by Noah Harris
Above the water, Jared paddled within twenty feet of Nick’s abandoned kayak, scanning the surface for any sign of him. Then, Jared saw an alligator staring back at him, straight at him.
“Gator!” he yelled to the others, closing in behind him. Jared coasted toward the animal, and raised his paddle, as if to strike the alligator. (Not a particularly bright move perhaps, but he was just reacting). The gator flipped its tail at him and dove beneath the surface, swimming off and out of sight. Jared stood breathing hard for a few moments as Nick’s kayak floated nearby, eerily empty.
“Nick!” Jared screamed, “Nick!” Soon, the others arrived, and all of them started yelling over and over, in unison, “Nick! Nick! Nick!”
Beneath the water, Nick could hear the muffled cries of his friends, and recognized his name. He was once again walking on the lake bottom—walking on all fours. He looked down to see his own scaly, clawed front leg. As he neared the shore’s edge, the sense returned that he was out of danger, and his heart rate began to increase. Another hot, burning sensation flowed through his nerves and he was suddenly staring, instead, at his own foot. Suddenly aware of his need for air Nick popped his head above water and, still somewhat disoriented, trudged the last few feet to shore, flopping down at the water’s edge like a beached whale. He felt tired in a way he never had before… in his entire life.
“There he is!” Jared yelled, and paddled furiously toward Nick, again distancing himself from the others. Jared arrived at the shore well before the rest of them. Reaching Nick, Jared turned him over and, holding his shoulders, stared into his face with a look of panic. “Nick, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” was all Nick could mutter. Breathing hard and feeling sick, he leaned his head against Jared’s chest, relishing all the strength the other man provided. He knew he couldn’t make it back home alone. He couldn’t even walk yet. Glancing down at his body, just to make sure all was okay, he then realized that, at some point, he had lost his swim trunks. Abby arrived with a beach towel and they placed him in a kayak. He lay there, staring at that same blue sky, now hued with the slight orange of the setting sun, and watched Jared’s back muscles rotating in a circular motion as he rowed the small kayak back to the dock at the other end of the lake.
He remembered them getting him home and into bed, waking once to see Jared and Abby standing there by his bedside. Later they were gone, replaced by his mother. Nick knew he had more nightmares, though he didn’t remember them, and then, oddly, somewhere in the space between sleep and wakefulness, he thought about the school assignment he needed to read by Monday, and how he had forgotten to take his 5 o’clock Nydor dose at the lake. Is that why all of this happened? Maybe the pack was lying to him. Maybe he did need the medicine. He needed to ask his parents… and soon. He wanted to call out to his mother, but no words would come, and then he was lost in the haze of sleep again. He fell into a sleep so deep and hard that he wouldn’t even wake until noon the next day, and then only because hunger got the best of him. Nick vaguely recalled waking, eating, then going back to sleep, waking again—was it dark outside? Back to sleep. This continued for three days, and on the morning of the fourth day, he awoke and felt grounded in time and space for the first time since the incident at the lake.
Upon waking, an incredible thirst hit him, and he noticed a large bottle of water at his bedside, which he snatched up and drank like a thirsty man in the desert. He propped himself up in bed and his parents, knowing that he had awakened, appeared immediately at his door. His mother rushed to his side, examining him closely.
“I’m fine, Mom,” he encouraged. Then, she looked angry—that special type of angry they reserve for when you’ve nearly gotten yourself killed.
“No, Nicholas Anton, you are not fine. You nearly got yourself killed. Do you know you have been out for three days?” she reproached.
“Where’s Jared?” he asked. Seeing her face, Nick quickly added. “And Abby.”
“Where’s Jared?” she replied, looking at her husband. “Do you hear this? Where’s Jared? I nearly got myself killed, but where’s my new boyfriend? I can’t believe you would care about that now.”
“He’s not my boyfriend. He’s Abby’s dance partner. I just barely met him,” Nick responded weakly.
“Well, I assumed. He and Abby stopped by briefly, but I told them they should go. They left about three days ago, but still, Nick, not the point.” Nick lingered a moment on the fact that Jared had stayed that long, but his thoughts quickly returned to the crisis at hand.
“Three days?” Nick finally registered how long he had been out.
“Yes, three days, and to answer your question, your friends went back to school. They didn’t want to, but their parts were going to get cut or something. What were you thinking?” she continued.
“I wasn’t thinking anything. I was just kayaking on the lake,” Nick defended.
Finally, his Dad chimed in, “Nick, to try animal shifting, by yourself, without any guidance, is very dangerous, but to do it with humans nearby? Really, I have to agree with your Mom on this one—what were you thinking?”
“What was I thinking? No, what were you thinking, when you sent me off to school without telling me anything about some war that is supposedly going on, and suppressing my powers, which apparently doesn’t need to be the case. Guidance? I wish I had some! You just decided what was best for me and I believed you, then got attacked, out of nowhere, by God knows who or what, and, in trying not to drown, somehow shifted into an alligator of all things. You’re mad at me? No, I’m mad at you,” Nick rambled, nearly incoherently, exhausted by all that had happened. Now, to be attacked by his own parents, who hadn’t even prepared him for it, was too much. They hugged him, clearly upset and feeling terrible.
“Oh Nick, I’m so sorry,” his dad responded. “We thought you could just fly under the radar and stay off the grid, the way we did. So are you saying a pack found you?”
“Was it a good pack or a bad one?” his mother asked.
“I don’t know. How would I tell the difference?” Nick asked.
“Did they try to get anything from you, or attack you?” Dad added.
“No, not really. They just wanted to talk, and to… recruit me, I guess.”
His mother smoothed his hair, “Of course they did.” He pushed her hand away.
“Mom, I’m fine, please—stop. What I need now is information. Can we just talk about how all this works, so I know what to expect? And, what are these Wisdoms? Do we belong to one? Are there shifters I’m to stay away from? How do I tell which humans are bad?” His mother took a step back, switching to more of a problem-solving mode.
“Of course—information. We can help you understand, son. But, it’s not as easy as you’d like to think.”
“Plus, we’ve been out of the loop for a long, long time,” Dad added. “It’s like human politics. You can be in the middle of it and know all the behind-the-scenes intrigue, like who is really trustworthy, who is stabbing others in the back; or you can just stay out of all of it, but then you know none of that. We—your mother and I— have been living the shifter equivalent of ‘off the grid.’ Up until now, they didn’t know who we are, where we are, or what we do. We did that because we thought it was best for you and Phoebe, at least until you were old enough to make your own decisions.”
“So, you don’t know anything? You can’t help me at all?” Nick’s shoulders slumped.
“Not about all the politics and we don’t know much about the war, except the older history of it we heard as children. See, your father and I were both orphaned by the war. We were old enough to know what we were, because when your parents are part of a Wisdom of shifters, you grow up knowing what you are. Our pack was killed when we were seven and nine. We had played together as children, but were separated when the humans placed us into adoptive families—human adoptive families. We were separated from the Wisdom and from each other, until our powers started to appear at around fifteen and se
venteen. We ran off to find answers—which is a long story we’ll skip for now—and we did, and decided we wanted to stay separated. We had learned the basics, and gotten some Nydor root to help with suppression, in order to fit into the human world. Rightly or wrongly, the human world is the world we chose for our family,” Nick’s mother explained.
“So, you just assumed we would only want the human world, too? That we wouldn’t want to know our heritage, or any of our own species?” Nick’s anger flashed again.
“I know it seems like a big decision, but we always assumed you would find your own way, probably after college. You have no idea how challenging that world can be. It’s interesting to be a part of, but at the same time, you may never have any real life without danger in it. We honestly didn’t think you would have to make a decision so soon,” his father added.
“And you don’t,” said Mom.” You could just tell them ‘thanks, but no thanks,’ or to come back in four years,” she offered. Nick shook his head. For them to think that he would want to go run a human business for his whole life and never use his power, when he had the option to be more. It’s like they didn’t know him at all.
“Okay, I get it. So, about the Nydor—do I have to take it, or was that just part of this human life choice you were making for me?” His parents looked at one another seriously prior to answering.
“You don’t have to take it,” his dad responded. “But if you stop taking it, you will be making the choice not to live in the human world. Your powers will manifest in ways you can’t imagine and can’t control, but for each shifter it’s different. We weren’t old enough to learn really solid control techniques, so you would either be running a real risk of doing all that on your own, or forcing yourself to join a pack out of necessity—one you know very little about.” Nick sighed, digesting the weight of his impending decision.
“Just think about it, Nick,” Mom added. “Don’t make any rash decisions. It doesn’t have to all be decided this week, or even this year. You could take the Nydor until next summer, when you have a break, or reduce the dose very, very gradually. You have options. It’s not an all or nothing deal.”
Except for whoever is attacking me, Nick thought, but kept that to himself.
“Okay, I’ll think about it.”
5
Nick returned to school and attempted to do his best impression of a normal college student for a week. He wasn’t ready to make such big decisions, so he focused all of his attention on catching up in school. He’d been out for a week, but had managed to get most of his assignments while still recovering in bed, and had started catching up on the lighter reading before he even came back. The downside, of course was, that left all the heavier reading until the end, which he was now trying to get through.
He shuffled his way back to the library, still looking all around any time there weren’t many other people in the vicinity. He felt as if he might get attacked at any moment, which was one vote in the ‘join the pack’ column—learning how to spot his enemies coming, if it was possible. He passed through the library doors and immediately felt a temperature drop of at least twenty degrees, due to the air conditioning. One thing about air conditioning in tropical environments, it was either on maximum blast so it was cold, or it wasn’t cool enough to keep it from being hot. There was no middle ground. Withdrawing his sweatshirt from his backpack, he slipped it over his head, observing the wrinkles which might normally bother him, but not today and kept going. It was important to catch up on all the work. Most of his professors had been somewhat reasonable except for, of course, his Econ professor.
“You will have deadlines in the business world, contractual deadlines without exception. You can’t simply be late. You always have to have a backup plan,” the man had chided, “or be prepared to pay the associated penalties.”
Yeah, in the real world, I would have coworkers to cover for me, Nick thought, but didn’t say. He had tried to study in the dorms, but people kept stopping by. Abby and Jared were calling incessantly, and the truth of the matter was, Nick just didn’t feel like talking. He texted them his thanks, said he’d see them soon, and had been ditching them ever since, citing the massive catch-up in workload he needed to accomplish, which was true, just not the only reason he needed some space.
Riding the elevator in the library building, Nick flipped his phone to silent and noticed there were no bars anyway. The library liked to block all external signals as much as possible. You can—if you go to a corner and press your head against a window—get a signal for a brief time. This was the perfect way to study—controlled checking of text messages only every hour or two, but otherwise, no interruptions. The elevator chimed with a silver bell tone and the doors parted. Nick emerged onto the sixth floor, his favorite because it was the science floor. Business was on three, always busy and full of whispered chatter. Unless he needed the business books themselves, Nick preferred six. The science students mostly researched in the lab. They only came in here when they absolutely had to, and only for just what they needed which they quietly and efficiently gathered and then left. No extra chatter, no inefficient movements. Nick had seen them on Saturday nights, so he knew all this efficiency erupted in extroverted fun at some point, but during school hours, they were all business. Just what he needed today.
The only real change he had made since returning was that he had cut his Nydor dosage back about ten percent. Not too much, and he still had headaches, but they were less, so he was more able to concentrate and work than before. So far, no side effects of spontaneously turning into another creature or anything, but he was keeping a close eye on how his body felt. Nick walked to the far corner, away from the few students seated near the elevator. Seeking maximum quiet, he entered a small alcove between the stacks, which held four tables with just four chairs each, all of which were empty. He selected the table nearest the window, but out of the direct sunlight, and quickly set up his books and laptop. A few hours later he felt more at ease, having completed the majority of what he had set out to do. A few more hours of this, and he would be completely caught up on his school assignments, so he could start to return to a normal life with other people in it. Thinking on that, Nick withdrew his cell from his sweatshirt pocket, walked over to the window and stood in the sun, looking below at the large, grassy expanse beside the library where people were skateboarding, playing Frisbee, reading on blankets and flying drones. He pressed the phone against the metal of the window frame, and as if by magic commanded by Tesla himself, four text messages popped up. Two were easily dispatched answers to school-related inquiries from Sal and Philip. Nick suddenly felt like he’d barely seen Philip since he got to school. They’d have to catch up soon. Nick fired a text off to Philip and quickly got a response.
‘Paddle boarding this weekend?’
‘Sure.’
That would work—hanging out with someone who didn’t know what was going on with him, who hadn’t been at the lake incident. He’d asked his friends not to post anything online, which so far, they had respected, amazingly. Usually people can’t resist tagging a dramatic incident, of any kind. To the humans, it had seemed as if an alligator had rolled him, and he almost drowned, so—drama. Hanging out with Philip would let him be in his full ‘pretending to be human’ mode. He could see the value of the compartmentalization, so he added one vote to his Mom and Dad’s ‘off-the-grid’ plan, if it was even possible,
One text was from Michael, which he just ignored. Nick was nowhere near ready to touch that decision yet, so until he was able to think it through more, it was better to just leave it. The fourth text was from Jared saying that, when Nick was feeling okay, maybe they could hang out sometime. Caring, a little distant but not too distant—this guy really was perfect. Glancing sideways at his school books, Nick texted him back.
‘I’m almost caught up with school. How about hanging out this weekend?’ but just before he hit send, he thought better of it. Jared had stayed by his bedside after all, and
his Mom said she had to pry him away. There was no mystery anymore as to whether the attraction was mutual, so he changed his text and actually sent it this time.
‘I’m almost caught up with school. How about dinner this weekend?’
Nick waited for the response, but the signal dropped out. Sadly, he had learned that it was something like satellite repositioning, so he had to literally stand in one spot for over a minute and just wait for the signal to pick back up. Finally, Jared’s reply came through.
‘YES! — happy emoji.’
Smiling to himself, Nick slid back into his study chair, his thoughts faraway .
In less than one second, without any type of warning or feeling, Michael and Gideon appeared at his elbow. Nick startled slightly.
“There are other people in the library,” Gideon said, as if annoyed he had jumped.
“Are there,” Nick replied, pointedly noting with his tone that it was only the others that were actually ‘people.’
Michael sat next to him and examined him carefully, almost as his mother had—assessing him for any signs of damage.