When Colin made it back to his family, they were still asleep. He’d only been gone for an hour or two, so it made sense.

  After making sure Colin wasn’t a Changed, Higgins unlocked the door and welcomed him in.

  Higgins had been hard at work. The windows in the living room had been boarded up and there was an armoire beside the front door, ready to be scooted in front of it to block entry.

  “So why’re you still looking like a chicken? You couldn’t find your body?” Higgins asked with a worried look.

  Colin’s feathers fluffed without him thinking about it and he shook his head, “No, I found my body, but I’ll need to withdraw into my chrysalis form before I can access it.”

  “Why’s that?” Higgins said.

  Colin did the chicken equivalent of a shrug, “I don’t really know. That’s just how it is.”

  Higgins nodded along at that, “I guess it doesn’t need to make more sense than that. Not like any of this stuff does. I’ve been wondering though, Kristy and Jenny seem mostly human. How come they can do stuff and I can’t?”

  Colin thought about the difference between them and Higgins. He had been drinking the contaminated water just as much as them. “I have two thoughts. The first is that you never connected to a hypnosite like Jenny. The second is that you haven’t opened an empathetic link to me like Kristy. I’m not sure if that’s it, but that’s all I can think of.”

  Higgins slumped a bit, “So you think I can’t develop any powers or something to be more helpful?”

  “I never said that. I just don’t know much about what’s been happening to us. I can feel out answers, but putting them into words is kind of difficult.”

  “So what do I have to do?” Higgins said.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Do you want to try to develop something? I can help you if you want, but it might not work.” Colin could sense that Higgins was eager at the suggestion.

  Higgins nodded vigorously, “I do. We both know the town went to shit, but right now, all I have is a gun to shoot my neighbors with. Kristy already proved we can help them recover. I wanna save them, not kill them and I can’t do that without something more than what I currently am.”

  “Okay, Let’s try it,” Colin said, but a scream coming from the garage distracted him.

  Wordlessly, Colin and Higgins dashed for the garage door. One of the healed Changed had woken up.

  Colin shifted to a human and opened the door to a pitiful sight. The five newly cured Changed were still tied up on the ground in the garage. The original two cured Changed were untied and in the corner of the garage frantically trying to open the garage door. The man, Colin thought his name might be Jack, looked back and screamed at the sight of Colin and Higgins.

  Higgins walked towards them with raised hands and spoke in a soft voice, “Calm down, we’re not gonna hurt you.”

  “What the fuck is this? Stay away from us!” The woman, Colin thought her name was Anna, shouted.

  The garage door slowly started to rise and both of them were frantically trying to squeeze underneath it on their stomachs while simultaneously keeping an eye on Higgins and Colin.

  Colin knew they could get hurt if he left them to their own devices, so he locked them both down with his mind. He could feel that it wouldn’t work on Higgins, but these two still had hypnosites synthesized with them.

  They both started to scream when they couldn’t move.

  Jack passed out from sheer terror.

  Anna shrieked and struggled feebly against Colin’s control.

  “If you leave, you’ll get hurt,” Higgins said in a calm voice.

  Colin could feel that Higgins' words had freaked her out more.

  “What the fuck!?” Anna shouted. She looked between Higgins and Colin and wore an expression of pure terror. Her fear was enough to overwhelm Colin’s senses. Why was she so scared of them?

  Colin looked down at himself and let out a frustrated breath. He was naked again. His eyes went wide as his gaze darted from his exposed form and then to the tied up people, the back to Higgins crouched and approaching Anna slowly. He let out a groan when he realized how bad this looked.

  “Higgins, I think we need to back off. Especially you.” Colin suggested.

  Higgins looked back to Colin and then stiffened and quickly averted his gaze, “Oh god I look like some kind of creepy killer right now, don’t I?”

  Anna watched the exchange in silent terror.

  Colin sighed, “Umm, yeah, a little. I think we need Kristy to help fix this.”