The Pearl, part 1

The entire thing started with the pearl.  It was set in a ring that I had bought at a second hand store.  It was a simple ring, just a band and setting for the pearl.  The pearl itself was a bit large, which led me to believe it was a fake.  That, and the price.  But is was really nice looking, so I spent the ten bucks.  I don't normally wear a lot of jewelry, especially rings.  Just never struck me as a "guy thing", y'know? But I liked it, so I wore it.  And that's what led to the situation I'm currently in.  
     I was a student at that time, attending the local college.  Living on a student budget, the area I was living in was less than great.  Just above slum, actually.  But the rent was cheap and it was on the bus line.  Unfortunately, when the buses didn't run you had to walk and the quickest way I had found was walking along the railroad tracks.  I know that's the worst place to be walking, especially when it's late.  But it was the quickest way and I figured that getting home fast was best.
    It was after the bars closed one night, and I was walking back home.  I hadn't had too much to drink, so I figured a little walk would do me good.  There is a river along the tracks, and I found the sound of the river to be soothing.  I liked it.  It had been a fun night out, I though a walk was just the thing to round it out.  My mistake.
     I'm not certain how long they followed me, but probably just long enough to block any retreat.  The first I was aware of their presence, it was the brick shit house blocking my path.  What little buzz I had left me as I sized him up.  He was about a half foot bigger that my own 5 foot 8.  As a stepped back I heard the others behind me.  I was about this time that I realized just how stupid I'd been and began to suspect just how much I would regret it.
     "Hey, was' up?" It was lame, but it was all I could think of to say.
     The brick shit house merely smiled a very unpleasant smile at me.  Then he pulled out a lead pipe.  There was some snickering from the back that did nothing to improve my feeling about the situation.
     "You know the drill," the guy in front of me said as he slapped the pipe in the palm of his hand.  "Wallet, jewelery, and valuables.  Now."
     I had automatically began to reach behind me for my wallet when I felt the pipe slam against my midriff.  I went to my knees.
     "You," he said, motioning to some one behind me.  "See what he was going for."
     I felt hands feeling round my front and back pockets.  They found my wallet and took it.  
     "Just his wallet."
     There are times you should just shut up and let things happen.  Unfortunately, I never think about it until too late.  "Yeah, shit-for-brains, remember the wallet you asked for?"
     At least I didn't get the lead pipe across my face, but his fist felt almost has hard.  I raised my hand to wipe the blood coming form my split lip.  The had with the ring on it.  
     He looked at the ring appraisingly and barked, "That too."
     I wasn't giving him the ring.  Why I should risk my life over a ten dollar piece of junk jewelery never occurred to me.  I simply decided my wallet was enough, and they weren't getting this.  As I paused to determine what to do next, I got a warning jab from the pipe.  Not enough to hurt, just enough to let me know he was serious.  
     "Ring. Now."
     His vocabulary was really beginning to impress me.  However, he had a way of making his point perfectly clear.
     "Right, ring, now," I said reaching for my right hand with my left.  I tugged, but the ring wouldn't budge.  Terrific.  While I didn't want to give it to him, I had visions of the guy cutting off my finger to get at the ring.  "It's stuck," I explained.  
     "Get that ring off your finger or I'll do it for you," his tone implied that he didn't believe me, but at lease he used more complex vocabulary.  It also made me try harder.  It wasn't coming.  Finally, I put my finger my mouth, hoping saliva would maybe loosen the ring.  It seemed to be working.  Gripping the ring with my teeth, I pulled my finger out of my mouth.  Then completely without thinking, I used my tongue to flip the ring to the back of my mouth and swallowed hard out of reflex.  For a split second I thought what the hell am I doing and then the pain hit, not externally but internally.  It felt like I was on fire.  The ring burned all the way down and continued to burn when it hit my stomach.  Then I felt the lead pipe hit me again.
     I fell forward in a heap.  My foremost thought was to get some water.  I tried to crawl to the river, but I was grabbed from behind.  Brick shit house was saying something, but I had no clue what.  I felt myself pulled to my feet and held up.  Three more times the lead pipe hit me in the stomach and I felt like I was going to retch, but I didn't.  By that time the burning was so bad I had stopped feeling anything else.  The burning had spread to my entire body, and along with it I began to feel a pins and needles type of tingling throughout.  I was aware the tone of the muggers began to change but I couldn't focus on them.  They suddenly let go and I fell back to the ground.  
     Immediately, I began to crawl towards the river, still desperately wanting something to drink.  Moving proved very difficult.  The burning tingling began to pull at my body, especially neck and trunk.  As I crawled it felt like the dimensions of my body were changing, that there was continually more of it.  I tried to get my arms underneath me and push up.  While I was briefly successful, my arms trembled then collapsed under what felt like increasing weight.  As I lay there a moment, panting with the pain, I started itching.  It was light at first, east to ignore with how much pain I was in.  But as it spread across my body, it got harder to ignore.  I tried to reach around to scratch, but I couldn't get my body to move right.
     I continued to make my way to the river, determined to at least try to cool the fire that raged within me, the itching eased up as the skin felt like it was hardening.  After an indeterminate amount of time, I reached the edge of the river.  My face fell into the water and I began to drink.  It wasn't the cleanest water in the world, but I didn't care.  It was wet and cold and felt wonderful.  Finally, the pain began to subside and I could thing again.  The first thing I realized, or more correctly remembered, was that at this point of the river there was about a five foot drop from the edge of the ground to the river.  My head was in the water, but my body was still up on the bank.  I jerked my head up and got what the shock of my life.
     My  head shot way into the air, still without moving my body.  First thing I realized was that I had a snout, covered with scales.  I cocked my head, trying to get a better look at it, but couldn't quite focus on it.  Looking down, I completely forgot the snout.
     My neck was now about six feet long and serpentine.  Twisting my head around I could see iridescent blue scales down the back of my neck, along with a silvery mane.  Down the front of my neck, the scales were long and covered the width of the underside.  Moving my neck I found it to be supple and sinuous.
     Turning my neck around, I looked at the rest of my body.  It sprawled out behind me an additional 12 feet or so.  I couldn't tell for sure.  My back was covered with scales, the same as my neck, and the mane also continued down my back.  The snake-like qualities didn't apply to just my neck.  My body was huge, but it was about the same circumference around for most of the length.  The only un-snake like things I could see were that I still had arms and legs, sort of.  But I had no idea how any thing might work.
     OK, get a grip, I thought.  A grip on what I didn't know.  Thing had just radically changed, and I had no clue how or why.  One thing at a time, I advised myself.  First I pulled my arms underneath me and pushed up.  About a quarter of my body length rose.  Good, now the back.  I did the same thing with my legs and the back length of my body and part of the tail left the ground.  Part of the middle still dragged a little on the ground and so did the tail.  Hell with it, let it drag.  I thought.
     OK, now what? I thought for a moment, then pushed up with my arms and arched my back so that I was sitting up.  My tail automatically looped around in front to compensate for the shift in balance.  I eyed it dubiously, but left it were it lay.  I examined my arms, they were scaled the same as the top of my body all the way around.  They were much thicker, I could see the muscles ripple underneath the scales.  I still had recognizable hands, with opposable thumbs, but now they ended in enormous claws, and instead of five fingers, there were now four.  The elbow was still in the same place and moved the same.  However, there were thick tufts of silver/white fur, similar to the mane, sprouting from the joint.  Located directly behind the shoulders where branch like growths, almost like antlers, but not quite.  They laid against the body and would be useless for self defense.  There was too much space between the tines to afford much protection for the sides.  Something for later, I decided.  
     Looking underneath me it was much the same as the underside of the neck, the long pearly scales covering my chest and stomach.  Running my hands over them, they felt smooth to the touch, as opposed to the rougher scales on my back and sides.  My body was also sinuous and flexible, I could turn completely around from my midsection easily.  I could also flex it up or down.  I began to realized how not to drag my midsection.  
     My tail was coiled around my legs, blocking them from view.  As I slowly uncoiled it, I realized part of my body was easing forward to compensate for the moving tail.  I froze, uncertain, and everything stopped moving.  When I continued to uncoil the tail, I felt the muscles around the abdomen area move in response.  Apparently, when one part of the body moved, another part automatically moved in sequence to keep balance.  There was handy, even if it is unnerving.  When I completely unwound my tail, it was about the same length as my head and body.  And like the neck and body, it was supple, and completely able to be controlled.  As far as I could tell, it was prehensile.  
     I dropped forward landing easily on by arms and examined my legs.  There were almost exactly like my arms except they were slightly thicker and bigger.  They also had the curious antler growths.  The legs were attached on either side of the body.  I couldn't quite tell were the body ended and the tail began.  I was as thick as the body and appeared to be an extension of it.  It didn't start to tapper until near the end, were a thick, long tuft of hair ran down the last quarter of it.  My arms and legs divided my body neatly into thirds, so that my neck, body, and tail were equal lengths.  
     Sighing, I clumsily coiled up my body and laid down.  I tried without much success to put things in some rational order.  Problem was, nothing rational was going on here.  Somehow, after getting mugged, I turned into a giant snake with legs.  I spent some time trying to convince myself that this was really just a bad dream.  That I was passed out somewhere and this was not happening.  It didn't wash.  It was all just too damn real.  
     All right, not a dream.  Then what? I reviewed what had happened in my mind again, looking for what lead to this.  I couldn't think of anything out of the ordinary in the bar.  The mugging, though not an everyday experience, was still fairly commonplace.  Guys jump out, beat you up, steal your stuff.  My mugging followed the same procedure.  Guys jumped out, hit me, took my wallet, wanted my ring....
     The ring!  The pain started when I swallowed the ring, and that's when things went seriously weird.  Well, I had a starting point.  But how could a junk store ring effect this kind of change?  I thought back to what I could remember about the ring.  There was the band and setting, both of which were fairly plain and basic.  There there was the pearl, which was fake.  
     As I began to thing about the pearl, I became aware of it's presence, a gentle warmth in my stomach.  It had been there all along, but I had just noticed.  When I concentrated on it, I felt it respond.  Apparently, the pearl was....whatever the hell it was.  Logically, if the pearl did this, then removing it should undo it.  I focused on willing the pearl out of me and I felt it move in response.  Then I felt it's warm pressure in my hand.  I looked at my hand and still found a claw.  I gazed at the pearl.  It was much larger now than it had been in the ring.  It also glowed with a light all it's own.  I placed it carefully on the ground.  I was still a snake.  I got up and moved away, nothing changed.  I waited to see if anything would change.  Still nothing.  Finally, the night faded back to gray in the predawn and I was still a snake.  I moved back over to the pearl and picked it up.  Sighing, I closed my claws around it and felt it re-enter my body.  It was mine now, a complete part of me.  
     I tried to figure out my next move.  I hadn't thought about magic much before in my life, no really.  I didn't read a lot of fairy tales as a kid, and I didn't get into fantasy as an adult.  Now I was so far into the Twilight Zone I was waiting for Rod Serling to step out.  He didn't.  And on top of everything else, I was hungry.  
    Well, I couldn't stay where I was.  Eventually, somebody would probably come this way, and while I wasn't sure what would happen I didn't want to gamble and find out.  I walked over towards the river.  When I wasn't thinking about moving, I moved fluidly.  I was over the embankment and in the river in no time.  The river wasn't very deep at this point, maybe four feet, but I sank in as best I could.  Hunger was beginning to gnaw fiercely at me.  I knew I had to find something to eat.  Unfortunately, my foraging skills consisted of either going down to the nearest fast food place or microwavable meals.  Neither one seemed much of an option.  
     As I half swam/half waded around in the water, I noticed movement in some bushes on the bank.  No sooner had I decided to check it out than I was over at the bank and pinning something with my claw.  As I pulled it out from the cover I saw it was a cat, a big fluffy calico.  At first it was hissing and trying to bite me, but when it saw me it's eyes glazed  and it just stared.  I looked the cat over, not really wanting to eat it.  However, I didn't see much choice.
     "Sorry, kitty, but I've got to eat."  As I lifted the cat towards my mouth, I noticed a tag on a collar that had been covered by it's fur.  I eased one of my claws under the tag and angled it so I could read.  Hi my name is patches.  If lost please return to 452 Mayfield Ave.  I had visions of some child looking for their pet cat and not finding it.  Now, for all I knew, nobody would care or miss the cat.  But the cat seemed well feed and cared for, and I couldn't shake the image.  So I set the cat back on the bank.  
     "Well, Patches, looks like you lucked out.  God, I'm a wuss."
     I sank back down the embankment into the river.  My first challenge as a might hunter failed miserably.  I pressed forward for a deeper section of the river as the dawn started to break.  I reached a deeper section were I could completely submerge by the time the sun started to rise.  With just the tip of my snout above the water so I could breathe, I watched the sunrise.  While I was enraptured with the break of day, I felt something brush against me.  Again almost without thinking, my head darted towards the feeling and I grabbed something in my mouth.  I lifted my head from the water and found I had caught a fish.  I looked at it for a moment, then bit into it, chewed and swallowed.  It went down well, and I was surprised how good a raw fish tasted.  I rather quickly downed the rest of it.  
     The fish was good, but it wasn't enough.  I was still hungry.  So I took a deep breath and set out to find more.  The main problem was, when I tried to catch them, I missed.  Obviously, I had a lot more to learn about my new body.  Since I caught the first without thinking, I went on autopilot.  However, I had scared most of the fish off in my previous frenzied attempts.  I was till on autopilot when I realized I was eating rocks.  
     I stopped myself mid chew.  I could feel several large pieces of rock in my mouth, and was fairly sure I had already swallowed several others.  I slowly swallowed what was in my mouth.  They didn't taste as good as the fish, but they went down as easily and felt strangely satisfying.  Right, I ate fish and rocks.      
     On the one hand, I was finally beginning to freak.  On the other though, this all made perfect sense.  And the other hand was dominant.  I was no longer hungry, so I decided that now was the time to try to integrate rationality with instinct.  Or at very least, introduce the two.  I settled back into the water with my snout propped up out of the water.  Then I closed my eyes to see what I could learn.  
     I couldn't say exactly how long I was asleep.  It seemed to be late afternoon.  First thing I realized was that my head had slipped off the rock and fallen completely in the water.  
     In a panic I broke the surface, and found my self snout to face with a canoer.  He back stroked furiously and started to scream.  Suddenly, I knew what to do.  I locked eyes with him and gazed calmly at him.  Like the cat, he went glassy eyed.  Then I swam out of his way and settled myself.  After a moment, he came back to himself and looked around.  He looked directly at me, then through me.  He seemed a bit confused, then shrugged it off and went on his way.
     While I was asleep, I made some realizations.  There were certain things I could do instinctively.  The hypnotism and disappearing act included.  I also found that my diet gave omnivore all new meaning.  I could eat just about anything organic, as well as stone and earth.  There were other things, just outside my mental reach, that weren't instinctual.  But I couldn't access them.  It was frustrating, but there was little I could do.  And I was hungry again.  
     This was basically how I spent my days.  I would hunt for fish or forage, and when I wasn't doing that I was resting or trying to access the other information.  I also found, after several accidental dunkings, that I could breathe above and below water.  It was after about a week of this that I met Dakota.  
     It was well into the night when I became aware of the attack.  I heard the sounds of a struggle on the back, roughly around were I had been attacked.  I eased up to the bank to see what was going on.  A man was in the process of pinning a woman to the ground, straddling her.  She was struggling against him, but he out weighed her.  When he produced a knife, she stopped struggling.  Her shouts softened to whimpers as he prepared to cut her clothes off.  A low growl started in my throat before I realized it.
     "Leave her alone!" I howled as I lunged up the bank.  My voice rang out like thunder, and quite frankly even scared me a little.
     As the attacker rolled off the woman, recognition dawned in his eyes.  I remembered him also.  Brick shit house from a week previous.  What did this guy do, attack someone once a week at the river?  Along with the recognition, I saw anger.  Like this guy had some right to be anger with me.  He pulled the woman over on top of him and put the knife to her throat.  
     "All right, you bastard, I don't know what you are, or what  happened, but I will kill this bitch."
     I really didn't like this guy.  The young woman looked at me as though she wasn't sure which was worse, me or her attacker.  I couldn't exactly blame her.  A rapist she knows, me she has no idea about.
     I eased my head about, looked straight at her and said, "Don't worry.  I won't anything happen to you."  Almost instantly my  head shot forward and I had his knife hand, as well as his whole arm, in my mouth.  One sharp pull and it was detached from his body at the shoulder amidst a spray of blood.  With a fluid movement I tossed the limb, knife and all, to back of my throat and swallowed.  I hadn't actually planned on the last part, but momentum carried me.  That was one of the big problems trying to integrate instinct with reason.  One tended to do things the other wouldn't, like eat somebody's arm.  I was going to have to watch that.  
     Brick shit house's reaction was different from what I has hoped.  Instead of crumpling into a heap of fear and shock, like I would have, he produced another knife and ran at me flailing it.  Great.  I didn't exactly what to kill this guy, just get him off the woman.  In that respect my plan worked flawlessly.  He had completely forgot about her.  She, however, looked like she was going to crumple in a heap of fear and shock.  This rescue was going just wonderfully.  
     I didn't try to stop him as he reached me and thrust his knife at my under scales with all his might.  The knife broke at the hilt and clattered to the ground.  Brick shit house looked at the broken hilt, then at my unscathed scales.  I grabbed him and hauled him off the ground.  He tried to bite my hand.
     "This is ridiculous," I huffed.  "Look, what do you think you're going to accomplish?"
     "Son of a bitch! Put me down and I'll show you!"
     I obliged.  He dropped about ten feet to the ground and landed on his but.  I lowered my face into his.  
     "Go away," I ordered him calmly.  "You can't hurt me and I really don't want to kill you.  So leave before we both regret it."  I don't know what I was thinking as I began the descent back to the river, but the young woman's scream was enough to tell me brick shit house wasn't done yet.  If he couldn't hurt me he'd hurt who I was trying to protect.  Stupid!  How could I be so stupid?  And how the hell long does it take for blood loss and shock to set in?  
     I flew back to the spot.  Brick shit house was on top of the woman again, and I couldn't tell what he was doing.  Enraged, I grabbed him and wrenched him off of her.  I slammed him down on the ground and glared.
     "What in the hell do you think is going on here?" I asked harshly.  "What do I  have to do to convince you to leave?"   
     He didn't respond and I realized from the blank expression on his face that he wasn't going to.  My claws were stuck deep into his body, and I was leaning a lot of my weight on his chest.  Blood flowed from his mouth.  My heart sank as I came to fully understand what I'd done.  Slowly, I retracted my claws.  I turned to the young woman, who was staring at me wild-eyed.  
     "I'm sorry," I said faintly.  "I'm just so very sorry."
     "For what?" she asked, somewhat dazed.
     I stared at her a moment before replying.  "I never meant to kill him."
     She looked away for a moment.  When she looked back, her eyes weren't as wild. "You saved me," she said simply.  "He wasn't going to go away.  If that's what he pushed it to, who am I to judge?"  There was a silence between us for a short time before she spoke again.
     "Thank you."
     I chocked a bit on my response.  "You're welcome."  I finally said.
     Slowly, I turned the body over.  "Will you check if he has a wallet?" I asked.
    Gingerly, she came over and pulled a wad of money out from his back pocket, but no identification.  Whistling, she examined the money.
     "He's been a busy boy.  What should we do with it?"
     I was surprised she asked me.  It didn't take much thought to come up with a response.  "You should have it."
     "Me?"
     "Sure, why not?  I can't use it.  We have no idea where it all came from and he's well past needing it."
     "Won't I get in trouble for this?"
     I wasn't certain what she meant and said so.
     "Well, I'm robbing the dead.  Isn't that like seriously bad karma?"
     I shook my head.  "No.  This is my karma, not  yours.  Besides, it seems to me you deserve to get something for this."
     She still seemed somewhat apprehensive, but she pocketed the money.  "What happens when somebody finds the body?"
     I regarded the corpse grimly.  "No one's going to find the body," I assured her.
     As I drug the body down the embankment, the woman seemed to be struggling with something.  I was getting ready to leave when she suddenly spoke.
     "Is there anything I can do for you?"
     I glanced back at her.  "Do for me?"
     "Yeah.  Is there anything I can do or get for you?"
     Thinking about my diet for the past week, I wryly answered: "Two, no make that three, of everything from Toxic Taco."
     She fidgeted nervously.  "OK.  Well, I guess I'd better get going."
     I nodded and she left.  I knew I'd never see her again.
     I returned my attention back to the body.  Now what the hell was I going to do with a dead body?  The thought of eating it was fairly revolting to me, the arm notwithstanding.  I couldn't just leave it along the rail tracks.  Somebody would find it, and though I didn't see how it could be linked to the young woman, it seemed to me that it would raise way too many questions.  Especially the question of how he died.  I considered ripping the body to pieces and letting the current take care of it.  I debated my options for about an hour, maybe less, when I felt someone was looking for me.
     It was a curious sensation, and a little eerie.  It hit me out of the blue, this knowing that I was being searched for.  Cautiously, I looked up on the bank.  The young woman from earlier was back, carrying a large cardboard box.  The box smelled of Mexican food.  I climbed further on the bank and said hi.  She jumped slightly and looked in my direction.
     "God! You scared the shit out of me!"
     "Um, sorry.  What's in the box?"
     She set the box down in front of me and pulled out a Toxic Taco bag.  "Three of everything from Toxic Taco, liked you asked for.  This bag," she held it up, "is mine.  The rest is yours.  Assuming you're still hungry."  The last part was said quietly.  I wasn't sure if I was meant to hear it.  I decided to ignore it for the moment.  
     "You didn't have to do t his, you know.  How much did it set you back?" I asked, sticking my head into the box.  I hadn't been particularly hungry, but the food smelled very good, and my mouth began to water.  I was passingly glad the dead body didn't have that effect on me.
     She started to unwrap her taco.  "Not that much," she said around a mouth full of food.  "The money you gave me covered it easily, with some to spare.  You should have seen the clerk's face when I ordered, though.  They thought it was some kind of joke.  The manager rang me out and made sure I paid up front.  Man, did they have to scramble.  Besides, this is what you asked for."
     I carefully removed what smelled like a burrito and unwrapped it.  I popped it into my mouth and barely had to chew.  I could have swallowed it whole without any difficulty, but this was the first "real food" I'd had in a week and I intended to enjoy it fully.  I took out another item.  "So, what's your name?"
     "Dakota," she answered.
     "North or South?"
     "Huh?"
     "North or South Dakota," I explained, feeling pretty lame.
     "Oh, I get it.  Duh.  It's not even like that's the first time I heard that joke.  So, what's your name?"
     "Sebastian."
     She looked at me disbelievingly over her taco.  "What was that again?"
     I shrugged.  "Sebastian, as in the composer.  Or the crab from 'The Little Mermaid'.  Whichever you prefer to remember it by."
     "You're serious?"
     "Yes, I am.  What's wrong with Sebastian?" I asked lightly.  I was enjoying my first conversation in a week.
     "Nothing.  I just seems like such a normal, run of the mill sort of name is all."
     I saw what she was getting at.  "That's because a little over a week ago, I was a person.  A normal, run of the mill person."
     She looked at me with wonder and a little skepticism.  "You have got to be putting me on."
     "Don't you think this is a little far for punked?"  She just looked at me.  "No, really, it's God's truth.  If you're interested, I'll tell you what happened."
     She was, so over the course of our meal, I told her the whole story, beginning to end.  She occasionally asked questions, and made a derisive snort when I mentioned that brick shit house was the one who mugged me.  
     "I know it's wrong to speak ill of the dead, but I don't see how you can be sorry he's dead.  Can you even guess how many other people he's hurt, maybe even killed?"
     I couldn't.  But I didn't really want to talk about him, so I continued with my story.  
     "And so that's how I became a snake," I finished.
     "A snake?" she asked uncertainly.
     "OK, a giant snake."
     "Snakes don't have legs or  hair."
     "Yes, I know.  But what else would you call me?"
     "A dragon," she said slowly.
     "Dragons are bulky.  Their bodies aren't the same width all around, and they have wings," I responded smugly.
     "European dragons are like that, nor Oriental."
     "Oh."  She was right, off course.  I hadn't even thought of that.  
     "But I'm not oriental.  Or at least I wasn't when I was human."
     She shrugged.  "I can't tell you why things happened the way they did, but what you look like is an oriental dragon."
     We continued talking, mostly small talk if you can imagine that.  Eventually, I noticed it was getting on towards dawn and pointed that out to Dakota.
     "Shit!  And I've got to work an early shift this morning, too."
     "You want my advice, call off.  After what you've been through, you deserve a day off."
     She said she would consider it.  Then she picked up the box and took off.  I watched  her go, trying to decide who helped who more.  It was nice to talk to someone, and I hoped desperately to see her again.  Then I set to work on the body.  I decided to tear it apart and send it down river.  As I worked, I said a silent prayer, for both brick shit house and myself for killing him.  I don't know if anybody heard.