Chapter 29

My mind was the first thing to come back but I was confused. I was supposed to be dead.

Was this an afterlife of some kind?

I wasn’t one who really gave any faith to church or a god of any kind so I didn’t have any idea what I had expected to happen after I died but I hadn’t expected to feel pain; that was for sure.

I remembered the poison reaching my heart and pain hitting me like a sledgehammer to the chest. I doubled over in the chair with my hands to my chest as if that might help quell the pain but had no effect. Breathing got hard in the next moment and I felt like a fish out of water, gasping for air and falling out of the chair as I convulsed in suffocation.

I remembered watching Alizya shout but there were no sounds. There was no feeling when she touched me either, just the pain and struggle to breathe until something was crawling under my skin. I held out a hand to watch it move like a ripple on water, leaving black wherever it went. I was turning black. As black as a night without stars.

This wasn’t how I had seen vampires die before.

Alizya moved me to the concrete room that I had been in before and nearly destroyed. I remember seeing the bits of concrete still strewn across the floor from my last visit but this wasn’t the same as then. I wasn’t catching fire. In fact, there was no fire at all this time. There were however breaking bones and panic when I realized that my hands had sprouted long black feathers.

Why feathers?

I was supposed to die not turn into a bird.

This was a dream. I was sure of it. People didn’t turn into animals unless werewolves were as real as the vampires and witches I had once thought were myth. But a bird? How would that even be possible? I had to be dreaming.

If I could just get my eyes to open I would see that I was still in bed at the safehouse and Alizya would be downstairs in the kitchen cooking again, or making coffee. I could use some coffee to get my mind off how strange that dream had been.

If I could just get my eyes open I would see that nothing was out of the ordinary and I would practice shielding again with Alizya until I couldn’t take it anymore. Maybe I was having weird dreams because I needed to drink some more blood. Was that a side-effect of hunger?

I just needed to get my eyes open. Why wouldn’t they open?

On second thought, why couldn’t I move?

Was I strapped to another chair? Maybe the hunters came to make sure that the job was done and overpowered Alizya before taking me back to their cell. I didn’t feel the straps though. I didn’t feel anything at all. Why couldn’t I feel anything?

Panic rolled through me quickly and I finally forced my eyes open but I couldn’t see anything but blurry colors for a few seconds until I had blinked enough to finally see.

I was wrapped in a blanket. That’s why I couldn’t move. If I just kicked my legs enough, I could … wait… that wasn’t an arm that moved.

It was black not fleshy.

A scream bubbled up in my throat and shoved it’s way out of my mouth as I realized what I was seeing.

That wasn’t an arm attached to my body.

It was a wing.

There were two of them.

One for each arm and they didn’t move the way I wanted to move.

Why did my scream sound funny?

I didn’t know what was going on but mentally I was begging for it to be a dream.

Then I saw Alizya and screamed again. She was so much bigger than me. How could I have shrunk?

“Calm down Raven, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to figure this out,” she spoke calmly as she reached toward me. Some foreign instinct told me to run from her reach so I obeyed and flopped around, waving my arms madly until I was in the air for just long enough for me to realize what was happening before I panicked. I stopped flying in my panic and dropped to the floor with a thud, then laid there in a daze while Alizya gathered me up.

“Okay, now that you’ve gotten that out of your system I need you to calm down. This isn’t the end of the world. It’s just difficult and we have to remain calm if we’re going to figure it out.

I think that she was speaking just to keep herself calm but my heart was racing and I wanted to cry while I stayed still to let her carry me to the kitchen table. My legs were tucked under me awkwardly so it took a moment of flapping before I found my balance on the table, watching as she got a plate from the counter and set it in front of me.

“Go ahead and eat, I’m told that it takes a lot of energy to transform and that you need to eat so that you can build your strength.”

I opened my mouth to ask her how this happened but all that came out was a weird hissing noise. Immediately I cut it off but tried again only to find myself panicking at the same results.

“Raven, it’s okay honey, we’re going to fix this. Try not to panic so you don’t hurt yourself. I promise that we’re going to fix this and get you back to normal.”

My heart was pounding in my chest and I wanted to cry but I could see that she was trying to stay calm as well. If I panicked, she would panic and we would get nowhere. So I took a breath and tried to stay calm for her.

“Your aunt is bringing over a few things soon so you should eat before we try to do anything.”

I nodded because it seemed like the best way to communicate with her. She forced a smile then turned away from me, muttering something to herself that I didn’t catch. While she was busy, I looked down at the plate to see little strips of meat on it. My stomache did feel empty and might have growled if I were human so I decided to try to eat some of the meat. The problem was that I wasn’t sure how.

My human instinct was to use my hands, but I didn’t have hands anymore so that wasn’t an option. I thought about how birds functioned for a moment and found something in my mind that hadn’t been there before. Not something, but someone because it had a name. I could hear the name in my mind but it didn’t make sense. It wasn’t in the right language for my brain to understand.

I felt my head cock to one side as I carefully investigated inside my mind

“Don’t be afraid. We are not here to harm you. We are here to help you.”

“We?” I wondered because I only saw one shape.

“It’s not their time. They will come when you are ready for them.”

A raven swooped down in front of my mental self.

“Sweet girl, let me help you.”

“Why are you here?”

“To help. Give me control for a while so you can rest. You’ve gone through enough.”

That scared me. “No thanks. I can manage. Just show me how to change back.”

The crow flapped. “You can’t do that yet. You don’t have enough strength for that.”

“So show me how to get back my strength. I can do this if you let me.”

“I will guide you for now but I think you will find it easier to let go.”

I took a deep breath and found myself back to reality, suddenly aware of how I could eat as a raven. I ate all the pieces of meat, filling my belly and starting to relax.

“Sweetheart, I want to try something to change you back. I think it was a reaction to the spell to keep you human and I think I can reverse it with a potion,” Alizya spoke as she turned back to me with a plastic syringe that you might give a chile medicine with.

I opened my mouth to protest but just a croak came out. My wings flapped as I fought to get my balance again.

“Just relax. This will all be over soon and I’ll have you back to human.”

I tried to tell her no again but all I could do was make the squawking noise. I tried to get away but she caught me easily by scooping me against her body. She held me there until I managed to bat the syringe out of her hand.

“Oh Raven!” she exclaimed as she let me go.

I hopped away across the table as she bent to pick up the syringe.

“Why are you being like this? I’m trying to help you.”

I couldn’t really say why I didn’t want to take her potion but my intuition told me not to and the bird in my mind was flapping around like mad.

Suddenly, the tablecloth slid out from under me and encircled me. I fought against it with all I had but I lost the battle and was locked in place. Then Alizya was holding open my beak and squeezing the potion down my throat. I choked and made garbled noises but the potion went down. The tablecloth released me and I flapped to get my balance.

“See, it wasn’t that bad. You should be able to transform within a few minutes and we’ll be able to go from there.”

I tried to glare at her but I’m not sure that it had the same effect. She just went to the sink and began to rinse out the syringe. I watched her angrily for a few minutes then felt sick and began to vomit all over the table. I couldn’t control it so I was like a fountain of vomit that went everywhere. When nothing else came up, I kept dry heaving or at least the bird version of dry heaving. Alizya watched in horror and said something but I couldn’t hear her over the sound of my own sick.

“Let us have control, little one. It’s going to be okay,” spoke the voice in my head.

“No, I’m fine,” I tried as I fought both the voice and the urge to puke. I flapped around in my fight until suddenly the table wasn’t under me anymore and I was falling. My wings worked for a moment but my triumph was short-lived as I lost control and the mental raven took over.