Gone Batty

Chapter 1: Transformation

Melody Hale frowned deeply as she carefully inspected the little silver-haired bat in her glove protected hands. The eighteen-year-old sighed in dismay as she diagnosed the white splotches on the mammal's muzzle as white nose syndrome. It was the third bat this month. "Poor thing." She murmured softly as she pet the sick bat's head gently with her index finger. The furry thing blinked it's beady black eyes at her, too ill to react properly.

The rest of the bats roosted on the cave-like ceiling in the bat shelter room. She could tell that they were watching carefully, but they did not swoop down to attack her for handling one of their own. Melody reckoned that they knew what was going on - animals usually did. Bats are exceptionally intelligent creatures, they had to be. Melody's hazel eyes lowered back down to the sick bat in her hands. She turned around and closed the door behind her and quickly made her way down the corridor to the vet room.

"Daddy, I found another one." Melody said as she made her way to the man who was hand feeding another bat crickets with tweezers.

Her father looked up at her from behind his round glasses and the skin between his eyebrows wrinkled as he caught sight of the animal in his daughter's hands. "Not another one." He sighed and jerked his head towards an empty oxygen tank. "Put it in there, Melody. I'll take a look at it once this little one finishes eating."

Melody did as she was told and gently placed the little brown bat onto a soft blue towel in the tank before closing shut its lid. "Get well, kiddo." She told the bat, tracing the glass with her fingertips.

"How is your zoology report coming along?" Her father asked without taking his eyes off the small animal that he was currently handling.

Melody shrugged, "Fine I guess. I'm writing about bats and their migration to hibernaculum right now, so it's nothing difficult."

"You should have Elliot proofread it."

"Huh?!" Melody blinked incredulously at her father, barely believing what he was just suggesting. "Dad, no. He's unbearable! Everytime he checks my papers, he makes me rewrite them in such a way that it might as well be written in a different language! He once said that I might as well be penultimate in my class with the way I word my sentences! What does penultimate mean anyway?"

"His vocabulary is just widely expanded, Melody. The more reason why he's the best person to go to check your paper." He either ignored her question or took it as rhetorical. Either way, it just made Melody more sure that the word was an insult.

The brunette groaned in dismay and made her way out of the room. "Thanks a lot dad." She stressed out sarcastically.

"You're welcome, honey." Came the nonchalant response before she slammed the door shut. Honestly, it wasn't the only reason why she was unwilling to go see Elliot. He seemed to take pleasure in making her feel that her intelligence is of the inferior level. It wouldn't make her the least bit surprised that he got that large ego from skipping a few grades while he was back in grade school.

Regretting this decision greatly, Melody pushed the door to the lab open. There were about a dozen scientists working in silence with their microscopes and writing stuff down on their clipboards. The only person who was not working in silence was...surprise, surprise... Elliot Gray. He was messing around with some strange contraption that looked like it wasn't supposed to be invented yet.

Elliot had just graduated from his university and was now working full time at their bat conservatory lab. His black hair was long, reaching his shoulders and was unkempt. His bangs were in a dire need of a trim since they completely covered his eyes. It was a mystery that he could see anything behind them. His lab coat was wrinkled and Melody wondered if he even ate anything that day. Or that week for that matter. He was unreasonably thin.