Steven quietly prepared for the task at hand. He wasn’t quite sure what he was dealing with, and it wasn’t as if adults knew what was going on either. The truth was, someone who read comic books probably had a better understanding of the situation.
He was a typical nerd and knew he had to be prepared for either the best (benevolent fairy-esque creatures playing a practical joke) or something like Cuthulu. There wasn’t really any way to tell but he knew he needed as much information as possible. He decided to keep a book… a journal where he began to write down everything… absolutely every single detail that he could find about the event that changed his friends.
Of course, more people started to think he was just a ‘weirdo’ so his didn’t help his social status… but now he didn’t care. He had something far more important to do then ‘make friends’.
It was in the library that Steven drew a diagram in his book of the old classroom, of where he knew his friends tended to sit and even marked what transformations he had ‘heard’ of… though he had to be careful it was completely accurate in case there was a pattern to it. Sally of course, had become a mermaid and generally sat on the third row… seat number four? “Yeah…” He didn’t know everyone in the classroom but he had made a start. The teacher at the front…
The date…
The location…
The transformations…
“What is the commonality…?” There was of course the fact that they all had the same teacher. She too had been transformed… Were there any missing students that knew it would happen?
The diary writing became an obsession as he continued to write everything that was in his head. He was surprised how much he could recall… perhaps because of his obsession with the situation that he kept absolutely everything that happened on that day into his memory. He also had some old text messages to remind him of what the group generally talked about…
..and seeing the old conversations made him saddened again. They were talking about normal things… a movie he saw with Edward… He half smiled when he recalled being ‘part of the gang’. He needed more information, perhaps on the construction of the school? Maybe something on history… He got up and started to walk towards that section. He didn’t realise as he looked through his journal that he banged into another teenager.
“Oh- sorry.” The other replied. He was a shorter person with short blonde hair. Lightly freckled but looked quite friendly.
“It’s… okay.” Steven replied fumbling slightly to close his journal. “Excuse me-“
“Hey- aren’t you from that school where everyone changed?” The boy asked.
Steven gave a light sigh. More teasing was about to follow, no doubt. He tried his best not to grimace but gave a slow nod. “Yeah… that’s me.”
“Awesome.” The boy grinned. “I’m Luke. I wish I had been there.”
Steven was used to sarcasm but… he found nothing in the boy’s voice. “Yeah…was amazing.” He stated as his flat response. Though of course he hated that day.. the day his own life changed by changing other people. He turned away.
“So, what are you doing? Investigating what happened?”
Steven gave another slight frown as he glanced back. “…maybe a bit. How did you know?”
Luke gave a soft laugh. “Well, just a guess. I saw you researching the papers in the library on that date. A lot of people tried to do similar things too. Me included.”
“Oh…” Steven sighed. “Well… I had friends there. I wanted to find out what happened to them. They wont talk to me anymore though.”
Luke gave a sympathetic look to that. “Weird… why not?”
Steven didn’t elaborate on it. “I don’t know. I guess I’m weird?” He shrugged. “So… why did you want to be there?”
“I want to experience this… transformation.” Luke explained with nothing but unbridled honesty in his eyes.
“What?” Steven stared.
“I want to experience the transform-“
“I heard!” Steven glanced around sheepishly at raising his voice in the library…was this some sort of trick? The young boy was looking at him with sharp blue eyes perhaps assessing his response too. ”But…You might not end up human.”
“That’s fine.”
“You might end up younger! Or even older!”
“That’s fine.”
“You could end up a girl!”
“…That’s… more than fine.”
Steven paused.
“…In fact, it would be preferable.” Luke continued flatly. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to… uh…you know. You did ask though.”
“I did? Uh-“ Steven stared at Luke. “You… uh… you want… that?” He gave a distinctly uncomfortable look. He heard some people did… but… he wasn’t too sure what to say. A lot of people on the internet had said they want to make it happen again… and would even volunteer for it. In fact there was a rumour the government has been asking for volunteers to go into the old classroom again and try to make it happen. “You… you want to…”
“…be a girl?” Luke gave a soft shrug. “Such would normally be impossible… but after the event… I now have… hope,” He gave a vague gentle look that seemed to say a thousand things all at once. “…I would like to be popular. Stand out… be… liked.”
“…you really think being a girl would do that? You might not even be ‘human’…”
“…I am not particularly fond of humans,” Luke admitted “…and I think I would enjoy not being one.”
Steven’s mind was trying to adapt to all this. It was true he wasn’t particularly fond of people either… given how they generally treated him. Though he didn’t want to abandon his humanity over it. He had no interest in being transformed. Everything that Luke said made little if any sense. “… I don’t think transforming will change your… popularity… even if you did change you’ll still be human inside. I think.”
Luke chuckled. “Maybe. I’d like to take my chances though,” He then took a few more breaths. “I have been researching the event too. Let’s combine our efforts. We both want the same thing… to know what happened.”
Steven thought about this. Combining their efforts ‘would’ make some sense. They were both way in over their heads and even if their motivations were different… they still did want the same thing. “…fine.” He nodded. “Let’s compare notes.”
The two continued to study in the library. Luke had his own journal, and had expanded on further transformations that had happened. So many interesting ones… Mythological ones, A centaur, a fairy, demon, Gyphon… two gender swaps, two body swaps… “See it also caught the Janitor who was in this position here,” he said gesturing to a highly detailed floor plan. “The teacher was here at her desk. Roll-call was just finished so everyone was sitting at their desks.”
“What did the Janitor turn into?”
“I got three contrasting rumours. One said a sort of humanoid Kangaroo. You ever see Tank Girl?”
“Uh.. no.”
“Well one of those things. Another said he turned into a plant and is now stuck rooted there.”
Steven had to laugh at that. “Heh… and what’s the third rumour?”
“He turned into a female centaur at top but male at the bottom.”
Rumors were weird to say the least.
Steven sighed. There was not much they could use from rumour They needed factual information. “My friends tend to sit here. I can’t be sure they were there at that moment but… they cluster here in this order. Sally became a mermaid. That’s fact.”
“I believe this one- Damien turned into some kind of devil-girl,” he said. “I managed to get a bit of info on her. She got caught without clothes in some other state and had to move again. They didn’t want her there.”
“..Damien..” Steven sighed. “He was one of my friends too. She changed gender?”
“He must look pretty cool now,” Luke grinned. I haven’t been able to get any info about her though. Just that he’s a girl with red skin. Pretty awesome. If I change, I hope I can be friends with her.”
Steven wasn’t too sure still how to react to Luke’s… thoughts on the matter of transformation. It was all ‘very weird’. “I think we should go around the building for clues.”
“We can’t go inside. It’s completely locked up. I did try to volunteer as a subject but they said no.”
Steven gave another weird look to his new friend. “Well, we’ve exhausted the internet and news reels… I just want to see if there’s something else going on. Going there physically might give us more clues.”
“How so?”
Steven frowned and drew a circle. “What makes this place different?” he asked. “The walls? No... a janitor outside got caught. Something happened in this space. Something ‘weird’… I feel like I need to see it from the outside even if we can’t go inside.”
Luke gave it some thought then nodded. “Hm… maybe we can check the map,” Luke thought bringing up an overhead map of the area on his computer. “Oh.. they blacked out the area.” He frowned.
The map said ‘area censored due to sensitive event’.
“Oh, Come on!” Steven gave a frustrated look. “We can’t get a satellite picture?” He tapped and refreshed even tried to look through other sites but… it was all blacked out.
“Not on the Internet,” Luke leamed back on the chair. “We can get them from books. Maybe the road layout will tell us something? That’s still available.”
They looked at the map but couldn’t see anything obvious. “I’ve been through that road many times. There’s nothing there. It’s not all that different from anywhere else.”
“Maybe we can draw our own map and compare it to the public map. “Either way I think you are right. A bit of scouting wouldn’t hurt.”
Steven nodded. Scouting… he was really doing this. He was going to investigate… what happened to his friends.
It felt… strange being here. The place where it all started…
Most of the area looked perfectly normal... except of course the school, which had been turned into something out of a sci-fi movie. There were roadblocks, MIBs in every corner, and blacked out windows. Steven stared at the building with a mix of emotions. “… I was happy there,” he mused.
Luke was already drawing the map of the area. It seemed he had quite a good skill. “Maybe we’ll discover a gigantic Pentagram!” he chuckled. “Come on.”
Wondering across the areas they were allowed to go, Luke continued to draw the map. Though Steven couldn’t help but worry they were getting attention from the cops. It wasn’t like they were doing anything wrong but.. this was a sensitive area, and they were literally drawing a map of it. It wasn’t too long before someone did catch up to them.
“Excuse me boys,” The man stated. “Officer Jonas… you’ve been seen wondering the area. Can I ask why?”
“School paper!” Luke stated as if he had practiced this. “We’re just doing some journalism of what happened here.”
Jonas gave a vacant look through his sunglasses. “… hm. Do not trespass into the redzone… and you can continue.” He informed them.
“Righto!” Luke grinned again and waved his friend to keep moving.
Steven felt his heart beating quickly. “They- seemed okay with that.”
“It’s still a free country. At least on that side of the line. Do you think we need to cross it?” He asked quite obvious that he ‘would’ do it to investigate.
Steven gulped at that idea. Luke was very hopeful to get ‘inside’ the actual classroom… and perhaps ‘initiate’ a transformation of his own. Though from what he heard, the government had also been trying that with no luck so far. He doubted them wondering in would trigger it. Something however ‘did’ catch his eyes. “Do you think… it could have been some kind of ‘laser’?” he asked. “The classroom is on this wing of the building there.. Janitor was there… if a ray would come from the window perhaps…”
he stared around upwards, his gaze eventually going towards a simple car-park lot that was connected to a shopping mall. He knew that area well… they used to go there to get fish and chips. “Come on!” Steven gasped as he felt this sudden insight.
Steven wasn’t sure it was possible… was it? If… if it could be something else. A magical gun perhaps? A magical ray-gun? They had gone to the mall carpark and had to get to the top of it. There were a few parked cars but it was mostly vacant. Steven went close to the edge… and yes.
“There’s the school... about three miles away... in direct line of sight.” He recognized it quite well.
Luke began to look around. “so whatever happened there, might have started here?” It seemed like a longshot... literally. “Hm… well it’s been months … are we going to find anything now?”
“We have to…” Steven replied with determination. “There must be something here…”
Maybe Steven was completely deluded… but the two began to search. It was true that few cars ever came up to the very top so… if there was something here to find, and if it was innocuous enough…
