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Egas laid there lightheadedly for a time which felt like an eternity to him. Whether it was shock due to the pain, or whatever happened to him, he wasn’t quite sure, but he couldn’t move a single muscle. It took a while for Egas to be able to move his body again. With his limbs still aching, he slowly set up and felt a joint pain, as if the muscles in his arms were having a spasm. When he managed to get into a sitting position, his field of view began being obstructed by a lot of silky, white strings. It looked like thick cobwebs to Egas so instinctively he tried pulling it off. He did not succeed though. While trying to pull those strings off, his head moved with the pull and his scalp started hurting. This was the moment where Egas realised that this was somehow his hair.

Not being as lightheaded any more, he looked down on himself. Were those… breasts he was looking at? Instinctively he grabbed there, and was surprised and in a state of semi-shock when he felt the touch. It didn’t feel wrong, but also not right. Egas felt conflicted and weird. Suddenly he got a thought. Maybe, if he had grown breasts… Egas pulled his pants away from himself and was shocked to not see his member any more.
Egas jolted up and ran towards a decently large pond, which was located right next to the oak tree, to look at his reflection in the water. It was dark outside and the moon was already rising, so Egas could not see much. One thing he could tell though, he was no longer a boy. In front of him was the reflection of a girl of about his own age. She had silver-white hair, which was somehow silken, as well as looking bushy and wild. On two spots on the sides of her forehead there were some black dots. When Egas felt that area of her forehead, she found some weird, hard things. They were too small to see them except of the weird black spots, but they were weirdly poky when touching them with her hand. Her eyes had an emerald green glow to them. They looked so deep and complex that one could almost lose their sense of time looking into her beautiful eyes. Her skin was as smooth as that of a little child. It seemed to not show any imperfections and, while it was smooth as a baby’s skin, it was also weirdly rough, just like some sort of soft sandpaper if she moved her hands around there. Her nose was small and delicate and her lips thick and full. The entire shape of her face was rounded a lot more than that of the boy that stood in her place beforehand.
Egas wouldn’t have got a single word out of her mouth if such a beauty was standing in front of him. How could she have been able to process herself turning into such a beautiful girl? Suddenly she realised a weird feeling coming from a spot she had never felt anything from before. It felt as if it was further down her spine than what should be possible. Twisting around to look behind herself, she was met by a white, scaly tail. It wasn’t very thick or long, but it was there and even visible for her when just turning around her head.

Her heart felt like it skipped a beat. What had happened to her? How did she turn into this? Was it magic? Was it a curse? Egas’ head began to hurt and her stomach felt like it was turned upside down. She felt a little like puking, but wasn’t able to. She laid down on the ground to try and calm down and think about what to do next. She waited 15 minutes, then 30 minutes, then an hour. But in all that time she had not got any good ideas, and her head hurt even more.

Suddenly she heard steps and a voice began to speak.
“Ey Egas, sorry for being late. I had to help my brother a little before coming here.”
Egas didn’t know what to do and tried to hide. Hidden behind the Oak tree, she listened.
“Egas? I know you are here. Your father told me you weren’t home yet. Oh yeah, he is also pretty angry right now. What did you do this time?”
She still didn’t answer. It was easier for her to hide and think about what to do next than to confront Adam.
With each passing second, she heard the steps coming closer and closer. Suddenly they stopped.
“Who are you? And where is Egas?”
“I…” Egas had to think of a new name to not get mistaken for an imposter.
“I am Kalmia.”
“And where is Egas?”
“I… I don’t know who this ‘Egas’ is.” Kalmia said in a low and not very convincing voice.
It was then that Adam had started noticing her sharp teeth and tail. Also, the fact that those were the same clothes he had seen Egas in a few days earlier, which were too large for this girl.
“What did you do to Egas?”
“I tell you, I don’t know this ‘Egas’!”
Adam, in a fit of worry about Egas, began getting pushier.
“You killed and ate him, didn’t you?”
“What? No! I never ate anyone!”
Adam didn’t believe a single word that came out of her mouth.
“Come with me. I will bring you before the Baron of this fief. He will judge whether you did or not.”
Adam had anguish in his voice which was too unbearable to hear for Egas.
“Okay, okay. I tell you the truth. I am Egas. I-”
“No more of this! No excuses, and especially none of this nonsense!”

This time, she had heard more anger than pain in Adam’s voice. He grabbed her arm and tried to pull her towards the village. However, much to his dismay, he didn’t manage to pull her one bit. She didn’t look heavy, so why could he pull her with him?
In the meantime, Egas was panicking. The further this went, the more panic built up inside of her. Her legs felt like weak twigs, about to break any moment. Her stomach turned around even more than previously, and her eyes started to tear up. Finally, her instincts kicked in. In a fit of panic, without her even realising what she was doing, she bit into the arm of Adam to free herself from his grasp.
After the bite, Egas came back to herself. She withdrew her teeth from his arm, but the damage was already done. When standing, the thing in her mouth didn’t fall away, and it tasted like iron. With a shaky expression, she looked at Adam. What she didn’t realise until then was that Adam was lying on the ground, holding the part of his lower arm that was still attached and screaming in horror and pain. Quickly and in panic, Kalmia spit out what was in her mouth, and truly, it was a part of Adam’s arm, including the bones, that now laid on the ground in front of her. This time, she didn’t just feel like puking, but she actually had to hold back from spitting out everything that was contained in her stomach. Her heart raced, and she couldn’t think any more. All that she could do was run, and that she did.

Her legs carried her into the forest, which Kalmia’s father had told her to never enter. Every few steps, she stumbled over one of the old tree’s roots. With teary eyes, she cursed everything. Her life had been so nice and peaceful, and then suddenly, it just ended. Every breath she took felt like a thousand little needles in her chest. Her heart ached and her mind blanked all this time.
When she got herself in check again, she was already deep in the forest. It was dark, but Kalmia had no trouble seeing. Everything seemed so… peaceful. This quiet, peaceful forest was a strong contrast to what had just happened to Kalmia. Her heavy breathing decreased, but her legs felt like they were crumbling into pieces. Kalmia decided to look out for a place to sleep and calm down completely for the night.
It was then that she heard a loud howl. Kalmia wasn’t sure how far away it was, but she knew it was better not to stay out in the open. So, she wandered through the forest, looking for a good place to sleep. She couldn’t climb a tree in her current state, and something on the ground was inherently dangerous in the forest. A monster or wolf could find and kill her while she was fast asleep.

For a few hours, she did nothing but continue walking around. While her brain went into low capacity due to her exhaustion, she paid no attention to her surroundings. Suddenly, before even realising what was happening, she was falling. Her mind in full capacity due to the surprise again, her heart skipped a beat. She thought she was about to die when she saw that the ground was more than 20 meters below her. Right before she hit the ground, however, something felt weird and kind of cold on her back. Subconsciously, trying to shake this off, her back started to hurt. Next thing Kalmia knew was that her fall had substantially slowed down just 2 meters above the ground. Slowly sinking to the rest of the way, her heart began to beat fast again, and she felt as if she was about to pass out from exhaustion.

It was then that Kalmia had found an old house not too far from where she had fallen down the cliff. She was still inside the forest, so finding a house was a pleasant surprise for Kalmia. Half of the roof was missing and the house seemed quite unstable, but what could be the odds it would fall apart completely, right now? Kalmia decided to stay in that house for the night and maybe some more.
Next to the house was a small well, which didn’t seem like it was completely dried out. While the water didn’t seem that good to drink, in her need Kalmia decided to take the risk. She used the bucket that was tied to the well to get water to drink. It had an earthy taste, but to Kalmia, it was the best water she ever had… except for those clumps of dirt she found in the water.
Having sated her thirst, Kalmia entered the house. The door opened with a loud squeak. The house seemed to have long been lost to nature. Moss was growing over the walls and the furniture that had been abandoned. She entered the kitchen area. As expected, it was mostly empty. There was a large cast pot and a fireplace for cooking. In the middle of the room was a table and a single chair, but neither of them seemed to be able to hold much weight. The chair already had a few cracks in its wooden legs, and the table looked quite rotten.

Two other doors could be found from here. Kalmia opened the one on the opposite side of the room from where she entered. It seemed like a storage room. The dim moonlight that shone in through the open roof illuminated the empty, rotten shelves. Whatever food that once had been there, was either eaten by, what Kalmia would guess, animals, or had rotted into dirt.
In the next room, through a door next to the storage room, she found what she had hoped for, a straw bed. It wasn’t the most comfortable, or considering the time it had been exposed to the elements, probably also not the healthiest to use, but Kalmia did not care. She fell over into the bed and passed out immediately.

Opening her eyes again the next morning, the sky had long been bright over her head. She tried to get up through the stiffness that she had gained from over exhausting herself the previous day. It took a few painful minutes for her to get up. Walking into the kitchen, which was used as a main room, Kalmia’s stomach began to hurt. It was hunger. But how was she supposed to find food in this forest? She didn’t know what was edible, and she didn’t have the skills nor the power to hunt at that time. Before taking care of her food situation, she first got a bucket of water out of the well and gulped down every ounce of water in it.
Refreshed by the drink, Kalmia went out into the forest to look for something to eat. Close to the house she found some brown mushrooms. Without thinking much about it, she ripped them out of the ground and ate them raw. Her hunger wasn’t satisfied even after a few mushrooms. It was then that a wild rabbit ran past her field of view. As if driven by instincts Kalmia never knew she had, she suddenly, with newfound strength, speed and skill, started running after the rabbit. She evaded the thick roots of the trees that reached out of the ground, masterfully evading every tree and stone. In the end, however, her hunt didn’t have any success. The rabbit managed to escape, and now she was in the middle of nowhere, hungry, thirsty and exhausted.
Close to her was a tree stump sticking up from the ground. In her exhaustion, Kalmia decided to sit down on it to rest. Slowly, as she cooled down, she started to feel a bit better. She wasn’t happy with her situation, but at least she was still free and alive. A bit against her own will, but to her better judgement, she got up again and continued looking for something to eat. To get the feeling of hunger away, she picked up a branch from a tree and chewed on it. It did taste an awful lot like wood, but somehow the taste was comforting to Kalmia.

After a while, she found a bush full of raspberries. It wasn’t Kalmia’s favourite kind of food, but definitely better than raw mushrooms and a bunch of wood. She took her shirt off to collect the berries and take them back to the house. While she was putting the berries in it, she felt somewhat uncomfortable. It just felt wrong to walk around without a shirt in this form. Even without anyone close to her, she still wanted to get it over as fast as possible.
After closing off the shirt like it was a bag, Kalmia realised she didn’t know her way back to the house. She had run after the rabbit without any thought, just driven by her instincts. Maybe her instincts could guide her back? But how would she even go about using her instincts on purpose? Shoving that thought aside, she roughly estimated where she came from and hoped that she would find her way back.

After a while, she came across the steep cliff she had fallen from earlier. Looking at it, it stretched through the forest like a long wall. Kalmia followed the wall to her left. She followed it for a few hours until it went down farther and farther, until it wasn’t a wall any more, but a very small hill. Out of pure curiosity, Kalmia walked farther for another 5 minutes and came out near a large lake. She knew that this was a prime spot for her to be if she wanted to survive. Nonetheless, she didn’t have any survival skills and needed a bed to sleep, even if it was in a worse condition than the literal floor it was on. She decided to turn around and walk along the cliff into the other direction. When she found the house after hours of walking, it wasn’t just evening but already late into the night. During her entire walk, she constantly had eaten all the berries she came across, but she had run out of them by late afternoon, so she was hungry again.
Getting something to drink from the well before entering the house, Kalmia heard some howling again. Before she could lift the bucket out of the well, she heard a lot of rustling leaves and branches. Then everything went silent for a minute. Suddenly, from all around the house, Kalmia heard more rustling. Kalmia turned her head to see a horde of wolves running towards her.

For a moment, Kalmia’s mind blanked. What was she supposed to do? Fight? Run? Before even finishing her train of thought, her mind blanked, just like when she didn’t want Adam to take her to the baron. Driven by nothing but pure instinct, she plunged herself towards the three wolves that were charging towards her from her left. The wolves tried evading her, but then to turn around and bite her with all their might. That plan did not succeed, though. Instead, the first wolf got a chunk of meat bitten out of its neck by Kalmia. In reaction, the other wolves tried to take advantage of her distraction and attacked Kalmia from both of her sides. Kalmia managed to fend off the wolf to her left, but the wolf to her right managed to bite into her right arm. This didn’t stop Kalmia, though. She grabbed the wolf with her left hand and strangled it, until it let go of her. By then, the other wolves had managed to surround her. Now surrounded on all sides, Kalmia went into full defensive, trying to fend off the wolves, while the wolves tried to bite down on her legs or arms, but without any success. Kalmia didn’t seem to get any injuries from any of that. This entire back and forth went on for ten minutes, until Kalmia had killed four of the wolves with her bare fists, and the other wolves had retreated back into the forest.

While Kalmia was still driven by nothing but instinct, she gorged herself on one of the wolf corpses. She ate it with pelt and bone intact, without minding any of it. When she felt her hunger satisfied and regained her consciousness, she looked around. She hadn’t quite realised what happened, but could guess it. Especially with the taste of blood in her mouth.
Surrounded by three more wolf corpses, Kalmia thought about what to do for a bit. This was when she remembered the fireplace in the house with the large cast iron pot. She grabbed a corpse with each of her hands and dragged them into the house.
Inside, she put one of the wolves’ corpses on the table. It creaked a good chunk, but after a bit of time, although the appearance told Kalmia differently, it seemed to be both large and sturdy enough for her to put the entire wolf on it. Then she looked for a knife. Though her search was quickly rewarded, the only knife she could find in the house was an old, rusty one that was probably not safe to use. Against her better judgement, Kalmia still decided to use the knife to cut the wolves into pieces. It wasn’t easy, as using the rusty, dull blade did not do a good job cutting through the skin.

In the end, she managed to cut it into pieces and scraped as much meat off of the bones as possible. Before throwing it into the pot, she first tried to start a fire to start cooking on. Without a fire, she couldn’t cook, but she didn’t know how to properly start a fire. She thought she remembered her father telling her that one could start a fire by just striking two flint stones together. Because of this, she went out and looked for them. It wasn’t too long until she found a river and subsequently multiple flint stones in the riverbed. With four flint stones in her hands, she went back to the house, then collected leaves and sticks for fire material.
She stacked the sticks on top of the leaves on the fireplace and tried to set fire to them. Kalmia managed to get sparks out of the two flint stones, but the leaves didn’t catch fire. She tried a few more times, but after a few minutes she gave up, defeated. But she decided she didn’t feel too hungry at that moment.
Instead, she laid down on the straw bed and fell asleep almost instantly.

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