We finally make it to the high street, its a wide mainly pedestrianised piece of road with shops of various sizes and wares. We had parked in a multi-storey car park not too far away, and walked over to the busy road. A cold winter morning combined with it being a monday meant that it was practically deserted. There wasn’t even any of those army soldiers about, thankfully. Miura points in the direction of a small boutique clothing shop.

“I know the owner of this one. Lets go in there” She puts a hand on my shoulder then turns and leads me towards the store. My need to not be seen by any kind of camera made me very anxious, I look around spotting some CCTV cameras and using my ability I twist them to look away from us. It took a bit of extra concentration to do it as the sunhat touching my antenna seems to interfere with the signal I think it sends. Once I’m confident none of them are focused on me I enter the store. The bell dings and the instantly distinctive smell of a small clothes store hits my nostrils like a freight train. An older woman sits at the checkout point. “Oh Miura! And who is this?” she smiles warmly. Miura gives her a small wave.
“Hi Debbie, this is Cy-nthia. She is in need of some new clothes and a bra fitting. She kinda...got affected by last nights storm” I took that as cute to slide my arm out of my coat, the azure limb glinting light off of the shop’s lampshades.

“I see” the woman says, rubbing her chin with her hand, seeming to be deep in thought before looking back at me with a sad look in her eyes. “My son, he became a bit like you. This morning the soldiers knocked on my home and asked to see everyone in the family. They...took him away, he said he’d be fine but I haven’t heard back from him. Young girl keep yourself safe. You can have anything, I won’t charge you” She gestured to a fitting room in the back of the store. “Let's get your measurements”.

I was livid. How fucking dare they? This time though I managed to control my emotions and nodded to her. I spare a glance at Miura and she seems to be even angrier than I am.

“Thank you Mrs-”

“Woodrow, but you can call me Glenda” She looks back at me, her smile back on her face but her eyes were very clearly reddened by the thoughts of her son. I follow her to the back of the store. “Please undress yourself Cynthia. I’ll fetch the tape measure”

Making sure I couldn’t be seen from the shop and especially the front windows I strip out of the clothes Miura gave me. I liked the blouse and the jeans, but they certainly didn’t fit me well enough to last me forever, the bra was the biggest offender in that regard. I let out a sharp outtake of breath when I finally get it unhooked from my back. It was way too tight, but I imagine better than nothing.
“Ok, Mrs Woodr- Glenda. I’m ready” She steps into the room with the tape measure in hand and I look away towards one of the posters.
I was a little embarrassed to be basically nude in front of another person. I’m sure this is kind of normal for a girl but I have only been a girl for some hours at this point, less than a day!
I sigh and let her get on with it, a few minutes later I get the results.

“You’re a size 32D, very healthy for a young woman such as yourself, if you don’t mind me asking. Other than the obvious, did your body change last night?”

I gulped, the question caught me off guard. “I uh, I wasn’t exactly uh-” I stumbled through the sentence. Glenda shook her head at me.

“I shouldn’t have asked. Don’t worry about it, I’ll grab you a bra and panty set that fits you and some spares, any style preferences?”

“Uh, not really” I shook my head. To be honest I didn’t know any of the names of anything when it came to this. A couple of seconds later a light blue set appeared from the curtain and I grabbed them and begun redressing. The bra fit so much better on me, I didn’t feel too strained at all anymore. I put the rest of the borrowed clothes back on. Miura had been around the shop, picking up all sorts of clothes for me. She was currently staring at a very colourful dress, it was light blue, white and pink. She spots me, looks back to the dress, winks at me and adds it to her pile of clothes. I shudder, but I don’t know, I kinda like it as well. I tug at my hat and wander the shop. Then I find it, I pull out a dark red turtleneck I pull it close to my body and turn to Miura and Glenda.

“That looks good, it’ll fit you” Miura says, giving me a grin that says that she knows I’m actually enjoying this. “Lets make sure everything I’ve got here fits you, you’re gonna look so great in that dress” she winks at me again.

My heart does a roller coaster-like flutter and dive at the same time.

***

We leave the clothes store waving goodbye to Glenda. I am now wearing the turtleneck sweater I fell in love with, and some slightly better fitting skinny jeans. I stare at my reflection in the window. The turtleneck accentuates my new figure with the jeans, the only disappointing bit is the fairly ragged flats, but after getting the clothes for free from Glenda I feel reinvigorated.

“Hey Miura?” I say tentatively.

“Yeah Cy?” She looks to me, tilting her head like a curious dog.

“Can we go get some shoes or something as well? It doesn’t sit right with me, keeping yours” I ask whilst tilting my hat down, having seen an olive green truck roll past the end of the pedestrianised zone.

“That sounds like an idea for sure, I grabbed those because I figured they’d be easier to wear than trainers or something like that” I smiled at her and nodded my thanks and went back to staring at the near abandoned high-street. A lot of the smaller shops were shut and some of the bigger ones were too, citing a lack of worker turn-ups in their notices. There was even a few missing posters knocking about. I’m reminded of the dragon that attacked New York I saw on the news last night, if that storm could give me these metal bits, and turn someone into a giant like that poor guard. It could turn someone into a dragon. Putting two and two together. I gasp and stop.

“Cy, you okay?” Miura turns to me, looking worried.

In a hushed whisper, I tell her my conclusion. “Miu, think about it, these missing people. If that storm could do this to me” I gesture to my head and my my arm. “And it can turn someone into a giant. That dragon in New York might have been some poor soul, confused and angry. All these missing people, the army probably captured or kidnapped them, they might be unrecognisable to their families but I’m sure they could communicate somehow. They’re still people, people have rights you know!”
“Cy, don’t do anything stupid okay…” She stares at me, looking at me with an odd expression on her face.

I couldn’t answer that truthfully. I’ve brought down the tone of the mood to extremely low levels. “I’m sorry Miura, just that frustrates me to no end”

“Its okay Cy, we can’t do anything about it. Its a shitty situation” Miura puts her hand on my shoulder.

We end up visiting a shoe shop and I buy a couple of sets of shoes, all just fairly normal attire like a set of trainers, flats and a set of boots. Then we ended up walking back to the car and Miura drove me back to my apartment. I sat with my head leaned against the window, watching the red brick buildings of Hillchester roll past.

Hillchester’s main high street was situated at the very bottom of a dip between two hills that were part of a long chain of rises and falls that permeates the country, the town had been around for a long time and has ties leading back to the Roman occupation of most of England. My apartment was on the hillside of the north side of the town, situated not far from the woods where my transformation occurred.
The roads out there were quiet and rarely patrolled, so I had a habit of using them as my own private racetrack. Selfish I know, but with no proper tracks anywhere near, it was my only option for looking for thrills in the quiet and dreary town.
We pass a couple of new landmarks that had seemingly appeared overnight, All of them quickly fenced off and guarded by soldiers and armed police. Through the chain linked fence I could see that they appeared to be some kind of small ruin, one of them had spawned and seemingly evaporated half of a McDonalds that used to be there. The drive thru signs seemingly pointing right to the entrance of the strange amalgamation of the fast food restaurant and the crumbling columns.

About 2 miles from home my heart sunk, a roadblock had been placed on this road and they were checking every car that was passing. “Miura I’m gonna get out here, they won’t notice. Theres too many cars in front. I’ll see you tomorrow ok. I’ll get home fine” She nodded

“Right, I’ll see you then. Be safe!”

“I will” and with that I opened the door and hopped out onto the pavement, putting my hands in my pockets I turn back and walk to an alley I’d spotted further back up the road. Rounding the corner into the alley I’m greeted by the sight of two chavs. One of them looked distinctly bored and was smoking a cigarette, and the other was engaged in a phone call. The smoker had immediately spotted me and gave me a grin that made me sure he’d try something. I wasn’t wrong as when I tried to pass by them:

“Hey bitch, you like what you see? I’m sure you do” The shithead stood up and walked alongside me, his disgusting breath and secondhand smoke almost causing me to choke. Keeping my hands in my pockets and my mouth shut, I speed up a bit as I could see the road at the other end of the alley. “You not listening? Slut” He spits at the ground and reaches down and puts a hand on my waist. I’ve had enough. I take my right hand out of my pocket and I slam the metal appendage into his stomach. He hunches over, coughing up blood. “You...fucking...bi-” before giving into the pain and moaning. His preoccupied friend is staring at me, like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
He still has his phone to his ear, I quickly reach out for it using my power. “Yep thats it” I crank up the volume on his phone and play one of his songs. Making sure to pull my thoughts back to myself safely I see that he is distracted by the music, fumbling about with the phone.
I could almost see the cogs turning in his head at what to do. I close the distance between me and him, losing a shoe and my hat in the process, I slam my right fist into his stomach like his friend. “Should be both of you disgusting creatures out for the count” I mutter to myself, taking both of their phones and smashing them into pieces against the wall; leaving quite the mark. One of them is still conscious and mumbling incoherently. I felt no remorse for them, and left them there. Once out of the alley I find my MP3 player which I’d tucked into my jeans along with my earphones and plugged them in and hit shuffle on the screen. I walked back to my apartment feeling cheered up, they’ll think twice about hitting on the next random girl they see.

Changes into my heart, can't you feel me
Lost in the night, I'm looking for freedom
How can I miss you, I don't resist you
Love is all we need