Transformation Breeze

The wind whispered against Sam’s skin, carrying with it the first bite of something unnatural. A chill slithered through his veins. It was deeper than the cold winter’s air should have allowed. He shivered and rubbed his arms. The sensation didn’t go away, instead it burrowed beneath his flesh, like roots taking a hold into fertile soil. 

His breath hitched, his fingers tingled and then burned. He glanced down at his hands. His nails were getting darker and growing in length. They curled slightly like claws. Panic surged through his body but before he could move his spine arched and a strange pressure started building between his shoulder blades. 

A soft iridescent sheen spread across his arms that shifted the moon light like some sort of liquid metal. His heart pounded in his ears, but it wasn't fear gripping him. It was instinct, something more prial and unfamiliar clawing its way to the surface. The wind howled as if it were summoning him into the unknown. And then the change began. 

Sam stumbled forward as his muscles tightened and stretched, reshaping underneath his skin. His bones cracked but he didn’t feel pain. Something eerily smooth was happening to his bones, like they were merely remembering a shape which they had once taken a very long time ago, a shape that had been forgotten. The iridescence spread ripping over his arms, down his chest and legs. His entire body shimmered with a color that defined an explanation. It was not exactly silver and not quite blue but something in between which shifted with every flicker of the moon. 

His clawed hands flexed. His fingers elongated and a web formed slightly between them. The webbing shined and pulsed retracting at will.  His shoulders arched as if something is pushing against them from the inside like an unbearable pressure from under his skin. Then a sudden rip and two appendages burst through, wings. 

The wings were not feathered or leathery which has been seen on other creatures, they were something new made entirely of glowing energy weaving and an out like lightning. 

Sam staggered but his feet were much longer than before. His toes tipped with curved small talons which gripped the ground differently. His balance was shifting. His senses were sharpening. The night was no longer too dark to see anything. Now he could see everything from tiny vibrations in the air to the grass on the ground beneath his feet. He felt like he was oddly connected to the earth itself. 

He opened his mouth to speak, to cry out to anyone in the distance who would hear him, but his voice came out as a layered sound. One part of his voice was human and one part was something else. It sounded like an alien sound he had never heard before in his life. His tongue flickered against his teeth. He realized that his teeth had sharpened. They were not fangs but something more intricate, something meant for something beyond simple speech. 

The wind roared around him now. It came with a deep instinctual understanding. This was no curse. It was no accident. He had not become something new. He was returning to what he was always meant to be. 

Sam’s breath came sharp with some staggered gasps as the final changes took place. His skin, once smooth and human, now glowed faintly with an unworldly sheen. It looked like liquid stardust shifting just beneath the surface. The sensation was overwhelming and every nerve in his body tingled. Every cell in his body came alive with a strange tingle and humming which created a strange energy that vibrated throughout his bones. 

His spine stretched further. His posture adjusted to accommodate his new forming body. He was taller now and leaner, more powerful. His arms and legs were built for something beyond human movement. The wings on his back flexed and cracked with energy. Their strands of glowing filaments responded to the wind and his thoughts and emotions. His wings weren’t just for flight, they were alive. His wings were an extension of himself. They pulsed with an awareness that he didn’t understand yet. 

The cold breeze that triggered his changes still whirled around him. Now it felt like a part of him which answered his silent call. He lifted his hands and watched as the wind coiled between his fingers like a living thing bending to his will. He knew that he could command it and shape it. He did not know how he knew this but he felt that the knowledge had always been inside of him, buried deep inside all along. It was the illusion of humanity.

Then the final shift began. His heart pounded. His veins were pulsing with something thicker and richer than human blood. A deep sound rumbled in his chest. A low hum vibrated in the air around him. His throat tightened and his vocal cords started reforming. His voice was not human and not animal. It was something entirely new. When he exhaled his breath lingered in the cold air. It formed glowing and swirling patterns that hung in the air for a minute or two before dissolving like a thick mist. And then a thick whisper. It was not from outside of him but from within. It screamed “Awaken”. 

Sam’s eyes were once a deep shade of brown and had now flared with an inner light and shifted into something multi-hued and endless colors. They looked like two twin galaxies swirling inside his skull. He clenched his hands as tight as he could. He felt the full strength of his new body settling within him. His strength astounded him. His old body was slowly losing the last traces of humanity. His old self was now fading into memory. He was not entirely something new. He knew that. He felt that. He was something ancient. He was something that he knew nobody would ever understand. He wasn’t sure if he understood it. He was something ancient and now he was awake.