dangling to the ground, they looked about his size. Who knew him well enough to know his measurements? He tried to chuckle at the thought, but the dreams came back, just as a flicker of shadow. He let them slink away to some corner of his mind.
He tried the pants. They fitted tighter than most stuff he wore, but not uncomfortably. The shirt fitted him well, the fabric felt clean and luxurious between his fingers. He half-turned to look at himself in the wardrobe mirror. Something slapped against his thigh, and he assumed it was a price tag, but it was a ball of white fluff sewn onto the back of his pants, like a rabbit tail on a Halloween outfit.
He looked in the box and found a headband with two white bunny ears lying in the bottom, on top of two white satiny running-shoes. He picked up the headband. It was higher quality than something you'd buy in a dollar-store, but still a set of fake rabbit ears. The shoes closed smoothly around his feet, too, like they'd been sewn for him.
At that moment:
“Daniel? Why are you still up there?”
He had to rush downstairs, and by luck, no-one was around to see him as he grabbed his coat and backpack. There was no time to change shoes, just a good thing these fitted so well. He could keep his coat on during breaks, at least that way no-one would see the tail. The chair would hide it when he was sitting down.
The street was deserted under a faint cover of clouds. Daniel had a go at trying to pull the rabbit-tail off, but it was sewn on hard; he had to stop or risk tearing his pants.
The time. He glanced at his watch and started jogging, then running. There was no chance of getting there on time now, but he could at least be as little late as possible.
He was running at about his top speed, arms pumping, soles slapping against the road, but his lungs were breathing in and out with no pain and his heart-rate had barely gone up. The shock almost made him stop. Daniel wasn't in noticeably bad shape, but he was no athlete, either. He was a few streets away from home. Any other day, sprinting this far would have wrecked him.
He could try picking up his speed a bit. It felt like his consciousness was looking out of his eyes, unsure what would happen, as if his body was a vehicle that might be pushed to breaking-point – but his body stretched out in longer steps, the brick houses and gardens almost blurring on either side, and he still couldn't feel any negative effects. It was as effortless as watching an Olympic runner on TV.
He wouldn't have been able to do this yesterday – he looked down at the clothes.
No point in questioning your blessings. He was already racing along the fence outside the football fields. Moments later, he clattered up the staircase and slowed down in the hallway when he saw the door to the English classroom. He unhitched his backpack and went inside. The teacher had arrived, but she was still sorting out her notes. Most of the other students were still getting in their seats or chatting. Daniel was able to slip into his seat in front of Jake unnoticed. His pulse hadn't gone up.
Written by on 06 April 2019
School Day
Daniel sat through the English class. He wouldn't be able to test this new body until the class was over – the school-day, rather; there would be too many people around during the break. He wasn't afraid of anyone finding out. It was a more irrational fear, as if the suit would stop working the moment he had witnesses.
While the teacher's voice droned, he gazed out the window where he could only see a snippet of cloudy sky, and tried to focus on the sensations from his body. It didn't look different at all, under the unusual clothes, but even at rest it felt more agile, more alert. Perhaps this was his body if he'd spent an hour jogging every day from age twelve. Even his senses felt sharper: the crispness of the cloth against his skin, the slick chill of the varnished desk surface, the mingled smells of sweat and perfume and fresh pencil-wood and a thread of summer air seeping in.
The clock ground its way to 10. The class bustled out of their seats and milled toward the door. Daniel made his way through the tightest of the press, hoping that his coat was hiding the tail.
Jake touched his shoulder and grinned. Daniel was certain he would make some sort of furry reference – it wasn't actually that bad, at least Jake would be sympathetic, unlike some brats who would just make fun of him. But all Jake said was:
“Pretty slick shirt. New?”
“Mm-hm.” Could it be Jake who had mailed the suit to him, and this was his way of testing the waters? It didn't seem like his style, but it was random enough not to feel like anyone's style. “I got it for a present. I like it.”
If Jake knew more about the suit, nothing showed on his face. He grinned again and started talking about other things.
The day went by, and Daniel had started to get the sensation that nobody was going to notice the tail.
The test at least took his mind off the suit, or as much as it could when he was still wearing it. He came away not remembering many questions and not knowing how well he'd done. Perhaps he could have done better if he'd been more focused – but did that matter now, in a world that contained things like this?
P.E. was next. That meant he didn't have to worry about the tail for fifty minutes, but the moment he changed into his gym tee and shorts in the locker room, it felt like his body had slumped into a thicker, heavier state. Of course, there was no visible difference.
Today's class was basketball. Daniel stayed at the back, didn't flub it the few times he got the ball, and then it was over. His classmates split up toward the locker room doors, and the teacher, Mr. Peterson, headed off, leaving the hall unlocked for the next class.
Daniel gazed down the long, varnish-shiny floor. If he'd been able to wear the suit in here, everyone would have been able to tell that something was not ordinary, but he could have outplayed everyone else.
As soon as he'd thought that, there was a disorientation that blinded him for a second. Daniel tottered, one arm stretched out for support. The air had gone out of his lungs. He blinked and the hall returned, but his body still felt odd. He looked down and saw that he was wearing the white suit, even the shoes. His gym clothes and sneakers had vanished.
Daniel ran down the end of the hall, feeling the air filling his lungs, building up more speed than he ever had before. The basketball hoop was ahead. He pushed off with one foot and felt himself fly through the air. His eyes flinched shut, but then he was sitting crouched on the hoop, clutching the backplate. The hoop held his weight. He must have leapt several times higher than his old constitution would have managed, even higher than the world record.
As he adjusted his feet, a voice came from below:
“HEY!”
Written by on 08 April 2019
False Alarm
It was just Mr. Peterson, leaning out of his door.
“Stop monkeying around up there! The next class'll be here in a second.”
He shut the door. He hadn't said anything about the suit. The fellow did seem a bit nearsighted, maybe that had saved Daniel.
Daniel shifted again and looked down through the hoop at the floor, a good few feet away. What was he worried about? He jumped and landed softly. As he did, something tickled his cheek.
He was wearing the rabbit ears, he could feel the headband itching. Daniel yanked it off as if it might have grown onto his scalp, and stared at it. Now this was impossible, he'd left it in the box on his bed, half a mile away. As if the rest of his suit teleporting onto him was any more realistic.
He looked around, but he was alone. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to focus on his gym clothes: the T-shirt with its faded UCLA print, the shorts, the darkened sneakers. For a panicky moment he was certain it wasn't going to work, then the disorientation came, with an impact that knocked the wind of him. When he could see clearly, the gym clothes were back on him.
“Nice trick if you can do it,” he said out loud. All he could think of was anime magical girls whose outfits teleported onto them when they transformed. Was that what he was, now? Not a superhero, a magical boy?
He remembered the time and rushed to the locker room to grab a shower. His friends had already left, but the white suit lay on the bench, as neatly as he'd folded it before class. The headband lay on it.
*
He waved his friends off when they parted: Pammy and Jake to David's place, Gassan was being dragged off to watch his brother in some sporting event. Now, with no-one nearby, would have been a good time to tell them, maybe even show them – he could feel the clean fabric close around his chest, almost actively pushing his body into something lighter and straighter. Again he didn't, out of that fleeting feeling that the power might only persist as long as he didn't acknowledge it. The moment had passed.
Whenever he was sure he was out of sight, he ran. He reached home and got to his room where the box was still lying on his bed, opened his bag and sat down to study for the English exam. His heart wasn't in it now. There were plenty of people who were smarter than him, better at cracking the symbolism in Milton's dramatical works or whatever. Someone had given him the suit. They must have wanted him to use it for something.
He could hear Mom and Dad downstairs, Dad saying something over the sound of the TV. There was no point in worrying them. He locked the door, then wedged the window open on the early evening air. He took the headband too, as if it were a good-luck charm.
He scrambled out the window, clung to the eave for a moment, then pulled himself onto the roof. His body still obeyed.
Written by on 11 April 2019
Magical Boy Daniel
Daniel was scurrying across the roof of an apartment building when he heard voices, rising clear in the dusk. He approached the edge. Even now, a fall from this high would probably kill him, but his body was too alert, too much under his control, for him to distrust it.
Someone arguing. He hated fights; unless you'd watched the start it was impossible to know who was guilty, if anyone. This time, perhaps it wasn't. One was smaller and more slender: a girl, barely in her teens, while the other was a man older than Daniel. She was black, he wasn't, so they weren't related. And she wasn't yelling back, she was turning her head away and replying with the quick glances of a hunted creature.
The man grabbed a big handful of her coat and half-shoved her into an alley, and then there was no doubt. Daniel ran across the roof to where he could get a better vantage-point.
The alley was a tunnel of gloom, but his eyesight had got sharper as well. There was nothing horrible to see, they were still only talking, but the man was blocking her way out and the rest of the alley was cut off by a tall fence. The girl was clutching an object through her coat pocket.
“So your kind can play proper instruments?” the man said. “Give it here.”
When the girl hesitated, he went for her pocket. The girl backed away, and he laughed at her reaction, but now she so close up against the wall, Daniel could barely see her.
Then she straightened up, in some final desperation where she was too tired to feel fear.
“Get it yourself, asshole,” she said and tossed an oblong case over the fence.
When the man turned, she tried to bolt, but he got hold of her coat. The girl just clammed up, pressing her chin to her chest as if to leave as little as possible to hurt.
Daniel'd barely have time to get to them. He exhaled in a long breath. There was a fire-ladder gleaming just below. He jumped off and landed on the top ledge, feeling it judder under him. There wasn't time to climb down. He dropped over the side and clung to the bottom landing for a moment, feeling the impact yanking at his shoulder. He swung, calculated his target and let go.
There was a moment of whirling darkness, then he struck the assailant with both his feet. He felt the air go out of the man's lungs as he crumpled on the asphalt. The girl had got knocked over as well from the force of his impact, but with luck she wasn't harmed. She was already starting to get up off the ground.
Panic. Daniel didn't have much idea of how to check if someone was alive, but he tried touching the assailant's wrists and felt a faint pulse. And if he hadn't?
The girl was back up, but didn't run. She was staring at him – well, in her situation he'd be staring too.
“Did he harm you at all?” he asked and was comforted by how adult his voice sounded.
She checked herself for a moment, then shook her head.
“Good,” he said. “Do you have a home to go to?”
“Of course I do.”
Her voice sounded annoyed. That was good, it meant she was getting over the shock.
“You should probably go home,” Daniel said. “I'll make sure you get home safely. I'm gonna call the cops on that guy, and... if that doesn't work, I doubt he'll dare to try anything again.”
The girl still lingered. Daniel saw the fence in the corner of his eye.
“Please wait a moment,” he said.
He jumped from standing and sailed over the fence, so easily it felt like slow motion. Now he was leaving her with the attacker, but surely you wouldn't wake that quickly from being knocked out? He'd be able to be back the moment he heard anything.
Darkness had fallen completely, without his better eyesight he would have been screwed. She couldn't have tossed the case far from that angle, so he searched near the fence, but it still took long enough before he found it, almost hidden between two garbage bags. It was battered, but whole. When he opened it, the silvery flute looked undamaged.
He zipped back across the fence. The man was still out cold. Daniel reached out the case to the girl.
“Stay safe,” he said.
She took it. He shot into the air and his fingers found the fire-ladder rung.
*
Fifteen minutes later, Daniel watched the girl vanish into an apartment block.
This was the first actual crime he'd stopped. The adrenaline was still making him unsteady. Previously, he'd stopped some bullying attempts – it felt disproportionate to use his superpowers for that, but he guessed the victims were happy he had. There'd been times when he'd come across things that might have been crimes, but how could he know? The person loading a TV screen into a car might be moving house, or they might be a burglar. How would he know if he was justified in punching someone out over a plasma TV?
He'd taken to looking in the newspaper for crimes, without finding much. He wasn't going to be able to search in other towns, not while he was living at home.
He went another round, but didn't find anything. His body still relished the suit, but the adrenaline had faded.
Written by on 12 April 2019
An Enigmatic Message
Outside his house, he looked around twice and changed back, then opened the door on the homely yellow light in the hallway.
“Good to see you back, I was starting to get worried,” Mom said. “So how is Gassan's family doing?”
*
Up in his room, Daniel flopped onto the bed, staring at the neutral space of the ceiling.
On TV, magical girls always had their designated nemeses. So did superheroes, for that matter. If he'd had any way of getting in touch with the delivery girl, he could have asked her what she – they? Were there more than one? – wanted him to use the suit for. Or would they have told him if it was important to them?
He switched back into the suit and felt his body settle into its new, sleeker mode that felt more like him than its old one. He scooted up in the bed so he could look down at himself, trying to gauge what was the purpose of the metamorphosis. He was faster and able to jump much further than average humans, of course. Not stronger: he had been able to lay out that mugger because he had not been able to anticipate Daniel's attack. Not smarter, either, unless his heightened senses increased his intelligence. He had assumed that all those traits were meant for fighting evil, but how would he know if the purpose of the suit was something else entirely?
He got up to his desk and got his school notebook and a pen. Thinking came easier when you wrote down your thoughts, Pammy had said once, but it wasn't something he'd tried. He wrote “crime fighting”. A little more thought. “Courier activity?” There the pen stopped. He stared into the wall, as if the wallpaper pattern held some encrypted message.
He heard the soft sound of a ballpoint pen. He looked down and saw his hand writing as if the pen was dragging it. That wasn't true, the muscles were moving, but without input from his brain. As he watched, his hand finished a letter and stopped, back in his control. The pen fell down.
FOLLOW THE WHITE RABBIT.
Written by on 24 April 2019
Daniel Falling
Daniel stretched and clenched his fingers and stared at the writing. It didn't change. The handwriting looked like his. The suit had done things to his body; was it able to communicate with him like this?
He looked out the window. Night had fallen completely now, the lampposts were the only lights. Nothing moved in the street. He opened the window and crawled through, the rabbit ears brushing against the frame. As usual, there was a quick sting of adrenaline before the jump, even though he would land in the street below and barely feel the impact –
This time he didn't land. The fall just continued, a long helpless swoop. He had an impression of the street surface flapping past him as if it was just a theatre decoration of painted cloth.
Now he was hurtling down a tunnel like a smooth bore-hole. It wasn't completely dark – he would have lost his mind if it had been. The air was a translucent grey, and he saw light coming up from below, but no bottom. He fell for long enough to flail and scream, long enough to think. When you fell, you accelerated all the time. If he hit the bottom now, the suit wouldn't save him. The walls had receded now, as if he was gradually falling into a cavernous hollow. He saw ledges and even crags that could have given him purchase, but at this speed they would rip his arms off if he tried to grab one.
He fell for so long that the terror turned into a droning irritation, and then he could have sworn he fell asleep, because there was a jolt, like the kind that throw you out of a dream, and he was lying on a smooth grey floor. There was no pain. Daniel got up to his knees, then his feet. He felt shaky, but that was from the fall, not the landing. His body was as healthy as ever.
He was standing in a cavernous room that narrowed to a well of solid darkness maybe ten yards above him. The one tunnel leading out was wide enough not to be claustrophobic, and looked man-made. The same grey ambient light flowed through it, without a source.
Before he started walking, he checked that the rabbit ears were still there. They were, and so was the silly tail. Thinking about how embarrassed he'd used to be of them made him smile.
As he set out, glancing around himself, he thought: “Alice in Wonderland”. It felt like he should have thought about it long before, but you didn't when it was your life, did you?
The tunnel wasn't long. It opened into a room with a canopy bed and some other furniture: a bedstand, a little table, chairs. There was a rug on the floor, and all the furniture looked frilly and carved. It was probably luxurious, except that the lighting didn't show any colours other than grey. There were no windows, of course. Apart from the tunnel there was a wide door in the wall.
Written by on 01 May 2019
Daniel in Wonderland
Daniel hurried back to the well – not running, yet – and braced for a jump. There had been ledges and things; if he could get hold of one, he might be able to climb up. The first time he didn't jump with full power, just to save some hope. He didn't even reach the well's opening.
Panic was starting. He leapt again, and still barely reached the opening. There was nothing to grab.
He sank back on the floor, panting, gazing up. If he could reach a foothold he wouldn't even need to climb, he'd be able to jump between them like some goddamn video-game character – like a pinball. How far had he fallen? If he'd really fallen for as long as it'd seemed, he would have passed through the Earth's core.
But this was Wonderland, wasn't it? No rules were going to apply here.
He rushed out into the bedroom and headed for the door, but froze and felt his heart twitch in his chest when he saw a glimpse of movement. The terror was gone, and all he could think was that there was another person here, someone who might know a way out – but it was just a full-length mirror, obscured behind the heavy drapes of the bed. He saw himself, frozen in an almost graceful step, flushed with fear. His body looked slimmer than it had done before he started wearing the suit, as if that was another effect the suit had had on him.
He yanked at the door handle and it slid open, no problem. A vast shadowy hall faced him on the other side. He stopped to catch his breath – but he still had the suit, he was better equipped for anything than any normal human. The thought gave him the courage to step inside.
The hall was darker, but not completely black. It was wide, with an aisle between two rows of beds, each with its bedstand, as if this was a dorm. All the beds were empty, and as tidy as if no-one had slept in them. A strip of grey light lit the aisle and didn't quite reach the walls. The lines of beds stretched until they dwindled to nothing.
Daniel set out. There was no sign of him approaching the other end, so he started running. He was as fast and light as ever, but there was no end, no change. The only sign that he moved were the pairs of identical beds blinking past.
Even he ran out of breath eventually. He slumped next to a bed, lungs bursting. When he had recovered, he got up and headed back. After barely a minute, he reached the door he had come from.
On the table was a glass flask and a plate with a thick slice of a plain, raisin-studded cake. Perhaps they'd been there earlier and he hadn't noticed. He hesitated, but he needed all the strength he could get if he was going to get out of here. If whoever was in charge of this place wanted to poison him, there was nothing he could do about it. The drink tasted like strawberries or redcurrants, non-alcoholic; the cake was the tastiest thing he could remember eating.
He explored the room again. There was a slim door in a corner, but it only led to a bathroom. A white toothbrush stood on the sink, as if someone had left it for him.
At that point, his eyelids and limbs were getting heavy with sleep. He remembered the food, but drugged or not, his only choice was whether to collapse in the bed or on the floor.
He was about to get in the cloudy-soft bed, but hesitated. He ought to go to bed in the rabbit suit, in case anything happened – but he'd never slept in the suit before. Even now, he was more afraid of it changing him irreparably in some way than of this shaded underground realm.
He concentrated, not sure whether it would still work, but his T-shirt and jeans flew onto him, still smelling of home. It only he could travel there as easily... but even emotions were too much work. Daniel took off his jeans, then crawled into the bed. He was out as soon as his head hit the pillow.
Written by on 07 May 2019
The White Rabbit
Daniel couldn't remember his dreams, but they worried him. He woke up flushed and sticky with sweat, and for a long dark space he didn't know where he was.
Remembering the fall and the deserted underground didn't improve things, but at least it gave him a firm point: something to apply his strength against. He focused and changed into the rabbit suit even before getting out of bed.
The suit came, and he felt the usual jolt of energy, but it didn't feel quite right. The cloth squeezed him in odd places, and others felt bare, cold. It was almost completely dark around him: he'd pulled the drapes before falling asleep, as if they could protect him. (Now all he could think about was masked shapes peering in.) He pulled the drapes aside, almost hard enough to rip them off. The room was still deserted.
He got out and looked in the mirror. He was still wearing a suit in the white fabric, but it had changed, as if a handful people had been at it with scissors overnight. It had been cut down to a pair of skimpy briefs and a narrow top, like a woman's bikini top. His legs were coated in sheer white stockings that reached almost to his buttocks and were attached to the pants with white silk suspenders. The reason he was feeling so fragile and gangly was because his feet were pushed into white stiletto heels that made him walk on tip-toes. It all still fitted as if it had been sewn on him, even the high-heeled shoes felt comfortable. The ear headband was still on him, and the tail was sewn on his briefs when he twisted around to look at it. Looking at his small backside in the mirror gave him a little twinge. It was indistinguishable from a girl's in these clothes.
He was about to change back, but it was still the suit, wasn't it? It was going to be more use to him than his plain clothes in case anything showed up that he needed to fight or flee from. If worst came to worst he could kick the shoes off.
There was a new drink on the table, and a piece of cake. Nearly hidden under the bottle was a note, but it only said:
Our brave girl,
The change is proceeding as expected.
He kept hold of the note and stared at it for a while. Was this anything to do with the change to the suit? His mind shied away from “girl.”
He drank a few mouthfuls of the sweet drink, but he wasn't hungry. He took the cake and bottle with him and set out into the dormitory hall.
He could walk in the heels almost as fast as in his regular shoes, as if he'd woken knowing how to move in them. They forced him to walk differently, with a swivel of the hips. The thought of what he'd look like if there were anyone to see him... He forced it away. Changing back would remove all the benefits of the suit, but he still wanted to, just to be covered. He pulled a blanket off a bed and tried wrapping it around himself like a robe, but it was impossible to hold in place while carrying the food. He left it behind.
He walked until he was dizzy with hunger and had to stop to eat. It was no use. After a while he saw the bed with the pulled-up blanket again, ahead. After another while he saw the empty flask he had left.
He thought about a puzzle from a forgotten game and tried walking with his eyes closed. The thought of beings waiting in the darkness made him open them after only moments, and nothing had changed. He turned around and only had to walk past six beds before he was back in his room.
The rest of the day he spent in the pit: it was his remaining way out. He thought about tearing up the drapes and making a rope, or dismantling the bed to build a ladder, but he was getting exhausted. There was no way of telling the time down here, other than by sleep.
There was another bottle and some sweets waiting for him. He ate them and drank some of the drink, then stumbled into bed.
Written by on 09 May 2019
The Second Change
That – night? – he remembered his dreams more clearly. He thought he saw a figure, invisible inside its protective suit, standing by the bed, writing on a clipboard. It must have opened the drapes. As soon as he'd registered that thought, some sort of needle stung him, just briefly. He was certain it had come from the bed itself.
He was awake. The drapes were open – but he couldn't remember if he'd closed them – and, to the surprise of no-one, there was a new cake on the table and the flask was filled. He staggered out of bed, in case they had left another message, but there was nothing. Someone was able to get in and out of here. If he could stay awake and catch them –
The thought faded. He'd just realised why his body felt so wobbly, off-balance. The silly white bikini top was filled. One rabbit ear tickled on his cheek as he bent his head forward. He tugged at the top, still hoping he might find just cotton stuffing. Inside was silky flesh.
He spun to the mirror. The reflection still looked like him – like a sister. His dark hair formed a tomboyish style around a pretty, pink-lipped face, so pretty it was hard to recognise his own features. The reflection's breasts weren't huge, but round and perky, pushed up by the top. Her build was still slender, but her muscles were less toned. The bulge in the pants was gone. She couldn't bring herself to pull out her pants and look. Even her shoulders and legs, things you wouldn't expect to have changed, looked different. She could still have believed this was some trick of the mirror, but when she looked down, she saw the same body.
Daniel cried out, no more able to help it than if something had sliced her hand off, and heard a different voice come out of her mouth. She choked it back. If any observer had heard, they didn't show themselves.
She noticed something else, unrelated to the changes in her body. The ear that had flopped against her cheek was standing almost straight up, half-turned as if listening for something, not like cloth. The headband was gone, the ears were coming straight out of her hair.
She parted her hair – her fingers were more slender – and saw where the ears grew out of her scalp. Where her human ears had been were just empty stretches of skin. She reached up to grab one of the rabbit ears, but pinched too hard and it hurt. When she reached back and tweaked her tail, it felt the touch as well. Nerves had grown out through something no other human had.
*
Daniel spent the rest of the day crouched up in a corner where she could watch over the room. She didn't want to look at herself, but even a slight movement made her feel the changes inside her.
She kept as much of the room as possible within her field of sight, but the hours went by, tiredness became a heaviness in her entire body and then a pain. Nobody came to replace the food, but her sight flickered enough in the end that she might not have seen them if they'd come. Him, her. Did those words even have meaning any more, when anyone she might see might be a completely different gender from the one they'd been born as?
In the end, nothing she could frighten or reward herself with could make her stay awake.
Written by on 12 May 2019
Magical Bimbo
Daniel had at least refused to sleep in the bed, as if that was going to make any difference,
but when she closed her eyes she was there again. It was a dream, one of those dreams
where fear is suspended. The drapes had been pulled aside and the hazmat-suited figures
stood around her. One of them was holding a written page over her head and making her
read it out loud. In the dream, her lighter voice didn't bother her. The words echoed in the
room, because there were no other sounds.
The recruitment will only begin once the Guide is fully formed and trained.
The training is, if anything, more important than the comparatively easy physical
transformation: the Guide must be capable of carrying out her orders, but not of turning on
us, fleeing, or calling for help.
Similarly, the Guide must have the physical ability needed for her duty, without being
strong or durable enough to pose a threat. This will be accomplished by reducing the
Guide's intellect to its basic functions.
Anxiety started taking her, and she broke off.
“Keep going,” a voice urged, caressingly. “What a good girl you are.”
She wanted to keep reading, because she didn't want to disappoint the voice, but she had
to blink away the tears, and when she looked again, the next word was either “for” or “ror.”
Her eyes just needed to move a little and the F changed to an R, and she couldn't tell
which was the real one. It was like taking a sight test. It had to be F, because “ror” wasn't a
word, but up ahead were more long words where the letters shimmered the same way,
more letters joining them all the time.
the p pua ion wil nee i s s reng h, but the Gu de only ne s to a ac e n...
She couldn't go on, she hardly knew any of the words. When she looked again, the letters
were just little black squares with barely any differences.
“Continue, Guide.” A hint of sharpness.
Daniel tried, until she could feel the muscles in her head and neck tensing up with the
effort, but she couldn't see a way to turn the letters into sounds. Would she ever be able to
read again?
The dream was over and she hadn't been aware. She sat up in bed, stretching out her
long legs. There was a cake and drink on the table as usual. Daniel got up and stuffed her
face. It felt like dreaming was hard work, it'd made her hungry.
There was a piece of paper with writing on it under the bottle. Daniel picked it up and
turned it over. The writing didn't mean anything, it simply didn't go through to the part of
her brain that it should. For a while it worried her, but then she got a glimpse of a person
moving on the other side of the table. She squealed, but it was the mirror. Daniel got up
and stood in front of it, stretching a little. It make her laugh how the image followed her
moves so quickly, like they were two identical dancers in a troupe, and that she couldn't tell
which one moved first. What if the reflection was actually the one making all decisions and
she followed? Or how did she know she wasn't the reflection?
She stayed there a while, because the mirror was actually very nice to look at. She had
very long legs, a body that was slender yet top-heavy, nice hair, and then there were the
cute ears and fluff-tail, something no-one else had. No-one who wasn't an actual rabbit, at
least. Watching herself slowly raise one leg like a ballerina made unusual feelings move
around inside her. She couldn't be feeling those things about herself, could she? Maybe
she was feeling what a man would feel if he saw her now. She was sure at least some of
the people running this place must be male. But she couldn't see the admiration in their
eyes as long as they didn't show themselves!
She went walking in the dorm again, but she walked until she was tired and still nowhere
near the other wall. In the end, she flung herself on her back on one of the boxy beds. If
they were behind the ceiling, they must be looking right down at her.
She seemed to be getting tired more easily now. It wasn't an unpleasant feeling. She was
sure she would wake if something interesting happened.
Written by on 15 May 2019