“Fuck, that hurt!”

I jumped back and lifted my right foot, only to find a snake dangling from it. Fang sunk right through the shoe and into my toes. I waved my leg until the thing fell off, then stomped it into the dry twigs and leaves on the forest’s trodden path.

After a few blows, the snake stopped moving, but I wasn’t going to fall for that. A dozen more stomps, and I was certain it was dead.

Maybe I shouldn’t have taken that shortcut. It wasn’t my normal route, but I was late for a test already, and Lindsay was saving me a seat so I could copy her answers.

It wasn’t that Communications was a difficult class, quite the opposite. It was just so fucking boring that I could never bring myself to study for more than a minute without wanting to burn my book.

There was nothing worse than a class that just expected you to memorize everything. At least with math, I could figure out how it worked and apply rules or logic until I solved the problem. Other classes just gave multiple-choice questions where three of the answers were fucking identical.

I leaned against a tree and tore my shoe off to check the damage. Two small holes trickled blood just above my toes. I stretched and flexed my foot, but felt no pain.

The dead snake lay nearby, unmoving. It had black diamonds running down a four foot long, green and brown body. That meant little to me, though. I was an engineering major, not a zoologist.

I hadn’t chosen which kind of engineering yet, but that was because I was still trying to figure out which one would result in the most pay for the least effort.

If I was going to toil away at any job for the rest of my life, with most of the profits of my labor being enjoyed by a bunch of rich folks I’d never meet, I was going to make the most of it.

As I slid shoe on, I pulled out my phone and took a picture of the snake. If the foot started to burn or swell, it could be bad. In case I ended up in the hospital, I would probably need to know what bit me.

But for the moment I felt fine, and I had a test waiting. Not to mention the dark brunette with a killer body and a similar attitude toward those pointless electives.

So, I started running to make it to class on time, figuring that my foot would be fine.

Now, I had never been bitten by a snake before, nor anything venomous, but I was pretty certain it was supposed to hurt.

But, as I ran through Clemson University’s campus, I felt a strange energy seeping through my muscles. It started in my foot, of course. Every step on my right side seemed to propel me further than my left. It got so bad that I had to slow to a walk because I almost fell down the stairs.

I was like a car with a flat tire. The uneven forces on either side made it impossible to just move in a straight line. Even walking felt wrong, but I was already outside my class’s building, so I just took it slowly. Carefully.

Despite being bitten on my right side, I limped on my left. The oddly powerful right leg made every step on my left side feel like the muscles had turned to jelly in comparison.

When I finally made it to my seat and collapsed next to Lindsay, her eyes widened with concern. “Are you alright?” she asked, tearing her eyes away from a sheet of notes. Even as the test was about to begin, she was getting some last-minute studying done.

Lindsay was Hawaiian, with caramel skin that made it look like she had a permanent tan. Her long brown hair had golden highlights that caught that sun, and her wide smile was always easy to return.

I lifted my right leg and shook it a bit. “Yeah, I was running late so I ran through the woods. Got bit by something. Don’t look at me like that, it doesn’t hurt or anything. Just feels… strange.”

She blinked her beautiful hazel eyes a few times, then squinted at me hard for a few seconds, as if she were reading my mind.

I chuckled and bumped her with an elbow. “I’m fine. Really.”

But she wouldn’t let it go. She lowered her voice and looked down at the holes in my right shoe. “What was it that bit you?”

As I reached for my phone, though, Professor Hewitt’s voice boomed through his microphone. “Alright, alright, settle down and put your things away. My TA’s will be coming around to hand out your tests. Remember: eyes on your own paper. If we see any phones, or hear any chatter, we won’t ask. We’ll just assume you’re cheating and tell you to leave.”

I barely resisted the urge to roll my eyes but couldn’t hold back a light snort. The guy acted like this random elective was the fucking Bar exam.

“Something to say Mr. Witt?” My professor’s flat eyes rested on me.

“Nothing at all, sir,” I sighed.

They started handing out tests and Lindsay leaned so close to me that her hair brushed my arm. She whispered, “How do you feel?”

But before I could answer, our professor snapped at her. “Miss Tangata! You may be one of my best students, but that doesn’t mean the rules don’t apply to you!”

With that, I gave her a shrug and took a test from the stack that was handed to me before passing it to my friend. She pursed her lips but obeyed the teacher. Her face was already a deep red. Some people just weren’t used to being snapped at by authority figures.

I bumped Lindsay again and winked. “Good luck.”

Our professor saw that and slammed his hand down on his desk. “Mr. Witt! I swear, I will throw you out of this class again and you’ll fail the test. Just give me a reason.”

I just grinned and apologized, thinking about the precious test I was about to cheat on. The guy could be an asshole all he wanted, but I wasn’t going to let him fail me. One semester in Hewitt’s class was enough wasted time already.

Besides, he clearly didn’t like me either. Was I really wrong to do us both a favor by trying to spend as little time together as possible?

As I filled in whatever bubbles Lindsay filled, and tried to retool all of her open-ended answers so that they sounded like something I came up with myself, the oddly energetic feeling in my right leg continued to spread.

Every muscle it touched felt anxious to move. Stuck as I was, my feet tapped constantly, my hand gripped my pencil too tight, and I kept needing to stretch everything or else I felt extremely uncomfortable.

It didn’t hurt exactly, but it definitely didn’t feel good. It was like having restless leg syndrome… throughout my entire body. It got so bad that I eventually just gave up on the test. I filled out random answers, handed my test in before anyone else, and practically ran out the door.

Lindsay watched me go with wide eyes but didn’t say anything. Even my professor looked a bit confused that one of his worst students finished so quickly but he didn’t seem to care that much.

As I walked down the empty halls, the odd feeling finally covered me from head to toe. I stretched and flexed while I walked, but it did nothing to dispel the discomfort. I was starting to get pissed off.

When I heard Lindsay’s voice calling out to me from down the hall, I ducked into the men’s bathroom. Whatever I was going through, the last thing I wanted was for this cute girl to see me puke or pass out.

But as I stepped into a stall, neither of those options were what happened. Either would have been far easier to explain.

Instead, my body transformed, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

My lungs felt so tight they could burst, and my eyes shot open painfully wide as my legs slammed into each other and then melded together. I looked down at my body in horror, unable to cry out, as dark green scales started replacing my skin.

The effect continued up my body as everything, from my muscles to my clothing, shifted into something else. My arms collapsed into my torso, shoulders thinned, and necked widened. Even my head started changing shape as the scales grew up my body.

It was only a minute later that I was sprawled out on the bathroom floor, nearly a dozen feet long, and confused as fuck.

My slitted eyes blinked, and my forked tongue flicked out as I tried to speak. I had no arms and no legs, just a long, scaly body. Somehow, I lifted myself up by my long ‘neck’ and was able to look down at myself.

At the huge snake I turned into.