Shifters

Chapter Three

"Mmmphhh...."

I groaned, rolling over to slap my alarm clock. Misjudging my aim, my arm missed. I kept flailing my hand around, looking for the cursed thing. My hand found it, and instead of turning it off I accidentally knocked the damn clock off the nightstand.

"Uugghh," I moaned. I finally opened my eyes to bend down and pick the clock up and silence it. Sadly, this was a mistake. The moment I bent down, the skin on my back screamed in protest and I was sharply reminded of what happened last night.

"Shit," I grumbled. "Now I'm going to have to go to school like this." I slowly sat up to look at myself in the mirror across from my bed. A pale girl with tangled blonde hair stared back at me. My blue left eye was wide in pain and my right green eye was slightly bloodshot. I looked like shit.

Slowly, I edged my feet to the edge of the bed and stood up, gently stretching my back. I winced as another sharp pain shot through my head when I moved my shoulder blades.

I looked down at myself and remembered that I didn't have a shirt on. Thank god - it would have hurt like hell to take it off. In my zombie-like state, I shambled into my bathroom to take my bra and pants off. I turned around to see that the gauze spanning my entire back was covered with little drops of blood from the slashes underneath.

If I was going to take a shower, I would have to take the gauze off, shower, then re-wrap it. I gently peeled off the surgical tape that kept the gauze together and started to unwrap the layers.

There was a slight sting when I pulled off the parts of gauze that were stuck to my skin with blood. There was dried blood all over my back that I wanted desperately to wash off.

Throwing my clothes in the laundry basket, I turned on the faucet and waited for the water to heat up. I stepped into the shower slowly and hissed as the needles of hot water hit my back. The stinging ache from the water slowly subsided.

I picked up my shampoo and stated washing my hair. Twenty minutes later, I stepped out into the steam-filled bathroom and wrapped a fluffy blue towel around my body.

I wrung the water from my hair as I walked into the bedroom. From my drawers, I picked out a pair of dark blue skinny jeans and a purple shirt.

Now for the hard part. Back in the bathroom, I dried my body completely and took the gauze back out. I was about to start wrapping my wounds again, when a horrible thought struck me like lightning.

Would these slashes make it painful to Shift?

My eyes went wide as I imagined not being able to spread my wings.

"No, no nononono," I whispered. I dropped the gauze on the counter and stepped back. I had to find out.

It was easier when I closed my eyes. Letting my head droop slightly, I concentrated on Shifting. Not seconds later, a tingling feeling started in my stomach and spread through my arms, from my shoulders to my fingertips.

I opened my eyes and stared at myself in the mirror. Ever so slowly, a pair of feathered wings started to spread their way out of my back, like an eagle extending their wings. My wings were a beautiful copper bronze color that shimmered whenever the sunlight hit them.

They kept extending, the tips of the wings reaching way past my outstretched fingertips to a wingspan of at least nine or ten feet.

"Yes," I whispered. However, my joy was short lived. As soon as my wings were fully extended, a horrible ache jolted through my back and I almost doubled over from it. It was like the slashes on my back were being stretched open even further.