Chapter 2

We flew downwards and landed on the surface of the water. We were bobbing around quite a bit - the water was rough and the waves were getting higher and higher.

--I hate demorphing in the sea,-- I said. I'm not the strongest of swimmers, so whilst being in swan morph was fine for now, I would feel very different once I was back in my human self.

--Well, the sooner we do it, the sooner we'll be on dry land,-- said Sam.

--Can't wait,-- I replied. --I think I've had enough of the ocean for the rest of my life!--

I focused on my human self and held the image in my mind. The others went quiet as they did the same. I soon felt the changes start. The first thing to go was my neck. The long, white graceful swan's neck was suddenly sucked into my head like spaghetti! My legs - paddling away furiously under the water - started to grow. I'm usually able to sort of control the way I morph, although it's not really something I'm consciously aware of. I kind of picture the morph happening in my mind, and the actual changes tend to go the way I imagine it. Morphing is a rather ugly process - the sight of shifting body parts would be enough to make anyone run screaming if they didn't know what they were watching - but Sam agrees mine never looks quite as strange as everyone else's. Ferdie can do it too - he once made the antlers of his stag morph grow first which looked pretty amazing. But right now, I wasn't concentrating on making my morph look pretty - I was just trying to get to human - and then shark - as quickly as possible.

--God, this water's cold!-- Ferdie gasped. --I'm just glad we aren't in the middle of winter - there's no way I could go through this again in sub-zero temperatures!-- He was about halfway human - he's lost all his black and white goose feathers, and was now an overgrown, elongated, bald duck.

The coldness was the first thing to hit me, too, although since I still had feathers I couldn't feel the sting as badly as I would when I'd have skin.

I was mostly human now, my large wings had formed fingers, hands and elbows. My legs were fully human, leaving me to kick frantically to tread water. I could feel my beak melting away like hot wax to form my own nose and mouth. The only thing left to go was the feathers. They ran together like a melting ice cream, dissolving into my skin. My morphing outfit - a thin red leotard - appeared over my body. That's another drawback of morphing; we can only morph really tight clothing, like leotards for Sam and I, and tight tee-shirts and shorts for the guys. Ferdie has somehow managed to shoes though - a pair of tight leather riding boots, but apparently they are a million times too small for him and he hobbles around like an old man when he's walking in his human self. But the minimal clothing worked well for us in the water - anything more than what we were wearing would become too water clogged and drag us down.

"I can't wait to get fully shark," I said, shivering. I took a quick breather before going shark - morphing does wear you out and although you get a good burst of adrenaline after each change, you still feel quite tired. Especially since we hadn't eaten in our human bodies for over two days now. I looked round at the others. Sam and Ferdie were just finishing off demorphing. Ferdie was running a hand through his sopping wet hair and grinning boyishly at Sam, who splashed him. Philip was already well into his shark morph. He's our fastest morpher, although he still can't stop it making it look disgusting.

"Those eyes look dead creepy, Philip," I said to him. He had a huge shark's head and mouth, but was otherwise completely human.

--I can imagine,-- he said in though speak, having lost his human mouth. --That Jaws film always scared me as a child.--

I laughed nervously and started the morph. This time, the first thing to change was my legs. They fused together, forming the basis of a long shark's tail.

"How weird does that look!" exclaimed Ferdie. "You look like some mutant mermaid."

"It's not very helpful - I can't use my legs to swim now!" I replied, struggling to keep afloat.

"Well, I guess you'll be going underwater in a minute," said Sam. She had turned a strange, greyish-blue - her skin was the first thing that was changing as she went shark.

My skin was changing too, becoming thick and rough. The skin of a shark is really rough to the touch, like sandpaper - it's covered in thousands of tiny little tooth like barbs, all over it's body. It felt like I was wearing a very strange, coarse wetsuit. My legs, now dark grey, better resembled the shark's tail. My heel bones had grown huge, forming the massive grey triangular shaped fins. The bones in my body were dissolving and reforming as they became the new shark skeleton. My back stretched outwards, my arms were sucked into my body and formed more triangular fins. Finally, my head began to change. My mouth grew wide and huge, the pathetically weak teeth in my human mouth being replaced by the huge sharp daggers of the shark. My nose changed shape, forming the ultra-sensitive lobes of the shark. A shark's sense of smell is incredible. They can smell one tiny drop of blood dissolved in a billion cubed centimetres of water from over a mile away. A mile! How cool is that! My eyes were changing too - they went from my normal green to a horrible, staring, empty black. My eyesight was still pretty good though - contrary to popular belief, sharks have great eyesight. By this time, I was finding it almost impossible to stay above the water. But at last, my gills were forming, and I let go of trying to stay afloat, and sunk down into the depths of the ocean.

--Wow, I still can't believe the simplicity of this mind,-- said Sam. I knew what she meant. When you morph an animal, you take on not only it's body, but it's mind and instincts too. Sometimes, especially during the first morph of a new animal, they are really hard to control and it takes a lot of concentration to remember who you are and what you are supposed to be doing. Luckily, though, we'd all morphed sharks before and had got used to the shark's primitive, but amazingly efficient mind.

--I know,-- I said. --All it wants to do is kill and eat. It doesn't think about anything else.--

--Doesn't need too,-- remarked Ferdie, finishing off his own morph. --If you've got a body this powerful, you don't need to think about much else.--

--That's what's made them such successful creatures,-- I said. --Sharks have been around for millions of years - far longer than humans. They're one of the most successful evolutions in the history of nature, and they've barely changed in that time.--

--Wow,-- said Sam. --That's something Darwin would be proud of.-- She whipped her newly formed tail and swam towards land. The rest of us followed suite, eagerly awaiting the chance to step on dry land again.