Aaron had felt… stronger, more energetic, more sure of his body since they’d left the site of the attack. Having wet himself? He wasn’t embarrassed in the slightest. That shit was freaking nuts. Rather having something and someone to focus on gave him clarity and purpose. They hadn’t eaten since their bodies were changed but he felt energized rather than weakened. He’d only had a few small drinks from the river and didn’t feel dehydrated.

Maybe it was a bad sign and he’d collapse soon. Maybe though, the changes were more than just ‘younger’. Especially after the giant mutant elf-Talor guy in glowing fantasy armor made from freaking wood had died, he’d been feeling great. Was he happy someone had died? Hell no. No, that wasn’t the source of this feeling. Not that he was happy it had been that guy and not one of them.

Rather, he felt like he could run all day and still drop and do a hundred pushups without breaking a sweat. Pulling the gurney with Elean on it started to feel so easy that he had to be careful not to jostle her too much. He’d dressed her wounds as well as he could, using bits of her own clothing. The sports-bra she’d somehow been wearing, much like they all somehow were wearing weird grey matching sweats, had been torn badly by the chest wound.

He'd repurposed it as a bandage along with swatches of rag-like material he’d found inside Elean’s pouch, choosing for the moment not to focus on how it was much larger inside than outside. He’d also found some of the biscuit things and jerky, but like the fish they’d been reduced to a weird tasteless paste that registered as ‘not food’.

The bloodied long knife of short sword or whatever it was that Elean had saved their lives with was wiped mostly clean and then put back into its sheath inside the bag as well. He’d been tempted to carry it but frankly didn’t know how to use it without likely causing more injury to himself. Plus if anyone they encountered would be willing to talk, then that would be a much higher likelihood of success in his book. He thought he would be able to kill someone to protect them, but he wasn’t completely sure.

While they walked, Aaron opted to keep the lead. Lucy and John were struggling to adapt, he could tell, in their own ways likely. Lucy didn’t seem as fundamentally bothered by the changes to her body. John was very clearly bothered. Aaron definitely felt like a man, no question. He wouldn’t volunteer to change his gender. If it happened involuntarily though? Who knows. He figured the involuntary part would be what was upsetting, more than the actual change.

Aaron would adapt. Adapting is what he did. Adapting is how he built a reputation as a good CEO. Adapting didn’t mean grinding yourself or your people into a paste and chucking them for someone else or taking ‘burnout vacations’ for six months. Adapting meant rolling with the punches and finding out how to turn it to your advantage.

Right now, he was adapting to the situation. Prairie is full of dangerous people. Sure, people he’d hoped would be of help and not trying to kill them, but the situation has changed. Have to get away from the prairie. Across the river looked to be much more forest. That was good, more fuel for fire, more shelter, potentially more food. He was pretty sure he saw more than just small birds flitting around over there.

Elean seemed to be fixated on crossing the river. She hadn’t shared much in the way of a plan other than that the crossing was upstream a few hours walk. Well, they had been walking probably about that distance now and hadn’t seen anything yet.

John volunteered to go ahead and check. Whatever the changes were that had or were happening to John seemed to go beyond just swapping your naughty bits. John was feeling really warm while Aaron felt fairly cool. Not unpleasantly cool but… not warm. Plus John was clearly feeling the same increase in strength and energy that Aaron felt too.

Lucy for that matter wasn’t struggling at all either. They’d given ‘her’ the lightest of the three, this ‘Kid’ as Alan so named her was even shorter than John’s new height, something around 5’4”. She had the shape of supermodel with the height of a short girl. He’d encountered ladies like that before. They often did really well in direct sales. Got asked out by clients a lot though.

Some guys, and women for that matter, really like to be a lot bigger than their partners. Aaron wasn’t… sure what he liked. Nobody had ever ‘caught his fancy’. He’d had a few experiences in high school and one fling in college, but even when sex was involved he was never that enthused. He wasn’t gay, he just had no real reaction beyond just ‘this is a sexy situation’, which could get a ‘rise’ out of almost any guy.

He'd just never connected with someone maybe. His mom had said the same thing to him, that she’d just never been that interested in any physical contact with anyone until she’d had a few conversations with his father. Dad wasn’t much of a looker by any means, but mom was undeniably still hot for him even after almost forty years of marriage. It made visiting something of an art, making sure they knew when you were going to be there and not being too early or too late.

He'd walked in on them more than once and didn’t care to repeat that. They were good parents he guessed. Pregnancy had been really hard on mom so he ended up as an only kid. They hadn’t been in great financial shape until it was a bit too late for them to feel comfortable adopting, especially since they semi-retired to a life of a lot of travel.

He didn’t hardly see them now even at holidays, though when they were in town or he had a vacation he made the time. He’d miss them.

It occurred to Aaron that he wasn’t even considering that they might end up back on Earth. They hadn’t even asked ‘Kid’ to change them back or do anything differently. Somehow resignation or acceptance was all too easy. Was it an effect of the magic shit that brought them here in the first place? He made a mental note to interrogate their self-proclaimed summoner at the first opportunity.

John returned. It was raining lightly now and the water dripping from the trees felt cool and comforting on the skin of his face. John seemed to also be benefiting from the cool weather. Lucy and John were having issues with each other, mostly revolving around John being thrown off by the changes. It made sense.

In either case, they made their way to the shallows John thought was a suitable crossing place. Aaron went about looking for the best way across to give the two some space.

He wasn’t happy with it, but the possibility that the water level would start to rise was very real. The storm was light now and seemed to be moving in from the side rather than upstream, but as it added to the river the river would become uncrossable here. As it was, it was maybe still too dangerous. The rocks looked slippery and the water was mostly over the tops of them.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Oh good, John and Lucy seemed to have made up, at least partially. He asked them to keep an eye while he made an attempt to test the crossing. He caught snippets of the conversation and did not envy the mental shifts John was having to go through. Given how rough pregnancy and birth had been on his mom, who’d ended up having an emergency cee-section after she’d been pushing for almost six hours… yeah, he probably wouldn’t tell that story to John.

There were probably midwives or something in this world, they could do it. Delegation is an important skill and when you’re not the expert, delegate.

The rocks were slippery and had the tendency to roll around a bit. Most ran from the size of a fist to bigger than Aaron’s head, the real one not the CEO one. The water was running fairly swiftly and it was cold, but crossing should be possible if they went slowly and carefully. Just to be sure he made his way completely across so they weren’t going to suddenly find a deep hidden chasm or something on the other end, preventing them from reaching shore.

The crossing was sound. Sound enough. He picked his way back across and reported on the path. Both Lucy and John were ready by now, though John had to be reminded to focus on what they were doing.

Lives were at stake. Aaron checked that all three were secured well enough to the gurneys. They decided to take them one at a time. Lucy was feeling just a little fatigue, so she was going to go first with Aaron and John would stay. Aaron would return and John and he would try to do the last two. If Aaron was getting too tired after the second, Lucy would switch with him.

It wouldn’t do to run out of strength halfway across.\

They moved Alan first. Elean might arguably be in worse shape excepting that she now seemed to be resting comfortably. The wound was still bloody and raw but not actively bleeding. The makeshift bandage was actually not soaked hardly at all. Alan though was sporting horrific looking bruises and swelling on his hand and arms, one of his ankles… there were lacerations and bruises all up and down his face and neck and chest. His clothing was practically in tatters. John had donated his shed sweatshirt to help cover him up and keep him warm.

Lucy and Aaron carefully walked the path, with Aaron stepping backwards very cautiously. It took at least twice as long to cross this time, just about half an hour. The rain was getting heavier and the water seemed to be flowing a tiny bit more. Aaron made his way back as quickly as possible and John was ready.

They moved a little faster this time and Aaron almost caught his ankle between two rocks when one rolled a bit and he slipped. They almost dropped Elean and would have if John hadn’t braced and demonstrated some incredible strength and balance. How it was that John was significantly different in build and yet had taken naturally to the new body in an instant, Aaron could not fathom.

What was he thinking? Of course it was just ‘magic’. Magic was the answer for so many things now, it would seem.

They made it across. The water was definitely flowing more now. He wasn’t sure it was safe to take Kid across. It might not even be safe for one of them to wade across themselves.

“We can’t just leave her there though!” Lucy argued. Aaron understood the argument. It was essentially letting someone die, most likely die at least, and practically in cold blood too. Calculating the risk, letting someone go. It wasn’t just firing someone or doing a round of layoffs because the company had tried to grow too fast or speculation on a client contract had proven incorrect. This was someone’s life.

“It’s just too dangerous. If we go back now, not only are we going to end up killing her by dropping her in the river, we might get swept away too.” Lucy bit her lip, holding back her arguments. They were both startled when there was the sound of someone splashing into the water.

John was wading across, slipping dangerously and struggling against the current. Aaron cursed to himself. Oh no wait, he did that out loud. He moved to follow but instead caught Lucy before she plunged into the water. Just crossing earlier, she’d been shaking from the exertion. Whatever the incredible endurance and strength Aaron and John were enjoying, she didn’t have the same full dose of it and it showed.

If Lucy went in, that would be letting his friend get swept away for sure.

“Luce, you have to stay here, I’ll go help John. Don’t come in!” Lucy was wide eyed, not able to focus on him. John had fallen, temporarily submerged. They held their breaths until John popped back up, sputtering but continuing. He made it to the other side. “Lucy! Lucy, if he does this alone he’ll…” John picked the gurney up and held it straight over his head. It was obviously not easy, but the small woman didn’t look completely overburdened.

Wow. Was he that strong? Could John really just do it alone? No, no he’d fallen several times crossing by himself. This was sure to end in disaster.

“Lucy, I’m going. Stay here.” Finally Lucy nodded and he let her go, plunging into the shallow water. Aaron would have liked to say he went about getting to John in a heroic fashion. He’d like to have said he was clearly going to be of some assistance, but rather he was perhaps even worse at it than John was. Maybe John had felt like he was worse at it than he’d looked.

John was, at the least, moving very cautiously. When Aaron reached him, Kid hadn’t been dropped. They also hadn’t moved more than a few dozen feet from shore. The expression on John’s face was one of relief, which was echoed by the release of tension in his body. It was a good thing that Aaron had already been ready to catch the gurney because John almost did drop it then.

“Let’s take this very slowly!” John nodded in agreement. They proceeded cautiously, oh so very cautiously, faces displaying their intense concentration. Words were exchanged only to call out something or confirm they were ready to move. The water was almost to Aaron’s knees and it was already over John’s. Footing was getting less and less sure and Kid was being jostled around quite a bit.

Aaron could here shouting from behind him but didn’t turn to look, watching instead as John gazed past him and then upriver. If he didn’t realize something was wrong from Lucy shouting, it definitely occurred to him when John’s body seized up.

“Aaron, fucking move!” Aaron resisted the urge to look upstream at whatever it was, it might just unbalance him and risk losing his already perilous stance. Instead he started moving as fast as he could. John started chanting, “Move. Move faster! Faster, Aaron!” There was only so fast he could go though. When the sound of something crashing into and breaking on the shallows started roaring over the sound of the water on the rocks, Aaron dared look.

What he saw nearly caused him to drop his side of the gurney and just run for it, or even to head downstream to jump in the water and swim to the side. A massive tangle of mud and roots and trees was slamming into the wide shallow area. Due to the curve through this section, it was mostly hitting the far side where they had left but the backup was shunting material to the side and directly into their path.

Another twenty feet and they’d be home free. Just twenty feet. Aaron didn’t think. John was already shoving the gurney at him, terror the overwhelming expression on his face. Aaron pumped his legs, slipped, recovered. They fell truly just short of shore but Aaron and John both hauled the gurney back up, Kid partially dangling off the side, the ties holding her down unraveling.

Aaron just let the gurney go and slung the small woman over his shoulders in a fireman carry. John splashed ahead and he followed him up the bank just as the incoming mud and trees half tumbled have oozed over the space where they had just been. Lucy had wisely pulled the two other unconscious members of their group up to the top of the banks.

After setting Kid down carefully in the sparse grass and soft earth near the two still on gurneys, Aaron sat down next to John and Lucy and just stared back at what had been the crossing. A roiling mass of broken trees, rolling stones, mud, and water seethed and lurched over the entirety of the crossing. The sound of a tree splintering loudly and rocks grinding together and cracking was deafening.

“Goddamn.” Aaron said. The others just nodded.