My skin suddenly felt too small, as though it were shrinking but the rest of my body had stayed the same size. My whole body started stinging. Wow, I didn’t know that snake venom acted this fast. 

Suddenly, or at least it seemed sudden to me, I felt like things were starting to move inside my body, bones and muscles moving into new places. I must be starting to hallucinate. The thought only drove my panic faster. I felt as though I had lost control of my body. Then, as suddenly as it had started, it all stopped, the burning of the bite, the stinging in my skin, and the sensation of bones and muscle moving and grinding against each other beneath my skin. 

Have I died? I wondered, confused. I’d never heard of a snake bite numbing like that. I’d always been told how painful they were and how a victim suffered the pain for years, if they survived that is. Something strange was happening to me and I had no idea what it was. 

I looked up at Brandon. He was standing next to me and I could see the surprise on his round face, not panic, not fear, just surprise. I tried to speak to him, to ask what was going on, but all that came out was a high-pitched whine. What the hell was that? It was a sound I had never heard from my own throat before in my life. It was a sound more like a puppy would make than a human. 

“Well, I’ll be damned!” Brandon ran one hand through his short brown hair. “I’d given up the hope it would ever happen.” His voice seemed very loud, almost as though he were screaming instead of speaking. I whimpered and ducked my head, trying to pull my shoulders up around my ears. 

“Whoops,” Brandon said softly, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Sorry, I forgot how sensitive your ears are when you change the first time.” 

Change, what did he mean change? He bent down on one knee and reached one hand toward my face, I felt his hand under my chin as he lifted my face to look into my eyes. I knew something was different, but I couldn’t tell quite what. 

“Are you okay?” he asked gently, still speaking very softly. “Do you feel better now?” 

I tilted my head to one side as I thought about what he had asked me. It was gone, all of it. The pain from the bite, even the sting of my hands where I’d caught myself when I fell. What’s more, thinking about it made me realize that I felt good, like I could run back to the car and laugh the whole time. I wasn’t even tired anymore; a little hungry, but not tired. I tried to say so to him, but this time it came out as a short bark, which made me jump and look around me. What the hell was that?  

Brandon chuckled, “It’s okay.” He sounded reassuring. “Do you think you can walk back to the car?” 

I started to get up and that’s when it hit me. I was no longer walking on two legs, instead I was on all fours. I twisted around and looked at myself and was so surprised I fell on my butt, my body was no longer my own, and this one didn’t function in quite the same way. I was now in the body of a dog of some kind, a big brown one that was almost red in the sunlight. I turned and looked at Brandon again and whined, scared because I didn’t know what was going on. I couldn’t think about what was happening though, I had to just go. When it was over and I was safe I would have time to question it, to have a breakdown if I needed to. Right now, I needed to get back to the car. 

“You’re all right, trust me. It’s okay. Let’s go back to the car. I’ll explain it to you, but you’re gonna want to be human so you can ask the questions I know you’ll have, plus you don’t have any other clothes here. And trust me on this, you do not want to hike through this stuff naked,” he said, motioning to the thorny mesquite and rough creosote brush that surrounded us. He picked up my backpack by the carry handle at the top and that’s when I noticed the arm straps were broken. He stood and started back down the path we’d been on, headed toward the car. I whined and barked at him, refusing to move. He turned around to look at me. 

“What?” he asked. 

I nosed the shredded remains of my clothes, smelling the acrid scent of the venom on my jeans as my nose brushed the rough cloth. 

“You shredded ‘em, just leave them.”

I refused to give up and sat down, indicating that I was staying with my clothes. After watching me for a couple of minutes, he came back and stuffed the remains of the clothing into my backpack. 

“Happy now?”

Satisfied he wasn’t leaving my things behind, I silently stood up and padded along the trail toward the car.

Once I started moving it only took me a few minutes to get used to the way my new body moved, to get the hang of walking on four legs instead of two. After that first few minutes of fumbling around and tripping over my own feet, the trip seemed much faster than I thought it should be. I admit, I found moving on four feet through the brush and over boulders much easier than hiking on two, but I tried not to think about it. I was going to have to wait for answers, and freaking out in the meantime would do me no good. When we reached the parking lot, Brandon went around to the driver’s side of the car and unlocked the doors. I followed him, not willing to let the only person who knew what was happening to me out of my sight.  

“I’m glad we brought my car instead of yours,” Brandon opened the rear door and motioned me into the back seat. “Hop in, I’ll be right back.” He moved away from the still open door and toward the rear of the vehicle. 

If I’m in the car, he won’t be going anywhere without me. It’s not like he’s going to walk all the way back to town. I reasoned with myself as I hopped up into the backseat, turned a small circle on my feet, and then sat down to wait for his return. It was only a couple of moments later when he appeared in the doorway, slid into the car, and sat down on the bench seat next to me. He was silent for several seconds, his expressive golden-brown eyes focusing on the stack of folded clothes in his lap as if he didn’t know where to start. 

Brandon cleared his throat as he turned to face me. “Okay, here are some clothes. Don’t worry, they’re clean. I need you to listen closely and try to do exactly as I tell you. All right?” He met my gaze. By now, I knew better than to try speaking so I just nodded my head once, maintaining eye contact. “You’re going to need to concentrate, picture your body, not as it is now but your human body. Focus on that image. You need to will yourself back into that body, to want to be like that enough will make your body shift. Do you understand?” I nodded again, unsure I could do what he was asking, but really, what other choice did I have? “I’m going to leave these here for you. I’ll get out and close the door, then I’ll turn my back and wait. You’ll need to knock on the window, or open the door when you’re dressed, then we’ll talk, okay?”

Not seeing any other option, I nodded. He slid off the seat and out the still open door before turning around and setting the stack of clothes on the seat where he had been. He looked at me again briefly before he closed the car door and turned away. Through the window, I saw him lean against the side of the car as though he were patiently waiting for someone to walk out of the desert in front of him. He pulled his PCD from the front pocket of his jeans and it looked like he was making a call, but the enclosed car muffled his voice enough that I couldn’t hear what he was saying. 

I felt a little lost, Can I really be me again just by doing what he said, by thinking about and wanting to be me again? 

I sat for a moment, wondering how this could possibly work. Has Brandon ever lied to you? Would he ever do anything to hurt you? I trusted Brandon and if he said I could do this, then I could, I just had to do as he had instructed. 

Several deep breaths later, I’d relaxed some of the tension from my body. I closed my eyes and concentrated on clearing all the outside thoughts. I pictured my body just as I had seen it this morning in the mirror. I started at the floor and worked my way up. I could see my feet standing on the tan carpet of my bedroom floor, the teal nail polish I had applied to my toe nails earlier in the week. I worked my way up, picturing the round bones on the outsides of my ankles and the muscles in my calves, and there was the small scar just below my left knee from a fall off my bike as a child. I could see my thick, muscular thighs that I’d hated as a teenager, but didn’t mind so much now. I continued up the rounded shape of my rear sloping up to my smaller, but not quite slender waist, and up farther, past the generous curves of my breasts to my face. 

I concentrated on my round face, the large green eyes that dominate it. I pictured in my mind my full lips and auburn hair, curling gently as it had settled around my shoulders while I brushed it out before pulling it up. I thought of how badly I wanted to be back in that body. When the tingling sensation all over my skin started again, it surprised me and I almost lost the mental picture of myself, but I managed to ignore it and continued to wish myself back into my body, to concentrate on how badly I wanted to be me again. The tingling intensified until it was almost stinging, and I felt my muscles begin to stretch and my bones start to shift and grind against each other. 

After what seemed to be several minutes, the uncomfortable sensations started to fade. They slowed to a stop, no more bones shifting, or muscles popping, and even the tingling faded until I felt normal once again. 

I opened my eyes and anxiously looked down at myself, half afraid of what I would see. I was sitting naked but human in the back seat of the car. I scrambled to put on the too large clothes Brandon had left for me; worn, soft sweat pants and a matching top, but no shoes. If he had any, they probably wouldn’t have fit anyway. I leaned across the car and knocked on the window to let him know I was decent. He looked relieved when he turned and popped open the door. 

“Climb up into the front. Let me grab something and then we’ll talk.” He closed the door again before heading for the back of the car. 

As I climbed between the front seats and settled into the passenger’s seat, I heard the trunk open and close again before Brandon came back around and got into the driver’s seat beside me. He handed me a couple of protein bars. “Eat up.” 

I looked at the bars he had put into my hands and scrunched up my face in distaste. 

“Those things are nasty,” I said. He didn’t say anything but took one back and opened the packaging, I could suddenly smell the bar inside and I realized I was starving. Before I knew it, they were both gone. When I realized I had just eaten both bars in under a minute, I was embarrassed at having inhaled the food, and with little memory of what kind of manners I might have shown in doing so. It must have shown on my face because Brandon chuckled.