Metamorphosis

It was dark inside the bag, It was dark, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t hear the voices outside. 

"It is not a pet. It is the food you feed to "real" pets such as birds or lizards." Explained the staff member who had killed many of us, by flicking us through the cage of the evil monster Louisa, who was what humans called, chameleons, or "Real pets".

"I still want him, he would be the perfect pet, and do me much more use than being thrown into the cages of predators." Said a mans voice. 

"Twenty-five dollars." Said the employee. 

I have never seen real money before, they always have there backs facing me when they are paying the cash, but from listening to a lot of humans talk, and drone on and on, about there expensive education, and how much they get paid, even I knew that twenty five dollars was a lot, especially for an insect like me. Usually she only charges twenty five cents for six of us, but she was a monster after all. I could hear the ruffling of paper, against finger tips, and the groan of the cash register, as it was pushed to max capacity once more.

It was easier to stay on my feet in the plastic bag, because the man held it much more carefully than the employee did. I was plucked out, of the bag and dropped into a plastic cup, luckily there was no water in it. I examined my surroundings it looked like I was in a box of some sort, There were lots of doors four that opened sideways and one that opened upwards. It was mostly made of wood and leather. My new owner sat beside me, in front of him was a round circular shape with a hole through it. He extended a hand, at first I thought he was going to try to crush me, but instead, he wrapped his fingers around a stick and pushed it forward, and then it got a whole lot worse.

There was a sound like one of the kittens in the store screaming, or a dog growling when someone touched his bone. I tried to run, but my owner placed me back in the centre of the cup whenever I reached the rim. Then the room, lurched backwards, so fast that I could have thrown up, if of course I had breakfast. I closed my eyes, all six of them hoping that I would be a quick death, either being eaten by the dog in the cars front, or crashing into a wall. But it never came, and soon I felt the cup I was curled in being lifted and a clunk. I opened my eyes.

Two at a time. I was outside the room now, my owner had just shut the door, and now he was walking toward another room, four times as big as the one with the dog in it. From my owners pocket he pulled out another circular shape a lot smaller than the one in the small room. But this one jingled when he shook it. And then I realised that there were lots of sticks on it. And on the sticks there were teeth. Metal teeth, long enough to gobble me up in one bite, he stuck one of the sticks into the mouth of a door, and twisted. The door opened revealing a long set of grey stone stairs. He walked in letting the door slam behind him. Then he opened another door. This one opened to a very big room, he placed my cup down on a table, took out another white circle and placed some leaves on it. Then he took out yet another circle, this one black and he placed it on a book and gently let a stick onto it, then music began to play, like the music in the store where this owner bought me. 

"I’m going out I have to do work, you stay right here, you stay, don’t touch anything you got that? Great."

With that he walked out the door. A few minutes later I was finished eating all the leaves he had kindly set out for me, and I was bored. I glanced at the box which was still playing music, then I crawled up the leg of the table that of which, the box was sitting on and I got onto the circle, it span me around and around, it was kind of fun, but you always have to be careful when you see the stick because then you have to get out of the way or else it would beat you up. After a few hours, I heard the door open, with a t-t-t-t-t-clack. It was my owner, he panicked when he saw that I wasn’t where he had left me I tried to tell him that I was here, but I’m pretty sure he’s deaf or its just that he couldn’t understand me. I knocked over the circle with the stick with teeth on them, it jingled. My owner ran over to me.

"We have to make a leash for you."

He actually made a leash and it didn’t turn out great, so I refused to put it on. He sold it on e-Bay afterwards.

Our relationship became better and better the more we knew and spent time with each other. I learned that he was a student in university and this was his final year. And, that he was taking exams in the summer. He told me about how he needed someone to talk to and that he was lonely. We played games, on whoever could eat a bowl of greens fastest, I always won or whoever could get to the other side of the room fastest, he always won. We had so much fun with each other. Then a week before his exams, I abandoned him, It was time that I went to sleep.

My owner knew that it was going to happen soon too, he just wished it would have happened later, after the exam, that night I made a hard shell for myself, and went to sleep, hoping to wake up as soon as I could. For the next few days I thought I could hear my owner talking to me, saying that he was worried that he would fail, and that he couldn’t study because he couldn’t focus. And that his world felt black and white now. And then I knew he had left to take his exams.

I woke up a few minutes after that, using my legs to try my best to break the shell that I had made myself, it cracked open and I slipped out. I crawled through the crack in between the door and floor, and then I took off. With my newly grown wings. My owner had never told me where his school was, but I knew where I was going, as if our minds were connected, soon he found the classroom of which my owner was in, the math classroom. My owner told me that his teacher always kept a window open, because he believed that fresh air helped people think. 

I found the window and flew in, the class room turned into gasps as I came in, butterflies are creatures of beauty and happiness. Without words I could wish everyone good luck, and brighten the mood, make everyone confident. Especially my owner, in the first time in the week, he smiled.