The Skin Changers [slow updates]

Chapter Four: The Plan

Gracelyn bolted up right in her bed. Her pillow was covered in sweat and her covers were tangled around her. She shoved them off and they landed in a wet heap on the floor. There was a slight pain and her hands flew up to her head, in an attempt to suppress the headache that had formed from sitting up too quickly. She looked around her room trying to remember how she had got there but the only thing she could remember was blacking out at the party -- the rest was fuzzy. She shook her head and tried to clear her mind and rid herself of the dizzy headache she had brought upon herself.

Her hand fumbles around her mattress until she found the object she was looking for; her phone. She turned it on, momentarily blinded from the bright light it emitted. "Six unread messages, damn it." Gracelyn muttered under her breath as she read them. They were all from Lacey wondering what the hell had happened, where she was, and some creepy questions about Triston- the usual. It was to be expected when your best friend was as paranoid as a mental patient and not to mention the whole part where Gracelyn had somehow ended up in her own house and was almost positive Lacey hadn't taken her there. It was normal to freak out in a situation like this she supposed.

Fingers flying across her phone keyboard, she typed a message back. "Hey sorry about last night. I'm not exactly sure what happened.." She hit send before adding. "Do you know who took me home last night??" She didn't have to wait long for a reply since Lacey was almost always on her phone. Her phone buzzed loudly and the message popped up almost immediately after.

"Oh no worries, it's not like I was having a panic attack or anything." The typical sarcasm leaked from her text message. "Anyways Triston took you home. He said you had fallen asleep or something of the sorts." Fallen asleep? Gracelyn may not get invited to parties very often but she knew for a fact that she would never ever fall asleep in the middle of a party. That was absurd. Something wasn't right here.

Then suddenly she remembered. The dark room, the people talking, being the one. It all came back to her in one very vivid flash. The thoughts made her shudder having to go through that moment once again. What had they meant by being 'The One'. The one what? Gracelyn had so many questions and no idea of where to even start to look for answers.

She could ask Triston but then again whoever those people in the room were said he had no idea what they were planning to do, only that he needed to get close to her. There was also the possibility of breaking in his house and seeing if his family had any records. It wouldn't be that hard except she didn't know what room she had even been in, let alone if she had still been in his house. Also she would have to change into a mouse and crawl through the sewage system to get there.

Gracelyn turned up her nose at that thought. It seemed like the only option she had but did it have to be so disgusting? Not to mention the fact that she never used her powers to do anything. In all honesty she was afraid of them, what if something bad happened to her? What if she got stuck and couldn't change back into a human? She would have to get over herself if she wanted answers but it would take practice.

She paced the length of her room at least five times, absent-mindedly chewing on her thumb nail. "Come on Gracelyn, you can do this. Suck it up, its the only way. You want answers don't you?" Her self pep talks were getting her no where. The last time she even changed was when she had accidentally done it one night when she was having a mental breakdown. One minute she was on the floor crying the next she had somehow ended up a bunny.

Mental breakdowns happened quite often for her when she got stressed or started worrying about things. But that didn't matter now. No. She needed to do this. Gracelyn stopped pacing and took a deep breath. Where did she even start? She had never tried to change on purpose, she didn't even know if it was possible to just will herself to do it. It took almost the whole night when she had changed into a bunny to calm down so she could figure out to turn back into herself. Even then she's still not sure how she ended up doing it.

"Just picture the object you want to turn into. Its that simple right?" She ran her fingers through her long hair and closed her eyes. A cat. That would be easy enough right? She had grown up around cats her whole life. The only pet she had was a cat. Gracelyn pictured the small creature in her head and willed herself to change.

One minute went by and then another. She opened her eyes and went to check her mirror in the corner of her room. Nothing. There was nothing. Not even a change of eyes or tail growth. Absolutely nothing. She groaned and slammed her fist onto her carpeted floors. This was going to be a lot harder than she thought. Hours went by and still nothing happened. She was about to give up. She was beyond frustrated, nothing was working. Finally she sat down on the floor and in one desperate attempt she tried again.

A cat. She thought long and hard about it. What on her would need to change? What color cat, type of cat, did she want to be? She thought of the size, pictured herself being the cat. Then she started with the simple parts. She imagined her eyes changing into a slit -- like a cats. She imagined a tail growing where her tail bone would be. Slowly but surely she imagined each feature of her body changing into a cat.

Suddenly she felt smaller, weird, diffrrent. Her eyes jerked open and she stared in the mirror. Instead of seeing her usual wavy hair a small, furry cat stared back at her. With its dark black coat, it was almost terrifying. Almost like she was a ghost watching a cat look into the mirror. The only indication that it was even her was the eyes -- the cat or herself rather still had the same exact ocean blue eyes. At least one thing would stay the same.

"Holy shit." Gracelyn tried to say the words aloud but nothing came out, only small meows. "Well I guess I don't get to keep my voice." She would rather have kept her voice rather than her eye color but she couldn't do anything about it. She needed to focus on the real problem; how the hell she was going to get into Triston's house.

She jumped up onto her bed in her small car form, which felt strangely natural even though it was the complete opposite. Gracelyn found it extremely easy to function as a cat, which was good she supposed. At least that was one less thing she needed to worry about. Now for the plan. Maybe she could think of something other than having to become a disgusting rat and crawl, well walk, through a filthy sewer. That was something she didn't want to do.

Then she remembered, the doggy door. When she had walked into Triston's house last night she had noticed a small doggy door leading from the backyard into the back of the house. Gracelyn was beyond relieved that she didn't have to go through a sewage system and try and find the maps for it and navigate her way into the house that way. Besides cats were quiet, sneaky creatures. As long as she didn't run into any closed doors everything should go along smoothly.

Get in, find the room, find some source of information that the family may or may not have, and get out. All without getting caught. That was easy enough.. Right?