Chapter 6: June

Anebel was clearly not amused by her current situation. Her news station had promised that they would send her on this trip on First Class yet when she got to the airport they had her somewhere back in Coach, near the middle of the plane for that matter. And to top things off she was bumped into on her plane by some jerk in a suit who, instead of apologizing to her, just told her to get onto another flight instead. She pulls out a book from her purse and opens it up to the bookmark and begins reading. Once the plane has taken off and reached cruising speed she puts the book away and grabs her laptop from its case and drops down the table so that she can work on writing up a preliminary script for what she is going to report when she lands.

She had devoted a lot of hours to making sure she was the foremost expert among all of the reporters on everything that had to do with the Incidents. At first she didn’t really have much to go on other than the impact of the blackouts on people’s lives and the rumors of people claiming to have seen the fox that was reported to have done it but her career really took off in April when the second Incident happened. More people were calling for her all the time after that. And among that she had all of the reports of a sort of sickness or sense of unease among some people after the Incidents. This is where she was currently heading. There was a town where nearly half of the residents have claimed to have fallen seriously ill as a result of the Incidents.

But when she pulled her laptop out she noticed that something had been slipped in along with her laptop. She saw a black stone of some sort near the bottom but what caught her eye more clearly was the slip of paper. Ignoring the black stone completely she picks up the paper and opens it up, thinking that perhaps either her editor or one of her coworkers had slipped it in the last time she was at the office.

To Anebel:

I must say, out of all of the candidates you have by far taken what I have done to the best of your advantage. And so to require you pay me back for everything I have apparently given you, you will take the role of the rook. Your narrow mined gaze has cost you in the end. Spin it all you like in your case it will be the beginning of a new journey; a humbling one reveling in intrigue. As much as you’ve made a name for yourself by your coverage of my work this act will make sure that your name is known by all. I just want you to know that this journey takes the blight you saw awakened to a whole new level. Enjoy your flight.

Somewhat confused by this she looks in her bag again to see if maybe there was some other clue as to who gave it to her. For the most part it mainly just seemed to be a random hate mail that someone wrote and smuggled into her bag. She reaches into and pulls out the black stone. As far as she can tell it is nothing more than just a black obsidian cylinder. Not really having anymore interest in it she drops it to the ground without a second thought and just in case she kicks it forward a bit so that she wouldn’t be asked to have to pick it up. She looks around  to see if anyone was paying attention to her and has to stifle a reaction. Sitting across from her looks to be the end result of the person who caused the second Incident, a black feline sitting calmly and staring at her. Anebel shakes her head a few times and looks again, finding just some man in a business suit reading the paper.

“Job must be getting to me. Next time there’s a dry spell in the stories I’m going to have to take a vacation or something,” she states out loud to herself.

Anebel looks forward to see if she could find one of the flight attendants and ask if she could get something strong to drink but the person she finds doesn’t look human but rather some form of a large horse like creature moving down the aisle casually, staring at her the entire time. Anebel closes her eyes and rubs her palms against them as she starts to feel somewhat dizzy and light-headed.

Anebel rubs her hands through her hair to try and calm herself down but when she pulls her hands away she notices that she seems to have pulled some of her own hair along with it. She stares at the strands a moment before starting to feel really constricted by her seat. Though she knows full well that she should be more concerned by the fact some of her hair seems to be falling out her focus was much more by how cramped and claustrophobic this airplane was beginning to feel.

Anebel thinks briefly on the notion of getting out of her seat and going to use the restroom to gather herself back together but the mere thought of locking herself into such a tiny space unnerves her even more than how cramped the plane feels. She unfastens her seatbelt and puts the table back up before stretching forward, trying to get at least some semblance of having some room to move in. She looks into her lap and sees quite a bit of her auburn hair having fallen in clumps around her and she notices that many of the people nearby are staring at her, watching her every move. To top things off her entire body is starting to feel very itchy.

She looks at her hands and the clumps of hair that are continuing to fall and notice that all of her fingers seem to be growing longer, though her thumb seems to be growing shorter. All along her arms are several little yellow things that seem to be attached to her skin. She rubs against some of them and feels a shiver run down her neck as a response. They certainly are not comfortable to touch at the moment and the itchiness is starting to drive her crazy. Even with all of this her rational mind is starting to piece together what’s happening and she is half praying that she’s only just having a nervous breakdown.

“If it is an Incident,” she rationalizes to herself under her breath, “Then the end of this transformation will cause an EMP that will stop all electronics for several hours, meaning that this plane will certainly crash and every one of us on this plane will die. Which means I will either have to find a way off this plane or die and if I do find a way off I’ll still probably die anyway unless I’m turning into a bat or something.”

Anebel reaches down and itches at her feet. For some reason they seem to be feeling very cramped and knowing that it won’t get any better leaving them on she slips off her shoes and looks at them. Her toes seem to be growing longer as well as her feet but her toes are also splaying out more and from rubbing at them with her enlarged fingers she can almost swear that some of the digits are starting to merge together.

Seeing her feet in that manner she’s almost certain that the only rational explanation is that it must another Incident. She can start to feel something hard start to push its way out of her mouth but at this point she can’t really tell. On top of that her eyes are starting to grow larger. She reaches her hand up to her head and can’t feel anymore hair on top of it. Instead like the rest of her body she can mainly only feel what is almost like small feathers growing in from her scalp. She’s also starting to get somewhat smaller.

“I have to get off this plane!” She shouts as she starts trying to fumble her way out of the seat, finding the act of speaking harder to do right with all of her teeth becoming exceedingly loose.

She reaches into her mouth to feel them and finds that some of her teeth come right out without any force. Panicking even more she tries to push her way towards the front of the plane, where she knows for certain that there is a door she can use to escape. It’s surprisingly hard work considering how all her muscles are practically spasming with their changes and all of the panic caused by the rest of the plane.

By the time she manages to reach the door she’s dropped to half her original height and her entire body has become covered in the yellow feathers, with especially long ones coming out of her arms and backside.

“You have to let me out!” she attempts to order the attendant who was blocking her access to the main door. Unfortunately most of what came out of her mouth were birdlike chirps and couldn’t get much clarity.

Anebel gets somewhat frustrated with herself at no longer being able to control her own words. The attendant wasn’t being of much more help, either, trying to shoo her away. She grew increasingly annoyed at the human for keeping her from safety and almost pecks at the human to try and get it to do what she wants but she manages to keep herself just enough under control to not do that, knowing full well if she did there’d be almost no chance that she’d get out in time.

Anebel knew she was running out of time. She was already almost too small now to be able to weigh enough to move the lever even if she flung her entire weight into it and if she didn’t get out then they would all die. But on top of that it would mean having to be in such a cramped location for the last few minutes before her death and this is not how she wanted to die. She wanted desperately to be free of this tiny prison. If she survived long enough they may be able to find some sort of cure and then she can return to her old life.

“Open the door or die!” She demands again, forcing each word through her mouth so that it can be as best understood as she could manage with her current vocal cords.

Anebel isn’t entirely sure what it is that she managed to finally convey that got the stewardess to open the door but she was very glad that she did. Being as light as she is Anebel is flung out of the aircraft the instant it was opened. She even had to try and fight against it to keep from hitting the door on her way out. She then begins to plummet down to the ground as she barely notices that the door to the plane closes again.

Knowing that her life now depends on her own ability to try and fly she begins moving her arms in a manner that she thinks would allow her to do so but with the pain caused by her still ongoing transformation her arms hurt far too much for her to be able to flap correctly and fast enough. As the ground starts to come closer and closer Anebel begins to feel extremely desperate as she feels the cramped sensation from earlier become even tighter somehow now that she had nothing but space around her. Finally with one last desperate cry she tries moving her arms as fast as she can before a burst of yellow energy explodes afterwards. Emerging from the blast is a small bird flying majestically in the wind.