~*~*~*~*~*~
The first detail was the most obvious one of them all. Neil woke to feel an enormous weight smothering him, coupled with a biting, raw pain that made the first sound out of his mouth a weak cry of agony.
The next detail was rather trivial, but Neil discovered that his throat had gone hoarse from overuse and that he barely had strength to lift his hand, much less to manipulate his body. He discovered that his partial lack of mobility was due to being so tightly tangled in the sheets and covers, that it was just too difficult to extract himself.
At one point, he glanced over at the projected time on the wall, only to see that it was well past the time for his Healer’s appointment, yet no one had come to collect him. He was frustrated and disappointed, having been ready to welcome any outside assistance at the moment, but realizing that as a scholarship student, no one would really care.
Elyenka and Kendall had their morning classes to attend to and his schedule would’ve been cleared on account of the Healers appointment, unless he showed up to prove otherwise.
With a sigh, Neil focused on slow, minute movements, until he could heave himself upright enough to take full stock of his predicament.
Seconds later, he wished he hadn’t.
His eyes had stubbornly refused to open all the way up until that point. Now he wished they’d stayed shut. His hands were no longer human fingers, but elongated, pointed, curled claws, with sharp nails at the end. They moved and reacted just as his hands would have, but each movement was accompanied by pain.
The weight on his back turned out to be large, leathery wings that were partially glued to his sheet, resulting in more pain and a significant amount of panic when he realized that the thing gluing said wings to the sheets was dried blood and what looked to be bits of skin.
His standard issue pajamas were ripped to shreds and some pieces clung to his sensitive skin, while the rest of it was scattered across the room. At some point, he’d fallen off the bed and now with where he was, the refresher was a bit closer in reach.
Later, Neil would reflect that he had no idea how he managed it, as the pain was nearly overwhelming and he had absolutely no magic at all. The shock from realizing that he’d apparently morphed into something overnight was reason and cause enough for panic, until he remembered the awful prediction from the test he’d taken the day before.
Fate would never leave him alone, would it?