Silver Light Chapter 1 (Patreon)

I left the bar feeling about as happy as I’d thought I would when I agreed to come here in the first place. Harry, Beth, Polly and the others were having a great time in there as usual, and they didn’t even notice when I slipped out. I mean, who would notice? It’s not like I actually said anything for most of the night. A question here and there demanded my attention for a moment, but otherwise I was free to sit back and watch my friends have fun.

Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed their company one on one, but there was only so much I could take being interrupted, talked over and ignored by the more extroverted members of our friend group before I stopped trying. To be honest, the whole atmosphere of a bar rubbed me the wrong way. Everyone talking over the top of one another causing an ever increasing conversational volume that led to hoarse throats and misunderstood words. How anyone had an interesting and meaningful conversation when like forty people were yelling over the top of each other was beyond me.

Out on the street the night was warm, it was the middle of summer after all, despite the rain threatening to break not a few miles to our south. Miles. That was a thing. It seemed that this country was finally starting to rub off on me. When I first moved to Boston to go to MIT I’d been a little shell shocked at even getting into the prestigious institution. I had though, riding a scholarship across the oceans from my home of New Zealand to this strange land they called the United States of America. I’d known I was good, but I had figured my natural tendancy to fuck everything up would have leapt into the way of that metaphorical bullet landing home.

Moving through the streets I noticed they were pretty packed, which was no surprise regardless of the time. It was a friday night in a very student suburb after all. I moved past several groups of drunk students, making myself as small and uninteresting as possible. I really hoped they didn’t try and talk to me. Major source of anxiety there. Never make eye contact, just like with wild animals, otherwise they might take it as an excuse to engage you in conversation.

I took my phone out to avoid drawing their attention. A man on a phone was conversationally off limits after all. I scrolled aimlessly through the various social media I used. Reddit as usual was depressing and confrontational, user after user reading every little eccentricity of text as an attack. Time to swap to Twitter… to find more disappointment. What was with my fellow programmers and having a chip on their shoulder the size of the grand canyon?

So distracted was I by the drama of Twitter that I was more than a little surprised when my phone was suddenly gone from my grasp, and my ass was on the ground. What in the… oh. I’d walked into a pole. Nice job Evan you dingus. Watch out world! Certified mess coming through! Nearby a gaggle of girls tittered at my misfortune and I felt my pasty white cheeks heat. Damn cheeks, always betraying my emotions!

I was the weirdest looking introvert you’ll ever meet. At six and a half feet tall I’d been approached by so many coaches to play some sport or other that by now I had my negative response preloaded as soon as I saw one heading towards me. I was lanky, but not overly so with a shock of blond hair that just refused to grow in any sort of uniform order. Each lock of hair just struck off wildly into the unknown.

It was from my position on my butt that I saw the strangeness in the sky begin. I gazed in awe as huge roiling clouds boiled up out of nothing above the city like god had left his smoke machine turned on upstairs. They very quickly choked out the sky above, leaving nothing but grey from horizon to horizon. I check to see if anyone else was seeing this, or if I was just crazy. Nope… no one around me seemed to notice at first, but when the clouds began to flicker and flash with oddly coloured lights the random people around me could no longer ignore it.

The group of girls who had laughed at my misfortune just moments earlier stared up in wonder at the beautiful display above us. They pointed their phones up above to capture the freak event, and I was jealous that my phone was nowhere to be found. They were right to be awed by the majestic display above us, it certainly was very pretty. I had no idea what was going on above us, but nature was strange like that.

The hushed murmurs of the group turned to fear next when all of a sudden everything around us began to float. It was like gravity itself had forgotten how to do its job and was trying to fix things trial by error style. I felt my stomach lurch in protest as I jerked this way and that in the air. Everything was affected, the cars, the people… hell even the buildings I realised in fear as roofing seemed to come peeling off one building.

The coloured lights were reaching a crescendo above us when in the blink of an eye the clouds simply vanished. It was like they had never existed. Without their obscuring presence we were able to see violent flashes of coloured energy above us. Crackling orbs of the stuff was forming and bursting in the upper atmosphere. Again the odd display changed, and as if in concert they seemed to halt, then flash a brilliant white for a microsecond.

Before that white light could do anything more than gasp a breath, it was viciously snuffed out like a baby bird in the jaws of a hungry predator. The stars… all the stars, every single one in the sky lit with a blackness that seemed deeper than the surrounding void. A small part of my mind wondered how it was happening simultaneously, given the speed of light and all that, but all thoughts of physics were suddenly shoved down the priority list of my mind.

The world went dark. I’m not talking about the type of dark where there’s a power outage but you can still kinda see. I’m talking literal, instant black. It was as though the concept of light itself had died. I still had a sense of self, my body existed, as far as I could tell. The girls from earlier certainly did, judging by their screams of terror.

Light came back to the world with a thump that I felt deep in my chest. Wait, no that was my back hitting the pavement as gravity decided to return to normal. I gasped as my chest tried to suck air back into my winded lungs. Grasping randomly about me I to make sense of all that had just happened. Was the world under attack? Had aliens just tried to abduct us all and failed? What was going on?

Also, why did it feel like there was a torrent of energy surging into me. It was as though I’d spent my whole life failing to drink water, only to get my first taste as a firehose into my gullet. I writhed on the ground as something within me sated itself on an energy I couldn’t see. The world seemed to fade as my mind was occupied entirely by this energized feeling permeated my body like I’d reached some sort of transcendence.

I opened my eyes as the surge faded to find my body glowing. Every vein and artery pumped molten light through my body. The light was white with a bluish tint, but I wasn’t able to inspect myself further before the image of a tangle of threads flashed unbidden into my mind. I stared in disbelief next as a riot of scorching hot flame lanced out in a pyre from my fingers. The torrent melted a hole straight through a parked car and into the pavement of the road.

“What the fuck?” I squeaked in surprise, my rumbling voice turning it strange. Grown men’s voices aren’t meant to squeak like that.

Before the universe could gift me with an answer another tangle of threads burst into being within my mind’s eye and there was suddenly one less street lamp lining the road. The thing had been liquified by a brilliant flash of lightning originating at my fingertips. What was going on? Please world, please stop. Go back to normal please. Normal was boring… but at least when things were boring I wasn’t blasting chunks of infrastructure into oblivion!

Another strange image in my mind, and I was rocketing a few meters into the sky before landing on my back atop the car I’d just blasted a hole in. The heat of the metal singed my back and I scrambled off it with a yelp. I nursed my bruises and burns as I spun wildly to see if there was some corporeal reason for the strangeness. My eyes landed on someone I didn’t expect to see.

She was a girl I knew dimly through my group of friends. Coming in at just under six feet if I had to guess, her thin athletic build lent itself to that height well. Staring at me with wide grey eyes she was taking hesitant steps towards me.

“Evan…? That’s your name right? What… what’s happening to you?” she asked, fear lacing her normally strong voice.

“I don’t know!” I cried, trying and failing to get a handle on my frantic emotions, “I can’t make it stop!”

A third image sprang into my mind, and the world went white with pain. It was everywhere. Every limb, every organ, every follicle of hair, every bone in my body. They all cried out in a choir of misery that threatened to smash me from consciousness. Next was nausea as things shifted and changed within me. I tried to vomit, but that didn’t work. My body wasn’t listening to me right now, which was probably a good thing. I don’t know why money problems were my first thought at that moment, but hey, there I was thankful that I didn’t lose my dinner because then I didn’t have to buy more food.

I didn’t even have time to process what had just been done to me before yet more random acts of strangeness sprang forth unbidden from my writhing body. A bolt of shadow hit a wall and began eating away at the brick. The moisture in the air around me froze in a single moment and fell about me like snow. Wait, I think that actually was snow. I opened my eyes to find myself once more on my back, staring up at the moon.

There was something really odd about the moon right now actually. So odd that it took my mind off the catastrophe that I was becoming. Actually, who am I kidding? I was always a catastrophe, it just seemed that now instead of constantly smashing various body parts against solid objects and making ridiculous social faux pas I was now liquifying the pavement and shit. Could I consider this an upgrade? Maybe. We’ll call it fifty fifty for now.

Anyway, the moon seemed oddly… alive? It was strange, there was nothing physical about this intuition, but the moon seemed to be reaching out to me nevertheless.

Young One. You seem troubled.

“Uh, sorry what?” I mumbled back at the strange voice in my head. It was definitely not my voice in my head. I think.

You seem to be in distress. Am I using these words correctly? You mortals move far too quickly for me to keep up.

“Yup, the words seem to be all working just fine. A little on the formal side but hey the moon can use whatever flowery language she wants yeah?” I said back.

Yes. Well mostly. The Sun can get a bit touchy if I’m too long winded in my poetry.

“Wait what? The Sun? The Sun gets touchy about poetry?” What the fuck is going on in my mind!? This is whacked!

Oh blast this tempramental spell! Why is it always so frustrating talking to mortals? They keep firing my own words back at me like that simpering fool that orbits Jupiter. Whatever his name is. Sycophant! He should really realise that Jupiter has far more-

“No I can hear you, sorry. It’s just not every day the Moon ends up talking to me…”

BOOM. A few meters away, a window was obliterated by what appears to have been some sort of glowing blue hockey puck. Did someone slip a hallucinogen into my drink back at the bar? Was I actually just laying on the pavement as a drooling mess?

Oh dear. That was violent. I assume that square chunk of molten and then cooled sand has done you grievous injury in the past?

“Noooo, nope. It’s… look I honestly have no idea what’s going on right now. I think this might be a fever dream or maybe my friends getting a little free with their odd cocktails to be honest.”

I had a fever once.

“You had… fever? How on Earth does the Moon get a fever?”

What the actual fuck was going on right now? I was beyond confused.

Well for starters I’m not actually on the Earth. We ended our physical relationship a while back, she was a bit too… that’s not important. Neither is the fever thing. I’ll explain another time, but suffice to say it was awful! Now if you’re not damaging your surroundings on purpose, might I suggest a solution?

“Solution away girl. I could definitely use the help, also… side note… why is my voice so high pitched right now?”

It really was high pitched. I sounded like some sort kids voice, or maybe a young woman. I could never tell with voices. I once spent almost a year gaming with this woman who I thought was like a fourteen year old or something. She never corrected me and when I finally cottoned on, she laughed for like four hours straight. Oh wait, the moon was talking again.

I believe one of the spells you cast earlier turned you into a female of your species.

“Wait wait what? What?? How? What? How? No… what?”

I turned into a girl? That’s not cool! I’m a guy! I think? I mean you can never be sure, but I was pretty positive I was a guy.

Also not important right now. If you wish to stop your magical tantrum, I can help you by connecting our energies and fixing the problem in your core. It appears the sudden violent resurgence of the leylines on Earth has caused your core to overflow and become damaged. I’ll correct that if you allow me.

“Not important? What are you on about? I can’t just be turned into a girl!”

Young lady please concentrate. You are going to hurt someone and get in trouble with the… whatever you small ones call the authorities these days. Lawmen?

Young lady? Oh no.

“Right. Yeah, fix me please!”

I’ll take that as permission. Here we go! This may tickle.

I felt her reach down with her… mojo? Energy? What do you call the weird ethereal essence that a celestial body was made of? Oh right.. Essenc-

Oh my lord what the fuck. My whole body lit up like a christmas tree. Every nerve in my body pulsed with pleasure on a magnitude I had never experienced before. I felt a heat burning through my lower body as tsunami’s of ecstasy ran rampant within me. My body convulsed and thrashed until I felt someone hold me down, and then came the moans. Oh by every deity, real or fake or somewhere in between did my moans sound very feminine and very sexual. Definitely a girl’s voice then. It was as though a chorus of talented porn stars were singing out with one voice.

I vaguely heard the girl I’d seen earlier (the one I knew) mutter, “This is the weirdest night of my god damn life.”

As she said that my… tickling… eased, as did the random spells that I’d been accidentally destroying the surrounding environment with.

“You and me both,” I groaned, my voice hoarse from the… screaming I’d just been doing. Wow. It’s really odd how pain is something that doesn’t really register until after you come down from the orgasm.

I have fixed you!

Why did she sound so damn excited? When the personification of the Moon spoke to you, you’d expect a more calm and collected personality… but no, the Moon was a bit loony and liked to ramble. This had to be a dream.

“Yeah… thanks for that,” I grumbled.

You are most welcome! We are now intrinsically linked from now until eternity!

“What.”

I have bound my essence to your own in order to effect repairs that would have otherwise been impossible!

I could only sigh and flop back as this news hit me. Why oh why was this happening to me?

“Yo so… why are you talking to yourself?” the girl who’d kept me from hurting myself in the throes of passion asked hesitantly.

“Because I’m crazy and I’m a damn mess,” I replied tiredly.

“Yeah I can tell,” she chuckled, not seeming all that put off by my weird behaviour.

You are not crazy Young One. Simply having to cope with the after effects of overwhelming physical pleasure.

“Oh screw you,” I said shaking a fist at the moon.

That’s a bit rude. I’m going to tell Venus about that in a few billion years when we’ve scheduled tea together.

“Gir- Dud- Shit.. Evan, you’re in no shape to be screwing anyone right now,” the girl said beside me.

“No not you! The Moon!” I said, pointing up.

“Yeah… Okay. Are you alright to stand? ‘Cos the city is kind of on fire and we need to get going before the cops get here and try to arrest you. As much as I’m not a fan of them, I don’t want to see any more of your craziness before the morning,” she told me.

I tested each of my limbs before responding, “Shit… I can try. Am I really a girl now?”

It certainly looked like it from what I could see through my now very baggy clothing. Oh geez that was a nipple.

“Uh… yes. Very much yes,” coughed my new companion.

“Shit.”