The doctor glanced between Mikey and his mother, clipboard in hand. “We’ve been running a lot of tests,” he said, “and there is... something we might try. An experimental treatment. It won’t undo the infection, but it could trigger another transformation.”
“Into what?” Mikey’s mom asked cautiously.
The doctor hesitated. “We can’t say. There’s no control over what form the patient might take. It could be subtle, or drastic. You might end up like your brother—Jon became a pixie-fairy, after all.”
Mikey, still hunched uncomfortably in the scratchy hospital gown with awkward wings dragging on the floor behind him, didn’t hesitate. “I want to do it,” he said. “I hate this body. I’m a girl-bird thing. I can’t fly, I can’t even walk right. Please. Just do it.”
The doctor gave his mother a long look. She nodded reluctantly.
The change came quickly.
Within minutes, Mikey was on his feet—his real feet. His legs were strong, lean, athletic. His reflection in the hospital mirror showed a boy of about nine, with tousled blond hair, bright eyes, and a look of wild energy barely contained in his frame.
He turned to the doctor with a big grin. “I’m a boy again. And I feel... awesome!”
The doctor looked slightly amused. “You look like you’re ready to fly.”
“I feel like I could.”
The doctor checked the charts again, this time with an expression closer to wonder than concern. “Mikey... based on your vitals, your reflexes, and the scans we just took... this may sound strange, but... you haven’t just turned back into a boy. You’ve turned into a character.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean,” the doctor said, tapping his pen against the page, “everything about you matches the common depictions of Peter Pan. Body structure, voice, energy levels. Even your accent’s changed.”
Mikey blinked. “No way. That’s so sick!” He turned to his mom, beaming. “So does that mean Jon’s my Tinker Bell now?”
The doctor chuckled nervously. “Well... we’ll need to run more tests. This illness is unpredictable. It can transform people into fictional or mythological characters—physically, psychologically, sometimes even legally. But yes... Jon becoming your Tinker Bell isn’t out of the question.”
He set down the chart. “I’ll check in later tonight, after my shift. This kind of development might have... implications. If Jon is Tinker Bell now, well... let’s just say the law gets a little fuzzy. There’s precedent for transformed individuals being treated as the companions or, in some extreme interpretations, the property of their origin archetypes.”
Mikey—no, Peter now—just grinned. “Cool.”
His mom, on the other hand, looked like she’d swallowed a wasp. Her son was now Peter Pan—complete with a British accent—and possibly, legally, in charge of her other son, who had apparently become a faerie-girl overnight.
“This illness needs to go away,” she muttered as they left the hospital.
Peter, strutting ahead, arms spread like wings, didn’t seem to hear her.
