Disclaimer: Animorphs, and all plot devices and characters thereof, belong to K.A. Applegate. I'm just writing this for the fun of it.

My name is Ashley, and I must be the luckiest person alive. Except maybe that pregnant woman who had an 18-wheeler overturn on her car and walked away without so much as a scratch and no harm to her fetus. Considering the number of times in the past few months that I could have been killed, maimed, turned into a human puppet, or been stuck without color vision for the rest of my life, it's an absolute miracle I'm even here to reflect on how lucky I am.

Of course, I haven't always lived within inches of a painful and humiliating end. I was, and still am, a below-average student, who ignores politics (unless it's the subject of a song), enjoys Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto, and dyes her hair pink. Never was much of a social butterfly though. I'm friendly with plenty of the folks at school, but there's only one person I'd call a close friend: Phoebe.

Phoebe and I made the leap from lunch table-mates to buddies when I found out that she had a tarantula, and begged her to show me. That afternoon we spent hours at her house, playing with her exotic pets (of which she has about a dozen) and talking. Since then, I've gone over there nearly every day.

One evening, after leaving her house, I decided to go to a music store nearby and see if they had the latest System of a Down CD yet. The quickest way to walk was technically illegal: a shortcut through an abandoned construction site. Though I was too much of a chicken to go through after dark, the sun was still an hour or more from setting, and I was feeling reckless. So I went.

Picking through the rotting wood frames and odd shapes of concrete, their shadows lengthening in the evening light, the place was almost creepier than it would be in the dark. I decided to hurry.

A sudden noise made me jump out of my skin. I spun around in alarm, expecting a mugger or worse, but only heard loud, derisive laughter. A kid I recognized from school, David, emerged from behind a stack of cinder blocks, holding his sides.

"You should have seen the look on your face," he said, delighting in my embarrassment. Oddly enough, now that I knew it wasn't a mugger who had startled me, I wasn't relieved. "Hey," he said suddenly. "Want to see something cool?"

I was anxious to get out of this place before it got too dark, but I didn't want David to see that I was scared, especially after he'd laughed. I nodded, trying to look curious, and moved closer. He lowered his backpack from his shoulder, and took out what looked like a cube-shaped, blue paperweight.

"I found it under a pile of junk over there," he explained. "See the weird marks all over it? I bet it's like a valuable artifact."

"That does look pretty nice," I said. I was thinking it would look nice on my dresser, but that my mother would think it was an atrocious faux-pas of décor. "Can I see it?" I asked, holding out my hand. He hesitated a moment, then offered it up with a smirk.

"I guess I could let you hold it just this once. Anyone else, I'd refuse, but I figure I could easily take you down if you tried to steal it."

"Yeah, right."

As I held it in my left hand, and traced its edges with my right, it felt warm and almost alive. I placed my palm directly on top of it, and felt something like the tingle of static electricity. Before I could get a good look at it, though, David snatched it out of my hands and it disappeared into his bag once again.

"Well, I'd better be going. I wanna put this baby up on E-Bay. Wonder how much I'll get?"

I rolled my eyes and, trying not to seem in a hurry, started walking back the way I'd come. I suddenly wanted to be at home as soon as possible.

When I got home, I found a note on the kitchen counter saying that my parents had gone out for dinner. Excellent. Now I could play with the family computer without fear of being booted off.

Before I could make it to the computer, though, my mom's cat Mordicai appeared and started rubbing against my legs, begging for attention. I changed my mind and picked up the purring furball, cuddling him on the couch. The cat must have really liked me just then, because soon he was taking a nap in my lap. That had never happened before, and I couldn't help but be pleased looking at the cute little guy, and petting him.

That is, until I saw my hand sprouting black hair faster than bamboo.

I jumped up, ignoring Mordicai's annoyed hiss as he dropped to the floor, and stared at my hands. They weren't only growing soft, dark hairs, but my fingers were getting shorter, their tips turning black, and their nails growing thick and sharp and curved. I ran to the bathroom down the hall, struggled to lock the door with my misshapen hands, and tremblingly looked into the mirror.

My face was also getting hairy, and my normal hair was shrinking back into my scalp and darkening. I watched with horror as my forehead flattened back, and the lower half of my face started to bulge out. I tried to scream, but my tongue wasn't working right, and my teeth were changing too.

I didn't notice when my glasses slipped off my face and clattered to the floor; I was more worried that my head, and the rest of my body, was now rapidly shrinking. Soon I couldn't even see over the sink to look in the mirror, not that that bothered me- I couldn't stand to see myself anymore. I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to curl up, even as I felt my bone structure shifting and re-aligning.

I don't know how long I stayed like that. But when I realized that I didn't feel anything moving around anymore- though for some reason the smell of cleaning products was nearly overwhelming- I opened my eyes.

What I saw- the floor and the bottom of the cabinet, slightly ajar to reveal the cleaning products I was smelling- did not surprise me. What did surprise me was how I saw it: it was as if the light had been switched off. The room was almost completely dark, and only vague shapes could be seen. I lifted my head. I tried to stand up, but lost my balance, and settled for crouching on all fours, holding my tail straight out.

Wait a minute. Tail?

Yes, I had a tail. I quickly ran an inventory of my body parts: ears, large and high on my head. Clawed feet. Fangs. A penis and scrotum.

Wait a minute. Scrotum?

Suddenly I realized what I was. I had somehow turned into Mordicai. Not only that, this version of him was apparently intact, still brazenly fertile. I only wondered about this for a moment before moving on to a more important question: will I ever turn back?

I tried to think back to the circumstances that lead up to the change, but my memory was a blur of confusion and terror. Damn my cowardice. I decided to just wing it.

As if it would help my concentration, I squeezed my eyes shut again, and strained to get bigger. After it was evident that wouldn't work, I started chanting (turn back, turn back, turn back) in my mind. That didn't work either.

I gathered my haunches and jumped up to the counter, congratulating myself on this super-human leap. I reared up and placed my hands- paws- on the mirror, and looked at the disturbing image of a cat's face where mine ought to be. Would I be stuck like this forever?

No. I decided to try again. This time, I started small: I looked down at my paws and willed my fingers to grow. I pictured them getting longer, the hair retracting, the claws shrinking back. I felt the change before I saw it, with my weird cat-vision: my hands emerging slowly from the cat's furry feet. Delighting in this small achievement, I decided to concentrate on my eyes next- I wanted to see in color again. Before I knew it, I could.

Thinking about one part at a time, I witnessed my human body materializing bit-by-bit, in a display worthy of any werewolf movie. The last thing I changed was the tail; I liked watching it whip around. I finally sucked it back into my body like a noodle of spaghetti.

It was then that I noticed two things: number one, that all my clothing was still in a heap on the floor, and number two, that both lenses of my glasses had been crushed in the struggle. When I heard my parents' car rumble up the driveway, I quickly got dressed and wondered what I'd tell them.