Allergies…
A scourge of mankind, occurring when an inappropriate immune response occurs against an otherwise benign substance. The human body rejects whatever has been detected, aggressively reacting against the material or allergen causing discomfort and stress to the body. Many people suffer a variety of allergies, from dust, pollen, to animals such as dogs and cats. The usual symptoms can be mild such as a simple cough or sneeze, to the rarer symptoms that were life threatening.
A cure had been sought for many years but never actually found. However, on one strange day, nobody had allergies any more…
It was considered a miracle by some though it baffled the scientific profession. How could such a sudden change happen? People considered magical, divine, or some kind of environmental scientific change. It was as if someone made a wish and allergies were just ‘gone’.
The loss of allergies was replaced by a new issue though…
Shifters…
The classic shifter that ‘everyone’ had heard of was of course, the werewolf. Famous from folklore and even pop culture, their ‘trigger’ was perceiving the full moon- or sometimes extreme emotions. Some wondered if the werewolves of old had anything to do with the current situation due to this parallel. However, it wasn’t just werewolves’ people could change into now. There was a rather prominent ‘forest dwelling’ population due to the old ‘nut’ allergy that people used to suffer. Such included Squirrels, chipmunks and certain birds but it could even include foxes. Dairy allergies brought some…interesting transformations such as cat-types or other mammalian creatures. Most of the time, the changed body corresponded closely to the human form... but not always.
For a minority of shifters, the altered body was more extreme. It could include changes to a person’s age, size, gender, a different number of limbs… it may come with an entirely new personality… such changes were quite rare, but not completely unheard of. For such people the shifted form may look nothing like the human being they were initially, which could be disconcerting. Limited exposure sometimes gave a ‘partial’ change to the shifted state which was generally… ‘uncomfortable,’ both to view and experience.
Interaction with the trigger need not be completely physical. It could be sight, sound, smell, or even just a simple ‘thought’ of the substance. In fact, not all changes required a physical substance at all. Some transformations were triggered by abstract thought, such as attraction to something or even a fear of heights. The sense of vertigo could trigger a transformation into a fairy, as an example.
People started to suspect that there was something more ‘magical’ then scientific going on, given the shifted form could sometimes come with appropriate clothing or new memories and instincts… which made absolutely no sense unless it was magic, thought the scientific community pondered of the idea of some kind of interaction with virtual particles or parallel worlds.
Thankfully, ‘most’ of the time, the transformation was not permanent.
Getting away from the material that caused the initial change was ‘usually’ enough to get back to normal, often in a few hours or sometimes quicker. It may happen in stages, but a person generally found themselves human by the next day. Certain things could even help them get back to human faster if they figure it out. (For instance, someone with an allergy to salt might turn back to normal with pepper. Some thought such routes were psychosomatic, but the effect was real.)
If a person was unlucky in that their trigger existed as something ubiquitous, they wouldn’t be able to become human again. For example, those changed by the ‘air’ may turn into harpies or other winged type changes permanently. Such permanent triggers were rare but not impossible.
There have been cases where people end up ‘stuck’ by other means, even simply being ‘unlucky’ though fortunately a simple shower in filtered water was usually enough to get back to normal. The shifters tended to fear getting stuck, so would often seek to return to normal as quickly as possible.
transformation could come at any stage of a person’s life. The mystery of ‘why’ this was happening… and why particular people, or why ‘those’ triggers and ‘that’ transformation…
Such was for now, a complete mystery…
