Chapter 5: chapter 3 Just Keep Swimming. Or don’t.

I blankly stared into nothing with my forehead pressed into my knees. At one point I had stopped crying and after that, I managed to stop thinking about my past. I kinda just stopped thinking at all. I just sat there staring at nothing thinking of nothing for a long time. I think I may hay sat there till I starved if nothing changed. that was until I felt a sharp pain as something bit my ass. 

I jumped to my feet with much more force than I expected. I got a solid foot off the ground when I wasn't trying. I pushed that to the back of my mind as I swat my ass to get anything off. I looked back and saw two things that scared the shit out of me, one that I should have noticed early and another that could have been prevented if I noticed the first.  The first fact was that I was naked as the day I was born. My body looked no different from what I remembered. I was a large man slightly out of a shape with a noticeable gullet to prove it. My hair fell in brown waves covering my body in their volume down to my belly button. I seemed to have lost my clothes and my hair ties when I transformed. I marveled at how out of it I got to not notice a change in my hair, which I kept track of almost obsessively at most times. 

The second fact was that there was a nasty bug stuck to my ass. It seemed like a tic on steroids that stole the horns of their Beatles cousins. I felt like I could feel the fucker glaring at me challenging me to even try and remove him from his throne. He knew I wouldn't have the guts as he sat there feasting upon my blood. He was right I couldn't bring myself to grab him and remove him. 

At the end of all my existentialism and realizing I was still in another world and now naked with a bug on my ass I made a realization. If I were gonna be stranded in this forest I'd rather be a tree dragon. With that, I felt my body begin to shift. It was better this time since I knew what was happening. I could feel my body shift to form my tail and wings and noticed a distinct lack of bones. My flesh just shifted and there didn't seem to be an issue with internal organs. The more I understood the transformation the less I understood my body yet still I felt slightly comforted. 

As I finished my transformation the tick found itself on the smooth part of my tail near my main body. I turned my head to look at him and shoo him off my body. Much to my charging the bug looks less than intimidated by my transformation. If anything it seemed happier to be suddenly on a tree after getting its fill. As I tried to swat at him I realized an issue. I only knew how to move my neck as a dragon, the rest of my tree body lay still. 

I turned away from the tick and decided to ignore him. He had no interest in attacking my tree body and I decided I had more pressing issues. I quickly closed my eyes and tried to focus on my feet. I tried to feel each claw move and explore all my joints. My claws were more like a middle ground between a foot and a hand while being neither. I seemed to have a range of motion and capability similar to human hands yet was much more limited in how far I could move my arms. My legs were formed in a way that only allowed my hands to reach a certain radius under my body. I did notice though that I could reach all my legs to touch each other. I then Shifted around my torso to feel all the muscles flex. I noticed that I could bend my torso itself quite far and I seemed quite flexible. I also noticed muscle in my back shift that I never felt before and more in my rear for my wings and tail. 

I opened my eyes and looked at my feet. I was laying flat down on my stomach with my feet by my side. I tried to get my feet planted in the ground to push myself up. After scrambling for three minutes to get my feet secured I went to push myself up. I heaved and felt my chest begin to rise off the ground getting about half a foot off the ground when my left black leg slipped and I came crashing down. 

I tried again. Then again. and again. Then finally I managed to get my body supported on my feet. I stood up to my full height and stretched out my neck. My shoulders rose five feet off the ground but my neck added another three feet to my head reach. My body from head to tail seemed around twenty feet. I wasn't the largest dragon but I was quite happy with this size. With a sense of pride, I lifted a leg off the ground to take a step, and I fell on my face. 

I spent the next thirty minutes trying to walk. I kept falling and in the beginning, I would struggle to find my feet under me and rise again. Then as I kept falling it got easier to get up after doing it again and again. I started to stay on my feet longer and longer and before long I managed to take a step. Then I took two and struggled for the third. In the end, I managed to get reliable slow lumber forward. 

I slowly lumbered to the center of the clearing and looked toward the sky. The sky was cast in a vision of red and orange with streaks of gold. I could see the sun in the distance as it set. it was peculiar I realized with one large sun with a distinctly red color and then a smaller gold sun that seemed to revolve around the red one. Currently, the first fourth of the red sun had gone below the horizon but all of the golden sun lay bare. I looked in the direction of the sun and began to lumber forward. I looked down at my feet and only focused on putting one foot in front of the other. 

I embraced the challenge of walking as it occupied my mind from any other thoughts. I walked as the colors of the world around me shifted and dimmed. I only focused on getting one foot in front of the other as fast and as smoothly as I could even as the colors from the sun died. Even as the light of the sun died I found myself able to see the world around me in perfect clarity, a detail I would have noticed if I looked up from my feet.  I began to shuffle quicker before walking with some sense of normality. There came a point after a while when only darkness surrounded me that a managed to walk like a normal being and yet I still only focused on my feet.

I began to go faster and faster. I started to speedwalk and then even jog. I only watched my feet and where I would next place them as I began to run through the forest. I ran and ran and never stopped even as it no longer required me to struggle. I strangely didn't feel any fatigue and only got better at running and I managed to begin to look around the forest as I ran. I passed different plants and trees all of which looked no different to me and yet somehow I understood what each was and how to use them. it was an ideal curiosity that I noticed the plant, a testament to my running capabilities, and I felt my mind begin to wander. I shook my head wildly and scanned my surroundings. I saw a large hill that had a sudden cut off creating a small cliff in the forest. 

I barely took the time to even consider my actions before I turned to run at the cliff. I  didn't slow down and if anything pushed my legs harder to throw myself forward towards the cliff. As I approached the cliff I transferred all of my focus onto my wings. I tried to flex my wings and managed to flare them out just as I reached the cliff. I jumped with no hesitation.