Uninspired
^{A short story by drekian}

Nick stared blankly at his computer screen. It had been days since he'd had any sort of inspiration for his songwriting and he just felt completely bummed out. His online friends had tried to make him feel better, but all in all it seemed nothing would help. He just needed some sort of inspiration to break him out of this slump.

After an hour of browsing around FA and DA and his other social networks and coming up with nothing, he leaned back in his chair and let the chat messages flood in. Someone started going on about their problems again, and he began to tune it out. He turned on some music to help himself relax and ran his hands slowly down the keyboard.

Maybe I'll write a story, he thought. That'll give me a break from writing music and I could actually come up with something good.

He opened his writing program and watched the cursor blink for what felt like an eternity, trying to come up with an idea. Then his instant messaging program notified him. It was one of his close friends.

[Hey, what's going on?]
He typed back, 'not too much. Thinking about writing a story. What about you?'
[Bored as hell.]

The little pencil animation which signified that his friend was typing a reply kept scribbling away as Nick watched.

[Story? What type?]
'I don't know, I've got no idea...'
[We could do a collab. Oh, we could TF you to your character!]

Nick thought about it for a second. It was true: he didn't have many stories of him transforming to his online persona. And his friend was a pretty good writer, so that was an added bonus. Maybe this was just the thing he needed to boost his inspiration.

'Okay, how are we going to do this?'
[Well, I found this awesome program online that lets you type as a group. We could do it as a role play or something, then edit it after.]
'Sure!'

Nick's friend sent him the link to what looked like any typical blank document page. A pop-up loaded, "Welcome to type-now pro gold V0.2 beta", and below that had a list of known bugs and a paragraph explaining how the program worked in very poor grammar. Nick grumbled and stared it over, then sent a message to his friend, 'you sure this is safe?'
[Oh yeah, I've used it before. It's good. My share code is: ZXD1419V. Just put that in the box and click "Jion".]

Nick copied the code into the box, then clicked the misspelled button and waited for the page to load. The server that this website was on obviously sucked, because it took almost a minute for the page to load, and when it did he noticed that his friend had already written an introduction.

'The woods around Nick were getting dark. The sun had just set and the last remnants of a fading dusk clung to the horizon like pink cherry blossoms clinging. The cold winter air stung Nick's face and a light snow was falling from the sky; the leaves and ground already were covered in a skiff of white powder.'

Nick nodded, getting a picture of the scene. He flexed his fingers then typed: "Dark or not, Nick needed to get home. Even though everyone knew that the forest between his home and the nearby town was haunted, he had traveled through it countless times without incident. And there was no reason why tonight would be different."

He waited a few seconds, watching the screen, then his friend's words started showing up. 'He curled up inside of his jacket, cursing that he had forgotten his gloves. What had started out as a nice, warm day had quickly degraded and now it was beyond freezing. He shivered slightly and walked faster. His heavy footfalls crunched loudly against the gravelly trail of the gloomy wood and the only way he would possibly stay warm was to keep moving, so move he did.'

"As he walked, he looked down at his feet. All of the superstitions about this forest said that the only way the spirits haunting this forest could hurt you is if you looked them in the eye. Besides, soon he would be at home, curled up by the fire with his fingers wrapped around a cup of hot cocoa."

As his friend typed, Nick laughed to himself. This was starting to sound very cliche, but at least he was getting into it. He read as his friend finished typing a paragraph. 'Nick kept walking, lost in his own thoughts. Then a loud noise behind him snapped him out of it and he froze in place. He was in the middle of the forest now, about half way home. The snow was falling harder, the last of the sunset obscured by a thick white veil. "Who's there?" Nick called, not looking up.

Nobody answered. After a moment's hesitation, Nick started walking again. It was probably just a branch falling or something, he tried to convince himself. The snow freezes the branches, then they snap, simple. But the faster he walked, the louder and more frequent the noises behind him got.

He started running. His heart pounded in his chest and he sprinted, pulling his backpack close to his shoulders. The noise behind him was getting closer. It sounded like someone was chasing him but he couldn't look back to see. He breathed heavily and watched his steps as his boots pounded in the swirling snow.

Then he saw his error. It was the worst thing he could've possibly done, but it was already too late. He watched from outside of his body as his boot stepped on the frozen puddle and he felt it slide out from underneath him. There was nothing he could do. The snowy gravel was quickly rushing up on him, getting closer and closer. He stretched out his hands and shielded his face.

Then he was lying on the ground, gasping in pain. His ankle felt twisted and his hands were scraped, scarlet blood splattering across the snow. He blinked and pushed himself to his knees. Then, he felt a presence behind him. He froze on the spot and looked at his hands.

"What do we have here, yah?" a teasing voice said.
"Oh I don't know Kip. What do we have here?"
"Another mortal to eat, is that right Pat."
"Yus, another delicious mortal... Mmmmmm."

Nick closed his eyes tightly. He wouldn't let them tease him into turning and looking at them. "Go away," he said.

"Aww, com'on kid. We're not that nasty."
"I am."
"Shut up Kip!"

The footsteps walked around him and he felt their eyes glaring down at him.

"Oh look Kip, the kid is hurt."
"No. I'm not."
"He's bleeding, and look, his ankle looks broken."

Nick gripped at the snow with his bloody hands and tried to straighten out his ankle, to make it look less injured.

"Go away. I'm fine."
"Oh, no, that's no way to talk to us. We can fix you. Here."

He felt the presence lean over and he squished his eyes closed harder. There was something he was forgetting, but he couldn't place his finger on it. It felt important. Maybe it was some way to make these things go away... He felt something touch his ankle, but it wasn't a hand... it felt more like a warmth spreading though his ankle. The pain from the injury was fading.

The voices laughed in unison.

His eyes shot open and he looked up. There was nothing beside him. The source of the voices had faded into the forest. The feeling in his ankle was spreading, a fiery warmth shooting through his leg. He pulled at his pants, gasping as the warmth flooded down his other leg and up into his chest. His leg was swollen and his pants refused to budge. He groaned and rolled in the snow, trying to cool down the intense heat spreading through his body. But oddly it didn't hurt.

He dove into his backpack and started to cut at his pants, then suddenly he snapped. Like becoming aware that one is dreaming, Nick instantly became conscious. He looked around, his entire body on fire, trying to wake up. But he wasn't dreaming. The last thing he remembered, he was sitting at his computer, writing a story. Something was seriously wrong. He didn't fall asleep at his computer, and he definitely was not dreaming.

His leg started throbbing against the tightness of his pants. Something was seriously wrong. He started cutting at his pants again, managing to hack away his jeans. His leg had changed. Gone was his normal skin- it was replaced with an odd red texture. He reached down and felt it, instantly pulling his hand away from the heat of the things covering his skin. He closed his eyes and felt again... It felt like he was rubbing the skin of a lizard.

He gasped and recoiled, then pinched his shoulder hard. "Come on, wake up! Wake up! No, no, no!"

He watched with fear as his feet broke through his boots while claws spiked out of his rapidly growing toes and his feet reshaped. He heard the bones of his legs shifting and crackling as another wave of warmth started spreading through his body. He cut his pants the rest of the way off as the scales reached his belly and his legs bulked up. He groaned and collapsed to the snow as his legs shortened and his feet became digitgrade. The skin on his chest cracked and folded and he pulled off his t-shirt, marveling at the waves of tough scales spreading over his chest.

He pinched himself again, shivering from the ecstasy that was flowing through his shifting form. He wasn't dreaming! This was real! He watched as a protrusion of red scaled flesh grew out from his rear, quickly filling with bones and forming into a tail. A sweep of tough, yellow scales formed underneath the red scales and up his chest. He felt his back shifting as his balance was thrown forward, but his digitgrade feet caught him and he perched on the ground, almost like a bird.

He turned and watched as spikes started forming down his back and across his tail. It almost tickled. And then he swept his tail across the snowy ground a few more times, laughing out loud at the feeling of moving a new limb.

This is awesome!

Then the scales reached his arms. And he suddenly realized something.

Oh shi-

His arms started itching and he groaned, watching the scales spreading down his limbs. He watched them slowly creep up towards his fingers and closed his eyes. He didn't want to see what was going to happen next.

But even though he closed his eyes, he couldn't stop himself from feeling what happened. His fingers started stretching. The bones creaked and cracked. It felt like water was running down his fingers as they lengthened and membrane formed between them. He cracked open an eye to see glistening red wings where his hands once were and he groaned. He would miss those.

Then, he felt the scales spreading up his neck. His jaw stretched and his muzzle creaked. He gapsed and gagged, the taste in his mouth changing to something more wild. He flicked out a forked tongue and blinked as his vision went fuzzy. Then the world lit up. The once dark forest was alight with glowing colour. He giggled slightly, then leaned forward, wincing as his skull cracked and large white horns formed.

This can't be real, he thought as he looked himself over. He looked exactly like his wyvern character. He felt exactly like his wyvern character. No, he was a wyvern!

He spread his wings and flapped them experimentally, blowing a flurry of snow out from underneath him. He sighed and looked down at himself for a few minutes, mind filled with awe, then he started waddling home.

He somehow made it into his home (the front door had been left ajar) and up into his bedroom. Inside of his room, his computer was glowing brightly. He made his way over to the screen and after his eyes adjusted, he saw that there was a completed tf story. A new chat message from his friend was blinking on the screen, "Well Nick, do you like it?"

He laughed and used his snout to type, "yes."