Fangs, Feathers, and Flames (3) (Patreon)

Kevin shifted uneasily on his not-hands and not-feet. Hooves. He had hooves. Overhead, Sophie's electric lantern cast long shadows around the tent. Sophie stood in front of him, wings awkwardly jutting out at odd angles. Despite her clothes falling apart, he saw very little skin. All was covered in yellow and orange feathers.

Kevin took a nervous step forward, or tried. But he tripped on those stupid oversized jeans, and tumbled face first onto the wooden cabin floor. He tried to push himself back up, but this time his legs rebelled. He clawed himself up a short distance on the mattress, and pushed off. He couldn't stay up for long, and instead toppled down again. He landed with several sharp impacts.

"Whoa, careful!" Sophie called. Her orange tail swished sharply behind her, knocking against the cabin wall. "Doesn't look like your spine will let you do that."

"No kidding," Kevin muttered. He tried to stand up again, but this time he felt fabric slip, and he stopped abruptly. His shirt had come off at some point during the transformation, and his jeans hung loosely from his narrow hips. If he moved too much, he'd lose those too. "What's happening to us, Sophie?"

“If you think I have some explanation for why I'm a bird and you're a… unicorn… I don't have a clue.” Sophie’s feathers ruffled as she spoke, both wings now emerging from the neck of her nightgown. It had already slipped back to somewhere near her waist, and further by the second. Whatever they were both becoming, it was much smaller than a human being. Not huge, the way he might've expected from horses.

Am I a unicorn? The word felt wrong, somehow. But maybe that was just his western bias talking. Who could say if unicorns should have hard scales on their backs? The central trait seemed right.

“Honestly? I’d think someone spiked the s’mores," she went on. "But the pain is too real." She twisted to the side, tugging on the nightgown. It tore a little further, but her purpose was obvious. There were deep red bloodstains along the back, roughly matching where her wings had appeared. Some of the feathers were still damp with it.

“Yeah.” His mind raced over a dozen different explanations. Alien parasites? Government experiments?  Hallucinogenic fungus? “I considered that. Briefly. But I wouldn't expect this much pain from a dissociative hallucination.”

“What do we do?” Sophie asked, voice barely audible now. “Call the cops?" She laughed, a high, strained sound. “‘Hello, 9-1-1? I think I might be part-bird now?’” She paused. “Maybe we can sleep it off?"

“Sophie,” he said flatly. “Look at us. We’re not sleeping this off.” He turned in place, letting his tail smack the bedframe as he moved. “We should check on LJ first. I haven't talked to him yet. Your light was on, so…”

“Right, yeah. LJ.”  Sophie took a single step. Or at least, she tried to. She pitched forward, landing with a shudder of tearing wood as her claws sunk into the floor. She flailed to stand, wings flapping uselessly. A few loose feathers came off from the underside, like little pieces of down. Most were bloody.

Kevin winced. “Guess your spine isn't cooperating either.” He watched as Sophie tried again.

She got up onto her haunches flailing in wide circles with her arms and wings. A little like a baby bird trying for her first flight. Except this wasn’t cute. He retreated a step, eyes focused on her talons. She sliced through the side of her sleeping bag without even noticing, scattering white down into the air to join the orange.

After a few seconds, she smacked down again, groaning. "Guess I'm crawling now. Good thing we have the campsite booked, huh? Imagine if there were other people. We'd already be on social media. And trying to figure out pants with this…” She gestured vaguely at her feathered hindquarters, her tail lashing behind her.

He glanced up at her, feeling moisture on his cheeks for the first time since stepping into the tent.

"Can we agree to table the whole clothes discussion for the time being?" he asked. "Besides, would be a waste of good fabric if we tried to sew some pants now. For all we know we might start growing more legs. Maybe a second butt."

Sophie snorted. “Honey, I am way past embarrassed. Not sure what I'll do when the adrenaline wears off. So… agreed. We can worry about all that once we figure out what's happening. First, LJ. We see what kinda monster he's turning into, then we make our plan."

“Yeah.” He nodded, relieved that at least one of them could still sound relatively normal. He ducked out of the tent. “We have time,” he said, more to himself than Sophie. “This campsite is ours for the month. No one should be up here."

“That would be great, if we had a month’s worth of food,” Sophie said from just behind him. “How much did you pack?”

“I planned on going into town in a week…” He trailed off, realizing the flaw in his logic. He held up one hand, or what had been his hand a few hours ago. It was now a hoof, covered in the same crimson fur as the rest of him. “Don't think I can drive with these."

He wanted to sound amused. But thinking about this felt a little like considering some devastating accident. How could he live without hands? How could he go back to work?

Sophie lifted one of her forelegs, spreading her talons. "I dunno. I could probably manage it." She flexed her claws, opening and closing them one at a time. "Might drive on the wrong side of the road if you don't remind me, though."

Kevin chuckled. "Yeah, that's not the part I'd be worried about." His mind filled in the absurd image: a bird/horse propped up in the driver's seat, her claws ripping little holes in his steering wheel. Sophie, a seven-foot-tall bird-horse hybrid, behind the wheel of his beat-up pickup. If anyone saw into the cab, they might go right off the road from the shock.

The humor faded quickly. He couldn't go more than a few seconds without feeling the wrongness of his own body. He could make an ordered list of everything he'd lost. Maybe he would present it to whatever alphabet agency came to disappear them in the night.

He approached the guys' cabin. Walking on four legs was far steadier than two for him now. Even totally new, the stance was naturally far more stable than two legs. He required no complex balancing act to keep his footing. Whatever help his body needed, the tail provided.

Not everything was easy. As he stepped up to the cabin, his hoof caught on the ragged edge of his jeans. The denim ripped, and he stumbled sideways, his pants pooling around his ankles. He caught himself before he fell, shuffling forward out of the ill-fitting human clothing. So much for that.

"Nice look," Sophie chirped. "Very 'rustic.'"

He shot her a look. "I thought we agreed. We're not worrying about clothes right now."

She grinned at him. How could she even do that, without lips? He could somehow read a smile from a sharp, avian beak. Weird. "I mean it. Starting right now."

Kevin knocked on the cabin door, several short strikes. Then he listened, and both ears moved. They somehow knew what they were doing even when he didn't. Of course it would be completely out of his control.

All that motion told him with far greater confidence something he should have already known; there was no one moving inside. Could LJ somehow sleep through this?

Or maybe he'd been spared, somehow. What if the transformation only hit you when you were awake? He wasn't sure if that would be better or worse.

He rapped his hoof against the wood again, louder this time. "LJ? You awake in there?"

"Don't be coy with him," Sophie called. "Just tell him! He's gonna see anyway!"

Kevin cringed. "You mean like: 'Hey LJ! We're both mythical creatures now, thought you might want to see'? Sophie says I'm a unicorn, but I don't think she's quite right. And she's…" He looked back, squinting at her in the darkness. He could still see her clearly, somehow. "Griffon?"

"Don't think so. I didn't get a good look in the mirror, but…" Sophie sighed. "Look, he got blasted too, right? We can't be any worse than his reflection."

He wanted to argue, but the words caught in his throat. He still hadn’t processed the reality of his own transformation. How was he supposed to explain it to someone else?

 Kevin shifted his weight from one hoof to the other, his tail twitching in agitation. "Alright, I'm about to open the door, LJ! Say something, or I'll do it!"

Sophie snorted. "LJ, we're coming in! Be decent!"

Sophie shrugged, then reached out and grabbed the doorknob with her claws. The metal twisted easily under her grip, and she pushed the door open.

LJ's belongings lay scattered across the floor of the tent: clothes, toiletries, a well-worn sketchbook. The sleeping bag was unzipped and empty on the floor next to a set of mismatched pajamas.

Kevin stepped inside, his eyes darting around the small space. But if he was searching for something, he didn't find it. "Backpack isn't here. But he emptied most of it."

"Where…" Sophie peered in from behind him. "He got out without us noticing?"

Kevin turned on his hooves, clattering loudly. At least walking on all fours meant he wasn't falling over with every step. "Think you could use a phone with those claws?"

"Probably. Still feels like my guts are… moving around." She reached back towards her middle, resting her claw on the feathers there. Her face twisted with more pain. "Just give me a second. Phone's in my cabin.”

He followed Sophie back to her tent. The moon had shifted higher in the sky, casting distorted shadows through the huge leaves.

Kevin's vision filled with detail he could never have seen at night before; the dew clinging to a nearby spiderweb, the darting movements of a moth flitting through the ferns.

"Phone's on the floor," Sophie mumbled as they arrived. "Or it was. Maybe it grew wings and flew off."

She dug around on the floor, shifting feathers and torn fabric. Finally she found it, holding it triumphant in her claws.

No fair. She got to keep her hands.

It took her another minute to get past the passcode. Finally Sophie managed to dial and hit the call button.

Kevin held his breath, willing LJ to pick up.

The ringing stopped, and a robotic voice answered. "The number you have dialed is not in service. Please check the number and try your call again."

"What?" Sophie stared at the phone, brow furrowed. "He never set up his voicemail?"

"Try again," Kevin said. He didn't wait for her to finish the call.

Instead he backed out of the tent. LJ might be out of range of cell service, or maybe he just wasn't answering.

Kevin spun in a slow circle, his hooves digging into the dirt. His eyes darted across the campsite, desperate for any sign of his missing friend.

He swore, the sound sharp and unfamiliar. His breath caught in his throat, his chest constricting with a fear he couldn't name. For the second time that night, it felt as though someone was watching him. Were those eyes in the trees overhead? The reflection of a hidden camera's lens?

Then he saw it.

Something on the ground, partially obscured by fallen leaves across the gravel road. Plastic glittered, shining back at him in the moonlight.

He stumbled towards it, his hooves surprisingly sure-footed on the uneven terrain. He pushed aside a branch with his muzzle, ignoring the prickle of leaves against his fur.

Finally he bent down, nudging the object with his nose. It was a small, rectangular case, its zipper half-open.

LJ’s pencil case, the one he had perched on his knee all afternoon while he was sketching slugs.

“Sophie!” he called. “Sophie, look!"

Sophie emerged from the cabin, her feathers ruffled, the phone still clutched in her talons. “He’s not—” she began, then stopped short, her gaze following Kevin’s. “You found something?"

He pointed down at the case with a hoof. "LJ's pencils."

And behind them, a trail leading up into the trees. 

"I think I know where he went."