Chapter 2: 2. Aurora Gaspésie

Everything was dark and silent when I came to. I was still alive, still breathing. Still curled up on my side in my sleeping bag, buried inside my collapsed tent.

There were some aches and pains throughout my body, and I realized my air mattress had deflated at some point leaving me laying directly on the rough uneven ground beneath my tent.

I took a few slow steady breaths as I forced myself not to panic. I carefully thought through my situation, and when I finally started to move I was careful and deliberate. I quickly determined I wasn't hurt, or not badly anyways. There'd probably be bruises, but nothing was broken. And nothing was laying ontop of the tent, I wasn't pinned under a tree or anything like that.

On the other hand, I was still trapped in a big mess of nylon and I really needed to get out and figure out what happened and how bad my situation was.

After a few minutes of trying to locate the door zipper I gave up. I found my pocket knife instead, and carefully cut a hole so I could escape.

A minute later I was free, and after pulling myself out of the sleeping bag and tent I rose to my feet. And found myself staring wide-eyed and slack-jawed.

"What happened to the lake?" I whispered to myself.

Lac Côté was gone. I could sort of see where it once was, but the former shoreline was obscured by fallen trees, and the landscape itself seemed rippled and broken. Like when you crumple a sheet of paper up into a ball then flatten it out again, all those new ridges and creases remain.

I slowly turned around in place and received my next shock. Up until a few hours ago, Mont Jacques-Ferron had risen up to the west. Now instead of a peak some five hundred meters above my campsite, all I could see was a mass of shattered rock and rubble that spread north and south. It was as if the mountain had been stepped on by some titanic foot, crushing it down into the landscape.

After a few moments of staring at that the area was briefly lit up by what I took to be a flash of lightning, from somewhere behind me.

I turned around to look east, and once again I found myself staring with wide eyes and an open mouth.

Rising up out of the landscape roughly where Lac Thibault should be was a brand-new mountain. At least, that was the only word I could think of to describe what I was seeing. Except my senses told me it was impossible.

It was tall but narrow, like some kind of massive spike sticking up out of the landscape. I guessed the peak stood at least a kilometre above the trees, yet the base was less than half a kilometre across. And the sides weren't exactly smooth but they seemed unnaturally flat. From where I stood I was positive the mountain had four flat sides that tapered upwards to their peak.

And the reason I was able to make out so much detail despite it being night was also the most inexplicable part of the whole scene. The mountain was glowing.

The rock seemed to be bathed in a dull unearthly glow. It was hard to say what colour it was radiating, at times it seemed faint purple, or perhaps blue. Maybe it was grey. Or maybe it was all of those things, or none of them.

Then as I stared there was another bright flash of yellow-white light. What seemed to be lightening shot upwards from the ground, along one edge of the impossible mountain. It clung to the rock like an electrical charge, until it reached the peak. And there it radiated outwards into the night sky in a dull green glow.

I stood transfixed as I stared upwards, and only then did I realize what was going on above me. There were stars visible in the black sky, but in between me and the stars the sky was alight with rolling swirling patterns of colour. It was like the aurora borealis, except it appeared to be centred over that impossible mountain just to the east of me.

Waves of green, red, and purple light danced overhead as I watched. Every few minutes a flash of yellow climbed up the new mountain then dissipated into the air and fed the light show above me.

I probably stood there staring for a good ten minutes.

In the back of my mind I knew all of this was impossible, just like I knew I was probably in mortal danger. Something huge and violent had taken place, something that could drain a lake and crush a mountain. I had no way of knowing if it was over or if there was more to come. I put all that aside though as I stood and stared in wonder.

Eventually I remembered my camera. And my hiking boots too, since I was standing there in my socks the whole time. I crouched down and scrambled to dig through my collapsed tent.

I basically ended up turning the thing inside-out to dump all my belongings out where I could get to them. I hurriedly pulled on my boots and did them up, then grabbed my hoodie and pulled that on as well. When I found my camera I raised it up and hit the power button, but nothing happened.

It was the worst possible moment for the battery to die, and I muttered some quiet curses and I opened a side-pocket on my backpack. I swapped in the other battery, but my camera refused to turn on.

"Damnit," I sighed.

The camera and batteries went into my pack, and I fished out my smartphone instead. That had been turned off for the last couple days, but I made sure it was fully charged before-hand. I held down the power button, but nothing happened. The screen didn't come on, the phone didn't boot up.

I felt a lurch in my stomach as it dawned on me that maybe whatever was happening had affected my electronics. With a sigh I put the phone back in my pack, but it got my mind off of just standing around and watching, and instead I started thinking about my safety.

After another look around at the shattered landscape and the impossible mountain, I decided my best bet was to get out of there. The problem was, the way out was on the other side of that new mountain.

It was less than two and a half kilometres from my campsite back to the car. From there I'd have a long winding drive to get out of the park and back to civilization. I wasn't sure what time it was, apart from 'night', but it didn't feel that late and I wasn't tired. I had a quiet day, a long nap in the afternoon, and between the aurora and the glowing mountain there was more than enough light to see where I was going.

Just like that, I'd made up my mind. As I started gathering up my gear I hesitated over whether I should even bother. The tent and air mattress were scrap, and I could probably be in Rimouski by dawn if the roads weren't bad.

On the other hand if the roads were out from the earthquake I might have to wait for rescue, in which case I shouldn't abandon anything I could use.

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Another quick decision was made, and I packed up everything except the tent and air mattress. Food, sleeping bag, camp stove, everything went into the big backpack. Once all my gear and supplies were secure I hoisted the heavy pack up and got it settled in place.

I took one final look around the area, and to my surprise and relief I saw that little red fox watching me again. Not that I'd been thinking of her, but I was glad to see she was ok.

I turned to set out, but before I started moving I looked back again at the fox. It was silly but the way she hung around my camp for two days I almost felt like we were friends.

"You look after yourself ok?" I told her. This time she didn't bolt when I spoke, so I added "There's some weird shit going on around here little fox. Be careful."

She tilted her head slightly and I could almost swear it was like she was nodding to me. I could even imagine her telling me to do the same. I could almost hear her saying 'You too big fox.'

I sighed as I turned away and started walking, "Now is not the time to start talking to wildlife Tori. Keep a level head, this is serious. And anyways, why would she call me a big fox?"

The hike was a lot more rugged than it had been a couple days ago. The ground was torn and twisted, there were trees and branches down, and at one point what had been the trail was now submerged under a small creek that flowed across. It was only about thirty centimetres deep in the middle, but seven or eight meters wide. I had no choice but to wade through it, and luckily it wasn't moving very fast.

Still, it meant my boots and the lower part of my pants were soaked, and the cool autumn air quickly made things uncomfortable. I was reluctant to stop and deal with that though, considering I was only a couple kilometres from the car.

A few minutes later I emerged from the woods and found myself next to the north shore of what was once Lac Thibault. And the sight stopped me in my tracks.

What had formerly been a sort of vaguely T-shaped lake was now the base of that new impossible mountain. The land immediately around it seemed to sink down, and the lake had receded into that deeper area. It was now more of a circular shape, like a natural moat around an unnatural mountain. And like the rock towering above, the water itself was also glowing with that same unearthly light.

I stood motionless for another minute or two as I continued staring at the strange mountain and the changed landscape around it. And I realized I could shave some time off my hike by cutting across the top of where the lake used to be. Rather than following the former shoreline north-east then south-east, I could just set out south-east. The only concern was it would bring me closer to the shore of the new smaller lake, and closer to the mountain itself.

It seemed like a no-brainer. Cutting across the former lake would probably save me an hour and get me back to the car that much quicker. I took a few steps in that direction, before I stopped again.

My feet were getting really uncomfortable. Something about soaked socks in wet boots always made my skin crawl, but this was even worse. My boots felt like they no longer fit properly, and it almost hurt my feet to walk in them.

And it wasn't just my feet, the way my wet pants were clinging to my shins and knees was bothering me. Even the weight of my pack across my shoulders started to irritate me. And when I tried to adjust the pack I felt a sudden pain in my chest as one of the shoulder straps squeezed me in an unexpected way.

Frustrated and sore I unclipped the waist strap and let the pack drop from my shoulders, as I became aware of another ache. This one was in my lower back, and I started to worry that maybe I got more banged up during the earthquake than I originally thought.

I started to sit down on the pack so I could deal with my feet, when I felt another pain and a pull in my lower back, along with the sensation of there being something uncomfortable in the back of my pants which didn't make sense.

Gritting my teeth in frustration I quickly glanced around, but there wasn't anyone else in sight. I figured I'd just get changed right there, I had dry pants and clean socks in my pack. It seemed like a silly thing to be worrying about, but at the same time I felt like I couldn't keep going with my clothes being so uncomfortable.

As I started to fumble with my belt I was suddenly confused to find that it and my pants were much too loose. Apart from whatever was happening with my lower back, I could just slide my jeans down without undoing anything.

Same with my boots, somehow my feet just stepped out of them. And my heart skipped a beat as I found myself looking down at a pair of slim smooth shapely legs and small delicate feet.

I slowly shook my head as I reached for my much-too-loose boxers, but I paused when I noticed my hands. Like my feet, they looked too small, too delicate. And the sleeves of my hoodie seemed to want to slip down over them, like my top was suddenly several sizes too big.

"What the -" my words caught in my throat and I boggled at the unfamiliar voice that came out of my mouth.

I'd been doing some voice training, and at one point I even looked into different surgical options, but nothing I'd explored would have given me results like what I just heard.

My heart was racing as I quickly pulled my hoodie and shirt off, then yanked my boxers down. Just like that I was naked, and the sight that greeted me was unbelievable. Never mind nine months of HRT, I could be on hormones for a decade and never get near what I was seeing. And that wasn't even the half of it.

It was hard to be sure, but based on how my clothes seemed to have grown I was positive I'd lost at least twenty centimetres of height, and well over a dozen kilos of mass. My body had somehow, inexplicably and completely transitioned. My waist was narrow, my hips were wide, and my breasts were fully developed. And both were significantly more than a handful, especially considering how my hands seemed to have grown smaller. And finally, between my legs I could see a patch of orange-red hair just above my new womanhood.

"This is impossible," I said to myself as I stared.

A moment later I felt one of my furry triangular ears twitch as I detected movement behind me to the right. I turned and found the little red fox standing some ten meters behind me.

She tilted her head slightly, as if to say 'Avoid the lake big sister. It is dangerous there.'

With wide eyes I nodded slowly, and my big bushy tail swished slightly from side to side behind me.