Author's Note: The following is a transformation story dealing with humans and equines. If you do not like the subject matter, then don't read it. Otherwise, Thundra is (c) me. Anyone else is (c) themselves. This a work in progress... I'll update as I go. Keep in mind also that this is fiction, and truth is often stranger than fiction...
Thundra: A Transformation Realization
I'll never forget the night that I discovered who, or rather what, I really am. I'd like to say that I am just another average girl from an average-sized city, but I believe that honesty is the best policy. The truth of the matter is, I can transform. It is possible for me to change my physical appearance, given the right conditions. In retrospect, I was a teenage centaur.
That day began like any other. I was thirteen at the time, and enrolled in the local junior high school two blocks away. As I rolled out of bed grumbling about back pain for the third time in the past week, I slammed my fist down on the button of my alarm clock. Opening my closet, I remembered that it was Thursday, which meant that I had gym class. I pulled on a black t-shirt that was two sizes too big and my worn and wrinkled jeans that I had been wearing since Monday. I tossed my pajamas back on my unmade bed, ignoring my mother's demand that I make it.
I ate breakfast in a haze, as I was still mostly asleep. I had trouble sleeping the night before due to a strange dream that I had been having. As I robotically shoveled soggy cereal into my mouth, I thought about what this dream might mean. In my dream, I was being chased by a shadowy figure with a rope. I tried everything I knew to get away, but the figure kept getting closer and closer. Suddenly, everything would go black and it felt as though I was falling. Upon waking, I felt the brief sensation of falling back onto my bed, and then the back pain would start. It was a dull, throbbing ache that seemed to be just above my pelvis. I had tried taking painkillers before bed, only to have the pain transpire in the morning.
With a start, I realized that it was now 7:45, and I'd be late for school again if I didn't get moving. I dumped the remnants of my cereal in the sink, ran my fingers through my shoulder-length brown hair, grabbed my backpack and ran. I had gotten used to running to school now that spring was here. I had just enough time to wake myself up as I ran, and having a full backpack helped. I made it through the double doors as the last of the early kids went in, and made my way up the three flights of stairs to my locker.
I was not the most popular girl in my grade, and wasn't the lowest block on the totem pole. I was somewhere in the middle; the popular girls picked on me, and the unpopular girls thought I was their best friend. The first three class periods went by slowly, like they always seemed to. Teachers called on me, and I replied with my usual "Um…" as I flipped through the pages of the textbooks and pretended to be interested. What I really wanted was to be outside, running through a grassy field with the wind in my hair. I daydreamed about being anywhere that I wasn't while listening halfheartedly to the teachers and the whispers of gossip around me.
"Bill told me that Charlie's going to ask Amanda out," I heard.
"No way! She is so totally going to say no, dude. I heard that she wants to go out with Jay. Hey, did you buy the new Wu-Tang cd yet?" I laughed silently and doodled on my notebook. What a stupid name for a band – The Wu-Tang Clan. Where the hell do those stupid rappers come up with their names, anyway? I thought. As I doodled, I thought about my "big plans" for the future. I wanted to buy a fast car and run away to Montana after high school, where I would then trade in my car for a horse ranch. I figured that I would train horses for a living.
Finally it was time for gym class. I was overjoyed, because I knew we would be playing floor hockey today. I liked floor hockey because all the popular girls were afraid to break a nail or mess up their hair; I, on the other hand, loved getting down and dirty. I guess it was a form of revenge for me, because for once the teachers were yelling at them.
After a few more boring classes, it was time for lunch. As I walked down to the cafeteria, I remember feeling hungrier than usual, but I attributed it to the "growth spurt" that I was expecting. I ate my lunch, pausing between bites of my sandwich to chat with my friends, and then sat quietly as they talked about boys. I knew that I had no hope in that area, as I didn't look like the Barbie-thin-model of the moment. I stared blankly at the brick wall out the window and imagined that I could create shapes out of the brick. I thought about the history homework that threatened to overwhelm me, and wished that I could drop some bricks on my teacher.
The afternoon classes flew by, thankfully. My peers ridiculed each other in class, threw paper wads at my math teacher when his back was turned, and provided for a day that was the same as all the others. Our last period of the day was Homeroom, where we would sit in the classroom and were supposed to read or do our homework. I, however, had better things to do than my homework. I doodled for a few minutes in my notebook before deciding to draw a horse. As I finished shading, the last bell rang and my peers stampeded out into the hallway for their lockers. I, however, had detention because I had been late last week.
To say that detention was a waste of my productive time was an understatement. The teacher forced us to sit quietly. We weren't allowed to talk, read, or even do our homework. He claimed we were supposed to be thinking about what we had done, but I was too busy daydreaming about my future horse ranch. At 3:30, I pulled myself out of my idyllic daydream long enough to go to my locker, grab some books, and trudge home alone.
Half an hour later, my mother got home from work and all hell broke loose. I was watching music videos when she walked in instead of doing my homework, and she flew off the handle and sent me to my room. I knew that my father would be home at 4:30, and dinner would be ready around five. I stomped up the stairs, picking up my overloaded backpack on my way, and slammed the door to my room. Wasn't she ever going to get off my back about my homework?
I sat down on my floor, the blue rug muffling the sound of my backpack falling to the floor. I pulled out my history book and tried to make some sense of the reading. I started on writing out the homework, and actually made it through the definitions before my father came home. I went back downstairs to greet him, grabbed a banana, and went back upstairs. Man, I'm really hungry today, I thought.
I had given up halfway through my history homework, and decided to move on to something that I could understand, like my English homework. I opened my backpack, only to find that my book wasn't in there. I looked under my bed, hoping that I had left it there; instead, I found a magazine that I was more than happy to flip through. I didn't hear my mother the first four times she called me for dinner, so my father came up to get me.
"What are you doing?" He asked when he saw me looking through the magazine. "You're supposed to be doing your homework!"
"But I was, Dad, and then I couldn't find my book…"
"Give me that!" He said, snatching the magazine away before I could explain myself. "Now come down for dinner!"
Eating dinner with my family was not my favorite thing in the world. My parents tried to connect with us by asking about what we had done in school that day, but they couldn't understand me. The talked with my sisters about the school's two volleyball teams, as one was on the Varsity team and the other was on the Modified team. I didn't hate my sisters for being great at volleyball; rather, I hated them for making everyone else's life revolve around them and their teams. I sat there quietly and listened as I always did, but inside I felt invisible.
After dinner, I sulked back up to my room, forgetting about my English book. I finished my Science and struggled through my Math homework before I remembered. By then it had grown dark, as it was around 8pm. I knew that English was the only subject that I was relatively good at; if I didn't do the homework tonight, my teacher would notice though. Resolutely, I rode my bike up to school.
It had begun to rain as I walked into school. The janitor's door was the only one open at this time of night, so I chained my bike to the fence across from it. As I walked down the dark hallways that had been filled with kids only six hours ago, I felt strange. I shouldn't have been there, and there was nobody else in the building, but I felt as though I was anticipating an attack. When I reached my locker on the third floor, I tried to shake off the odd feeling and concentrate on getting my English book. I rummaged through loose papers, candy wrappers, and detention forms. I found some books that I had to return to the school library the next day, and pulled those out so that I'd remember them.
Suddenly, a flash of lightning lit the hallway. It startled me and I stood up, my adrenaline beginning to surge. The clap of thunder that followed was loud enough to make the windows above our lockers rattle, and I felt a chill run down my spine as I heard it. I tried to crouch down to pick up the books that I had dropped, but found that it was extremely uncomfortable to do so. That's odd, I thought. My pants feel too tight. I didn't think I ate that much at dinner… Maybe I should try another position. I tried to kneel, but stopped when I felt a searing pain shoot through both of my legs.
What was that? Did I pinch a nerve or something? I wondered. I stood up slowly, trying to alleviate the pain. Suddenly, my pants felt way too tight, and not only at the waist. I had to get these jeans off now! I started to unbutton and unzip them as the pain became more intense, centering around my lumbar spine and pelvic regions. As the pain continued to escalate, I began to cry. It felt like I was having an allergic reaction to something and was ballooning up like the fat people you see on The Jerry Springer Show. I briefly saw myself in my mind, fat rolls constricted by my clothing, laying here on the floor for the teachers to find in the morning. How was I going to get out of here?
Without warning, the seams of my jeans ripped before I could get them even halfway down. Oh shit, I thought, clenching my eyes shut. I'm gonna be naked! I'll be the laughingstock of the school – the naked fat chick! I hadn't noticed it a moment ago, but the pain had drastically lessened since my pants split. In fact, there was only a very odd sensation below my waist now; it felt something like the feeling you get when your foot falls asleep, only it was all over my skin. I realized that my eyes were still closed and my hands were sweaty; I wiped them on my thighs, where my pants should have been and slowly opened my eyes.
I stood there for a moment, momentarily confused and not fully processing my sensory input. I was now eye-level with the top of my locker; had I really just grown about a foot taller? With a start, I realized that the surface I was wiping my hands on was too smooth to be my denim jeans. I gasped and pulled my hands up, taking a step backwards in the process. I heard a muffled clop, and thought I might have stepped on a piece of trash the janitor had neglected to pick up. As I turned to find out what it was, I saw a dark blur of movement out of the corner of my eye.
Is there somebody else here? I wondered. I stood still, not daring to move a muscle, and listened. That's odd; I thought, as I heard a humming noise. I've never heard that sound before. It sounded like the hum of our refrigerator; I then remembered that the teacher's lounge had a refrigerator in it, but it was on the first floor. Weird. Must be a side-effect of puberty. I shrugged it off and bent to look on the ground for the trash.
Where is it? Did I accidentally kick it somewhere else? I wondered as I looked, but saw nothing on the floor aside from a few papers that had spilled out of my locker. I felt something brush up against my butt; I dismissed it, assuming it was a coat sleeve. It brushed against my legs, and I stood up sharply. I didn't have a coat in my locker… and now that something was brushing against it, my butt felt oddly too large. I turned the upper half of my body, trying to see what might have caused that sensation. What I saw in a flash of lightning was at that time unexplainable.
I had assumed that I had an allergic reaction to something and had a simultaneous growth spurt. The odds of such an event happening were extremely rare, I knew; however, my mother had always said stranger things have happened. This just happened to be one of those stranger things.
The first thing that popped into my mind was an image of a draft horse pulling a tractor out of the mud. Damn, that's one mighty powerful rear end. Wait a minute – something's not quite right here. What are my ripped jeans doing hanging over that butt? I tried to scream when I realized that it was my butt I was looking at, but I had no air in my lungs. I sucked in air, realizing that my own sides were moving like a bellows pump. My butt… my flanks… I looked downward. My legs! Holy shit! My Legs!
Not realizing that I was panicking, I began to back up. I felt the cold, hard metal of my locker pressing against my skin and my first reaction was to move away from the pressure as fast as I could. I had no idea how to control this body that was suddenly part of my own and was now racing down the hallway. I panicked further when I felt that I needed more oxygen in my lungs, and my body ran faster. I was approaching the end of the hallway as my lungs felt tighter, and I would need to turn soon. I tried something that I had learned in horseback riding the weekend before – I dipped my butt closer to the floor. I should have been able to come sliding to a stop; instead, my front end had other ideas, and I scrambled to keep my feet under me. Ultimately, I ended up falling on my side. I breathed heavily from panic, and tried to calm myself down as I felt the cold marble floor beneath me absorb my body heat.
Okay, you can handle this. The rational part of my brain told me. I had heard of strange things happening to kids during puberty, but nothing this drastic. What the hell is going on? What's happening to me? What did I do to deserve this? I felt fear begin to take over once again, and fought it. Okay; first, what happened? I remembered the pain I had felt before my jeans had ripped. Was that it? My butt just spontaneously got bigger and turned into a horse butt? No… there was something more… I tried to think what had happened before I felt the pain. I remembered going to my locker, digging through papers and other miscellaneous junk, finding the library books and pulling them out…
"The thunder…" I said softly to the empty hallway. "There was a flash of lightning, and a crash of thunder… I was a little scared…" Still breathing heavily, I managed to roll myself into something like a kneeling position and looked down the hallway toward my locker. My books and papers were still scattered across the floor where I had left them, and I could see some small scratches in the surface of the floor where I had been running. I hope the janitors haven't waxed the floor yet; they're going to be so pissed! Just then I became aware of a dull, permeating ringing. Focusing on it, I realized that it was the bells of the chapel a few blocks away. I listened to the soft tune, and with a start realized that it was almost 9pm. My parents would probably begin to wonder where I had gone if I didn't make it home soon; according to their rules, I should be in bed by nine.
What the hell am I going to do? I nearly shouted. I've got a horse's ass! There's no way I can make it out of here like this; I had a hard enough time with the stairs when I had two legs. I'd probably break the elevator if I tried to take that, too. I felt panic begin to take hold once again when I realized that I was all alone in this other body and had no idea how to get back to mine.