Of Metis and Men- Ch. 2
For days after the "big news", Olivia and the other children had expected for other kids to start changing left and right, but nothing that exciting would happen to break up the routine of their highly regimented life. For the first few days after Janus' big announcement, everyone was talking about the First Change and what they figured would happen, the children were waiting with bated breath for the glory of being the first one to change, everyone whether privately or loudly public wanted to be the first. Slowly the enthusiasm gave way to impatience and soon enough even that waned. In the weeks that followed it was casually mentioned but not as often, and after a few months had passed and no one had changed, it was talked about as if it were a broken promise. Olivia heard a grumble now and again about getting hopes up for nothing, but not too much else was said about it. All the steam had been let out of them, and they went back to their normal lives, figuring that the First Change was something else that the grown-ups spoke of that might or might not happen to them because they were Metis. More than one child had overreacted to an ache or sniffle, thinking that they were about to undergo their change, at first everyone would crowd around and watch with an intense fear. Soon enough it was just something that would happen eventually, and more than one child pushed it back into the subconscious recesses of their mind while other more important things took precedence- such as the newest video game and movie.
So when Erica turned into a tiny little girl in the middle of recreation period one night, everyone was properly surprised and impressed. Erica was very much a lively person, despite the fact that she had one short leg and a big knob in the back of her neck she was vivacious, outgoing and pretty popular. She was also one of the hottest tempered girls that Olivia had ever come across or heard of, everyone excused her temper because she was an Ahroun and as a warrior she was supposed to be ferocious but even other ahroun's feared her ire when it was piqued. Olivia had tried to explain more than once that Erica took a perverse pleasure in bullying people but no one seemed to listen and since she wasn't a target, she learned to keep her mouth shut and not become one. She dominated the recreation area in whatever section she wished for the day, and no one ever stopped her, the attendants told the children to learn to play together and the doctors seemed to document it all. Understandably other children feared her and gave her a wide berth especially when the moon was full. Recreation time had been going per normal, Erica and her little crew decided that they were going to make everyone have an extra practice session in hand to hand combat. With a quiet discomfort everyone complied, the moon was at its fullest and no one really wanted to pick a fight, so they gave in. Erica been having them run through basic hand to hand defensive maneuvers for the past hour and a half and it was running as well as could be imagine. Olivia worked with Justin, mostly because he was slow moving and she was less likely to be hit. Despite her wearing a full PVC bodysuit, every once in a while she got gouged, slashed or cut and that was the last thing that Olivia ever wanted to happen. What very few knew was that Olivia was horribly allergic to blood, where as she had not died from the allergy- it was always assumed that it was 'yet'. The allergy was found out when she was just an infant; like most infants her claws/nails grew incredibly fast because of all of the nutrients she absorbed and as she learned how to use her limbs she gouged her cheek. The spreading blood reacted immediately with her skin and huge welts and blisters formed in a matter of seconds. Her eyes swelled up as did her nose and lips, only because her mother had heard her squawks was she saved. Immediate tests were performed, and reveal nothing, until a nurse accidentally scratched her with a needle and the reaction started over again.
So Olivia worked very hard at making sure no blood ever touched her. She let the others taunt her and call her freak, for wanting to wear human clothes when working out. She let them think it was part of her being shy and eccentric. The reality was the suit was itchy, hot and constrained her uncomfortably, but it was one of the few ways to make sure that the important parts of her body were covered. The less people who knew about her afflictions the better, they were all she had for a family but she certainly did not trust most of the other metis around.
Erica had been strutting around and gloating about a particularly good maneuver when she dropped to her knees and began to pant. A low keening howl pressed forth from her lips and chilled Olivia to the bone. Erica curled into the fetal position panting and writhing, her eyes open wide. Olivia thought she was having an aneurism, but what happened next was even more spectacular. When Erica began to shrink bones popped, crunched and make all sorts of noises that roiled everyone's stomach. Fur began to retract into her pores, claws shrunk to fit into a hand that was very human looking, and even more Erica's head shrunk into a small lumpy shape. After about ten minutes, the room was shock still and Erica looked up and around.
She tried to growl to speak but only squeaking noises came out, the human tongue was not really meant to speak lupine. They all looked down at the girl form that stood before them, she was obviously barely pubescent with stringy black hair falling over her shoulders and almost to her waist. Wide eyes looked out from a face that might have been pretty if the sides had been more evenly matched, instead it looked like one side had been raised just enough higher to make her look very lopsided. The knob in the back of her neck made her head tilt to the side a bit, she still had a shorter leg, but it was definitely Erica.
Quickly some attendants covered her in a white soft robe and rushed her off to the medical labs. As soon as Erica was ushered from the room, it burst into a deafening wave of hushed conversations. Everyone had questions, comments and observations about what had happened. Olivia quietly absorbed it all, lost in her own train of thought.
"That was something, wasn't it?" lisped Justin
"Yes, I thought it would have been more instantaneous, not so slow and it looked like it hurt." Olivia said in her quiet voice.
"I wonder what it will be like for me." Justin said with a nod, and then almost in envy "I wonder who will be next."
Justin's words seemed to be echoed by everyone else for the next few weeks. In the smaller classes, even Olivia was included in the conversations as her mates talked about the "First Change". As children often do, the changes got more spectacular and wild as they postulated on what could happen and then the next change did happen and changed their views on everything.
Alicia was the next to change, but she did it in the early morning hours in her own room, so no one really knew all of the details but rumors were aplenty. Her dormer mates were the circle of attention that evening as everyone wanted to know the details.
"She woke all of us up this morning with her howling and crying. She started screaming so loudly that the attendants were there with needles and blankets and all sorts of other carts." A big lumbering boy named Harold said. "She was trying to get out of her room and kept banging against the door. We couldn't understand anything but we have never seen the attendants move that fast. They even covered her up before they took her out."
The children were crazy with speculation over the next few days as Alicia did not return to them. They kept pestering Harold for information, since his room was closest to hers until he snapped and went through his First Change right in front of all of them. Harold was a large boy standing almost ten feet tall, with large protruding teeth, lips and eyes, but his nose was small and shrunken in which gave him a rather comical look. He had bald patches randomly over his body and Olivia thought his deformities were probably more of the severe that she had seen even if they weren't too disabling.
When he changed chaos erupted. He was irritated with all the questions that kept being tossed his way about Alicia. The first day it was cool to be the center of attention but after that he found it annoying, since other kids didn't want to play so much with him as pump him for information. Finally he had had enough and was yelling at poor little Justin when he doubled over in pain. His head shrunk at a rapid rate and to the watching children's horror, blood began spurting everywhere as his teeth didn't shrink as fast enough to compensate and began pushing through his upper jaw and chin. His face then imploded in upon itself, and the screams echoed around the recreation room. Olivia hastily moved back, even more quickly than the other children as blood rained down everywhere, unlike everyone else though, she quietly walked out of the room. Attendants streamed past her, not even seeing her, to get to the injured child. Harold was quickly rushed away and all the children were sent back to their rooms. Olivia quietly snuck down to the medical labs, knowing she could use the excuse of contamination if anyone saw her and hovered breathlessly by the curtains.
"He was lucky this time." One doctor was saying in hushed tones "Nothing major was punctured."
"This time, being the key." Dr Abalene, Olivia's primary doctor said "I don't know that he will be able survive another change. This one almost killed him."
"Doctor, we have a loose bleeder." A nurse interrupted.
Chaos ensued again and Olivia quietly snuck back to her room. Her thoughts churned, she never expected that changing might kill one of them. She always figured that changes would be proportional but who knew with Metis, everyone assumed they were cursed so no one really knew what could happen. The research facility was created for that very purpose, but it was still rather new in the grand scheme of things. In fact Olivia's group was the third out of four installation groups. Each group had about twenty members with their studies starting at different ages. Olivia had been placed her at age four, but some came in as newborns, some after their first change and a few came in as adults. She wondered if maybe something was just wrong with the way the DNA met but she had yet to really understand how it worked, so all she could do is guess. She was so wrapped up in her thoughts; she didn't notice the figures just around the corner from her door.
"Olivia!" it whispered harshly. "What happened to Harold?"
She recognized the voice as Matt, one of her dormer mates, and usually one of the worst for running her over.
"He's in the med labs, and he's really sick. I couldn't see anything at all but I heard them say he might not make it." She whispered back, seeing no reason to hold the truth back. "Then the nurse said he was bleeding and I left because they weren't going to talk anymore."
"Oh." Was all Matt managed to get out before Olivia walked into her room and shut the door.
She tossed and turned that night, dreaming out dramatic and terrible first changes for everyone that she knew. She was afraid of the pain and suffering that seemed to come along with it. She was very afraid that her blood allergy would cause something to go terribly wrong. She woke at four in the morning and decided to just get up rather than chance a dream that might force her into her change. Quietly she got up and made her bed and then sat at her desk and tried to work on a mother board. It was proving difficult for her large hands and sharp claws, but she still plugged away at it a little each day. Personally she thought that her physical deformities were very small compared to the others. Her fur was brown but it had random streaky of red and gold through it. Olivia thought that it made a very pretty pattern but the other children had teased her about it one summer when it had lightened up more and insisted on calling her 'Grandma' all summer long. Her face was pretty normal, excepting the divots between the corner of her mouth and her cheeks – this of course led her being called "crater face" every time someone noticed she smiled, which wasn't often enough to really be harassed about. She really couldn't find too much else wrong with her; perhaps her knuckles were a bit small and her legs muscles developed a bit more oval than square but these were all very private observations. She didn't want the others to think she was stuck on herself, nor did she want to find out what they did to those who irritated them. Olivia knew fights broke out, but she was always out of harms way in her own little corner and she did not ever wish to be the one being the object of anyone's fury.
Two hours later the morning bell woke her from where she had fallen asleep at her work desk. The mood was somber, but considering the events of the last two days it wasn't hard to blame the children, their friends as well as themselves were now ticking time bombs, some would change easily and some awaited untold horrors.
Lessons and training plodded along slowly and Olivia couldn't shake the small headache that had started behind her temple. The tension in the air was palpable and sparks were igniting left and right around her. Even though everyone knew that strong emotional responses could set off the change, all the drama around them couldn't be helped. Despite being five and six feet tall, covered in fur and claws they were still children and very much acted like it. The tense days dragged out into week, and then into months and Olivia was resigned with a sigh that she would probably be last to change, so many around her had already changed and had started with new lessons but she was stuck and growing frustrated. Especially when the last of the boys in her dormer changed, she went to bed depressed that night and convinced she would never change.