An Earthbound Misfit - Chapter 2

There's no sensation to compare with this
Suspended animation - a state of bliss.
Can't keep my mind from the circling sky
Tongue-tied and twisted just an earth-bound misfit, I.

--------------------

"Do you think he's still in there?"
"What do you mean?"
"Do you think he's still himself and not a mindless animal?"
"He's still himself. Well, he better be. Did you get to see it?"
"Yep, saw the whole thing! I walked back up to get the rest of the dinner but when I came back he was still asleep, so I got some shut-eye myself. Woke up when he got out of the water."
"And that's when it happened?"
"Yes, actually. How'd you know?"
"I've seen that old water's magic before: once somebody touches it, there's no going back. It works as an anesthetic, which is probably why he fell asleep, up until contact with it is lost. Do you know if he drank any of the bacteria in the water?"
"There really are bacteria? I thought it was a lie."
"No the water is contaminated, but the bacteria just causes nausea."
"Well in that case, no, I don't think he did. Man to forcibly change like that; I can't imagine how it would've felt. Must've felt like hell."
"Well you can ask him yourself when he wakes; can you stay down here with him while I go call Zyd?"
"Zyd? As in Zyditus?"
"Yep. I talked to him a couple of days ago when I flew to New York City. Something to do with the D.I.A., I don't know, but he and the other heads will be staying in Vermont for the next few weeks. Who better to help Mick? Anyway, can you stay down here?"
"Fine. Will you bring me some breakfast?"
"Sure thing. I'll see you in a little bit."
"Bye. Hmph. I bet you won't even wake up today, not after your little spectacle. You look awfully familiar, a lot like an old friend actually. I wonder what happened to him, just flew off one day and never came back. Why the hell am I talking to a sleeping dragon? Where's my book?"
Mick opened his eyes and was blinded, forcing him to shut them immediately. He opened them again and could, once again, only see white. What the hell's wrong with his eyes? He opened them again, and the white light slowly dimmed. What replaced it was just as excruciating a sight: everything was upside down. Upside down! It forced him to close his eyes and focus on his other senses. His taste and smell still worked properly: the scent of blood was painfully strong. He could feel his surroundings: the ground below him was warm and comfortable, but he was stiff. His hearing was working perfectly: two voices were easily audible.
Wait, who were those two voices? They were deep and sounded inhuman, but they sounded familiar. It seems there's only one left down with him, who was humming in front of him. A name came to his mind: Zack. Zack… who's Zack? Zack is a kid in his Geology class, right? Yes. But Zack was also a… lizard. No. Dragon? Dragon… hmmm, dragon. Dragon. Cave. Zack. Camel's Hump. Fall. Rocks. Blood. Canada. Kay. Soup. Cave. Water. Glowing. Blue. Bacteria. Pain. Transform. Dragon! Holy shit, he was a dragon! He had turned into a giant, fire-breathing lizard!
Wait, he can't be a dragon: he has college! And he'd bet against the professors allowing a colossal, scaled beast to attend any lectures. Hell, his whole life just turned to crap. And it was all because of the dragon humming in front of him.
"Zack?" Mick groaned; his voice had become almost unrecognizable. He was surprised he could talk without any training even though his mouth had just grown tenfold in size.
The humming stopped and Mick heard the dragon softly say, "My God, he's awake."
"Zack, be glad that I can't see you, or else I'd shove my foot so far up your ass you'll be able to kiss it goodnight."
The young dragon's reaction surprised Mick, for it was laughter. But Mick was in no laughing matter. He was too weak to get up and take a good swing at the dragon, so he could only listen to Zack, who said, "Creative. What else ya got?"
Mick almost cursed him out. Does that dumb lizard think this is a joke? His life was ruined because of him! "Why does it matter? Please come over here so I can, at the very least, rip your wings off," he snarled, trying to get up.
"Take it easy there; you're in no shape to go anywhere. So why not just talk?"
Mick slowed his breathing and tried to calm down. Even though he wanted to tear Zack's guts out, that damned dragon was right. "How tall are you?" he asked.
"What?"
"How tall are you?"
"Bout 5 meters, maybe 17 feet."
"17 feet? I didn't know they stacked shit that high."
The young dragon in front of him laughed again, before saying, "Yes! That's more like it! Here's a good rule in life to follow: always look on the bright side. Melancholy never got anybody anywhere."
"How can I look on the bright side when there is no bright side?! If it weren't for you I wouldn't be a giant lizard!"
"If it weren't for me you wouldn't be alive either. Anyway, dragons are mammals."
"Okay where are you; I really want to smash your head in," Mick growled, again trying to get up. He opened his eyes but immediately closed them. He struggled to get himself on his legs, but could only get his neck and arms – forelegs – up before he ran out of energy and slumped on the cave floor. So he swung out with one of his arms, hitting nothing but air.
Zack sighed before asking, "What's wrong with your eyes?"
"They're upside-down. Everything, everything is upside-down."
"Upside-down?" the dragon asked inquiringly.
"And everything is bright. And I don't like the fact that my eyes are facing in two opposite directions."
"You'll get used to it. But upside-down, that explains a lot."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, your eye is a lens, right? Right. And a lens flips the image you see through it. Like in a telescope, you see stars and planets upside-down."
"Okay but why did I see right-side up as a human?"
"Why do you see… why do you see… well, okay, let's see… so the lens in your eye flips the image. So you see the world upside down. But your brain flips the image because that would be really weird to live upside-down. Like a camera, it takes an upside-down picture but flips it back ov-"
"God damn-it, Zack! Do I look like I want to attend a science lecture right now!?" Mick snarled at Zack, who quieted up. "Is it permanent?"
"Oh no, no, no. Your brain isn't flipping the image because it hasn't properly connected to your eye. Much like it isn't connected to your muscles, which is probably why you can't really move. Much like a baby. Shouldn't last more than a day, if lucky. See, there's always a bright side!" the dragon said too cheerfully for Mick's liking.
Mick relaxed his head, he was getting a headache. Everything was happening too quickly! He discovered the effects a 15-foot fall can have on a person, was saved by a dragon, learned that dragons were real to begin with, and turned into one all within the space of twelve hours. Man, what a day! He was surprised that he had any energy left in his body. Oh wait, he didn't, as he started to doze off on the warm rock floor. "So what do I do now?" he asked Zack.
"Get some rest, you obviously need it. I'll be here if you need anything, reading my book," Zack said. "Oh yeah, I almost forgot to ask you…"
"What?
"What did it feel like?" the young dragon asked.
Mick opened his mouth, but he didn't know how to answer. What did it feel like? The feeling of growing hundred-fold in weight? Or the feeling of your bones non-stop splintering and remolding? Or the feeling of having your innards scrambled? Mick could only answer, "Like hell," before falling unconscious.

--------------------

Mick awoke to the gut-wrenching feeling of starvation and, unlike last time, to the lack of any voices watching over him. He couldn't hear anybody; in fact, he couldn't hear running water, so he must've been moved into another cave. He could now feel everything: the warm air around him, some kind of cloth beneath him, even his scales rubbing against each other. You would think having armor on every square inch of your body would impede any feeling of touch, but it felt just like normal skin! Anyway, he had to get up: he could smell something, meat, and his mouth was starting to water.
He moved his arm – foreleg – out from under him… wait… it moved! He could move! Hallelujah! But could he see? He opened his eyes and, to his astonishment, they were working perfectly. He even had some depth perception even though his eyes were facing in opposite directions. The only problem was everything had a shade of red. Everything!
Well, everything didn't include much: the cave walls around him, some things he couldn't recognize, and his body. Everything except an object on the wall next to him; it looked… like a light switch. But it was glowing white! Mick lifted up his hand – claw – and flipped it up, surrounding him with blinding light. After allowing his eyes to adjust, he could see the cave's true colors: the rock walls grey, the bags of pine needles under him were brown, his scales – his scales – a forest green. But everything still had a faint red glow to it, especially his body. It was as if everything was red-hot. Duh! Infrared! His eyes can see infrared light as well! "Now that's cool," he said as he studied his surroundings.
This room he was in was much smaller than the aquatic center of changing humans into giant dragons that served as his last chamber. By human standards, it was still quite big, but for him, it was actually comfortable. It was a simple round room, with one half being slightly higher than the other half. He was laying on the upper half, which was covered with bags of pine needles – a bed. On the wall next to the light switch was a large bookcase stacked over spilling with books, some of which looked as old as the rocks themselves. His eyes followed the wall, down to the other side of the room, where he saw a large mirror, covering most of the other side of the cave's wall. A dragon was looking back at him. He was that dragon.
To his surprise his face looked almost nothing like Zack's. While Zack and his mother had rounded, streamline muzzles, Mick had a pointed snout. Wondering if he wasn't seeing things, he lifted his hand – claw – to his nose – damn it, muzzle – and rubbed it. By god he could feel it. As he looked back at the mirror, he noticed other features that accounted for probably a lot of pain during his transformation: two giant horns protruded from the back of his skull. Unlike Zack and Kay, whose horns were straight as an arrow, Mick's arched upwards, and looked rather menacing. And very pointy. Ever more sets or smaller horns grew down his jawline, ending in a single, curving horn at the bottom of his mouth. His entire lower jaw, and his underbelly as well, were covered with dry blood. A slim, blue-tinted crest, which fanned up when Mick flexed his neck, ran down the back of his spine until they reach his wings. His wings…
He opened them. It felt weird, like stretching out one's arms after sleeping on them. Oh, and add the feeling of another set of arms protruding from his shoulder blades. He opened them as far as he could, or as wide as the cave allowed; everything felt like normal arms, excluding the fingers, which took some effort to bend. But it still felt interesting to say the least. He glanced back at the mirror but realized his wings had covered the light. Instead, the mirror showed a glowing, red dragon, with bright red wings where some light was shining through. It turned out he could see infrared quite well, actually. He started to fold his wings back up. Uh oh. Maybe if he – no the fingers fold in last. How the hell do you fold in your wings? After a distressing amount of time, he realized just collapsing them on his back worked.
Finished playing with his new form, hunger took over again. He could smell food somewhere. He looked at the entrance to the cave: a tunnel, thankfully larger than Mick. A bowl lay at its mouth. Food. It smelt delicious.
He stood up, and glanced down. Now Mick was never troubled by heights, but the view was unnatural and unnerving. The feeling of walking on all fours – that, unexpectedly, felt relatively natural, as if he was always walking like this. His first step, on the other hand, was in no way natural: thump. Not only did he land flat on his face, but he gracelessly introduced the bottom of his muzzle to the lower part of the room as if they were made for each other. The rest of his body slid down to join his face on the cold, rock floor.
With a groan, Mick pushed himself back up, and again tried to walk to the bowl. Okay think, Mick. Try to walk like Zack did last night. Front-left, back-right, front-right, back-left. It wasn't beautiful, but it worked, as Mick slowly stepped towards the bowl. In it was some meat, he didn't know what kind, or even care, but it was meat. Food. But before he dug in, he noticed a piece of paper lying next to the bowl and picked it up with his claw. Mick held it up to the light before reading its large letters."Mick, you are one heavy bastard. I bet you're starving, so here's lunch/dinner/food. Meet me at the cave entrance." Mick looked back at the bed and spotted some ropes lying on the bed; Zack must've pulled him up here. That must've not been fun. He'll have to thank that damned dragon later, but for now, food!
He quickly wolfed down his meal before walking down the tunnel with the bowl in his claw; never leave a mess for your hosts, even if they did transform you into a dragon. If you think walking on all fours is hard, try walking with three legs. It was still fascinating to see only infrared light, but as Mick approached the tunnel, normal light started to fill his vision. The tunnel emptied into the giant hallway he found himself in the day before, even the human-sized room, with its wooden wall, was just a few yards further up the tunnel. Beyond that, the tunnel turned left, where sunlight invaded the entrance cave.
He walked around the bend to find the entrance room. The light coming in from the outside world initially blinded him, but his eyes quickly adjusted to see the warm colors of the evening beyond some trees. Inside the cave, the fireplace was cold, and there were no other dragons in sight. Next to the fireplace were a couple of bowls, of which Mick added to the collection.
The room was still the same, the digital clock, the "refrigerator", pool, bed, and cauldron still made up the room's interior. But Mick was still the only dragon here.
"Hello?" he yelled, louder than he was expecting. He still wasn't used to having a vocal cord the size of a scooter in his neck. "I'm looking for a dragon, small, grey, and annoying." No response, from both the outside world and the underworld. Maybe he was in one of those other rooms down the tunnel? He started walking towards its entrance when he heard a light noise at the cave opening. Swiveling around, he tried to find the source of the noise. Standing at the cave entrance was a human male.
It climbed down the small slope and walked onto the flat cave floor. He was young, maybe not even sixteen years old, with light skin and black hair. Oddly, he was completely nude. What is a nude kid doing in the middle of a forest? The kid gave him no time to ponder this, as he raised his finger to his lip. Before Mick's eyes, it turned into a claw.
Before Mick realized what was happening, the boy's skin had started growing large scales. He fell on all fours and started growing quickly, his scales expanding and multiplying to adjust with the changing body. His feet lengthened a horrific amount while his toes and fingers were replaced with massive claws. A large tail grew out of his back-end and finished with a tapered end, all of which was quickly concealed by scales. With two sickening pops, a new pair of appendages grew outward from his shoulder blades and quickly grew into wings. The neck expanded and lengthened, while the head lost all its human characteristics to quickly form the draconic muzzle and horns. As if a signal that the transformation was complete, the new dragon inhaled swiftly, before exhaling, causing its mouth to glow menacingly.
All this time, Mick had failed to recognize the new dragon in front of him. It was smaller than Mick, maybe five or six feet shorter, and was covered from head to tail with grey-blue scales. Mick knew who he was.
"You called?" asked the young dragon, Zack.

--------------------

It all made sense. Everything! How Zack bandaged his head. How he could use a cell phone. How a population of dragons can hide in a human world. Everything! Dragons could turn into humans! But how?
"Dragons are shapeshifters." Mick looked back at young dragon behind him. "Well, sort of. Remember when I said 'always look on the bright side'? I wasn't joking. Hopefully you can change back."
"Hopefully?" Mick asked skeptically. He didn't like that word.
"There's a chance you might not change back, nothing too bad."
"Nothing too bad?"
"Some dragons just can't change back to human form. But it's highly unlikely, don't worry about it." Zack looked at the tree-covered hills around him. He and Mick were standing on a large hill, directly above the entrance to the cave; in fact, the cave was extremely easy to see from, well, just about anywhere. The entrance faced westward, where a small lake slept at the bottom of the hill. The warm sunset reflected off its surface. Just yesterday, Mick realized, he had seen the same sunset from different eyes. Zack looked back at Mick, before asking, "Why are you making faces at me?"
Mick hadn't realized he was squinting at the young dragon in front of him. "Everything's too bright, it hurts not to squint."
Zack looked confused before a guise of realization took control of his face. "Oh. Hold still," he said as he stepped over to Mick and extended a claw at his face. "Close your eyes. There you go."
Mick slowly opened his eyes. The world was cooler, dimmer, as if he was seeing it through his old, human eyes. He looked down at his claw, it wasn't glowing! He couldn't see infrared anymore. "Um, what did you just do?" he asked.
"Dragons have two eyelids. The outer one is like a normal eyelid; the inner one blocks some sunlight, dust, etcetera. Only open both eyelids during the night, you'll go blind if you leave them open during the day."
Mick stretched his eyes and that weird eyelid thing opened, and the world was once again lit up. He repeatedly opened it and closed it, playing with it like a small, mentally-challenged child or a teenager enrolled in an American high school would. "It blocks infrared as well," he commented.
"Wait, you can see infrared light?" Zack once again looked confused.
"It isn't normal?"
"Well, no. It's rare; only a few dragon races can see in infrared. Maybe you're a-" but the thought was abruptly stopped. Music could be heard softly, it was coming from Zack's back; the dragon open his left wing and, reaching over, opened a small brown bag hanging where the wing meet the back. How had Mick not noticed that? Zack's claw came out of the bag, clutching a metallic device; it was blazing heavy metal.
Zack pressed a button, quieting the music, and connected the object, the size of maybe a small person, to his right horn. "Hello?" It was a phone! "Are you finished up? So it's going to be here? Damn. Okay, so I guess I have to come in tomorrow. Yeah he's up." Zack looked up at Mick and smiled before listening to the voice on the other end. "Antira? He's not coming here? But Antira's flying distance. You got to be kidding me. Okay. I'll see you tonight."
"So that's what you call a cell phone?"
"Basically. Anyway, what's your experience in flying? I asked because tomorrow you have to meet with a friend of ours a few dozen miles away."
"Who's the friend?"
"His name's Zyd, he helps new dragons into their new lives when their mentors have other obligations like signing papers at DIA headquarters, among other things."
"Wait mentor?"
"I'm your mentor. What? Juveniles can be mentors."
"No, what's a mentor." Mick couldn't give a flying crap about the age of his "teacher"; any bloody dragon had more experience at… doing dragon things… than Mick.
"Oh. It means it's my job to incorporate you in our world, or it's my responsibility if you go crazy and get us discovered by humans. But if I have to do other things in the meantime, that's where Zyd comes in. You'll meet him in a small town called Antira west of here so I have to teach you to fly in less than two or so hours."
"Seems okay," Mick, the ignorant fool, commented, compelling the young dragon to stare at Mick as if he had slapped Zack across the face.
"It took me two years to learn to fly. You have to learn to jump, flap your wings, turn, land, holy shit, learn to land." He sighed before telling Mick to open his wings, and he did. The sun warmed them up quickly, sending a bolt of energy through him. Zack opened his up as well for scale; his were slightly bigger, making up for his small size. "Not bad. Now walk over to that ledge over there," he said as he closed his wings.
"You're kidding right?" Mick asked, but answered only by Zack's impatient stare, walked over to the rock ledge and looked down. A twenty-foot drop, not much for his new size, and a slope below it. It was not steep; the climb from the cave entrance, a hundred or so yards downhill, wasn't too difficult. But it was covered with trees; tall, dense, pointy trees. Mick started to hate pointy things lately. Below the cave entrance, the land gradually leveled out until it met the small lake half a mile down hill, where a large patch of open land was visible.
"That's your target, that field. Remember to keep your wings open." Without warning, Mick was pushed from behind and he fell forward, instinctively flexing his wings. With a loud snap! his wings flapped, and he started to glide down the hill's slope. At a rather fast speed actually; before he knew it he had whisked past the cave entrance. His tail skimmed across the treetop as the ground started leveling out in front of him. In all the fantasy stories Mick has read, one's first flight is described as a blissful and peaceful experience, much unlike the fear-clogged death plunge he was experiencing now. Too afraid to move his wings, he couldn't level out and introduced his bottom-side to the tall, grassy slope. The amount of "fail" in the landing was extraordinary.
"Brilliant landing! Well, you made it to the field, so, not bad." Mick looked at the dragon sitting on its haunches next to him. The bottom of his muzzle didn't agree with anything that left Zack's mouth. "Come on! Get up! You're burning daylight!" Mick felt himself being rolled over, causing him to yelp instinctively. Zack stopped pushing him, asking, "What'd I do?"
"Won't I crush my wing if I lay on it?"
Zack stared at him as if he said something ridiculously stupid. Which, it turns out, he did: "Do you crush your arm when you lie on it?" Zack asked as Mick started to get up. "Unless you do something really stupid, you won't crush your wings. You'll stretch them out, sure, but you won't crush them just by laying on it. Come on! We got to get back up to the top."
Mick had no choice to comply. If this, Zyd guy, could help him, Mick had to meet him. They both walked back up to the hill and Mick glided back down again, this time needing no push. He succeeded in leveling out his flight by rotating his wings, but in turn overshot the target, landing in the freezing water of the lake.
The next run he perfected his glide, even flapped mid-flight, but his landing was still disastrous. Again and again, he glided down, with Zack on his tail, gradually becoming more comfortable in the air, until he reached the "state of bliss" he so numerously read about. When he finally started to actually fly and not glide, his wingstrokes regular and steady, the sun dipped under the horizon, forcing Mick to open his "special" eyelids. With infrared light, the world was in mid-daytime, but to the younger, smaller dragon, it was getting difficult to see. Mick, his new appendages exhausted, agreed to call it a day.
As the two dragons landed, ahem, "landed", on the hilltop, they heard a great roar. A dragon appeared out of the clouds nearby and circled above before landing next to Zack. It had Kay's face, but was glowing dark red, much unlike the dragon's true color. She nuzzled Zack and greeted the new dragon in front of her, before the three of them went into the cave.

--------------------

"So is he annoying you enough?"
"What?" Mick replied.
"Mom!"
"Is he annoying you enough?" Kay asked before she dug into another deer.
"Oh plenty, he he," Mick replied as he ate his meal.
"You know you're only his second changeling, he's only been a mentor once before, five years ago, here. His name? We never learned his name, he was afraid to tell us. Funny, he looked exactly like you, almost exactly. Unfortunately for him he couldn't change back to human. We call it 'monostaticism'. He was stuck as a dragon; he couldn't go back to the human world. He actually worked for Zyd when he left us; back then Zyd wasn't our emissary and we were still at war, but that story's for later. What happened to him? He just disappeared. Was in New Mexico and just disappeared one day. Nice fellow. So did you have any plans for the next week? Any family visits?"
"No my family's dead. Mom died when I was 4; Dad disappeared a few years ago."
"Sorry to hear that. I asked because learning how to change back will take a long time. Days if not weeks."
"How do I know if I don't have mono-, that mono-thing?"
"Then you might want to start looking into online classes," Zack piped in. "If you're stuck as you are, then there's no going back. Earthbound Misfit? No more.