calliecwrites

[calliecwrites]

I wrote a little poem for the Sabine Flyover collab:

A shadow passes— Wings on the horizon, A flicker of flame As the new day dawns; You know their name, The one who went before, Who showed the way To the path you're on; Now all their pain set down, All their struggle, done, Peace and freedom— Flying over, gone.

Goodbye Dragon HRT, and the world you started lives on.

"Please don't let them see me

Sure there's nothing left to try"

-Twenty One Pilots, The Line

Dragon HRT Part 25:

The End.

This took us months so please excuse me if the art quality and style is a bit different between pages lol

Huge thanks to @nyxisart for helping us by making the main background art of the cave entrance, and everyone who supported uswhile we were struggling to finish this. And of course to everyone who enjoyed this story and showed us with comments and fanarts!

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[calliecwrites]

Shifter HRT, part 7 – Tipping Point (9 Months)

Things are finally going – or should I say goo-ing. It’s like I’ve been pushing a boulder uphill, and now I’ve reached the top and it’s rolling down on its own. My body is finally catching up with my mind. Just existing isn’t a struggle anymore. I’m a weird gooey mess, and, yes, there’s plenty that’s uncomfortable, but I’m doing good. It’s way too long since I’ve been able to say that.

I ache all over. Parts of me have changed completely, mostly skin and muscles. My organs are still mostly untouched – but even there the filaments of fluid are everywhere, and they’re getting denser all the time. My whole body is equally sensitive to touch now. Before, my hands and face were the most sensitive, as usual, but now it’s all the same. I can feel the same amount of detail wherever.

And the parts that changed? That’s where things get interesting.

When I’m not paying attention, they stay as a sort of smooth shiny version of human skin, and underneath have the same texture as human flesh. At a glance, you might not notice the difference, not with human senses. My shifter body is defaulting to human form, which I suppose makes sense since it needs to keep the human parts of me alive until everything is converted. Wouldn’t want it all falling apart half way through.

When I do pay attention, I can make things change. I relax – but it’s not my muscles I’m relaxing, it’s my form. There’s no other word for it. The parts of me that changed get softer and more flexible. Let go completely, and they turn completely fluid.

And now for the goo-d part!

To my hands (which are still human), the fluid feels viscous, but not wet or oily or sticky – there’s no residue. When completely relaxed, it’s almost as thick as syrup. It’s cooler to the touch than normal human body temperature, but that feels fine. Right now it’s always slightly paler than my skin – I haven’t figured out how to change colour yet. I can push my fingers – or other things – all the way into the fluid, and the pressure is comfortable. Squeeze it between my fingers, and it’ll slowly mould into shape against them.

Except this is part of me. I don’t just have to squish passively around things – I can change shape on purpose, and resist external forces. Right now my hands are stronger than the fluid – I can mess up any form I’m trying to hold just by squeezing it with my fingers – but I’ve got the feeling that’s going to change. I can feel everything I touch, in more detail than I could with my human fingers before all this started.

When I tense up fully – not really the right word, but it’s the best I’ve found – it all becomes solid again. I’m back in my usual human form. I’m aware that I’m actively holding this form now – it’s no longer just a passive default. For this form, it’s almost effortless. Other forms are harder. That’s going to take practice.

* * *

I lie down on the sofa. I relax, and let go of my form. All the parts of me that can be fluid, are. I focus on one part, and stretch it out over the nearby skin. My human parts can only move how the muscles and joints allow, but the fluid is completely flexible, and I can move or shape it in any direction. There is no difference between moving and shaping – they’re the same thing.

I stretch out further to form a little tentacle, curling out from my side, and lift it up to poke at other parts of my body – which I’m fully aware of because of my sense of form. I feel my way over the sofa to a little table. Occasionally I can taste what I’m touching – which my brain still insists is coming from my mouth, just to confuse things. The table is wooden, which tastes weird – though not bad, like I imagine it would if I tried to bite it. There’s a lamp there, and closer to the lamp, I can tell it’s lighter – eventually that’ll become sight. I try to push my way into a join in the wood, but can’t. I’m limited to big blobby shapes for now – fine control will come later.

But the biggest limit is that I’m working with a fixed amount of fluid. Shifters can get much bigger or much smaller, so that’ll change eventually – and don’t even ask how the physics of that works – but for the moment, anything I move into one place has to come from somewhere else. If I want a bigger tentacle, say, something like the length of my arm, I’ll need a whole bunch more goo than I’ve got in any one place.

So I stretch my tentacle towards another patch of goo, and stretch out that patch till they’re touching. Now there’s an arch of goo between two parts of my body. Then I let go at the bottom of the second patch, and it all merges together into one longer limb. And that’s fine – goo is goo, it doesn’t belong in one place or another – though now there’s a big gap in my side where I took it all from, right down to the level that’s still human. A thin layer of fluid that I can’t move holds the human parts in, and the network of tendrils spreads out from there through the inside of my body. Not that I’m bothered by the gap – the shifter part of me already doesn’t have a fixed form, and as long as the human parts aren’t disturbed, I feel comfortable however.

But one thing I noticed pretty quickly – all the parts of me that have changed, whether fluid or solid, have to stay connected to each other. Still-human patches of skin, like my hands, don’t count as connected, which is why I have to move the fluid around the way I do. I can’t disconnect any of it completely from the rest of me. I’ll be able to do that eventually, but right now even thinking about that feels like a really bad idea, at a deep level I’m not going to mess with. That’ll come later.

So I repeat the process all over my body, till: tentacle complete! And now for phase two:

I reach over to the table, wrap my tentacle around a glass, carefully pick it up, and take a sip. It’s taken me days to get this far without spilling things everywhere. I put the glass down – and can’t help giggling. It worked! Callie the tentacle monster!

I know exactly what I want to try next. I manage to split the end of my tentacle in two. Because what’s an arm but a tentacle with fingers, after all?

I form the rough shape of a hand. Five fingers is too much to focus on all at once, so four will have to do. Bones would be helpful here, too. I know how bones feel, because I know how everything in me feels. I tense up to make the middle of each section more solid – though the fingers are so small that’s really pushing the limits of what I can do. Then I manage to solidify the outside into shiny smooth ‘skin’.

However hard I try, I can’t do fine details yet, so it ends up looking more like a cartoon arm than a human one. But it’s unmistakably an arm.

I move it slowly, making sure to hold the form as I do, and close the fingers around one of my other arms.

And if three arms, why not more? Collect more goo, repeat, and:

I’ve got four arms! Oh my god I’ve got four arms! And it wasn’t even that hard – since I already know what an arm feels like, and this is just… more of them. And it feels great! My mind has no problem at all adapting, as long as I remember to hold the form. I get up and walk around, slightly giddy. I grin at myself in the mirror. I pick things up, shake my own hands crosswise, hug myself – and I’d hug someone else, too, if there was anyone around. I take a few photos – though I use my old hands for that; wouldn’t have the dexterity yet in my new ones – and guess who’s got transition photos, at last!

After a few minutes I’m exhausted, and let everything go. I’m aching all over again. My arms turn fluid, and I slowly pull it all back to my body. I slump on the sofa, goo hanging out all over the place. Yeah, I’m a mess. There are gaps all over my body where I’ve taken the fluid from. But I’m grinning, and can barely believe I actually did it.

Now that I’m not holding a form, the fluid is balancing out, slowly moving through the filaments inside my body till all the gaps are filled and I look human again. Back to the default, for now. But even though I’m limited, even though I can’t do much yet, there’s a huge difference between ‘fixed form’ and ‘default form’, and I’m already so much more comfortable. Now just to wait for the rest!

* * *

When the urge to absorb things comes on, well, I still can’t, but now at least I can go half way. I can flow around things, hold them inside my body, squeeze them as tightly as I can, until I’ve fitted myself to all the details down to the limits of what I can feel. I think that’s all the detail I could handle right now. And it helps. The dysphoria isn’t as bad, and at least I can do part of what my body wants. Things with complex shapes and lots of little holes are best. I can sit there for hours just doing that. I’m easily entertained.

I’ve told more of my friends, and even hinted to some of my family. As for work, fortunately I’ve been working from home since my job went remote during lockdown, so once again it’s put on a safe face for the camera while absolutely anything could be going on off screen, just like in my first transition – and oh boy, if only they knew! How many arms or legs have I got today? They don’t need to know! Or pretending to be all serious with my boss while twisting and flowing through half a dozen gratings I picked up somewhere – they have no idea! No idea at all.

And as for the rest – I’m tired now. Shapeshifting takes a lot out of me when I’ve never done it before, who’d have guessed. But I’m definitely not human anymore – and now no one can deny it.

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It's back! I won't be posting as regularly as the first time round – but hopefully there won't be any more months-long gaps between posts like with this one. So: coming soon, Part 8: Return to Hyper City!

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[calliecwrites]

Shifter HRT interlude – Restless

Sometimes the restlessness comes, And you want to bound and roll in the snow, To dive in the deep, To stretch your wings and soar Under the ice-blue sky. Instead you doze by the fire, Twitching claws you do not have, Wrapped in wings and tail that are not there, Drifting in not-quite-memories, Waiting for what will not be.

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I've started working on the main story again – so hopefully it won't be too long till Part 7. In the meantime, here's some restless yearning :)

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[calliecwrites]

Reposting a poem this time - with some inspiration from an old classic. Will Santa make it, or is Christmas doomed?

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Crisis at Christmas

’Twas the night before Christmas, And up on the hill, Rudolph the reindeer Was feeling quite ill. His nose had turned green, He forgot how to fly; The elves, all a-panic, Said, “The end is nigh!” And Santa came running, All a-huff and a-puff, Cried, “All of my planning Is never enough! Oh what will we do? What a terrible sight! How will we deliver Our presents tonight?”

They called the Avengers, But they were all out; The X-Men were missing And Spidey had gout; No help for them there. They called Starfleet instead, But Captain Picard Was already in bed. Batman was busy, The Joker was drunk; “Oh what will we do?!” Santa cried in a funk, And the elves all around him Gave out a great sigh: “It’s just like we told you— The end is nigh!”

Back he ran, forth he ran, Up on the hill; All in a panic, Santa couldn’t stay still, Till, “I’ve got it!” he cried; “They won’t think it’s nice, But we can save Christmas With the help of the mice!” Mice came by the millions, Took the presents away, Put them all in the houses Before break of day, Till not a creature was stirring; And in each cosy house, There would still be Christmas, Thanks to a helpful little mouse.

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[calliecwrites]

Reposting an old Christmas story, one of my favourites.

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All I Want for Christmas

��Deer Satan, all I wunt fr Crismas is a poaniee…’

Children are really bad at spelling. Have you ever noticed that? They aren’t born with the skills they need for life, but have to learn. That doesn’t seem fair. Their lives are so short anyway, and they have to waste years learning that the order of the letters matters, that ‘Santa’ and ‘Satan’ are not the same thing, even though they have the same letters in them. Not like us demons; we’re the personification of abstract concepts, we’re born with all the skills we need; and we’re immortal, so it wouldn’t matter even if we did have to spend a few years learning.

So I know just fine that when we get a letter addressed ‘Satan Claws’, that’s not what the child had in mind. But the address on an envelope is a sacred contract, and even when you know it’s wrong, you have to act as if it isn’t.

I’m one of the sorters in the mailroom in Hell. We don’t get much mail here – most people don’t know you can write to Hell. But it’s a comfortable life. It’s a bit smoky, and sometimes the brimstone smell gets a bit overwhelming, but give me that any day over the freezing North Pole. Then Christmas comes, and we’re overrun. I read the letters, and forward them on to the best department. The easiest ones go on to Curses & Jinxes. The demons over there love concocting cruel twists on what the children asked for. Want a pony? You’ll get one, but it’ll die within a week. Or maybe it’ll be a literal nightmare that haunts your dreams for the rest of your days. As for the juiciest letters, the soppiest ones, they get passed on up to the old Boss himself. No one thinks up a twist like him.

And me? The closest thing I have to a soul is the love of order, efficiency, and a job well done. The others say I’m barely demonic at all. They say I’m nowhere near nasty enough. Maybe they’re right. So I keep my head down, do a good job, and hope they don’t look too closely.

Because there’s a special letter, you see. One I wait for every year. This kid knows what she’s doing. She was eight the first time it happened – I have no idea how she learned what she knew, so young. But she was good. Not ‘good’ as in ‘who’s been a good girl this year’, but ‘good’ as in, I’m impressed. More than that, I’m caught.

Every year her letter’s the same. ‘Dear Satan’, it starts, and that’s no spelling mistake, ‘all I want for Christmas is you’. Except – that’s no ordinary writing. The ink is made from the blood of a dozen pitiful creatures – mice, usually. The paper is stitched together from the confessions of a dozen broken hearts. And the writing is surrounded by eldritch sigils so powerful that it hurts just to think about them. Like I said, the kid’s good.

What demon could possibly resist?

Being eight, I don’t think she quite understood that Satan wouldn’t be opening all his mail personally. Instead, her spell of binding fell on the first demon to read it.

That would be me.

I had to do what she asked. I couldn’t not. Fortunately, we get time off at Christmas. We’re supposed to go attack Santa and his elves, to stop them delivering presents, or at least swap the real ones for our cruel tricks. I was never much of one for that, myself – it was too inefficient, too disorderly. So I slipped away when the others were occupied, and went down to the ramshackle old house where the girl lived. I slipped down the chimney, and hid myself in a present under her Christmas tree, just as she had asked.

In the morning, she unwrapped me, and she was delighted. This terrifyingly-powerful eight year old, who’d be able to twist the world to her whim once she had a mind to, just wanted a friend. She was lonely. She’s never had much luck with other humans, so instead she turned to the one thing she was good at: the dark magic she’d been learning from all the books her parents left lying around, ever since she’d been old enough to walk. Her parents weren’t even there, poor thing. They’d gone off on their own, like they did every Christmas, leaving her all alone. Except this time, she had me.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her I wasn’t actually Satan, that I was just a lowly mail-sorter. I didn’t have a heart at all. But I could see that she was sad, and that I could make her happy, that I could do it efficiently, and call it a job well done.

At the end of the day, she cried, and hugged me, and said it was the best Christmas ever. I’d made her a cake, and told her stories (hellish ones, though that seemed to delight her even more), and played games. She asked me to stay, but I couldn’t. I had a job to do, and the others would notice if I was gone too long. So she said I’d hear from her again next year, and she’d miss me until then.

She kept her word. The next year, the same letter arrived again. I opened it, and I was bound. We spent Christmas together, and I made her happy however I could.

Each year, she sent the same letter. I waited for it to arrive, and made sure I was the one to open it. Each year, her writing was steadier, and the spell was more elegant, and more powerful. She was growing up. Such a human thing to do.

But when she was fourteen, her letter was different. The paper and the ink were ordinary. There were no sigils, and no magic in it at all. Just the words, the same as always: ‘Dear Satan…’. The other letters had been commands; this one was a request. I wasn’t bound by it. But why the change? Was something wrong? I didn’t have to go, but I went anyway.

On Christmas morning, she unwrapped me, and hugged me even tighter than usual. She was crying. “You came,” she said. “I had to know.” She had grown a lot this year – she was almost as tall as me, now. “You’re the kindest person I’ve ever met.”

“I’m not a person,” I said.

“Technicality.”

She pulled back and studied me.

“I’m not actually Satan, you know,” I said, and she giggled.

“I know. I figured that out years ago.”

“But the letters—”

“That’s just a game. It isn’t Satan I want, it’s you. The last few years I tweaked the spell so it wouldn’t work on anyone else.”

“And this year?” I said.

Her smile dropped.

“Things are bad. My parents are fighting. They’ll take it out on me. I’m worried I might have to hurt them.” With all the magic she had, that would be easy. “I can’t stay here – I’ve got to go, somewhere.” Then she looked me in the eye: “Will you come with me?”

She had woven magic into everything she wore. But there was no magic in her words, no compulsion. Like the letter, this was a request. I could say no.

I didn’t.

What did I feel towards her? Love? Demons can’t experience love. I could list off all the typical human behaviours that go with it, but I don’t understand why they do those things. Friendship, then? I’m not too sure on that one, either. But I could make her happy, and it was satisfying when I did. Any demon could do my job in the mailroom, but only I could do this one, so of course I’d go with her. I’d stay with her the whole of her life, if that’s what it took, and never mind the punishments the other demons would line up for abandoning my post. And when she’d eventually die, as all humans must, happy with the life I’d given her, I’d go back to Hell knowing I’d been orderly, and efficient, and with the satisfaction of a job well done.

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[calliecwrites]

Understanding

From the prompt 'make me understand', for writemas day 2 by @agirlandherquill.

I was human. She wasn’t.

The loneliness was on her again, as bad as I’d ever seen it.

“How long is it since you saw another of your own kind?” I said.

She didn’t say anything. It was years, at least. Maybe a lot longer.

“You’re not meant to be alone,” I said. “And you don’t have to be.”

This wasn’t the first time I’d brought this up.

“You don’t know what you’re asking,” she said.

“Because I don’t understand?”

“No one does—”

“We’ve been together for years. I’ve seen more of you than anyone.” Then, quietly, “You’ll never be understood if you’re surrounded by humans.”

I held her hand, doing what I could to comfort her. It wasn’t enough. It never was.

“You don’t want to be what I am,” she whispered.

“You learned that trick from humans – ‘don’t’ and ‘shouldn’t’ are different. You wouldn’t have switched them round before.”

She flinched a little at that. You don’t have to pretend with me, I’d told her so many times – but she’d trained herself so well to mask that it was hard to let it go, sometimes.

“You know what’s in my dreams,” I said, “even if you pretend not to. I know this is within your power.”

She looked at me. I could only imagine what was going on in her mind. But I thought I could see something shifting.

“You wouldn’t be human anymore,” she said at last.

“I know. I’m counting on that.”

“It’ll hurt,” she said.

“I want this.”

I could see the longing in her eyes – how desperate she was not to be alone. How scared she was of letting go.

“I’m ready,” I said. “Make me your equal. Make me understand.”

There was a very long pause.

Then she put her hand on my head, closed her eyes, and everything changed.

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[calliecwrites]

It's that time of year again!

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[calliecwrites]

The Ferryman

The water was sluggish and smelly. Tyres and shopping trolleys were snagged on the weeds. I’d read enough to recognise where I was – the river Styx, boundary of the underworld – but this wasn’t the afterlife I’d been expecting. And certainly not looking like this.

I picked my way across the rubbish on the shore to where the ferry waited. It was a rusted old skiff, patched and listing. A microwave had been strapped where the motor should have been, doorless cavity pointing down at the water.

The skeleton at the tiller had seen better days. Eye sockets followed me as I climbed onboard.

“Charon?” I said. He nodded. “What happened here?”

He made the motion of spitting over the side. “Capitalism fucks us all, my man.”

“I’m not a man.”

He shrugged. “It’s all the same to me. Give me your battery.”

“Is that what this is?” I took the metal disk out from under my tongue. A coin cell. I’d known it was there since I’d arrived, but I’d felt no need to remove it. It wasn’t like I could swallow it and die. “Isn’t this supposed to be a coin?” I said.

“Times change.” He took it and weighed it in his hand. “That’s all you’ve got? Well, it’s better than nothing.”

He adjusted a receptacle until it was the right size for the battery, and popped it in. The microwave came on. The platter turned. The water behind the boat began to boil, and pushed the boat forwards.

Which was ridiculous. A tiny battery can’t power a microwave. A microwave can’t propel a boat. But this was the liminal space between life and death, so who was I to say what was possible?

Then the microwave dinged, and we stopped. He pulled out the battery and tossed it over the side.

“All done,” he said. “That’s as far as we go.”

“But we’re not even halfway there!” I said. “Can’t you paddle?”

“See anything to paddle with? You’re going to have to swim the rest of the way.”

I took a long look at the murky water, and the tyres, and the trolleys.

“Is that safe?”

I was only seeing what poked above the surface.

“You’re already dead,” he said. “What’s the worst that can happen?” Somehow that wasn’t reassuring. “Just don’t look back, or you’ll turn into a pillar of salt.”

“Isn’t that from a different mythology?”

He gave me a look – or would have if he’d had any eyes.

“You’re talking to a blind skeleton driving a boat powered by a microwave. Mythological consistency is the least of your problems.”

And then a minute later: “Are you going or not? Can’t stay here forever.”

The far shore was hazy. Was it any better than the shore I’d left? Hard to say. But Charon was right.

So I braced myself, took a deep breath, and jumped in.

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[calliecwrites]

The Void

From the prompt 'utter darkness', for writemas day 1 by @agirlandherquill.

It was dark. Not just the absence of light, but the absence of the possibility of light. Light couldn’t exist here. I had no eyes, because matter couldn’t exist here. I had nothing, was nothing, except me.

I didn’t know how long I had been here. There was nothing outside myself to measure time by. There was nothing outside myself at all.

But I still had my memories. I still had my imagination. I imagined touching wood. A table. I imagined the shape of the edges. I imagined the texture under my fingers. I imagined so hard I could almost feel it. I reached out – when had I started having hands? – and imagined harder still – and it was real.

I imagined sounds and smells – a bird outside the window, bread baking in the oven. I imagined the carpet under my feet, the clothes on my back, the heart beating in my body. I had a body now. Each of these I held in my mind, and pushed beyond, and made real. These things implied other things, and everything cascaded out from there. I was starting to understand where I was, and what I was.

But something was still missing. I knew, now, that all I had to do was open my eyes.

And there was light.

There's a state in dreams that I call the void, that's exactly like this.

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[calliecwrites]

"But you look human most of the time!"

So? 'Most common form' isn't the same as 'true form'. Neither is 'default form'. I'm a blob of goo that can turn into anything - but what makes you think 'blob of goo' is any truer than 'turn into anything'?

Haven't you heard what we say about ourselves? That we're as fluid as the ocean, wild as the wind, and cannot be contained? That we are the people of change? - no true nature, no true name, never stay the same.

We are not like you.

people will really go up to shapeshifters like "oh what's your true form? oh but what do you really look like?" are u hearing yourself. do u hear how insane u sound

[calliecwrites]

I had a dream where one of my relatives was the Cult Leader of the Goddess of Strawberries - and the Cult was clearly up to something. She kidnapped me and tried to recruit me, not knowing that I was secretly the most powerful being on the planet - the one who stops the alien invasions, cures the plagues, and generally stops people wrecking the place. In most worlds I'm open about that, but apparently not in this one. And so there I am, casually passing all the hard tests she gives me, she's thinking she's found the perfect recruit, and meanwhile I'm giving her goddess a Significant Look: try anything, little fruit deity, and you'll have me to deal with.

I have no idea how she was going to use strawberries to try taking over the world, and I kinda wish I'd let her, just to find out.

[calliecwrites]

Rage

They put me in the cell because they say my kind are monsters. I tried talking to them, I tried reasoning with them, but they wouldn’t listen.

The cell is empty. It’s freezing. They barely feed me. I hold onto my human form, naked, hoping that might win me some sympathy. I don’t resist. Nothing here to fear, nothing to hate. But they’ve seen that when they beat me I don’t flinch, that when they cut me I don’t bleed. They throw my words back in my face.

I lie on the floor. Where my skin touches the stone, I form tendrils and start to burrow into the rock. It’s slow, almost imperceptibly slow, but I am as fluid as the ocean, and as patient. I have all the time in the world. I carve myself into the stone, while keeping the part of me they can see completely still. I draw some nutrients from the stone I absorb, but that’s not why I do this. I spread until I am a web of roots all through the floor and the walls. I can feel where the stone is weak, and follow those lines, and weaken it further.

Days, maybe weeks, pass before they next come to my cell. I speak again, give them one last chance to see reason. They beat me. This time I laugh. I clench all my tendrils at once, and the cell comes crashing down. The stone crushes them. I tear into their meat and lap up their blood. I feel my strength returning.

Did they really think this would hold me?

While the rubble still falls, I stand up, and I change. No more soft human form. Now I’m all razor spikes and teeth and claws. I’m tendrils and fluid, ready to pierce and devour whatever I touch. Those outside see me, and they run.

They think they know what fear is? They have no idea.

I can burrow into flesh as easily as stone. I can empty out their skin and use them as a puppet. I can take their memories and destroy every last thing they care about, one by one.

Maybe I am a monster. It’s time to show them what that means.

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[calliecwrites]

Flying Lesson

It’s difficult, I get it, Though it’s pretty clear to see, That no matter how you practise, You’ll never be as good as me; But there’s mastery and there’s basics, And some things just aren’t that tough, And all your clawing at the air Won’t ever be enough; So before your crash and clatter Sets off all of the alarms, You’re supposed to be flying with your mind, Not flying with your arms.

In straight lines you’ve got it, I’ll give you that, you do, But sometimes a corner’s handy, Or going up a little too; Not everything’s as spry as me, Can’t rely on that to stay— Rocks and trees and houses Won’t be jumping out your way; So clear your mind and focus, Where you will, you’ll go, Up and down, it’s all the same, That’s it, take it slow— Oh I pity any passengers You might decide to take— Watch out! Don’t you see it? Stop! Stop! Brake!

All that wild flapping Won’t get you anywhere; It’s magic, not aerodynamics, That keeps you in the air— You’re a witch and not a pilot, And it wouldn’t do you any harms, To remember you’re flying with your mind And not your goddamn arms!

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[calliecwrites]

Breakthrough

In the morning, everyone in my building is dead.

It takes me a while to notice. I live alone, and don’t see my neighbours often. But there are always little noises through the walls – doors closing, toilets flushing, voices – and now there aren’t any. By lunchtime, the shutters are still all closed. I knock on the doors, get no response, and call the police.

My neighbours have all died in their sleep.

Now I’m at the police station, waiting to be seen. My friend Ellen sits with me, holding my hand. As the only survivor, the police want to know if I heard or saw anything. Maybe I’m even a suspect. But they’re still rushing around, bringing in the bodies, contacting the families, doing autopsies – it could be a while before they’re ready for me.

And yet: I’m happy. I feel great. And my mind is going a hundred miles an hour because this is absolutely not how I should be feeling right now.

Ellen can tell something’s up. She always can. Well of course something’s up – we’re sitting in a police station and all my neighbours are dead. But there’s more than that, and she sees it. What do I tell her?

She leans in close. “What is it?”

“I dreamt I ate their souls,” I say eventually, and glance at her. We talk about my dreams all the time, and have a good laugh at how weird they are. But this time, she’s looking at me like, you want to talk about dreams, now?

“Were you lucid?” she says eventually. I nod.

“Because it’s Halloween,” I say, as if that explains it. “I wanted to do something spooky. For fun.” So I’d thought, let’s try eating souls. It’s all just pretend, of course, it’s all just a game in my head – but it’s in all the stories, so why not? All kinds of monsters and demons eat them, but what’s that like? What do they taste like? I’d always wondered. I thought it would be fun to see what my dreams came up with. Something surprising, for sure, something we could laugh about afterwards – but when I’d summoned some characters in the dream, it was my neighbours who’d turned up, and that made me pause. I don’t ever dream about them. But I’d gone through with it anyway – I’d phased my hands into their chests, pulled out the glowing masses of their souls, and slurped them down. I can’t even begin to describe the taste.

And in the morning, my neighbours were all dead.

I do weird stuff like this in my dreams all the time. That’s half the fun of being a lucid dreamer, right? I can do anything I like in there – or, well, anything I can persuade the dream to let me do; I’m not good enough yet to do anything anything – but I’m getting there. I can try out powers I’ve seen in films, play a part in stories I like, fight monsters, destroy planets – and all with zero consequences, because:

“And, what, you think you actually ate their souls? It’s a dream, Sue, it’s not real. You tell me that all the time.”

I nod. “Then how am I still alive? If it was something in the water, or a gas leak, or I don’t know – I’d be dead too. How can I be the only one still alive?”

“Maybe it was something they all ate?” she says.

“And this morning,” I go on, “I felt great, like really great. Full of energy, full of ideas – like I could do anything. I still do. Even here.” In fact I’ve been trying to stop myself grinning the whole time. This is not the place for that.

Ellen gives me a long, hard look, and squeezes my hand. “Stop tormenting yourself. Survivors’ guilt is a thing, you know that. You didn’t eat their souls. You don’t even believe in souls.”

I nod again. She’s right, of course.

A policewoman comes over. She’s wearing a black coat.

“Ms Tanner?” she says. “Come with me, please.”

Ellen gives me another look, gentler this time, and then we’re apart. The policewoman takes me to the far corner of the room.

“That was quite a feast you had,” she says.

This is so not what I’m expecting, it takes me a moment to respond.

“You mean my dreams? Did you hear us?”

She gives me a grim smile. “No – but you dream so loudly, half the city would know if I wasn’t shielding you.”

“Is this a joke?” I say. That conversation was between me and Ellen! “What’s this got to do with anything?”

“Everything,” she says. “There’s power in your dreams.”

“Look, I know I’m weird,” I say, “but… it’s just lucid dreaming. It’s all in my head.”

“For most people that’s true. But you aren’t most people, are you? You’ve made quite the mess. We knew you’d break through on your own sooner or later, but we didn’t expect it to happen like this…”

But I’m not listening. The people around me have caught my attention. There’s something moving inside them. I can’t see it, but I can tell it’s there. When I focus, it starts moving towards me—

She snaps her fingers in my face. “Stop that! What, do you want to kill everyone here, too?” She glares, and almost to herself, “You’ve broken through hard if you can already do that awake.”

I stare at her, and at the people. “Were those souls?” She nods. “But I don’t even believe in souls,” I say, weakly, while in my head is: oh shit. Worse, knowing they’re there is making me hungry. Susan Tanner, devourer of souls – that has quite the ring to it.

But I glance around, and say, quietly, “You’re saying I did kill them? What if someone hears—”

She shakes her head. “No one will. I’m taking care of that.”

No one is looking at us. In fact, no one has looked our way the whole time, like they’ve forgotten we’re even here.

“You’ve broken through the barriers,” she says. “Everything you can do in the dream, you’ll eventually be able to do out here – and you’re nowhere near your full potential, even in the dream.”

I’m still at: I killed them? Eventually I catch up. “That’s impossible,” I say. All of this is impossible. Those can’t have been souls, I just imagined it. But I can still feel them there, and if I just focus—

“Hey, stay with me,” she says. Oh. Right. “You don’t believe me? Change something.”

“What?”

“Change something, like you would in the dream.”

I stare at her black coat, and will it to be green – and it is. For a moment I wonder if I’m still dreaming. I do half a dozen reality checks, and they all fail. Which means either I’m still in the dream, and my mind is really messing with me – or I’m awake. Something people often don’t understand about learning to lucid dream is that the whole practice is based on being able to tell dreams from reality. We get really good at telling which state we’re in. And everything here is telling me this is not a dream.

I still feel completely, unreasonably great, despite everything, even though she’s just told me I’m, what? A murderer? Or at the very least, that I killed a bunch of people by accident.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” she says. “Soul euphoria’s quite the thing. There’s nothing quite like digesting the essence of another person to cheer you up. Just don’t go making a habit of it, OK?”

Has she just read my mind?

“I’ve been reading your mind for years, Ms Tanner, watching you learn in your dreams. It’s lucky I found you first – you’d have made a tasty morsel for someone, with potential like that.”

I flip the colour of the lights on the roof from white to red to blue. I make a potted plant on the other side of the room rise a few centimetres off the ground. It’s easy. Telekinesis, too? Shit. That grin has broken through, now, and I can’t help it.

“You’re not with the police, are you?” I say at last.

“Smart one.”

“So what happens now?”

“You come with me,” she says. “It’s time for your training to really begin.”

“But what about the police? The… deaths? What about Ellen?”

“Don’t worry,” she says, “I’ve taken care of that. They won’t remember you were ever here.”

There’s something in the way she says it: she doesn’t mean here, in the police station, she means here, at all. That I ever existed. I glance at Ellen. This woman has just taken away my best friend. She’s taken away my whole life. But because of those souls I ate, I still feel totally, overwhelmingly great. I can’t wipe the smile off my face. Turns out you can feel wonderful and horrified at the same time – but the horror is such a small part of it that I can’t keep my mind on it for long. I just feel too damn good.

How long will this euphoria last? And how hard will I crash when it goes away?

But I can’t think about that now – literally can’t, my soul-drunk emotions are too overpowering – can’t think about what I’ve lost, or the implications of what I’ve done. All I can think about is power, and dreams, and adventure. So when she gestures and opens a portal, I grin harder, and don’t look back, and follow her through.

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[calliecwrites]

Pretending

Sometimes pretending to be a person is easy. Sometimes it isn’t. On the bad days, numbers start crawling on the page, straight lines curl, and I’ve got to remind myself to keep my face on. I want to stretch my other limbs, but the world down here is so thin, and so easy to tear. I have to be careful not to think too hard about anything, or it might start seeping through. You have no idea how much power you have, someone told me once, being able to create with a thought. And the children of my mind look too much like madness to humans.

Cases of madness worldwide are 1.3% higher on days like that.

But I don’t want to drive them mad. I’m here to protect them, not devour them. Not this time. So I have to pretend. Though with some of them practically throwing themselves at me, that isn’t always easy.

Writers are the worst. I let my ‘pretending to be a person is hard’ line slip into the coffee I’m nursing while my head pounds with the effort of keeping it all together, and her only response is, “Yeah, I know.”

“‘A writer is a world pretending to be a person’,” she quotes at me, and then, “That’s a deliberate misquote of something Victor Hugo said: ‘A writer is a world trapped in a person’. But I like my version better. If my soul wasn’t in a human-shaped body, sometimes I think I’d turn into a galaxy or something. Or maybe more than that. A multiverse.”

Humans are famously good at detecting things that don’t quite look human. I’m not doing a particularly good job of staying out of the uncanny valley today, but she doesn’t seem to have noticed. Or, worse, she’s noticed and likes it. Writers are like that sometimes. But I’ve been deliberately staying out of her mind. I can tell it’s twisty and complex, and I’m afraid the slightest touch from me would tip her over into madness. Or, who knows, maybe she’s right, and it would trigger her transformation into some kind of eldritch goddess that would put even me to shame. I don’t want to think about what that would do to the paper-thin world down here.

I’ve been so focused on my coffee, I’ve accidentally created another one. She hasn’t noticed.

“I do wonder what being a person is actually like, though,” she goes on. “You know, actually fitting in with all the weird rules humans have. Actually feeling at home here. And most of them only get to live one life, not all the fragments of all the lives we get to. Imagine that. They’ll never know what it’s like, being able to create with a thought.”

That last part hits too close to home, and I can’t resist taking just one quick peek into her mind.

“Oh, hello,” she says, and looks me in the eye.

I withdraw. No way she should have been able to feel that. And what I saw there – she’s practically a multiverse already, all jammed up there somehow into that tiny human brain.

“I always wondered if telepathy’s real,” she’s saying, “and now you’ve gone and proven it. Do that again, so I can see how you did it.”

No way, I’m not risking that – but she fumbles around and somehow does it anyway.

“There you are!” she says. I twitch back into my defences – why does this have to be happening on a day like this, when I’m barely holding it together anyway? The writing on the menu twists and curls, and customers start walking in circles. This time she notices.

“Ooh, eldritch abomination, is it?” she says. “Here, let me try.”

She squints, and now she’s holding another coffee, too. She takes a sip. “Mmm, just like in my dreams.”

Then she’s looking at me. Not just at my rapidly-slipping human disguise, but really looking at me, all the parts that no human should ever be able to see. But I don’t think she’s human anymore – I think she’s been right at that boundary for a while.

“You know, you really should pay more attention to that,” she says. “I find pretending is much easier if I do something like this—” and she does something, and my own human form snaps back into clarity. “There you go. Get those few things right and most people won’t even notice.”

Meanwhile, her own form is becoming more solid. That’s the only way I can describe it. Soon she’ll be so solid that her slightest movement will tear right through reality like tissue paper.

“Be careful,” I say, “you’re new to this, and this world is fragile—”

But it’s too late. She twitches in just the wrong way, and something tears.

Now everything is inverting. Everything that was packed up tightly inside her brain is becoming outside. The whole world is reforming around us, into one she considers home. I’m unaffected, but the humans are being completely rewritten.

“Hmm,” she muses, observing all the worlds at once. “Looks like I was right about myself.”

And she sees my dismayed expression. Avoiding something like this is exactly why I was being so careful down here. So much for that.

“Don’t worry,” she says, and gives me a reassuring pat somewhere in the fourth dimension. “There’s more than enough room in me for everyone.”

I really like that quote she uses, and use it myself. This story came from thinking - what if it was literally true, and not just a metaphor?

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[calliecwrites]

Writing Shifter HRT has been a bit of an experiment. I'd never serialised a story before, so I decided to post weekly, with a two-week backlog, to see what it's like writing that way. I did it for six weeks.

The hardest part was not getting distracted - either by other story ideas, or other things altogether. I'm used to writing when I feel like it - sticking to a schedule was very different. I had a few weeks where I didn't feel like writing at all, and that used up the backlog. Part 6 took longer to write, because it was going deep into old pain and dysphoria - which I felt was important to get right, even if it hurt - and left me not wanting to write for another few weeks, which broke the schedule completely. Staying on track is hard.

I've been taking a break since then, but I'm glad I tried it - I've often wanted to see if this kind of writing would suit me. I'm not sure if I'd want to do it for longer. I was already impressed by people who write long serials with consistent schedules - presumably they're facing similar obstacles on a bigger scale - and now I'm even more impressed.

And my story? Let's say we're at the end of an arc. Sad chapter with a hopeful ending feels like a good place to pause. Maybe I'll start the next arc soon - but probably not on the same schedule 😅.

[calliecwrites]

Shifter HRT, part 6 – The Other City (7 Months)

Of course I’d heard of Hyper City. It’s where almost everyone gets their species HRT. The clinic there has versions for almost every species (though not for shifters). But I’d always assumed Hyper City was a codename, to hide the real location of the clinic, for security or something. And the things people say about it are pretty unbelievable. If you know about the city and want to find it, you will – go twenty minutes outside town, wherever you are in the world, and it’ll be there. That sounds like magic – or a convoluted way of saying ‘if you know, you know – and if you don’t, tough’.

Except everyone talks about it like it’s real. Enough people are on species HRT that someone would leak the real location if it was just a codename. People report following the weird instructions, like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Though when changing species is a thing I’m actually doing, who am I to say this is any less believable?

Well, it turns out it is real. I’ve been there now.

* * *

I find a bus stop the right distance out of town, and go for a ride. I hold my intention in mind the whole way. Then there I am, in some faded little village I’ve only ever known as a name on a map. I wander around, and sure enough, there’s a path between two houses that doesn’t fit in. It’s paved and clean, while everything else here is dusty and overgrown. And it’s somehow hard to look at, like my fixed intent is the only thing letting me see it at all.

I’m used to being in a mind-responsive world in my dreams. Intent is one of the tools in a lucid dreamer’s toolkit – expecting things to change, knowing they’ll change, making them change. But it isn’t something I ever expected to use in the real world. I do a quick reality check – try to push my finger through my palm, and can’t – and that, along with everything else, tells me I’m awake. I don’t think I could be wrong about that when I’m paying this much attention. I shake my head. This is weird.

On the path I catch glimpses of buildings in the distance, where there shouldn’t be any – skyscrapers glinting in the sun. They come and go, like something keeps passing between them and me – like I’m seeing them through swaying trees – but there’s nothing there. Not even heat haze – it’s a cool day. And my own city has a grand total of one skyscraper, so it definitely isn’t that I’m seeing.

Eventually I pass under an arch, and I’m there. Welcome to Hyper City, the arch says. There’s a sign listing the local laws – and one catches my eye: shapeshifters have to be registered. That’s… surprising. I’d heard this place was much more accepting than back home. It’s better than being banned, but… Well, it’s not my problem. I still can’t shapeshift at all – which is exactly why I’m here – so I decide I can ignore it.

I wander the streets. This place – it’s normal – and that’s strange. Where am I? The map on my phone works, as long as I stay zoomed in. If I zoom out, it loses track completely. Is the light here the same? Is the sky the same? Am I in another country – or another world? What would other people see, if they watched me step onto the path that led me here? Where would I end up, if I left the city by another arch, or just walked out the edge?

I stop at wondering how they get internet in a city that exists outside normal space – and possibly also outside normal time. Because, yeah, that would be what I’m thinking about, when I’ve just stepped through a possibly-literally-magic portal to a place that shouldn’t exist. But those are questions for another day. That’s not why I’m here. One impossible thing at a time, please. And today’s is me, mid-transition, and anyone else like me I can find.

My whole body aches – but still doesn’t do anything. I’m taking in so much detail, and can’t use any of it. Phantom limbs come and go all the time, at the slightest thought. Dysphoria is getting worse – it’s the worst it’s ever been. Every time I move, the solidity of my limbs, and how constrained they are, clashes in my head – then for a moment my arms are (mentally) twice as long, and I’ve got three legs and can’t tell how many I’m supposed to have, and I’m stumbling. My mind is so ready for this, but my body is still taking its own sweet time. Surely this can’t get worse. I have to be near the tipping point.

I came here because – I need to know this is real. That it isn’t just me, it isn’t just… delusions. I need to know I’m not losing it. Is that weird? I can feel the changes inside me, I know they’re happening. But I’ve been doing so much of this alone, I need something outside myself, something physical, to connect it back to reality. I need to talk to other people like me – not just online, but in person, where I can see them, see the changes. There is no one like me back home. Even just seeing them might be enough, to know I’m not the only one.

And – there they are, just walking down the street, minding their own business. Even here there aren’t many – but they exist. There’s someone partly-transformed into a bird. Across the street there’s a slime – and my heart sings at this one; surely they’re one of the shifters’ closest relatives. Around a corner, and there’s someone with blue skin and four arms. I’m smiling. I can’t help it. And every time I see someone nonhuman, the phantom limbs come on in a flash, how it might feel to be in that form.

Further into the city, and I’m standing outside the famous clinic, where all of this started. I catch a glimpse of the infamous doctor – lab coat, glasses, balding grey hair. There are more nonhumans here, more of us, than anywhere else – us! I’m trying not to stare, and suppress a wild grin.

Except – I realise – I still look completely human. And, suddenly, I feel like an idiot. The others can’t even tell what I am. I’m just another human to them. My mood plummets. The smile vanishes. A pit opens inside me.

What was I thinking, coming here? Did I really think this would help? Instead, here I am, on the outside looking in, as always. The perpetual outsider, even among my own. I’m used to that. It always hurts, but it’s not surprising, not anymore. Why did I think this would be any different?

Standing here, I’d give anything to have some visible change, something other people could see, instead of it all being on the inside. Any sign at all of what I am. I could have worn my ‘be goo, do crimes’ shirt – that so far I haven’t dared wear outside the house – since that, at least, would have been something. Instead, I’ve got nothing.

The phantom sensations are so strong. I can almost feel them – and I try, desperately, to make them real, by will alone, like I would in a dream. The fluid in me strains – but nothing happens. At last the changed patches on my skin bulge slightly. It’s the most I’ve ever managed to do, and at any other time I’d be delighted, but here, now, it feels so underwhelming. Is this all I’ve got to show for all these months? No one even looks my way.

I want to say something to them – anything – but I freeze. Will I ever have the confidence they have, wearing my inhumanity openly? Will there ever be anything there to see? What kind of fool am I? I take the safe way out – I walk away.

I sit down in a cafe – and instantly regret it. A dragon and a mermaid are arguing at another table, and I try not to stare. Just seeing them, the phantom limbs are back in full force, and I’m almost overwhelmed by the phantom claws and wings and tails flicking in and out of my awareness. If I move now, I think I’ll fall.

In the end I can’t eat anything. I blurt out an apology and a thank you to the staff, and almost run for it. The familiar sensations are there already: clenched eyebrows and jaw, shoulders wanting to hunch over, and the bottomless pit in my stomach – loneliness that would devour everything. Except now, with my sense of form, I’m so much more aware of it than usual. I know exactly which muscles and nerves are involved, and for once, I wish I didn’t.

I stumble back the way I came. I barely notice where I am. There’s the arch – Thank you for visiting Hyper City, it says on this side – and then I’m on the same path, to the same dusty village. At the bus stop, I look back, and there’s no sign now of the city, or the path. The bus comes.

I’m holding back tears all the way home, but manage not to break down till I’m in the door. Then the tears come – and I can feel exactly how my body does it – and for a while I can’t do anything. Eventually I drag myself into the kitchen. I reach for biscuits, tea, anything that might help – and realise, too late, that was a phantom limb, not a physical one, and now I’ve knocked things everywhere, and it’s all too much.

I lie on the sofa and curl up.

And I’m back, here. I’ve been here before. I’ll be here again. Loneliness is the flavour of my life, after all. And what’s the point in doing anything, if, at the end of the day, I’m still always lonely? All connection is ephemeral and fragile – always having to hold back, in case I overstay my welcome – never knowing if I’m too much, or not enough. I always end up here, time after time – desperate, and alone.

I don’t think about it – if I did, I’d stop – I just do it, in the pain of the moment: I call my friend. The one I think is most likely to understand. I tell them everything. What I am, what I’ve been doing, what happened today. I’ve put this off far too long. Our last few calls, it’s been so hard to talk, it’s felt like we’ve been drifting apart, because I couldn’t tell them anything. Not this time. I break into tears again as I pour it all out. They listen. Afterwards, they say, in something like wonder, that there was always so much they didn’t understand about me, about why I did and didn’t do the things I did, and now it all makes sense. I say, deadpan, that there was method in my madness – and then all the tension is gone, and we’re crying and laughing together.

I feel a weight lifting.

Eventually I fall asleep on the sofa. Later in the night, when I realise I’m dreaming, my dream guide is there, waiting. She hugs me. She doesn’t often turn up on her own, but when I need her most, she’s there. She says a few words of reassurance. Would you regret it if you weren’t? And she’s right. She always gets to the heart of it. I’m doing the right thing. She, at least, understands. We both want the best for me – she’s part of me, after all – and though I already know what she’s telling me, sometimes hearing it from another perspective makes all the difference.

I’m crying again, in the dream. I wake up with the tears spilling over into my physical eyes – but the worst is already past. The rest of my dreams are better, the most relaxed they’ve been in weeks. In the morning, I feel almost OK.

I’ll go back to Hyper City. Not right away, but I’ll go back. And next time will be better.

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