Cool… I got reviews… TWO of them, too! Two steps closer to my goal of 500! Yahoo! These characters are based on a couple of toking buddies of mine… Please don't tell them, they don't know I'm using them. The last chapter, I didn't leave an author's note… it was a preview. I wasn't going to post this chapter until I got review 20 but since I've already written this all down, I just had to post it up!
Enjoy!
Anthony's eyes fluttered open to a clear blue sky and clouds gliding silently past. Where was he? A tickling on his left cheek caused him to raise a hand to scratch. He frowned in confusion when his hand enclosed around a flower. A flower? In January? He jerked himself upright and looked wearily at his surroundings. Tall trees rose in front of him, encircling him in a quiet clearing. The trees were the tallest he had ever seen, but they seemed more protective than menacing. He lay on a bed of springy green grass that smelled sweet and fresh. There were also numerous flowers of every shape, size, and scent. He felt as though he were in one of his RPG's.
A movement on his lap caused him to look down. He was so enraptured with the situation at hand that he had completely overlooked the little boy strewn across his legs. After shoving him off, the boy awoke and stared blankly around him, and then at Anthony. It was then Anthony realized it was a little girl, not a boy. She had… hairy feet? There was only one place he had seen those, and that was in movies. Impossible! But the clothes seemed pretty familiar… he also realized that his own clothes were unusually baggy… except for one area…
"Where am I?" the girl spoke, then quickly covering her mouth as if she had said something completely horrifying. "My voice!" she exclaimed, clutching her throat. "Aaaaaaahhh…. Eeeee….oooo….uuuu?" she said, raising and lowering the pitch of her voice, concentrating on it's tone. It was as if she had never spoken before.
Anthony watched for a second or two, before deciding to ignore her strange actions. "I don't know," Anthony replied. "I'm just as confused as you are…" he trailed off at the look the little girl was giving him. An eyebrow was raised and her eyes held disbelief. "What?" he asked, backing away.
"Anthony?" she squeaked.
Anthony's eyes widened in shock. "How'd you know my name?" The girl didn't answer, but burst out laughing. High-pitched giggles resounded throughout the quiet clearing, disturbing the former peace. "Why are you laughing?" he demanded. "Who are you?" The girl was now rolling around the forest floor, throwing up bits of grass and dusty pollen from the flowers.
Then just as quickly as she began laughing, she stopped. She rose from the floor and asked, "Anthony, why do you look like a chick? What's going on?" Anthony gaped at the little girl's words. A chick? He remembered the looseness of his shirt and the extra weight he felt on his chest. Gulping, he glanced down at his new body parts.
"Oh my God… what the hell is going on?!" he jumped to his feet and stared frantically at the girl who had begun her insane laughter again.
She pointed at his head. "And those gazankas aren't the only thing that's changed. Your ears look like Legolas's," the girl gasped between laughs. "This is one hell of a dream…"
"Wait," Anthony said, "Who are you?" Maybe it was the clothes, but something about this girl seemed so familiar. How did she know his name? She spoke to him as if they were friends.
The girl stopped laughing and looked down at her body. "Oh man… this isn't right…" he muttered. He looked up at Anthony with wonder. "Anthony, what's going on? My voice… it sounds like one of the Rescue Rangers. And I know you're tall… but dear God… how's the weather up there?" She squinted up at Anthony anxiously.
"Just answer the question!" Anthony roared, finally losing his patience.
"It's me, Anthony… it's Alex." The girl, or Alex, looked up at him in amazement. "What's wrong? Do I look different? Oh my God… am I a girl, too?!" His eyes went round with horror as he began to tug at his clothes.
Anthony crouched down so that he was more eyelevel with his friend and peered into his eyes. "It is you. And yeah… you're a girl." Unlike Alex, Anthony didn't burst out laughing. He was beginning to feel frightened. "I don't know where we are man… but I hope to God we're dreaming."
Alex sat down heavily on the grass, tears stinging his eyes. "I am stuck in the middle of nowhere with my best friend… both of us girls…" He brought a small, dimpled fist to his eye and wiped at the impending tears.
Anthony took him by the collar and pulled him up roughly to his feet with one hand. "Keep it together! This is probably a dream so we'll sit here until we wake up!"
"I'm sorry!" Alex apologized. "These female hormones, man…"
Anthony sighed and sat next to his friend, a million questions crowding his mind. What were they going to do? Where exactly were they? Why had he and Alex been transported to this world a different gender but with the same clothes? Just how much weed did they smoke that night?
He slipped an arm around his friend's shoulders and comforted him as best as he could. He's so cute, he reflected, feeling an urge to hug him. Suddenly realizing his strangely feminine thought, he shook himself out of his reverie. Alex glanced at him curiously. "You know, you're pretty hot as a girl…" Alex said, eyes roaming over Anthony's new face.
Flinging his hand away from Alex's shoulders, he smacked him on the side of the head. "Don't get any ideas," he growled. Alex instead chose to continue sniffling. After a long time sitting in the clearing, both of them dying to see just how much their bodies had changed but being too shy to do so in front of each other, Anthony decided they should at least look around. Standing up, he scanned through the trees, hoping to find a glimpse of civilization.
"Alex!" he cried. "Look!" Anthony pointed a slender finger at the building just barely peeking over the tops of the branches of the trees. "Let's head that way!"
"Head where? What are you looking at?" asked Alex, jumping up and down. Sighing, Anthony picked him up and pointed in the direction of the structure. "Wow!" Alex exclaimed. "Even now it's pretty hard to see. How'd you find it?"
"I don't know. I don't think I've been transported with my contacts, yet I see everything so clearly! Like, my sight has been restored to 40/20 vision or something. And my hearing… oh my God… I can hear the wind…"
Alex cocked his head to one side as he watched as Anthony listened to the wind. "Do you think we can get a move on, Antonia?" Alex said.
After Anthony had a few more moments of listening to the wind, the two sauntered off the to building Anthony had seen in the distance. Both of them were still clinging to the hope that this was a dream, but everything seemed too real; the air smelt so foreign; the birds sang too loudly; the sky without the usual haze of air pollutants. Wherever they had been transported to, it was no place on Earth.
