Colin whimpered pitifully as he struggled to drag himself out of the water and onto the shore of the water. After the panic wore off a while back, mustering the energy to keep moving had become a battle. He knew that even though he’d traveled far, he was not yet safe. Predators were more than capable of stalking their prey and the one hunting him right now was an apex predator of the highest caliber.

  Colin shuddered at the memory of how that pulse felt. The intensity of the woman chasing him was unlike anything he’d ever encountered. He didn’t realize humans could be so mean. Jenny was so good to him that he assumed they were all like her, but that predator woman almost reminded him of the same feeling the alligators gave off as they fed all around him.

  There was a spacious looking hollow in the roots of a tree just ahead that Colin forced his uncooperative body to hobble into. There were no life pulses inside other than a few worms and other bugs, so he didn’t need to worry too much. The sun was starting to shrink away, so the hollow would have to be Colin’s home for the night. He was in no shape to keep moving.

  “No,” Colin whimpered, trying to tell the pain to go away, but it didn’t listen. He hurt in so many places, but at least he’d stopped bleeding hours ago. The wounds had closed on their own after some time, but they still ached. Colin didn’t realize he could heal so well, but he wished the pain would go away already.

  It was a wonder that Colin had not been eaten by any alligators with the amount of blood that he spread in the water, but they didn’t seem interested in his distinct flavor. He felt weak in a hollow sort of way. Like he was all there, but it was hard to keep focus.

  Inside the hollow, there was a bed of damp leaves that Colin nestled his awkward body into them trying his best to get comfortable. There was a hole inside the hollow that opened to the water below and caused a small, cold draft from below to blow in. He missed his comfortable cage in Jenny’s room.

  Loss

  A twang of pain pulled at Colin’s gut at the thought of Jenny. He missed Jenny Already. He needed to get back to her. Colin felt his resolve push past his pain. He would get to Jenny, but he needed to make sure he could protect himself and Jenny from that dangerous woman.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  Latching onto his new goal, Colin forced his blurry attention to what he could immediately do. It was hard to not drift out of focus with the amount of blood he’d lost. Step one was to eat some recovery food, so he dug into the dirt for worms and snatched bugs out of the air and off of the tree protecting him. Nomatter how many he ate, more kept coming. He even got lucky enough to snag a few fish that swam into the water hole in the hollow. Every single thing he ate made the pain fade more and more.

  After a few hours of feeding, Colin could feel himself approaching a new threshold in his growth. It was well into the night, but Colin didn’t need his sight to catch his prey. The pulses were so vivid, that it was as clear as day to find them. He didn’t stop feeding. He couldn’t stop.

  REST

  When Colin hit the threshold of being full, he felt a change akin to a snap inside of him. Something significant was happening, but he wasn’t sure what it was. All he knew is that it was important and every cell in his body screamed with the instinct to rest and grow.

  Colin didn’t resist. He stilled his mind, let his instincts take over and let his body shrink into its Chrysalis state. His awareness heightened as his physical senses faded. As soon as the chrysalis was fully formed, an explosion of change happened inside of him.

  All of the glowing pulses of the animals and bugs Colin ate blinked off at once. It was a jarring sensation that made him feel like a deflating balloon. It wasn’t physical, but it was powerful enough that it didn’t make much difference to him.

  Did he just lose all of his animal pulses? No, they were still there, but none were glowing anymore. Colin wasn’t sure what it meant, but he knew he would be in this chrysalis state for a long time, so he was ready to explore.

  Concentrate.

  Colin reached out to one of his favorite pulses: The dragonfly. It started to glow, but didn’t set the other pulses aglow. As soon as it happened, a deep understanding rushed through Colin of what he’d just done. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that he could turn into a dragonfly without any other animal parts on it. He turned off the pulse with a thought and then turned on the pulse for a fish. The same thing happened. The implications of what this meant was amazing. The inefficient body that kept him from running away would never be a problem to him again. Colin tried turning on two pulses at once and it worked. He knew as soon as he did it that he would become a hybrid version of the two animals. Next, he tried with three, then four. After turning on the pulses for all nineteen animal pulses, he realized he could become any combination of the animals he’d eaten so far.

  If Colin had a mouth, he’d be grinning from ear to ear. He couldn’t wait to surprise Jenny with his new trick.