"Exposure to the rays of the altered sun causes a wide variety of changes in humans," explained the reporter, who was safe inside a studio. "Our reporters have confirmed this through...first-hand experience."
A blonde reporter with a microphone appeared onthe screen beneath the tag "Earlier This Morning." She pointed up at the sun with her free hand. The sun was now iridescent, shimmering like God's own soap bubble, and she was bathed in its rainbow light.
As the whole scene began to change colors like a psychedelic stage show, some subtle changes began to creep over her skin, barely visible under the shifting light. The few irregularities not hidden under her makeup disappeared, leaving her skin a perfect, unblemished satin surface. This was followed by a similar evening out of the irregularities in her body. It wasn't any kind of change in proportions; she wasn't becoming a supermodel or anything. It was more like she was being shaped into a sort of uniform, symmetrical version of what she already was.
As this finished, something began to happen to her ears and she clutched at her head, apparently struck by a wave of dizziness, but before Jon could make out what was happening now, the camera suddenly jerked several feet higher, and the screen became a whiplash blur as the cameraman whirled around to see what was going on.
When the camera settled down to a clear (if shaky) picture, It was focused down at the rest of the news crew. What was striking about the scene was that none of them resembled anything like what had been happening to the anchor. The lower part of the frame was filled with a horse's hindquarters, so it wasn't hard to guess that the cameraman had just become a centaur. The two other people in the shot had changed in their own ways.
The woman on the right had become some sort of half-alien thing, a humanoid body and human face with a long, bladed tail, clawed hands and feet, and chitinous plating not unlike that of the xenomorphs from Aliens. Meanwhile, hovering above a pile of empty men's business wear was a small and rather blurry shape that Jon couldn't make out at first; as the cameraman gots his wits and professionalism back, he steadied the camera, and it became clear that the figure was a tiny, naked, and pretty clearly female pixie.
After giving the audience a good look at the goings-on backstage (and probably upon realizing he was broadcasting nude footage of a coworker,) the cameraman turned back around to show the anchor. At first she didn't appear to have changed nearly as drastically as her coworkers, but her eyes had changed from having a normal human iris and pupil to having what looked like a colored but patternless lens, and her ears had turned into or become covered by white plastic structures that resembled...antennae?
Suddenly Jon realized that she looked quite a bit like various anime-style depictions of humanoid robots. She seemed to be mentally intact, though, if a little confused and disoriented. Still, as soon as she realized she was back on camera, she pulled herself together and began to try and come up with something to say about this turn of events.
"What are we going to do?" asked Jon's father Mark, shutting off the TV. "We can't hide in here forever. We need food; there's enough in the refrigerator to last us...?"
"One day," replied his wife Linda. "One and a half if we stretch it. I was going to go shopping today, but I can't now. I just hope this thing stops when the sun goes down."
Jon ran back upstairs. If the stone could affect the sun this one time, maybe it could do it again! Maybe he could fix this mess!
