TF Virus 2

  Continued from Part 1

When I woke up the morning after my last day as Lily, I fully expected to be motionless.  Dad had turned into clothing, and most of the other victims turned into objects as well.  As such, I was rather surprised when I found myself stretching my arms, feeling the most refreshed and energetic than I had in years.  Even more surprised to find my arms a lot shorter than they were before, and a much darker skin tone than I had before.  I hopped down from my suddenly larger bed, headed straight for my full-body mirror near my closet.  Everything about my once familiar bedroom seemed larger and more intimidating, and as I came to a stop in front of the mirror, the reason for that became all too obvious.

Gone was the platinum blonde, blue-eyed, fair-skinned teenager that I had grown into over the last seventeen years.  In her place was a tiny African-American girl with a serious case of bedhead, clad in my old nightgown that could comfortably fit two or more of her.  I walked up to the mirror, raising my hand to meet the reflection's.  I saw the slightly lighter color of the palm of my hand just before it touched the glass.  The girl's deep brown eyes widened in surprise, shocked that this unfamiliar little girl could possibly be my own reflection.  I turned my head back and forth, feeling the new texture of my hair as it brushed past my cheeks and neck.

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.  I was still studying my new self as my mother called in gently.  "Lily, honey, I'm coming in," she said as she slowly creaked the door open.  Mom must have expected the worst to have happened to me, so I can only imagine her shock to see a little dark-skinned girl looking in the mirror as if she had never seen her own reflection.  The tension was rather suddenly broken with my mother's shrieking, suddenly crying out.  "OHMIGOD LILY YOU'RE SO CUTE!!!"

I was further broken out of my reverie as my mother's arms wrapped around my waist, lifting me into an enormous bear hug.  The now much larger woman held me tightly, even as I cried out for to stop in my new, unfamiliar voice.  I even noticed a hint of an accent as I tried to wiggle out of Mom's hug, my new energy rising to the surface as we started laughing.  Eventually I gave up, simply wrapping my shorter arms around her to return her affection.  I may have looked completely different, but I was still human, and we were both grateful for that.

There was something nagging on my mind though.  Every time Mom called me Lily, it was like there was a disconnect between me and my name.  There was something else in my mind, but why would I identify with a bird species?  I suddenly realized that some people can be named after birds, and this was one of the more popular options.  "Oh, Lily, I'm so glad you're okay!" Mom cried, tears starting to form.  "We need to reintroduce you to Evelyn and William!"

"Okay, Mommy!" I replied cutely, the word 'mommy' slipping out naturally even though I hadn't called her that since I was nine.  "Just one thing, though..."

"What is it, Lil?" she asked, suddenly sounding concerned, her movements quickly ceasing entirely.  I couldn't blame her, after what happened to Dad compared to me.

"I don't think my name is Lily anymore," I said slowly, my mind struggling to put my thoughts together into the sentence.  Just how much did the virus change my mind?  "I think I'm Wren now."

There was a pause as Mom took in what I had just revealed to her.  I really just wanted her to put me down already; my old nightgown was dangerously close to slipping off my shoulders entirely, already barely hanging on by the left strap.  I found myself hoping we still had more hand-me-downs from Evelyn than just the pink shorts that used to be Dad.  Maybe William had something that would fit?  Sure, I'd be dressing as a boy, but at least I wouldn't be completely naked until we could buy new clothes for me.

Finally, the painful silence broke.  "Well then, Wren," Mom started, saying the new name slowly as if trying to get used to the feeling of the name in her mouth, "I guess we'd better get you dressed in something smaller than that nightgown.  Wouldn't want it to fall off in front of your brother and sister, would we?"  We giggled in unison at the thought, then she finally set me down on the floor.  My eye level was only around her belly button, if not a bit lower, as she grabbed one of my blankets, wrapping it around my tiny frame just as the strap of my nightgown gave up on preserving my modesty.

Mom walked me out of the room in the makeshift bathrobe, occasionally glancing down at me in amusement as I gazed in awe at the once-familiar house that now seemed like a mansion to me.  We walked straight past Evelyn's room and toward William's, meaning I was going to have to deal with wearing my 4-year-old brother's clothes for a bit.  "Li - Wren, wait out here for a bit, okay sweetie?" Mom asked with a quiet practiced gentleness that an adult generally uses for a small child.  I should have been offended, but it instead felt soothing to my obviously partially regressed mind.

I nodded as Mom entered my little brother's bedroom to borrow a set of clothes for me.  At least, I hoped William was still my little brother at four years old; I still didn't know how old I was.  I didn't have a lisp of any kind when I talked, and William still had trouble pronouncing R's.  Waiting outside the door as Mom put together a temporary outfit, I found myself bouncing impatiently.  I had so much energy, and it was being wasted by just standing and waiting!  But I didn't want to risk the blanket-robe falling off, so I tried my hardest not to move around too much.

A few mind-numbing minutes of waiting later, Mom came back out of William's room with a bundle of clothing.  I saw a green t-shirt, a pair of jean shorts and a belt as I was ushered into the bathroom to change.  "Why aren't we going back to my room?" I asked, confused.

"We need to do something about your hair," Mom replied, "and that might take a while.  I don't really know how to work with hair like yours..."  That made sense.  We were a thoroughly Caucasian family, mostly Norwegian in ancestry, and Mom suddenly had a young African-American daughter with hair more suited to cornrows than curls.

"Mommy, let's just straighten my hair the best we can," I said, wanting to get the inevitable reintroduction over with as soon as possible.  "We can have fun with it some other time, 'kay?"  I craned my neck to look Mom in the eyes.  Just the day before, I had been a couple inches taller than her, and now she was a giant compared to me.  Still, she was a deeply comforting presence to my more childish brain.

"Sounds good, Wrenni," Mom sighed, sounding relieved as she used a new pet name for me.  With that, we entered the bathroom to put together my look for the day.

Everything felt so rough on me.  The t-shirt was loose, and yet a bit too short to cover my belly button, and the fabric was a bit scratchy for my newly sensitive skin.  The shorts had to be held up by the belt, and they reached almost to my knees instead of slightly below like they would on William.  That meant I was a bit older then my still-little brother, but I definitely had a slim gymnast's build, causing everything to still hang loosely around my body.  We wouldn't know exactly how old I was until I was tested at the hospital, which thankfully knew what our family was going through.

My new hair was interesting to deal with, as Mom struggled to force my frizzy locks to bend to her will.  We settled on a ponytail, causing my hair to poof out past the scrunchie holding my uncooperative mane at bay.  Looking in the mirror, it still looked really cute, so we decided that it would be fine for the day.  I slipped my feet into an ill-fitting pair of William's sandals, and we ventured into the living room.

I waited on the couch as Mom woke up Evelyn and William, trying my best to stay as still as I could with the near-infinite energy coursing through my body.  A few minutes of me practically vibrating later, and Mom entered with my siblings in tow.  My still-little brother and now-big sister gawked at me like I was an animal at a zoo.  They were probably expecting to be introduced to me being part of someone's wardrobe, but as I saw Evelyn's mouth slowly widen into an elated grin, I knew I was going to have an amazing second childhood.

Mom walked over to me, resting her hand on my shoulder.  "Evelyn and William," she began, "say hello to your sister, Wren."

The rest of the day consisted of my siblings fighting for my attention, Evelyn wanting to play with my hair and William just happy there was someone else in the house who could keep up with his energy (if anything, I had even more energy than he did).  A call to the lab ended with over ten thousand dollars being wired to us so we could build up a new wardrobe and remodel my bedroom, plus extra 'just because'.  Another call was made to the hospital to set a check-up appointment, and an extra call went out to a hair salon under the cover story of me being recently adopted.

The next day was a massive shopping trip, finally freeing me of my little brother's itchy, unfitting clothes.  The visit to the hair salon would be followed by many more as they taught me and Mom how to properly care for and style my hair, and I walked out of the mall that day with a brand-new wardrobe and my bead-laden cornrows clacking away behind me.

We found out later that week that I was a little over five years old, and I would be signed up for kindergarten that fall.  The idea that I would have to start my schooling from scratch didn't bother me as much as I thought it would, since it meant I could build a new circle of friends who could keep up with me better than my old teen friends could.  Speaking of which, my old friends were filled in on what had happened, and most of them happily offered to babysit me so they could still be part of my life.

Evelyn seemed even happier with my new life than I was.  She tried her best to spoil her new little sister rotten, and I happily accepted the attention without letting it affect me too much.  I played with William a lot too, since he had never been introduced to the idea of 'cooties'.  Tag, hide-and-seek, and other active games filled my days that summer, and I greatly enjoyed the small gymnastics setup that Mom invested in for me to flip and vault through.  We knew I was going to be a handful as I grew up again, but it was clear that Mom wouldn't have it any other way.  She was going to make sure my second childhood was as amazing as possible.

About a year later, and I was preparing for my entrance into first grade.  My ears had been pierced on my new May 2nd birthday, I was excelling in my swimming and gymnastics lessons, and I was overall about the happiest six-year-old girl in the world.  My family was amazing - I was even big enough where I could fit into Dad, who was happy to finally be let outside his drawer - and it didn't seem like anything could interrupt our happiness.

Then Evelyn got sick.  We had almost forgotten about the TF Virus ravaging our family until my big sister started forming rashes, signaling her own transformation.  It was hard to watch the girl I had grown to depend on become so helpless, soon becoming confined to her bed.  One night, her shaky arms embraced me in what would be our last hug as sisters, before she fell asleep to undergo her own change.

We couldn't have known what Evelyn would end up as.  She could have been human, animal, body part, object... We had heard from one of the other affected families that their 3-year-old daughter had woken up as a water stain on her bed, slowly evaporating over time to join the water cycle.  My family and I slept restlessly that night, wondering what the morning would bring...