Fleas

<In ten words or less, I morphed,> Jake said. <I'm a flea.>

<Excuse me?> It would have been funny if I hadn't been so terrified. <Are you telling me you morphed into a flea? A flea?>

<Yeah. I'm on your back. Or your head. I can't tell. I don't really have eyes. At least not eyes that see anything I can understand. I mean, all I know is warm or not warm. I ... I think I can sense blood. That's about it. And I can kind of sense motion. Like when your hair stood up, I knew there was something going on around me.>

<Jake, this is sick. This is beyond sick. What is the matter with you? A flea? Are you insane? Just being a lizard made you sick. This is way worse. >

<Actually, it's kind of okay,> he said. <I mean, I don't know how to explain it, but the flea mind is so limited it's not hard at all to control. All it knows is to move toward the sense of warm blood, and eat. It's like ... I don't know, like in a way I'm not even really in the flea because I can't see much or sense much. I expected it to be horrible, but when Cassie and Marco and I tested it out -"

<They're in on this with you?> Of course! That's why Cassie had made such a point of patting my head. She was depositing Jake on me.