Metamorphose

July 13, 2007 (Friday the 13th)

I'm in this building that's almost an office building but I don't remember offices or furniture. Just halls, walls, corners, and elevators. Othere people are here too, some are people I know in my dream, but they aren't people I'd recognise in my waking life. I have a sister, who's pretty much River from Firefly (without the emotional instability). She's a quiet genius, who's still childlike, but with a strong mind. I'm protective of her like a mother, and we're walking to this main room where The People are congregating, and when we get inside, there's carpet and color, and a chalkboard that's randomly rolled over to one side of the room, and we go behind it. My Sister tells me she needs the special lotion the Governement's been using on her for experiments. Where is it? It's gone!

We step from behind the chalkboard and spend some time walking around and asking different people what this lotion is for, what it does, and why my sister needs it, and as everyone is very suspicious, and obviously work for the government, we're pinpointed from the beginning. I'm not worried about this, and approach a man (who I think slightly resembles Luke, this guy I went to highschool with) in a nice suit and he looks smug, like he knows we're looking for the lotion, and he's hiding it. I stare at him seriously, then swipe the bottle from him in a flash (first I imagine he's holding behind his back, second I imagine it's held in his suit coat), and walk off with it in hand with my sister.

Suddenly I feel a rush in my body telling me that everyone is going to come crowding at me for the lotion (which is in a fairly large frosted plastic bottle, the lotion itself is pink - in fact it looks a LOT like my shampoo in real life), and soon I'm almost engulfed in people, so I pour the lotion all over myself, and most of it lands on my face first. As I'm doing this I'm thinking, "They wont know why I'm putting it on me, but I'm going to let my sister take it off me and use it."
Soon everyone is back to loitering around the large carpeted room (I think there are large windows at one end), and I'm no longer covered in the lotion (I must've absorbed it all) and I touch my eyebrow and at least ten hairs come off on my hand. My hair's falling out! I'm changing...

I don't think I feel much worry, just a little vanity as my sister and I leave the room and dash through the hallways and look for an elevator to head down (waaay down) to the main floor. Apparently I'm changing very quickly and it becomes obvious I'm no longer wearing a shirt, or pants - I think - (but I don't feel naked without them) and my skin is a nice shade of pink-ish purple, and I have medium-small, leathery, bat-like wings on my back between my sholders. I've also lost my eyebrows and I'm wearing glasses less like my thick black geek-framed ones and more like Harry Potter's thin, round, wire-framed glasses.

It's night outside, and we want to get out, so we finally find an elevator, and get on with a man and a woman who don't even really take notice of my appearance, and we make our way down, down, down to the main level. I don't remember how I got there, but I ended up in a casino for a moment, where I was following my dad. I had to tell him I loved him, and that I was still me, it's still me! I still love you, I'm still myself, still me, it's okay... and he's still walking and walking and sort of half-looking back at me over his shoulder (and only barely resembling my dad, he kinda resembles a person who would be in The Sapranos). I finally turn him around and hug him, and understand he knows (but it's not a caring moment, just a factual one), and since I changed, he doesn't totally realise I exist. We're almost in two different worlds, because of it. Him human, and me ... um... bald, purplish, bat-winged girl. The moment isn't sentimental, just something I feel I want to do before I leave, and I'm not even sure where I'm leaving to.

We're outside, my sister and I, and it's night. The air is cool, we're in the middle of a downtown in a city that could almost be Portland, but it's also like a Chicago or some other place I've also never been to, but assume it's like. We're on our own - we're free, and it's great! Now were?
This is where it's foggy. We somehow end up meeting someone/thing that's also not entirely human anymore, and he's really nice (I think he's mostly my species too, but he seems different - and I notice he has eyebrows and hair - I want those! He notices me looking at his eyebrows, and I notice he's yet to be weirded out by my baldness and doofy glasses). We don't do names, we just know we're changed, and he wants to help us. I notice I can hear whale sounds around him, like Orca's and Dolphins, and waves. The sound comes and goes, and we go into a well-lit Fred Meyer-esque store with wares and things and he walks up to a couple on a bench that's behind a huge potted plant. He coaxes the woman to give him all the things she has in her arms, into a large glass bowl/vase that she's also holding, and he thanks her and runs off with it all. I'm assuming he's selling it for cash, so we can live off of it. How thoughtful! It takes the woman a moment to notice what happened, and that we're 'different', but she doesn't get up, just looks startled and as though she really wants to chase him, but can't.

I think we run too, but we're running down the street until there's nothing but pavement from left to right, and we're heading to a driveway that heads down into an almost invisitble haze. Imagine a dip in the road that leads to a tunnel, but I hardly notice it. I ask my sister where we're supposed to go, and then she looks at me with an almost-smile, and I hear the whales again, and we head towards the tunnel, but it's faded as you look into it. I look around and there are a couple other 'changed' around us with the one who we'd met earlier. One is a woman, and she's just like me, with hair, and they are all very nice and there to guide us. I can't remember the other guide, unfortunately. He was a different species, and probably yellow or blue or something. He lead the way, I had the feeling he was the silly, funny type too.

I was confused, because as we walked down into the haze, I slowly lost my breath, and though I didn't feel it on my (new)skin, we were submerging in water - but I can't see it, and it really only looks like a gentle haze in the tunnel. The tunnel was a gateway to an ocean! I slowly stumble back up the slope a little to try and find my way out of the haze/water but I can't tell where it starts and finishes, I just barely see the haze and feel like I'm slowly running on sand underwater, and finally I make my way to the 'surface'. I look over at the other Winged Lady, and ask her if I can swim with my wings, and she says she refuses to, she can't. I think my sister tells her she's fine, we can all swim, and then I take a deep breath, and go under.

We're swimming, and I realize it's faster than normal, we're swift! As we get deeper through the tunnel, it opens up a little and we weave through some underwater cave-tunnel of sorts (fairly dark, but easily managable) and find our way to an opening, and we're in a larger section of the cave, facing a wall with a large opening and outside of it (along the wall) are shelves with lots of different colored gooey sea-strings with color-coded things tied to each one. They're a sign that you reside there, and you have your spot, and each are grouped by species. I find goober-strings that are the same color of my skin and find one that has nothing tied to the upper end of it. I somehow end up with a blue.. Thing.. It's like a plastic milk-cap seal, but it's made of a seaweed tissue, and I tie it to the tip of my goober-string, and I follow everyone else inside. Suddenly we're slowly going from swimming to walking, and as we transition, we can breath again, and we're in a large room that looks like a rec room. Televisions, games, cushy chairs and all. And there are many different others like us there. (My sister is still human - again, imagine River).

I remember meeting some others and feeling like I'm home, though it's still a little new to me, and I walk around exploring the different things in each room. One room has a sort of obstacle course made from large Legos. They're stacked in row, and some are a block or two higher than others, and some have a gap in the middle. Specifically made for Flyers, like me. I'm totally excited at this and have to try it, so I jump up and find I'm actually zooming over taller stacks and down into dips and weaving to go through the gaps and I'm good! I'm naturally good at it! At the end of the row, I hover for a moment and land, then find the guy we'd met back in town, waiting. I again notice his eyebrows and ask him if I can have some too, and I feel comforted that I'll be able to have them again soon, so I wont be the short bald girl, though I don't stand out at all - not even as a newcomer. This place is defiantly home, home for everyone. I find I really like this guy, and we meet up with my sister who's wearing her skirt, knee-high boots, and a shirt with a sweater over it, and her legs have cool cyber markings on them, like a tattoo of metal seams down the outer sides of her legs, with small circle hinges and little markings that look like clockwork. She's changing, but different - different from all of us. She's Unique. I had felt protective of her at the beginning, but now I felt younger than her. I looked up to her as our leader, but she was with us, not alone above us. We didn't have leaders or followers, just us as a large group, and she was simply important, and different.

The guy I've come to grow fond of walks over to my sister, and I can tell they both already know what the other is thinking. I was wondering if we were to always stay underwater, in this hidden ocean-cave of ours and they were answering my question (there was more to this place than just a cave, we were just in one part of a large underground ocean), and they were taking me to part of the main room, to a spot where a trap door (the kind that opens up under someone who just got canned, and they fall to their doom) and it opened up and down we fell - into a vehicle. We were in what was basically a car, in a tunnel, and were driving our way out into the open of what I found to be exactly 12:00 mid-day. It was hot - but with my new skin it didn't really effect me, and the sun was blazing. The ground was dust, and the town looked Southwestern. We were in another land, a land where it was Afternoon. I felt a little change in this place, but only truly realized it when I noticed all the people who were sitting outside their houses, were largely overweight with their skin hanging from them. Everyone was a bit hairy in patches, even on their tummies, and the women were no exception. They were greasy, and grungy, and this wasn't my old world, where reality was like my waking life. This was a different place and a different time: 12:00. Why Afternoon Time (12:00pm) was so important, and thus practically the namesake of this place, I never found out, but that was the case. We watch as these people hardly pay mind to us passing through their town (one long stretch of road lined with dusty one-room houses on either side).

After some time we pass the town, left the road, and end up walking toward a coastline with sand, and the sky is clear, yet almost-grey, and the sun is no longer scortching, just resting behind a thin grey stratus of the sky, and it's a little cooler here. The beach is strewn with other Different, but these aren't the same as us. They aren't bad, but they want to grab us, and not let go - so I'm told (by The Guy) to fly over them, and keep naming yourself even when you dive underwater, just keep naming yourself, and suddenly he's saying his name and species and all these other namesakes and I can't tell any of it apart, so I keep saying, "I'm Katherine, I'm Katherine, I'm Katherine and I live here, I'm Katherine, I live here, I live here…" I've jumped and am soaring a bit above the things below us (they're about 4' with long thing arms and short thin legs and gremlin/trollish faces, and I think their skin is the color of a Greek Olive) and I'm being grabbed at and still saying my name and saying I live there (the ocean) and am pulling my feet away from these things, then I shoot like a dart into the water with my breath held, and keep trying to say "I'm Katherine, I live here" without losing air, but I do, and I want to take in more air, so I open my mouth, but I barely take any in (we're in water!), but it's okay, because with what little I have, I'll make it.

We swim.