here be dragons: TF --REDONE--

It was like any other day in school. I had been unable to wake up, thanks to both the fact that I had slept at one in the morning, and my alarm clock's flat battery. This resulted in me having to rush to school. However, I was lucky, and managed to stumble into the assembly plaza just as the first bell rang.

Sadly, I was not as lucky with regard to my wallet, as I discovered that it contained a grand total of two dollars. Still, I had to eat, as my stomach had grumbled during the first lecture of the day. Thankfully, I was able to afford a cup of fruit punch and a plate of chicken rice.

Having not much time left before the next lesson, I wolfed down the food, together with the punch, which tasted strange. Something told me that my stomach would give me trouble over it later.

I was right, and throughout the entire day, my stomach was churning, and my organs felt as it they were going on a tour of my entire body. This led to my loss of concentration during the subsequent lessons, and I was berated several times by the teacher. This was especially so for my geography lesson, during which I usually pay rapt attention, but thanks to the stomach trouble that I assumed that was caused by the punch, I was unable to concentrate, causing much disappointment in the teacher.

Once we were dismissed for the day, I hurriedly made my way to the train station, wanting to hurry home before the actual stomachache started. It was an hour of misery on the train, not only because it was crowded with peak-hour commuters, but also because the feelings in my gut continued, and my stomach made several squelching sounds, causing people to stare. Furthermore, my skin had started to itch terribly, and it took considerable willpower to ensure that I did not scratch too much.

During the walk home, thought I began to hallucinate, as I could have sworn that I saw a black snout poking out of a bush, pointing at me, as if its owner was staring at me. This was strange, as there were no local fauna that was that size, with such a snout, unless a monitor lizard had escaped from the zoo. However, I quickly dismissed both the scene and that thought, as monitor lizards were a dark green color, not black, and I was well aware that I had an overactive imagination, which I assumed was playing tricks on me.

When I reached home, it was already evening, and I went straight to the toilet, thinking that I was about to have a major stomach upset.

However, as I proceeded to sit on the toilet, I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror. What I saw shocked me, and I recoiled in horror. My complexion had turned deathly pale, but thankfully, my insides had finished their tour, and had settled down. At least that explained why some people on the train had given me concerned looks. I looked as if I was very sick.

Just then, I felt something push out from the tip of my spine, and was shocked to see a long tail proceed to grow out from my back and land on the floor with a dull thump. I was amazed by this new appendage, as I experimentally moved it about, to find that moving it was quite intuitive.

Then, I felt a searing pain in my foot, as I watched in horror as two of my toes fused into one longer digit, while my big toe began to migrate, seemingly moving to the back of my foot.

Meanwhile, black scales began making their way up my body, from the feet up.

The pain in my foot was so intense that I fell to the floor, and curled into a ball, moaning in pain, which intensified, as I heard bones cracking, as the bones themselves reshaped and moved into new positions. Ivory claws pushed out of each toe, as a new wave of somewhat more subdued pain began. They literally erupted from my toes, pushing aside my toenails in the process. I now had three clawed toes on each foot, not counting the one at the back.

Luckily my parents had gone off for a business trip. If not, my mom would have thought I was doing drugs (she lives under a rock right?). However, that was the least of my worries.

Just as the pain in my feet began to subside, I felt sharp and intense points of pain at certain points along my spine.  I turned around, only to see several evenly spaced spikes pushing their way out of my back, breaking the skin and spraying blood everywhere at the same time. Before I could form any thoughts, There was a searing pain in my shoulders. They felt as if they were being ripped into two. They were. Then, I saw two 'arms' with ridiculously long 'fingers' break through my skin, and a membrane began to grow between them.

Strangely, though, my arms and hands were mostly unchanged, other than being covered with shining jet-black scales, and my fingernails being slightly more pointed than before.

'Scales? Wings? A tail? I thought. But this could not be…'

My thoughts were cut short, as the scales began their now slow progress over my face. I felt a tugging on my jaw and face, followed by the most intense pain yet, as parts of my skull broke, reshaped and elongated into a muzzle. Stumped, I watched all this happen on the mirror, while the scales covered my face, which was now a reptilian muzzle. Then, my vision blurred momentarily, as my pupils became slits. Then, my vision became clearer than ever. It was like viewing the world in high-definition. I thought it was over, but it was not. What started as an ache at two points at the back of my head blossomed into pure agony, as two horns, of the same coloration of my claws erupted from my head. As if to add insult to injury, al my hair fell off, leaving me bald.

The pain gone, I looked in the mirror. I liked what I saw, although I could not fathom it. I had turned into an anthropomorphic black dragon, with jet black scales all over my body, except on my belly, where the scales were a darkish shade of grey. How could this be? Dragons did not exist, not in this world anyway.

<Now we do. >

I jumped. Scared, I demanded, 'who are you? What are you? What do you want?' upon saying this, I discovered that my voice had become more resonant, and several octaves deeper, which was quite deep, as my voice was already deep before the transformation.

<Is it not obvious? I am outside waiting for you. You are to be my guardian. And there is no need to shout, just think your reply to me and I shall hear it.> The smug, yet regal voice in my head said.

Unable to think of a reply, I snorted, and opened the toilet door, which was now splattered with my blood, to see a small feral dragon looking at me. I somehow knew that he was the voice in my head.

<But I am only seventeen, how can I even mentor you? Besides, how can I go to school like this? And how can I explain this to my parents? > I demanded of the voice, wanting and intending to get answers.

<Relax, your parents and school know. There are more like us. > Before I could interrupt, he continued. <My family has chosen your family to work with so, your family has been adopted by us. >

'WHAT?'

< You will see when your parents return from wherever they are. >

<I don't want to wait till tomorrow to ask them at the airport. I will just check a news website instead. If there were 'more like us', it would have been uploaded by now. >

< What's a news website? What's an airport, and what is it for? >

<You don't know? Wow what rock have you been living under? >

< Obviously I don't. I can't even recognize half the things here. That's why we chose your family, as you people seem to know the way around the crackpot technology of this world. > The dragon replied, rather indignantly.

All I could muster was a feeble <oh. > As I powered on my computer. I was pleased to find that my fingers retained their dexterity. I immediately logged onto the various news websites, all the while ignoring the various comments and questions from the dragon, only to have the mad notion that the dragon had put forward confirmed. Worldwide, several people had undergone similar changes under similar circumstances. I sat there, stumped, until my ancient chair gave way and broke, sending me unceremoniously onto the ground, causing me to roar in shock and pain. I could hear the feral laughing behind me.  All I could do was give it a glowering look.

<How long will I be stuck like this? > I asked, worried. How would I cram myself into my school uniform tomorrow?

< For the rest of your life. Which is very long, mind you. Dragon lifespans are measured in millennia. Don't worry about you human apparel. You are a dragon now. My name is Talorath, by the way. >

< I suppose you already know that my name is Keane. > I replied, as I headed to the bed. Turns out that turning into a mythological creature is tiring. I set an alarm on my phone, to wake me up half an hour earlier than normal, to clean the toilet. As I did so, I was subject to a torrent of questions from Talorath, both about my iPhone, and about other random things in the room. Knowing that answering the questions would just lead to more questions, I shushed him, promising to answer them the next day, as I lay down to sleep, after wiping myself down with a towel.

As I went to sleep, the one thought in my mind was: Life has just gotten a whole lot weirder…