Becoming: Part 6-Changes
Alex awoke with a shudder. He was in a cold sweat. He was out of breath, and hyperventilating. He needed to calm himself down. Closing his eyes, he let his mind go blank. He slowed his breath down to a regular rate and felt as his heart slowly stopped pounding.
He opened his eyes. He stared up at the ceiling, waited one more minute to make sure he was ok. Then, he got up. Gravity took hold of him and his knees turned to jelly. Reflexes kicked in as the ground suddenly rushed up at him and his arm caught the side of his bed.
He shook himself to get his blood flowing. Cautiously, he stood up and walked towards the window. He threw back the curtains and light momentarily blinded him. As his eyes adjusted, he saw that the small town was bustling. Alex turned around to get ready for the day. He exchanged his pajamas for some jeans and a t-shirt. Then he paused. He was in a mountain town, in the middle of September; it was going to be cold. He grabbed a sweater and wrestled it over his t-shirt.
As he turned to leave his room, something caught Alex's eyes. He walked over to his unmade bed and examined it. There seemed to be a small tuft of orange fur poking out from underneath the covers. Puzzled, Alex threw back the blankets and found more. It was very spread out, sometimes only one or two hairs at a place, but it was there.
Alex shook his head and started gathering them up. Once he had the majority of them he tossed the small lump in the trash, convincing himself that they were always there and he just hadn't noticed them.
As he walked down the stairs, he smelt the alluring flavor of bacon and pancakes. But when he came down, no one was in the kitchen or the dinning room. Presumably, the children were out playing with their friends, John was probably at work, and Alex saw Mary resting in their back yard.
It was then that Alex noticed the dishes in the sink. Small bits of pancakes that were lathered in syrup stuck to the plastic green plate.
Then Alex started washing the food off of the dishes and placing them in the dishwasher. He had been doing this since his second night in the Browning's house. It was the least he could do to thank them for allowing him to stay in their house.
The day went on like any other. Alex helped Mary around the house, John eventually came back from his work and late in the afternoon, the kids retired from running around in the street with their friends.
That night, after dinner, Alex went up to his bathroom to brush his teeth. He was about to start when he hesitated, put down the brush, and stared into the mirror. He looked into his own eyes and contemplated his life. He was still lost, he still didn't know who his family was, and even though he had the Brownings, he knew that he couldn't stay with them forever.
He felt a twinge of anger for the people who had taken him. It was all their fault. It was their fault that he couldn't remember his life. It was their fault that he didn't have a family. His anger slowly built as he realized how much those people had twisted his life. It was their fault that he was now on his own in the world. It was their fault that he didn't 't know where his hometown was. As his anger consumed him, his eyes faded from a light blue-green into a darker amber color. He then angrily shoved his tooth-brush into his mouth and began cleaning vigorously. He thrust his tooth-brush back and forth, letting his anger flow through him. This carried on for several minutes, not because he cared about his tooth health, but because he needed to release some anger. Once he had finished, Alex washed his tooth-brush under the sink faucet and put it down.
Alex was about to turn around to go to his bed, when his eye caught something. The side of his tooth brush had multiple indents in the plastic. Alex examined it, wondering what it could be. He felt the ridges along the plastic, then felt the inside of his mouth. He froze, pulled his hand out, and looked at it. It had a small cut on the upper side. It didn't look very deep, but it hurt. Alex then opened his mouth and looked into the mirror, and gasped.
His teeth were sharper-looking. It wasn't very noticeable, but it was there. They looked more....canine than human, but only just. Alex didn't know what to do. He was confused, scared, and some small part of him didn't believe that they were real. What could've caused his teeth to become like this? Alex didn't know, and he didn't 't really want to find out.
He turned around, turned off his light, went to bed, and decided that he would pretend that it was a bad dream, that it wasn't real; when he knew that truly, it was.