One week later, Ferguson Myles was alone.

One week later, Ferguson Myles was in the middle of the forest, not knowing how he got there.

One week later, Ferguson Myles was not human.

It was raining. That much was easy to ascertain. What was not easy to ascertain was the strange way the water felt running down his skin or the foreign keenness of his hearing. Each drop plucked musical notes as it hit the ground.

Ferguson planned to open his eyes as slowly as he could. Any faster, and he thought he might break. Flake off into a thousand pieces. Fear, confusion, despair, made him shiver (a strange metallic feeling). He desperately wanted the comfort of his apartment, of Roxanne in his bed, laughing in her sleep. That was the last thing he could remember, wasn’t it? Her soft giggles, muffled by slumber. He had smiled at the sound, kept himself awake to look at her, to listen to her. And then…

Ferguson started (another metallic feeling). He had heard strange noises at the window by the fire escape. Clicking, whirring, purring, like a great mechanical cat. He had stood, he remembered, and walked to the window.

Then he was here.

Where was here?

What had happened?

He decided that these things were essential. Necessary. He needed to know them so he could get back to Roxanne.

He opened his eyes slowly, like the doors of a plane hangar. One eye saw darkness, the other, sharp shadows of the forest, clearer than they should have been in the dark. Ferguson realized that he was lying on the ground, half his face in the mud. Painstakingly, he shifted his hands, too heavy, and pushed his body, too long, from the ground.

He stopped, frozen with terror. His new sight-gifted eyes told him they were his hands, but he couldn’t believe them. Those…Those were not his hands. Those were strange, inhuman, three-fingered, chiseled. Not hands, claws. He lifted one; it responded to his every whim, more precisely and sinuously than any human hand could. It was alien, this thing.

Alien, this thing.

Ferguson stood, stunned by too many things at once; four long skeletal legs, three feet of extra height, the long, segmented body.

Sort of like praying mantises, he suddenly remembered her saying.

Am I, he wondered, one of Roxanne’s aliens?

But that was impossible.

Impossible, of course…

He needed to talk to her, to ask her why this was happening to him. Maybe she wouldn’t have answers. In fact, he didn’t expect her to. All he wanted was to see her face, beautiful deep in thought and hear her voice, speaking aimlessly like flipping through books.

“Roxanne,” he tried to whisper, but the sound was a click-spurr of strangeness in his throat. He cried out in shock, another purr-whip-clatt! of unfamiliarity.

“Stop, stop, STOP!” he screamed, but what issued from him was a deafening, despairing whistle-screech-hum.

He stumbled forward, click-sobbing, leaned on a tree, and acknowledged miserably that he was mute in this body.

Click-spurrr…Click-spurrr…Click-spurrrrr…

If he could just hear her name, he’d feel better. But he couldn’t recognize the sounds he made. They were not her name.

Ferguson staggered into the forest, knowing only that he needed her. He would be willing to live out the rest of his days in this body if he could just be with her.

Roxanne…

Roxanne…

“Roxanne…”

“Roxanne…”

Roxanne opened her eyes and smiled faintly.

“Good morning,” he said to her.

“Good morning,” she said to Ferguson’s body.