Chapter 28- Now I Know Why They Tell You To Focus.

“Clear your mind of all thoughts completely. Picture the animal in your mind. Now feel it. Be it. Now get a running start at it and feel yourself transforming, and you will. Like this.” Alec ran for a few meters down the deserted road and suddenly transformed into a crow.

It was Spring Break, and Alec had decided to finally teach me animal transformation.

“You make it look so easy.” I said, sighing as Alec transformed back into his human form.

“It’s not that hard. It only took me an hour to master it.” Alec shrugged.

“Well, that’s cause you don’t have the attention span of a squirrel. ‘Clear your mind’ isn’t exactly an easy task for me.”

“We’re in the middle of nowhere with no distractions.”

“Well, you’re here. That’s distracting.” I sat down against a tree and sighed.

“I’m hopeless.”

“No you’re not. Don’t say that.”

“I am. And you know it.”

“You’re not entirely hopeless.” Alec said, which I think was supposed to be reassuring, but with Alec you never know.

“What’s the point of this anyway? What’s so cool about turning into an animal?”

“When we’re in animal form we can communicate with each other through thought.” “Oh. Yay.” I said in the most sarcastic tone possible.

“It’ll be fun. Besides, you’ll need the practice if we’re going to kill Damien.” He had a good point there. I got up.

“Fine then. I’ll try. But only one more time, and then I’m giving up.”

“Deal.” I went out onto the road and stood there with my eyes closed, replaying Alec’s instructions mentally.

Clear your mind of all thoughts completely. I tried as hard as I possibly could to clear my mind, despite all of the problems I had to worry about.

Picture the animal in your mind. What animal? What would help me win a fight? A lion? A tiger? I decided to go for the tiger, as tigers had always scared me.

Feel it. Be it. I figured that one would be easy as long as I felt like ripping someone’s head off, so I pictured Nathen reading my diary aloud to my entire school.

Get a running start. Feel yourself transforming and you will. How was I supposed to do that? I started running and kept running for about five miles before I realized that nothing was happening and I was just running down the road with my eyes closed like an idiot. I stopped and opened my eyes. I was in front of an old church that was evidently big on peace; they had about a million different peace signs on the door. Right above the door was a picture of a dove carrying an olive branch, which according to Google was a big peace symbol in the 18^th century.

Suddenly, I heard a growl coming from the forest. I spun around. About six or seven feet away from me stood a big brown bear, staring right at me. Oh my god! What should I do? I thought, panicking. I decided to make a run for it; I guessed that I was probably faster and would outrun it. As I started running I closed my eyes in hopes that Alec was somewhat right and I could turn into an animal. I just wanted to get away; I didn’t exactly care what I turned into anymore. And then suddenly, I was flying.

I’d never imagined what flying was like. I’d always been afraid of planes, and I never really had wished for the ability to fly. I’d never liked the idea of being so far off of the ground. And yet…it was amazing. I was gliding over trees with no fear of falling at all whatsoever. I could see everything-including the bear, which had given up on me and decided to go for a raspberry bush. In the corner of my eye I saw a crow approaching me.

Copycat, I heard Alec’s voice in my head mock.

It’s not my fault. I didn’t mean to. I honestly had no idea how I was a bird. I’d wanted to be a tiger. A tiger that could rip heads off. Not a useless bird. I’d always hated birds; I was always afraid they’d poop on me or something. I felt strange and disoriented though, it was weird being so small, and having eyes on the sides of your head and holes for ears would take some getting used to. I swooped down over a pond and looked at my reflection in the water. I had transformed into a small white dove, like the one on the hippie church. Well, that’ll teach me to focus more when making important decisions.

Um, Alec? How do I change back? I asked.

Same way you changed the first time. Yeah, like that helped. If I had trouble changing into an animal, how was I expected to easily change back?

It took me about fifteen minutes, but I finally figured out how to change back into human form. It was nice to have my feet firmly planted on the ground again.

“What am I supposed to do as a bird? Poop on Sylvie’s grave?” I asked Alec. He laughed.

“You could do that. You could also go Hitchcock on people and peck their eyes out. By the way, you make a pretty bird.” I rolled my eyes, resisting the urge to punch Alec in the face.

“You really can’t just take a compliment, can you?”

“Nope, not really.” I went to the tree where I hung up my mind-shield bracelet and put the bracelet back on my wrist. Alec frowned.

“Why do you have to wear that thing?” he asked.

“Because I like my thoughts private, thank you.” I smirked, walking to Alec’s car and getting in.

“What’re you waiting for? Drive me home!” Alec rolled his eyes, got in the car, started the engine and drove away.