1. Metamorphosis Adam Shaw woke up on June 14, 2008 at 6:27 p.m. This was the first time he had been awake in over five months. It was New Year’s Eve and Adam was at a party with his friends watching the ball drop. Everyone was drunk. Adam was the play-by-the-rules guy in the group, however, he had a couple of drinks that night. He felt the sickening of the buzz kicking in. When the party was over, his friends asked him to drive them home because they were all too drunk. Adam pulled out of the driveway onto the highway. Everyone was laughing and screaming behind him in the bed of the truck. He felt the splitting headache and the upset stomach caused by the beer. I shouldn’t have drunk. As he was driving he could see the redwood trees of California. Adam always liked the redwood trees. He thought of them to be very powerful. He admired these trees. “Adam! Watch out!” one of the girls screamed from the bed of the truck. By the time Adam heard her, he was jolted forward, ripped from his seatbelt, and was flying through the air towards one of the trees that he had always admired. Then, everything was dark, but light at the same time. He couldn’t move physically but was awake in his mind. He was in an empty abyss. No sound, no feeling, no sight, no smell, no taste. Nothing. This feeling went on for, what seemed, a century. Then, he began to see. And then he could move. Finally, all of his senses came back to him. He was in a bed with a hospital smock on. He looked all around him to see that he was in a hospital room. He looked out the window, into the hallway, seeing people pass by. Adam tried looking at a calendar across the room before people came running in. “He’s awake! He’s awake!” they all shouted. The group consisted of: the girl that told Adam to “watch out,” and two other guys that were in the bed of the truck. Two doctors came running in, dropping their clipboards. They pushed Adam’s “friends” out of the way and helped Adam get up out of the bed. They started walking out of the room when Adam saw that the calendar said June 14, 2008, and a nearby clock said 6:27 p.m. “Was I in a coma?!” Adam asked. One of the doctors said, “Take it easy, son.” Adam asked again, “Was I in a coma?!!!” The other doctor said, “Yeah.” Adam felt light-headed and thought that as soon as he came out of the coma, he would slip back in. He didn’t feel like himself either. They led him into a room at the end of a hall. This was the only room on the hall. When they got in the room, the doctors told Adam to sit down. There was only one chair in the middle of the room. It was a chair that a patient sits in at a dentist’s office while being worked on. The only light in the room was pointed down at the chair from the ceiling. As Adam was sitting, he heard the doctors whispering to each other as they, what sounded like, were preparing a needle. “We need to hurry up,” the older of the two said. “Yeah, I think he suspects something,” said the younger one. Adam noticed that the chair that he was sitting in had clamps on the armrests and the footrests. Obviously, doctors had done this to people before and those people didn’t behave. Adam didn’t want to be one of those people. So, he decided to sit still as the doctors walked over to him. The older one said, “Now, keep still, son. This is going to help you.” The doctor pushed the back of the needle to squirt the fluid up near the top. He squirted a little bit out of the needle to make sure that it was working properly. He flicked the tip of the needle and slowly moved his hand near Adam’s arm. I can’t just sit here. What are they doing to me? Why do I need this? There are only two of them and one of them is old. I can take them. He jumped up, barely missing the needle with his arm, and ran for the door. Before he could get ten feet, the younger doctor grabbed him. Obviously, he was much stronger than Adam had thought. The doctor dragged him back to the seat where the older doctor was waiting. “I was hoping that we wouldn’t have to do this to you,” the older doctor said. The younger doctor threw Adam down into the chair, put the clamps over his hands and feet, and locked them. They tilted the chair so that the light was shining in Adam’s face. He fought as much as he could to stay away from the needle as the older doctor brought the needle to Adam’s arm. Adam rocked back and forth, twisted, and bounced up and down in the seat. In the last moment of consciousness, Adam threw himself outwards and felt the needle pierce into his arm. He fell back into the chair and felt his eyes start to close. The last thing he saw was the silhouetted figures of the doctors. Then, Adam dreamt. The dreams were unusual. Usually, dreams don’t make sense but these dreams that Adam had were especially not logical. The dreams were from the point-of-view of, what seemed someone else. Not only did he see the dreams, but he felt them. It was as if he was the person in the dream. But he was not because the person, or something, did not act like Adam. It acted like a savage beast. It killed people with inhuman strength and raged with anger as it killed all of the people. It was then that the dream showed part of the object from which the point-of-view was cast. Its hand reached out while killing a person. It was a human hand. Adam woke up in his room, lying in his bed. The lights were out in his room and the door was open, the light of the hallway shining into his room. He looked over at the digital clock and read the numbers. 7:34 p.m. He had only been asleep for an hour. He got up and walked into the hall. He walked down to the end of the hall where the light switch was, and switched it off. Adam guessed that the light had been on to give him some light to see by when he woke up. He then descended the stairs and went into the kitchen. He was greeted by his parents, eating dinner. His mom said, with a happy look on her face, “Hey, Sleepyhead.” Adam slurred the word, “Hey,” back to her. He looked outside into the dark night and thought of the creature in the dream. He began to get scared because, maybe, the creature in the dream was him. Adam didn’t want to believe this; he just tried to keep his mind off of it. He sat down at the table and began to eat dinner. Pork and mashed potatoes. Adam absolutely hated the food, but he couldn’t tell his mom that. He just sucked it up and sprinkled some salt onto the potatoes. His dad, a more forceful person than his mom was, said, “I am extremely disappointed in you, Adam.” “Why?” Adam asked angrily. “What do you mean, ‘Why’?! You were drunk driving!” “Dad, I just came out of a coma—and yeah, sure, I was buzzed—but can’t you be happy that I’m alive?!” His dad seemed to calm down a bit, but then got very angry again. “Yes, I’m happy. But I still can’t get over the fact that you drank in the first place!” Adam had so much anger in him that he was afraid if he said anything else, those words wouldn’t be so nice. Adam breathed in deeply and looked over at his mom. “May I be excused?” His mom nodded her headed very quickly as if she thought Adam would never ask the question. Adam could tell that his mom didn’t like these arguments between him and his dad. Adam walked up the stairs, down the hall, and into his room. When he got in his room, he turned on the light. He jumped on the bed with a pillow in his face to muffle his screaming. He was so mad that his dad was more concerned about the drunk driving than his well-being. Adam threw the pillow behind him towards his nightstand. He heard a rattle as the pillow hit something. He got up out of bed and walked over to the nightstand. The pillow was on the floor right next to the nightstand. Four feet away, next to the door, was a small, yellow, bottle filled with pills. Adam walked over to the door and picked up the pills. He heard them rattle inside the bottle as he brought it nearer to his face. He whispered the typed title aloud. “Tranquil.” He then read the instructions on the other side of the bottle. “Take once a day to ensure a normal life, without anger problems.” Adam threw open the door and walked down the hall. He heard the door slam against the wall back in his bedroom. As he walked down the stairs, he could hear his dad yelling in the kitchen. Adam spun around the corner into the kitchen and looked at his parents angrily. “What is this?” His dad, still mad, replied, “They’re pills.” “I know. But what for?” Now his mom looked at him sweetly and said, “Honey, you need those.” Adam had the most anger in him, right in that moment, that he had ever had in his entire life. He didn’t know why he was so angry over a simple thing. He started questioning who he was and thought back to the dream he had. Adam started to know why he needed these pills but he wanted to make sure. “Why exactly?” His mom had worried look on her face as if she was scared of the answer that she was about to give him. “Sweetie,” she paused, thinking of the right words to say, “you’re…not…yourself…anymore.” She looked down at the table and cried. His dad had obviously calmed down and put his hand on her back and rubbed it. Adam was on the verge of crying because of his mom’s emotions. What his mom had said made the anger stop immediately. Adam was heart-broken. He walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs and into his room about to cry. When he got to his room, he shut the door and fell onto his bed, tears pouring down his face. Adam didn’t know what to do, his mom didn’t know what to do, and his dad didn’t know what to do. He was hopeless. Adam cried himself to sleep. Adam awoke the next morning, surprisingly, refreshed. He thought he would be in a bad mood, but he was actually in a good mood. But he had a feeling that he wouldn’t be in a good mood very long. When Adam went downstairs for breakfast, he noticed that his mom wasn’t in such a good mood. Her eyes had bags under them. Adam figured that she had been awake all night crying. When he said, “Hey,” to her, he was surprised at how enthusiastic she was. “Good morning,” she said, with a smile on her face. “I’m going to work.” “Ok. Be careful. Oh! Do you have your pills?” she asked, her smile now fading. “Yeah,” Adam lied. He didn’t have his pills and he didn’t want them. And the truth was that he didn’t have work today. He was taking the day off. Adam was going to test the anger that raged inside of him. The thing the raged inside of him. He wanted to overcome it. He was not going to let it take over him. Adam stepped outside into the blinding fog. Fog wasn’t generally normal in the middle of June. The air was bitterly cold. It made the bones in Adam’s fingers numb. He walked to his truck, got in, cranked up the engine, and turned the heater on. He didn’t know where he was going. He was just going to drive until something happened. Adam was only a few miles onto the highway when he felt something inside of him. It was the same feeling he had felt in the hospital, after he had woken from the coma, while the doctors were pulling him towards the room at the end of the hall. It wasn’t the sheer anger he had felt towards his dad. He just didn’t feel like himself. But he knew that it had begun. He knew that he had started changing. He was in a state of metamorphosis. Adam then thought of where he was going to go. He was going to try to find out some answers. He took a left, off the highway, towards the hospital. Ten minutes later, he was pulling into the hospital driveway. He parked his truck into a parking space, very imprecisely, and got out. He walked to the main doors, anger rising. When he got to the doors, he threw them open. Adam obviously didn’t “just feel like himself” anymore. He felt himself losing the battle of his emotions. Adam walked past the front desk but heard the woman yelling after him. “You need to talk to me before going to a room.” Adam turned around and stormed back to the front desk. The woman smiled sweetly. “May I help you sir?” Adam tried at a calm voice in his unbearable anger, “Yes, my name is Adam Shaw. I was here for five months in a coma from enduring a vehicle accident. I left from here on June 14, 2008. I’d like to know the name of the doctor that treated me.” “Okay. Please wait a moment.” She clicked the mouse to the computer several times before saying, “Mhm. Right here. Dr. Ray Shephard. He’s in room 246.” “Thank you,” Adam said anxiously, and ran off to the elevator. He got in and pressed the button for the second floor. When the elevator arrived at the second floor, Adam ran out looking for room 246. When he got to room 246, he went inside without knocking. But when he looked in the room, no one was there. Adam thought to himself for a moment, anger the highest it had been while he was at the hospital. When he realized where the doctor was, he exclaimed, “Oh no,” and ran out looking for the room at the end of the hall. Adam ran down the hall and threw open the door harder than he had Dr. Shephard’s office door. Dr. Spephard was in the room with his assistant, the younger looking doctor that Adam had remembered. There was a girl, not much younger than Adam, in the chair. She was not strapped to the chair, but still looked very afraid. “What did you do to me?!” Adam yelled at Dr. Shephard. Dr. Shephard replied very calmly, “Did you take your pills?” Adam yelled back to Dr. Shephard, his voice almost cracking, “I said, ‘What did you do to me?!’” Dr. Shephard said, with a stern look on his face, “Okay, so you didn’t take your pills?” “No, I didn’t take those pills!” Adam screamed feeling as though he would explode from the magnitude of his anger. “Now, what did you do to me?!” Dr. Shephard took two small steps back. “I’m sorry Adam, but I’m afraid I can’t tell you that answer.” “Well, you’ve screwed up my life, so I’d like to know!” Adam said, breathing heavily out through his nose, his head pointed downward but his eyes still fixed on Dr. Shephard. He resembled a bull about to charge. Dr. Shephard took three more steps back. The steps weren’t as small as the first two. “Adam, all you need to know is that if you don’t take your pills you can become highly dangerous to yourself and to the people around you.” Dr. Shephard said, almost mockingly, as though Adam didn’t already know what would happen if he didn’t take his pills. The girl sitting in the chair was frightened of the arguing between the two people on opposite sides of her. She looked like she was about to get up, but thought better of it. In the midst of arguing Adam had forgotten about the other doctor. He looked into the darkness of the room but saw no one other than Dr. Shephard and the girl. He turned around to see the doctor with a needle in his hand. Adam snickered, and said to the doctor sarcastically, “Well, that was clever.” He grabbed the doctor’s arm and twisted behind his back. The doctor screamed in pain. Adam grabbed the doctor’s hand that possessed the needle, drove it into his neck, and pushed the back of the needle, inserting the fluid. The doctor dropped to the floor unconscious. He smashed the needle on the wall behind him and opened the door. Adam looked at the girl and said, “Run.” The girl jumped up and ran out the door screaming. Dr. Shephard made no effort to stop the girl. He just stood in the dark behind the chair. A stream of light, from the light bulb pointed down at the chair, was cast on the doctor’s face. There was an expression on his face: Fear. Adam seemed, for the first time, in complete control of himself in this state. But he had no intention of stopping. It seemed like a game to him now. Dr. Shephard spoke, from behind the chair, with a tremor in his voice. “Adam, you can control it now. Don’t misuse it. Make a good decision. I know you’re the one to make right decisions. You’re a good kid, Adam. I believe you can overcome this.” Adam felt himself calming down. He hadn’t had the intention of stopping, but now he felt that, maybe, he had to. He thought in his mind that what Dr. Shephard had said was powerful. Dr. Shephard was right: Adam could not let it overpower himself; Adam was smart and made good choices. But something still wasn’t right. Something was out of order. Nevertheless, Adam made that choice. “Dr. Shephard, you’re right. I am a good kid. I do make right choices. But…I can’t overcome it.” He ran out of the room at the end of the hall. He could hear Dr. Shephard running after him, screaming, “NO! ADAM, DON’T!” But he kept running, crying, screaming, looking for something that could complete the choice he had made. Adam found the solution in a room. Perhaps, it was the room he had stayed in during his coma, but he didn’t care. He looked at the woman sitting up in the bed as he ran past for the open window. She was watching the news on TV, but looked at him worriedly when he ran through the room. She had no idea that there was about to be greater news than what was on the television. Adam thought of the choices he had made during his life, while he was falling through the air. He remembered the choice he had made when he and his friend, Max, were going to sled down a big hill. They were five. He decided not sled down because he thought it was scary and dangerous. Max ended up scraping his arms on a briar bush in the woods at the bottom of the hill. He didn’t have time to think of another memory. He saw the asphalt rapidly approaching, hearing the woman scream up in her room on the second floor. He could also hear Dr. Shephard screaming, “NO! ADAM!” Yes, Dr. Shephard. This is my choice.