“She has lost her ability to walk and will probably have to spend rest of her time in bed.”

“She doesn’t have long to live, at maximum 2 years.”

“I’ll stay here with her…”

“It’s a miracle how she’s still alive even after 5 years…”

“Mom, you have to get yourself together!”

“Please just let go sis, mom and dad can’t take this much longer…”

“Somebody call a doctor!”

______________________________________________________________________________

Almira wakes up on their bed and springs up, looking frantically around with cold sweat glistering on her skin and mouth gasping for air. Only thing she sees is an empty room, the silence only drowned by her own heartbeat beating in her ears.

“Just a dream…”

She whispers, before letting her back fall onto the bed. She lifts her left arm up and looks at the fully humanlike arm, before willing it to change. Dark violet hair covers the skin, and the fingernails change to blood red claws. This arm, even though small, looks like it would belong to a horror movie’s monster, but somehow, she finds looking at it calming her jumpy mind. She stares at her arm for good 15 seconds, before willing it to change back and letting it fall down next to her, now once again looking just like any other child’s.

‘Could have stayed away.’

She thinks, as she waits for her heartrate to come down from its trip to the moon.

‘Sure is a great way to start a day. Hey, that rhymed.’

While trying to use her newfound poetic soul as way to distract her mind, she climbs out of the bed and makes her way to the bathroom to wash her teeth and face. Evalyn bought her a stool so that she could reach the countertop and to use the sink, though she usually found it faster to just jump and sit on the counter, much to Evalyn’s distress. While sitting there she looks at her legs and wills them to change, and while they do indeed change, she’s now left with the same goat legs, but without fur.

‘That’s still a no. Well I’m getting there.’

She thinks and wills the fur to return to her legs.

After being done with washing her teeth, she went to the living room from where she heard Evalyn do something in the kitchen.

“Morning Ev-Mom!”

‘Damn it get a grip!’

“Morning sweetie. You can go ahead and sit at the table, I’m ready in a minute.”

Almira admonishes herself for her slip while she hears her Evalyn’s reply and goes to sit at the table.

After a minute or two Evalyn walks out of the kitchen with a cake in her hands and sets it in front of Almira saying.

“Happy first birthday sweetheart.”

“Thanks mom, though shouldn’t it be hatchingday with me coming out of an egg and all?”

“Oh, hush you and make a wish while blowing the candle.”

Almira jokes with Evalyn and turns to look at the candle before stopping to think.

‘What do I wish for?’

Then her thoughts return to her dream.

“Mom, what would you do if I ever end up being just a mind trapped inside my body?”

“Now, what ever made you think up a question like that?”

“Mom would you please just answer?”

Almira looks at her Evalyn pleadingly.

“Well, your mother literally made you, so how could you think that there’d ever be something I couldn’t fix about your body?”

Her Evalyn answered matter-of-factly.

“Now tell me what brought this up?”

“I had a dream.”

Almira quietly answers Evalyn’s question while looking down on her hands.

“Oh sweetie, come here. It was just that, a dream. Nothing more.”

Evalyn says as she closes Almira into her arms.

“Thanks mom.”

‘That’s right, just a dream and nothing more.’

Almira feels as if a huge rock had been lifted from her shoulders.

“You know, mom. I really don’t think that me being a 1-year old works with me looking older than Mrs. Helman’s youngest son, who’s 2.”

Her mother looks at her curiously wondering where she’s going with this.

“Well what do you want me to do about it?”

“Um well… Do you know when I was laid?”

“Ah… It was close to the end of 79 when I sto- I mean found you in the forest and can say with surety that it wasn’t much before that.”

“So how about we use today as my birthday and just use 79 as my birth year, so today would be my third birthday?”

She turns to look at her mother’s face and is stunned when she finds her mother starting to cry with her eyes losing light.

“Mom, mom, what happened!?”

*hick*

“I missed my daughter’s birthdays?”

Her mother says in disbelief.

‘Haa… Now what do I do?…’

Almira thinks while trying to find ways to make her mother calm down.

'I didn't even get to make that wish yet...'