Most people, including myself, remember that day with a stricken sort of awe. As you would imagine, a global occurrence of magic, with all the good and all the bad, and with little understanding of magic and our new neighbors we had to live with right off the bat, there was a high death toll. Looking back on it now, though, I’m surprised that so many people did survive. Humans have become quite secure in their seat on the apex of things, all the sudden having creatures quite happy to kill you (or eat or whatever they like doing to humans) appear or the ability to use magic (and doing something really stupid, like summon said creature to you) led to a lot of mess (as I said, a lot people actually survived). The worldwide average for deaths on the day of The Change was every 3 people out of 10. Not too many people right? Not until you add it up, or consider the fact that at least one of your friends and family is dead. Our town used to have something like 20,000 people (I’m averaging up because exact numbers aren’t really available) living in it before, now it was closer to 14,000. 6,000 people, dead, and that is just in the town I live in. It’s easy to see the horror of that day with a look at comprehendible numbers from a small town right? In text books now, they say “an estimate of 2.1 billion” people died. Well, even that gives me the shivers.

Luckily, my immediate family survived The Change. Mostly thanks to them getting home as soon as they could. My first warding, while slipshod, was strong (I mean, all that magic does a spell good, heck, it’s still up even today, I’ve just added onto it and refined it a bit). Mom got home first at 3pm, she’s a teacher at the elementary school down the road (she teaches computer stuff, not homeroom or whatever). She said at 2 the staff (the whole school district) had noticed strange things were happening, and the news was going crazy with it too, and decided to call parents and have all students go home and stay with their families. Sadly, even then there were signs of the losses, because a number of parents couldn’t be contacted. The children on their own, from all the schools in town, were brought to the town library (mom said till either their parents were found, but it was really till they were gathered up either by the state or relatives. A lot of kids who lost their parents didn’t survive The Change. Though some parents survived their children, kids are a delectable treat to some creatures, and also some kids figured out how to use magic to make quite a mess (but the mess up at the middle school is a different story and I’m not going to go into it)).

Since after my warding I was just investigating the remaining magic around the house (and on other things in the house), Mom was the one to turn on the news. It was all over the place, newscasters saying magic this magic that and not really believing it, interviews with people who survived close encounters with ghosts, ghouls and dragons (most encounters that were told about (and survivable, or at least let people go back to where they want) were those kinds). Maybe a half an hour after Mom got home, Diana arrived. She looked a little wigged out and jittery, apparently current boyfriend was not that great a guy (his dead ex-girlfriend had a few words to say to him) and she made her way home as quickly as she could. She said the roads were crazy, said she thought she saw a centaur (she did).

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

After another hour of tense waiting Dad got home, rather calmly, which was rather annoyed Mom (Diana and I were ambivalent, we just don’t understand him very well at all, and it seemed like something he’d do). He was worried about us, which is why he came home, but for himself, nothing all that much happened. He did see some strange creatures (centaurs and satyrs, they actually decided to make their home in a few parks throughout the county) but they weren’t all that interested in him (why would they be when all the sudden they find themselves in our world?). His day was pretty uneventful. He did finish up building the retaining wall for his client, though, so he was a little pleased about that. I have found, after studying (what he’s like and how he appears magic wise to me), that my father, because of his affinity with the earth and how solid his personality is, isn’t all that interesting to the more dangerous of magical creatures. Ghosts were no problem to him either because he is a pretty good guy (not to mention his faith (good Catholic boy) makes him hard to approach (a great deal of magical creatures have trouble with people who have strong faith, especially faith in a religion).

Now all we were worried about was how Ben was. He was at Harvard. From watching the news we knew that schools seemed to just explode with all the troublesome things magic brought with it (magic is also extremely thick there, it has to do with a meeting of a bunch of young minds, those eager to learn and play, those who are suffering, basically the extremes of the emotions and desires, and it makes it easier for spells to be activated). Why didn’t we call him? We did, in fact, while Mom and I first started watching the news we tried calling everybody. Nothing would get through (I think the magic was so thick that the calls just couldn’t make it through (sometimes calls still just drop all the sudden (though I’ve tinkered with my phone so I don’t get that problem)). So all we could do was wait and hope.

And happily, Ben did make it home safely, if a little tired, wane, and shaking from what he’d seen (he still doesn’t like talking about it, he said that his study group was… eaten and the only reason he was spared was that whatever it was wasn’t interested in him (I had come to the realization by then my spell might’ve gone out and given my family some protection)). Though he made it home around midnight. The drive (we didn’t ask him how he got a car, which is a story in itself) was a tough one.

It took days, even weeks for the turmoil of The Change to settle somewhat. You can imagine the effect The Change had on the government. Actually, it cleaned up a lot of the dirty politics, and the fact that so many people cared about what had happened made it so a lot of people made sure the right person was voted in. There was also the emergence of those of us who could use magic (about 1 in 10,000 people can use magic, and 1 in a 100 of those have a great ability (you know the ability to use an insane amount of magic (I’m not in that group just so you know)) and the people who were definitely noticeable were marked by the government). Many people used their magic to save people, some to hurt, some to gain fame, and some to make a buck. All in all, by the end of that spring, the world knew, magic was here to stay.