A Bolt in the Gray
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Chapter I: A Bolt in the Gray

 

If there wasn’t about to be a major thunderstorm descending over the city, then I could at least sue the sky for false advertising. Dark clouds had blotted out the sun, making it look like twilight was already here, even though it was barely 4:00. I looked back down at the sidewalk, desperately hoping that I’d be back at my apartment before the rain broke. Of course I had chosen the day of the storm to leave my phone behind at the lab. I was just leaving campus, bemoaning my lack of a driver’s license, when my freshly-rescued cell started vibrating in my pocket.

“Hello?” I said.

“Mark, where the hell are you?” It was my roommate, John. He was a bit of an… explosive personality.

“I’m headed home, right now. I left my phone at the lab…”

“Dude, you need to get back here quickly. The news says that this is going to be a major storm. I don’t want you getting hurt,”John said.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll be fine,” I said. We said our pleasantries, and I hung up. It was about then that I realized how huge of a storm this must have been, if even he was starting to freak out like that. Just then, a couple drops of rain fell on my arm. It was at that moment that I seriously regretted wearing a t-shirt. I started walking faster.

Over the next five minutes or so, the rain escalated into a full downpour. I was soaked to the bone, and even in the summer Illinois heat I started to feel cold. I hate getting wet. I was almost back home, only a couple of blocks away, when my life got changed forever.

It started with a voice. It was a woman’s voice, with an unfamiliar accent. It sounded Indian, or maybe Arab. I wasn’t sure.

“I don’t understand why it isn’t working. Turn up the charge!” It was coming from my left, and I jerked my head around to look in its direction. All I saw was an empty, rain-soaked street.

“Hello? Who said that? Is there anything I can do to help?” I said. No response. Suddenly, an enormous blast came from behind me. The sheer sound of it hit me in the back like a hammer blow, and my eyes went cloudy from the flash of light. I fell forwards onto my hands and knees, turning back to see an umbrella in front of a nearby restaurant charred, still glowing from the heat. There had been a lightning strike right next to me! I had been paying little attention to my surroundings up until then, lost in my own thoughts, but suddenly my mind went into overdrive. I needed to get out of the storm.

I looked around as quickly as I could, scanning for somewhere, anywhere that I could go to get out of the storm. Everything was shut down, given that it was a Friday and apparently this was the storm of the century or something. I leapt to my feet. My new plan was to run, a plan which didn’t last all that long. I sprinted as fast as I could, fear and adrenaline surging through me. My heart was racing, and my vision narrowed on the street corner ahead of me, which is why I didn’t notice the crack in the sidewalk. My foot landed wrong, and I keeled forwards completely, landing on my knee. Before I could even feel the pain from the fall, another pain surged through my body.

My ears were deafened with thunder, the world was white, and my senses were overwhelmed with pain. That instant of agony stretched out for so long, before fading into blackness and unconsciousness. I felt like I didn’t exist.

 

When I began to feel again, I was laying on my back, on what felt like cold metal. Everything was distorted. My hearing was muffled, my sight blurry. I felt numb in some places, sore and heavy in others. And everything hurt. My ears stung, my throat was sore, my chest felt like it was being stabbed in places I didn’t even know about, my guts were in knots and my muscles screamed for mercy. And then I heard that woman, again.

“Something’s clearly gone wrong,” she said. I tried to turn towards the voice, but my neck stung and refused to move.

“What are you talking about, ma’am? It’s clearly moving.” This was another voice. Her voice was deeper, more sultry, and with a different accent. She sounded European.

“I can see that. Go look at it, does anything seem off?” said the first voice again. I had no idea what they were talking about, given that all I could see was a grayish-white smear across my vision. Suddenly, another shape emerged, a brown one. I blinked once, twice, each time bringing my gaze into focus. The shape was a woman, wearing a brown leather overcoat. Her hair was cut short, what I think would be called a pixie cut, with rounded features and a slim figure. I looked directly into her eyes, big and green, and tried to establish some kind of communication. I could not, presumably due to a lack of telepathy on my part.

“No, you’re right. This isn’t what we wanted. Should we get rid of it?” said the woman standing over me. Were they talking about me? I tried to say something, maybe an objection to being called “it”, but all that I could form was a high-pitched moan. The effort of it drained me, like I had just run a mile. My vision began to fade.

“Yes, I think we should. You know what to do,” said the other woman. I tried again to protest, but I could barely move. I managed to lift my hand an inch or so off the steel table before consciousness slipped away.

 

 

When next I awoke, it was from cobblestones rising up to slam into my face. It hurt for a second, but the pain faded quickly to be replaced with cold and wet. There was water in my mouth, water on my skin, water in my eyes. I was face-down in a puddle, head turned to the side so I could still breathe. Furthermore, it was still raining, because of course it was the way this day had gone. I was still wearing what felt like the same shirt, thin material soaked completely through. But whoever that was, they had apparently taken off my pants, which was… I wasn’t quite sure what to think. I tried lifting my body off of the stone ground, but I still didn’t have the strength. At least I was still alive. I was sure that the lightning strike would have killed me. Then again, if that one park ranger survived seven lightning strikes, I was sure poor Mark Farrier could make it through just one.

I tried to lift myself again, this time to more effect. I lifted a couple of inches off of the street before crashing back down. Though my entire body was no longer burning with pain, something still felt off, like I was hitting the cobbles in a way that shouldn’t have been possible. I set my mind off of that, however, trying to figure out where I was. The street below me was cobbled stones, like something out of the 19th century. It was still warm, if a bit cooler than before, and the rain had begun to abate, which told me that it had been a few hours at least. Then I heard something unexpected, the sound of horseshoes on stone. Who would ride a horse in the streets of Chicago? Then the horse noises stopped. Maybe I was still hallucinating.

I heard footsteps approaching me from above. I looked up to see a woman, this one wearing a fanciful, deep purple ankle-length dress. Was there some sort of costume party going on? Then I realized she was walking towards me. It didn’t matter if she was stark naked, if she was trying to help me. I tried getting up a third time, straining the muscles in my arms. Were they that slender before? And what was that feeling on my chest? I collapsed back into the puddle.

“Are you okay, dear?” her voice was soft and high, sweet and kind. I tried to respond, but my voice still wasn’t able to get out anything more than a high-pitched mumble. She took hold of my hand.

“Good lord, you’re deathly cold. Anna, get over here, there’s someone in need of help!” I tried to see who this ‘Anna’ was, but my strength was fading yet again. Apparently being struck by lightning doesn’t heal quickly. And on top of that I was tired, so very tired. As another pair of hands grabbed hold of me, I decided to take a nap.

 

 

I was lying on my back again when I woke up. There was something over me, a thin fabric blanket or something like that. I didn’t feel sore anymore, and as I lifted up my arm to rub the sand out of my eyes, I found that I wasn’t exhausted anymore either. I searched around the room, realizing that I was in a bed this time. It wasn’t my bed, though. It was simple, no sheets, just a mattress on a frame. The room itself was sparse, with a single nature painting on the wall, a small wardrobe in the corner, and a light of some kind mounted  on the wall. It didn’t look like a lightbulb though, which was weird. Sitting on a stool by my side was a woman. Now that I was capable of actually seeing completely, I made sure to take careful note of her appearance.

She was unremarkable of figure from what I could tell, though the long flowing dress she wore did an effective job of hiding most of it. She had fair skin with a heavy helping of freckles on her cheeks and nose, below her were narrow, keenly focused eyes. Her hair was long, a single auburn braid running down her back. I also noticed a slight scar running down the side of her head, behind the left eye. Her dress was relatively simple, if oddly formal-looking, cinched around the waist in a way that definitely drew the eye, and sewn out of a cream-colored cloth. She was working on some sort of embroidery, at least until she looked up to see me staring at her.

“Oh thank goodness you’re awake! The Lady will be pleased to know that you’ve improved so. I have to know, what in the world happened out there?” she said, speaking rapidly.

“I’m not sure myself, last thing I remember I was… hit…by… lightning…” I trailed off at the sound of my voice. It was higher than I remembered it being, and softer. I reached up and felt my face. The skin was different, too, smoother and without even a hint of stubble. I froze, focusing my attention downwards. I didn’t need to move, or even look down, because I could feel the extra weight of, well… breasts. I definitely had breasts which were not there before. There were several other things that I could feel as well, which I very much did not want to think about at that particular moment.

“Why…” my voice still sounded odd to me. I cleared my throat, that sounding higher as well. “Why am I a woman?” The other woman smiled. I figured that she didn’t understand what had happened to me, but I gritted my teeth at how lightly she was taking it.

“Don’t we all wonder that, really? You’ll have to ask a philosopher, I’m afraid,” she said. I stared at her, mind working overdrive to try and figure out what had happened, while one hand began sliding its way down my side to confirm. No dice. She dropped her smile at my expression, saying “Oh goodness you’re serious. Where you something different before? Some kind of animal?”

I adjusted myself, kicking my legs over the side of the bed and sitting up. I paused in momentary shock at the subtle shifting of weight in my chest region. It took a solid second to snap out of that.

“I was a guy, you know, a man.” She looked at me, brow furrowed, lifting a finger to her lips in thought.

“I’m sorry, I don’t recall what that is.”

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