Monster Girl Challenge (Day 1)

Woman: Swift Creek Photos
Bird: Wikimedia

It was early morning in mid-summer and Chloe was out on the balcony of her house. Her husband Stefan had usually left by now for work but for the past few months, he’d been on sabbatical from the university. Instead of heading in to work, he’d been spending long hours in the basement area he’d converted into a work lab. A year and a half earlier, he’d discovered a strange and remarkably ancient collection of copper scrolls in the Near East in one of the many shell holes left by the recent war. They’d languished in his office at the university receiving none of the attention they deserved as other, more pressing requirements of his position took precedence. But now, he’d be able to work on them.

The scrolls were clearly ancient; perhaps 3000 years perhaps much more. The first few he’d managed to carefully unroll and support using a special plastic film were amazingly confusing. They were written in a strange script that didn’t conform to any used by known civilization in the area over a span of thousands of years. Fortunately, the fifth one proved to be a primer, of sorts. It had the same text in cuneiform and the strange script. A friend from Computer Science had managed to decipher some congruences between the two scripts using the campus super-computer. Stefan was now applying those congruences to finish breaking the code (as it were) of the new script.

Stefan tended to mumble as he worked particularly when he focussed on a task as intently as he was doing now. With the script, for the most part, readable, Stefan began to read the first of the scrolls he’d unrolled shortly after returning from the dig.

Outside, Chloe rested, leading on the balcony railing. A sudden wind swirled around her and she felt chilled to the bone. Such a wind was more in keeping with the New England winter than the humid heat of summer. As she shivered momentarily, she felt a strange prickling over much of her body. Looking down she realized that she was standing naked and was covered by red pimples. Unable to move, she watched as her arms distorted and the pimples erupted into black feathers. As the change continued, she felt her legs give out and she ended up on her back. To her horror, her slender legs became scaled and even thinner. Her feet split and the toes elongated until she found herself staring at huge bird’s feet. Terrified, she shouted and fortunately, Stefan in his basement dungeon managed to hear her.

By the time he’d dashed up the stairs to the balcony, she’d managed to right herself and discovered she could fly. As he came out on the balcony and caught sight of Chloe, he tumbled to a halt.

“Oh? What?” was all he managed.

Fortunately, the strange transformation faded as the sun set many long hours later.