Sentinel Green 1.3

Begonia 1.3

The second Puchuu is gone I round on the moth as it flutters in place, beating its large brown wings to keep aloft. “Are you going to do a better job explaining what’s happening here?” I demand.

“Of course,” it says, but I narrow my eyes at it in suspicion. I love moths--they’re a sort of a totem animal for my father’s side of the family, and it seems a little too convenient that this creature just so happens to be one.

As if to confirm my suspicions, the damned thing reads my mind. “I thought you might like this form, but if it makes you uncomfortable I can appear as something else.”

“No,” I snap. “I don’t care what you ‘appear as.’ Just explain to me what the hell is going on.”

The moth sighs, which is a weird sound coming from a huge insect. “I’m afraid I can’t undo what Puchuu did to you, but now that you’re under my watch, you don’t have to deal with him anymore.” That, at least, was a plus. “I am your new patron, and I’ll take care of you.” That might have been comforting in another life, but for now it does nothing to put me at ease. “Your new form is permanent… I’ve seen many males turn into females, but it’s less common for it to happen the other way around.”

I don’t really care about that. All that’s echoing through my head is one word--permanent. “I… no, this can’t be permanent. I have a family, a home. I have a job for Christ’s sake, I’ve got a life. How am I supposed to go back to it?”

The moth is quiet for a moment before it speaks again. “I… wouldn’t recommend going back to your old life. I’ve seen other girls try it before. It never quite goes the way they intended…”

“Well, that’s out of the question. I’m not leaving my family and friends behind,” I say, my stubborn streak flaring up and infinitely exacerbated by this terrifying new situation. I stare over at the last bronze coin floating there and feel a pang of confusion. Where had the other ones gone?

Again, the moth is reading my mind. “Your coins were used to strengthen you. Your gold one summoned me, and I’ll go over what else it did with you a little later. One of your silver ones is gone because you preferred to turn into a man rather than a little girl…”

“Say what?” I demand. “I never once thought to myself during this whole experience, ‘gee, you know what would make this all a whole lot more palatable? Having a dick and balls.’” Still, I can’t argue with the fact that turning into a smaller person had freaked me out and caused that weird jolt of power--that must have been the feeling of a coin being spent.

The moth giggles a little, something I hadn’t expected. It likes crass humor? Maybe it just thinks I’m amusing the way humans will occasionally watch ants trying to circumvent barriers in their paths. “You must have wanted this body on some level, or you wouldn’t have had it. Anyway, it’s done.” I’m starting to really hate the word “done.” “One coin went to strengthening you in a more general way, which I can tell you will be useful, given this job you have. The other two bronze coins are interesting… I doubt you triggered these abilities consciously, but I’ll love seeing where they take you.”

That’s about the vaguest thing I could imagine, but as I open my mouth to demand elaboration what I say instead is, “And the last bronze coin?”

“That’s up to you,” the moth says, serenely. “What is it you want?”

“To have my old life back,” I blurt out at once, even though I already know what the answer is going to be.

“I’m sorry,” the moth says, and it seems genuine. “Something else. What is it about your old life that appeals to you so much?”

What a stupid question. “I have people I care about, who care about me. I… I can lose everything else, my home, my job, my livelihood, but… I can’t lose them.”

“So you don’t want to be alone,” the moth says, softly.

“Who does?” I ask, and just like that, the last coin vanishes. A little surge of panic takes me as I snap my head to the place where it used to be. “What happened? What do I get for it?”

“You’ll see in good time,” the moth says. “Now for an explanation of the other half of that gold coin. You wanted to get away from Puchuu, but you also wanted to get away from this,” the moth says, fluttering its way around the gory scene. “I don’t fully control where these coins go to, but you do have a place to go to if you need it, now.”

“A place?” I ask.

“A place,” the moth confirms. “Close your eyes. Find that key in your heart.” I almost snort. The moth seems to realize I’m not taking this seriously and I can almost feel its disapproval, like that of a school marm. “Concentrate,” it says, more sternly. “Go to the place where you feel safe.”

Home, I think, longing for the too-cramped little one-story where I live with Victor and Mina and all her family and their gaggle of pets. How many times had I complained about being cramped there, about not being able to move for running into someone, about the hot water tap always going out, or Mina’s grandma forgetting to put her hearing aids in? What I wouldn’t give for all those familiar things now. But then I wink out and wink in, and when I snap my eyes open it’s not Roberts Road I’ve transported myself to.

It’s a little studio apartment, cramped and simply furnished, but more than enough for one person to crash in comfortably. I spy a kitchenette with fridge and microwave, some cabinets and a sink, a one-person bed with a tiny nightstand beside it, and a door that I at first assumes leads to the outside. And for all my apparent subconscious belly-aching about wanting a place to retreat to, I beeline for that door to see where the hell I am. However, when I yank it open it isn’t the outside world I see, but a small shower stall and a toilet. I turn around to see where the real door is… but there is no other one. How the hell did I get here? Chalk that up for one more thing I can’t explain.

There is a window, though, and as I walk over to it to peer outside I feel the ground lurch beneath my feet. No. Way.

The view from the window is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Instead of my hometown, with its uniform, yellow city lights and sloping mountains, I am treated to a city that glistens like dropped gemstones in the night. There are colors, breathing and undulating, glistening on the horizon, but it isn’t the neon lights of a place like Vegas. It has an organic feel to it, like the light sources are… alive, somehow.

The light they cast down illuminates various colored city blocks, and I wonder vaguely how they’re organized. The streets directly below me look like blown glass and cobblestone rolled into one, and the streetlights with those weird light sources drifting in the lanterns look like copper. The whole place has a mish-mash feel, like many architects tried to collaborate and eventually said “fuck it.” There are organic, smooth shapes, dilapidated structures, uniform and rigid square buildings… but all of them are united by the colors.

All I can really take in from here are brief snapshots--a lumbering, burgundy creature with hard scales and too many legs, each one propelling it slowly forward as it lopes down the street--a group of girls dressed like Sailor Senshi stride along another road together, each carrying a weapon that seems laughably large for them with seemingly no trouble. There are people who appear to be normal, but now I know they aren’t--they can’t be, if they inhabit this alien place.

The coin didn’t take me home, but it took me somewhere where I can be alone and decompress for a while, and I throw my new body down on the bed, hating the way it lands heavier and harder than my old frame would have. After I rest here for a while… I’ll leave this place, I assume, the way I came, and I’ll go home.

Home--home to Victor, one of the most skeptical and practical people I know. It’s funny, because I’d asked him a question not unlike this before--if I came up to you and said I got turned into a vampire, or a werewolf or something, would you believe me? His answer was an immediate and firm, ‘Never, not in a million years.’

It had been funny at the time. I think I maybe laughed.

I might as well stay in this alternate dimension where reality is out the window, because I somehow doubt I’ll ever laugh again.