He tried to walk back home, but he had severe trouble in doing so. Pain began to replace discomfort. His neck was stiff, his legs were weak, and his vision was blurry. After a few minutes, the aforementioned became physically apparent, and at that time of day, many people walking past him would surely take notice. With this in mind, he decided to take a second path; a detour through the woods, unknown to many people. The forest led straight into Eric's backyard, which gave him about a kilometer of solitary walking.

He made sure not to seem abnormal on the way home, knowing his incident with Bob was enough for a day. Luckily, he only encountered a total of six people, and only one of them actually noticed he was in some sort of pain, albeit not enough to care enough to stop and ask. Aside from this, no other danger materialized itself for the lone wanderer.

Inside the woods, he took precautions not to run into anyone; however, on one occurrence, he spotted an old man walking toward him, so he took a small route off-road to pass him, before coming back onto the main path.

Two minutes after a turn to the right, he felt a sharp pain run through his chest, so sharp he fell to the ground for a few seconds. Eric took a few deep breaths, got up and continued his walk, with a few more spasms occasionally jolting him from time to time. While they were not as painful as the first, he knew his health was deteriorating. The 5 o'clock sun pierced through the thin leaves and trees above him, further irritating him as sweat poured down his forehead, even though it was only a mere 19°. He felt like he was about to faint, but he knew around half a kilometer remained.

The fatigue slowed him down, and eventually, he began to feel faint. Everything seemed spin, and after only five minutes of walking through his shortcut, he fell to the ground. Eric tried desperately to use the small remainder of his strength to rise again, but to no avail. He felt his eyes close, as he drifted into a peaceful sleep.

...

When he awoke, he saw nothing. It was pitch dark outside, and he could barely see anything in front of him. He went for his watch, activated his back light, and read the horrifying numbers on the screen; 1:17. "What!?", he yelled internally. "How the hell did I sleep for so long?" He was about to imagine what his parents would think of the situation, when suddenly, he felt his stomach begin to churn. Immediately, he tried to get up, supported by the tree beside him, but it only made things worse as he fell to his knees and vomited. After almost emptying himself completely for what Eric thought felt like minutes, he rid his mouth of the excess fluid with his hand. While doing so, he noticed how much it was trembling. As a matter of fact, when he realized it, his whole body was trembling at an increasing rate. He knew he had just about enough.

"What the hell is wrong with me?!" he yelled, directing his screams towards the starry sky. Strangely, he got his answer. He bent forward like a snapped toothpick in agony. His right hand shot forward, which preceded a sharp pain running through his arms. He blinked in disbelief as his hands began to shift awkwardly, his bones quickly restructuring. He fell back onto his knees and stopped himself from yelling in shock while large claws grew out of the end of his fingers. They grew wide and sharp, with his hand giving him the impression of it about to fall out of his wrists. Then, the pain ceased. Breathing in and out, he blinked a few times and looked at his hands, but before completely realizing what had happened, he felt the sting come back once again.

His shoes suddenly began to feel cramped, but with his newly formed hands, he could not yet proceed to remove his shoes. In light of this, his body proceeded to do it for him; his shoes broke under pressure, and soon enough, tore in half, revealing his growing feet. The pain was still raging as the bones reconfigured, and grew bigger and longer. Soon enough, claws began to push out of the ends of his toes, pushing away his old human nails. The arches of his feet extended upward to create a hind leg, which seemed to have momentarily ended the pain. He tried standing up; however, along with the immense cramps which came with the attempt, he lost the grand majority of his balance and fell forward on his knees once again.

Knowing more pain would come shortly, he ripped apart his pants and his shirt. Up next, however, were his ears; after they formed a triangle, he felt pain and some ringing, which then altered into complete silence. He was deaf. Clapping a few times, Eric began to get worried, thinking he had somehow lost his sense of audition. Fortunately, after perceiving some sort of "whoosh" sound, he was able to hear again, but ten times improved. He could hear everything - the squirrels a few trees away, the cars out in the distance, just to name a few. The strangest thing he noticed was that he did not hear everything all at once, but rather only what he wanted to hear, which was an amazing ability in Eric's view.

With his new ability, he did not even notice his improved eyesight. Everything was crystal clear to him. Even in the middle of the night, he was able to see half a mile in front of him as clearly as if it was three feet. He considered it to be a completely new way of seeing things, and he absolutely loved it. That "love" disappeared quickly, however, when he felt his muscles contract all at once. Everything inflated, which hurt him immensely. Luckily for him, it did not last very long - in fact, once it was done, Eric felt three times as powerful. He felt quicker, lighter, and most of all, rejuvenated. He enjoyed it immensely, but not for very long.

Suddenly, he felt his whole lower back crack, with his tail bone shifting positions by the second. Soon enough, it began to extend, - which Eric considered being the most painful part - and was the only time he let out a loud cry of pain. Growing in size and length, the tip of his new tail was smaller, but increasing in width when moving towards his back. When it completed, he lay on the ground for a minute or so; he felt exhausted from all of the new changes. When he finally got up, he noticed his new tail moving by itself. It was quite intimidating to him, but when he mustered the courage to move it, he noticed how easily it responded to him. He also noted how much balance he gained with it, being able not only to stand, but to run and jump as well.

Eric did not initially understand the next phase of his transformation - he had never had imagined it existing. His back began to inflate gradually as he was forced to his knees and hands once again; something was growing out of his back. He could not see it at first, but once they pierced out of his skin, he noticed that they were wings. "Wings?" he thought. "I've never seen anything with wings out of its back before..." They continued to grow longer and longer, so long he had to begin folding them to avoid hitting into the trees surrounding him. Once they completed their growth, he unfolded them to see that he had a wingspan of over two meters. Eric tried his best to attempt to figure out what he was turning into. "Claws, better hearing, enhanced sight, a tail, wings..." It didn't make sense to him, although he still had a few more chances to guess.

As he rubbed his two new hands together, he noticed they were getting harder and harder. At first, it resembled a very bad case of dry skin, but when he witnessed the cracks widening and his skin become metallic, he realized that they were crimson red scales. The same process was beginning to occur everywhere on his body; his feet, his tail, his wings, and his face. The former began a transformation of its own by pushing out a snout, which matched the one he had grown in the bathroom at his school. His neck lengthened considerably, growing five inches longer than a human's, and the bones in his whole body began to split through the middle, discarding over 15 pounds of weight.

Large plated scales began to form over his lower neck down to the lower side of his tail, and spikes ranging from 5 to 20 centimeters high began to push out of his body; two on his head near his ears, 13 divided equally on his back and tail, one slightly curved at the tip of his tail, and two short but sharp ones on his elbows, totaling 18. His insides then began to shift awkwardly. His lungs had both been sprayed with a fire-proof liquid, which was repeated for his esophagus and his mouth, and his body began to accept helium. Finally, his lungs generated new glands where methane and phosphor was stored.

After an agonizing 45 minutes, the changes had finally come to a complete end. His body had shifted into that of a dragon. With a new body came curiosity, and untouched curiosity generated enthusiasm. The eager Eric was well aware of this, and without hesitation, decided to test his new wings out. At first, he practiced flapping his wings, getting used to the feeling of the motion, and then, in one confident move, he bent his knees and jumped five feet straight into the air. He continued the climb thanks to the help of his wings, as he soared as high as he could, with the trees resembling mere pieces of broccoli. He could not believe it. "I'm flying...", he thought, spreading his arms out like a five year-old. He had no other care at that moment, concentrating solely on his flight.

When he reached a high altitude, he could see the 2 o'clock city lights and traffic beneath him. The wind was blowing against his scales which felt amazingly cool, and his tail was swaying gently behind him. He looked at the city below him, and saw his house, his school, downtown, and very tall buildings. He felt so much better than everyone else and had so much adrenaline, that for some reason unknown to him, he let out a loud roar - which fortunately was not loud enough to hit the ground - and exhaled a breath of methane and phosphor, which, once came in contact with oxygen, ignited into a large ball of fire.

While he was enjoying this new-found ability, he began to remember something. The majority of people had already heard rumors about dragons. Everyone knew if they were to exist, they would be more powerful than humans and TFRs combined, which led to widespread and immediate hate towards the theory - even Eric had the opinion in his head once upon a time. Luckily, their existence had remained a rumor, and the race theoretically wanted to keep it that way. Eric really did not want to become the one to ruin it, so he decided to head back home before the dawn of the day made his presence apparent. He descended at an angle, further speeding up his flight, and tried to land where he first took off. That would soon prove to be a hard task.

He began to feel uncomfortable, asking himself all sorts of questions; how would he land? Would he hover over his target and descend gently? Would he fly right into it and stop abruptly like a bird? Unfortunately for Eric, it did not matter what he chose. He was flying much too fast, and headed straight for his target. As he approached the ground, he wobbled in discomfort, and in a desperate move, tried to flip onto his feet. However, still not used to his big wings, he cut through the wind instead of catching it to slow the descent, which rendered him helpless when hitting into a tree branch, arm first. He grabbed onto it as fast as he could, and was then hanging with both arms. The arm he hit into the branch began to feel very sore, very quickly, leading him to wonder why he was reckless enough to have gone as fast as he did in the first place. He knew it was a little too high to let go, but he had no other choice. When he hit the ground, he made sure to roll to reduce the impact, but he accidentally did so onto his arm again, further aggravating the pain. Sitting down, arm held by his claw, he noticed another problem; how would he return to his human form?

Fortunately, the solution was very simple. Thinking about it with enough concentration was the only thing he needed to accomplish in order to feel the changes come back again, and that time, it involved a lot less pain. His tail was first, retracting back into his spine slowly. Next, his scales crusted over and fell to the ground, revealing his human skin. His hands and feet returned to normal, as he re-grew his original nails, also triggering the shrinkage of his dragon muscles. His snout, which began to sink back into his head, was bit by bit shaping back into an actual human nose, as well as the spikes across his back. His feet became straight again, along with his dull old ears and eyes which returned to their original enhancement.

With his transformation complete, he rose, disoriented from the lack of a tail to balance his weight, and walked through the trail he only managed to complete halfway, preparing himself to deal with the consequences of the prior day's incident.