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Astrid doesn’t know whether she’s alive, sleeping, unconscious, or dead.

She hears nothing, sees nothing, feels nothing and thinks nothing.

There is only emptiness. An all-encompassing and infinite nothing. But then a white light appears on the black horizon. The little dot grows. It pulls at her, drags her forward. The darkness swirls, a black mass that thickens and forms into a shattered world, but for Astrid there’s only one thing she cares about. The light is her anchor, her way out of this empty void. It grows, faster and faster. Her consciousness returns and a mixture of relief, euphoria and excitement fills her empty mind like an explosion. She longs for the colorful, hopeful, exciting thing that is life. The white light expands to fill her vision and Astrid feels as if she is struck against a liquid surface. She penetrates the barrier and that’s it. The empty shell embraces her and Astrid fills it like air an empty balloon. A head, a chest, arms, stomach, legs. The soul fills the body, adapts to it and gives it the last spark. Eagerly, she takes control of a mindless head. A motionless heart begins its lifelong service. New lungs fill with fresh air for the first time and lifeless muscles awaken, ready to serve their new mistress.

She opens her eyes and sees a blue sky. The dense treetops leave an opening directly above her so the sun's rays can reach the forest floor and shine right into Astrid's eyes. Blinded by the bright light, she winces as instinct forces her eyelids shut.

While her head still feels like it’s going for a spin in a washing machine, strength and a need to move fill her body. Astrid is no longer able to remain still; she turns her head so as not to be blinded and opens her eyes once more.

The forest is bright. The fog is gone, but the world looks a bit strange. A red, barely visible haze hangs over everything, but what catches her attention is the hair that is scattered among the decaying leaves and branches on the floor. The smooth threads are so blonde that they shine white in the sun. Astrid narrows her eyes. Her hair isn't white. At least it shouldn’t be. She raises her right hand, wanting to touch one of the strands. The limb feels stiff but moves much faster and with more force than she intended. Her stiff fingers slam into the forest floor. They are thin and long and part of a pale hand that sits on the end of a thin upper arm. The hairless skin covers thin and well-developed muscles like vacuum packed foil and emits a red glow. Astrid pauses. White hair already forgotten, she brings her hand in front of her eyes. The limb twitches. Sometimes it moves too fast, then not at all, even though Astrid wants it to turn slowly and at an even pace. The red glow does not go away. It’s as if it shines from underneath her skin and yet doesn't change the actual appearance of the limb. A light that covers the living tissue and yet comes from underneath it.

Astrid feels lightheaded, a moment away from panic. She tries to lift her head and sit up, only to immediately regret it. Her view does a somersault. Dizziness overwhelms her and her head slams back into the grass.

To calm the raging storm inside her skull, she stays as motionless as possible and takes deep breaths. After a few moments the headache subsides, but the nausea remains. She closes her eyes and listens to the sounds of the forest. Insects buzz all around, while a warm autumn breeze makes the leaves rustle in the canopy above.

For a moment, a loud roar drowns out all other noise. Her mind barely registers the distant sound, and it ends as quickly as it started.

She waits for the storm in her skull to die down, and only once it’s finally gone does she give lifting her head another go. This time, Astrid manages to pull herself into a sitting position from which she can see the rest of her body. A sight that sends a shiver down her spine. Her shirt has shrunk all the way up to her belly button, leaving her abdomen exposed. She looks thinner and fitter than before, but there is something off about the muscles clearly visible under her skin. They are more pronounced than they could ever be on a normal human woman and the skin that covers them looks like a thin piece of paper. Her pelvis has grown big enough to tear the belt she was wearing.

Her legs have gotten longer and more muscular as well, ripping the sides of her jeans. The same thing goes for her arms and shoulders, but her shirt has managed to somewhat accommodate the growth, with only a few tears around the armpits. The only thing that hasn’t received an increase in size are her breasts, which actually seem to have gotten smaller in comparison to the rest of her body.

But these changes are dwarfed by something much more unsettling: Her body glows red. Not in the way that it has a red color. Her skin itself is almost as pale as paper, which would be weird enough without the red light literally radiating from her body.

Her breathing speeds up.

Questions race through her head. ‘What is happening to me? What the hell is going on? Maybe I’m just hallucinating?’

Astrid’s teeth clench as a thought that freezes her blood forces itself into her mind: ‘Did I suffer some sort of brain damage from the radiation? No nuclear weapon could do this, but what else can this be?’

She yells, “Hello? Is anyone there?” Even her voice is different. It sounds much more mature than before.

Astrid waits, but rustling leaves are the only reply. She is alone.

Confusion and fear turn into frustration. A weird, unnatural rage pushes the questions out of her head.

Her breathing is fast and her heart races. Her mind searches for something to be angry at and the pain her tight clothes are causing her is the perfect subject.

Her feet hurt the most and a quick look tells her why. They have grown several sizes and ripped open the front of her sneakers, while the sides crush her feet.

Her arm jerks forward to grab her shoe, but her hand misses and grabs air. Astrid pauses to stare at her hand, then tries to grab her foot again. Again, her hand doesn’t behave as it should and her fingers slam into her foot. She growls at the pain she feels in the tips of her fingers.

Her eyes twitch as a weird, irrational rage consumes her. The fact that her arms feel like disobedient noodles only makes her angrier, and after a halfhearted third attempt, she feels like she's about to explode. She carefully places her arms on the ground behind her and with a loud growl-like scream, starts kicking her left foot with her right foot as hard as she can.

Her legs also feel like they're made of wet paper, but every movement makes it a bit easier to hit her shoe instead of her foot, and every kick that hits loosens her shoes a bit. Those that miss cause her to either kick the ground or her own foot. By the time she gets her feet out of their prisons, they both hurt and feel free at the same time.

This small victory allows the frustration and rage to die down a bit. Enough for her to think, 'Okay. First thing, call Mom and Dad. And maybe the police.’

With a bit of fumbling, she manages to grab the phone in her pocket, and as she pulls the small device out, her finger presses the lock button. Instead of the usual lock-screen that tells her to put her finger on the fingerprint scanner, she is greeted by a black screen. Within that black screen is a dark version of her reflection. Her eyes can't help but focus on it.

The person staring back looks nothing like her. At least nothing like what she used to look like. The face is longer and more angular. Its nose is slightly upturned, giving the person in the screen an almost arrogant look. Astrid used to have thick lips, but her reflection’s mouth is little more than a line. Her ears are slightly triangular, and her brown locks have been replaced with slick, pale-blonde hair that shines white in the sun.

But the most unsettling change is the one to her eyes. The new irises are large and their original brown has become a piercing yellow. They are like those of a wolf, glaring at her through the dark screen.

Astrid feels a weird weightlessness in her head. She should look shocked and confused, yet the angular features and lupine gaze of the stranger in the screen glare at her with what looks like anger.

Astrid’s fingers feel numb and stiff. Her grip on the phone loosens, and it slips from her fingers.

While she expected something to be different, seeing a complete stranger in her own reflection gives everything a certain finality.

She sits there for a while, staring into nothing. Astrid can’t believe that whatever has happened has turned her into what she can only describe as some sort of elf.

For a moment she considers that all this is a dream, that her real self is still lying in the middle of the road, dying from whatever that fog was – or perhaps she’s already dead, and this is some sort of afterlife. She considers these possibilities for a moment but quickly discards them.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

No dream she’s ever had felt this real.

Her mind races. ‘Then what in God’s name happened? It wasn’t a nuclear apocalypse. Nukes don’t turn people into evil elves. They turn you into dust.’

Astrid shakes those thoughts out of her head. She can worry about what the hell happened yesterday when she doesn’t have more important things to worry about. Like, for example, where everyone is.

She looks around once more and, just like before, finds that she is alone. Nothing but plants surround her.

Astrid racks her brain in an attempt to remember what happened. It’s fuzzy, but she manages to recall that the rest of her family disappeared right before she fell unconscious. That means they must be nearby. Unless, of course, something else has happened.

Before her thoughts can wander any further, she shakes them out of her head. ‘Focus,’ she tells herself. ‘First find the others, then figure out how getting nuked translates into being transformed into… whatever this is.’

Having a goal clears Astrid’s mind. She still has no idea what’s happening, but now there’s something to accomplish. It makes the whole situation feel a bit less chaotic.

Her eyes take another look around, and this time Astrid tries to focus on the life around her. While the forest looks more or less like a normal forest, several new plants have invaded the woodland. Most of them are almost impossible to distinguish from normal plants for an untrained eye. For example, one tree looks just like a normal oak with extremely thick bark and larger leaves, but others are unlike anything Astrid has ever seen before. She takes in everything, her eyes lingering on every single new plant she sees.

Right next to a common birch stands a tree whose branches are covered in thousands of tiny leaves that look like a mass of green wool. There is even a plant that looks like a miniature tree with purple, almost melon-sized fruits hanging off it, their surfaces dappled like golf balls. But the ones that stand out the most are the small plants that dot the clearing. They consist of a thin green stem that ends in a large red leaf shaped like a half-open ice cream cone.

These plants don’t look too different from normal ones, but the fact that they’re new gives them an odd beauty. Astrid wants to know what they feel like, what they do and how they taste. Before she can really get into it though, she shakes these questions out of her head. ‘Focus,’ she tells herself.

Slowly, she tries to stand up. The commands sent to her muscles would have gotten her back on her feet if she were her old self, but her new, well-trained legs are longer and much stronger than her old ones. The movement she makes is a bit like a jump as her legs push her up, but her torso doesn’t balance properly. Astrid stumbles and falls as her left leg does something akin to a kick. Leaves rustle as her butt painfully reconnects with the ground.

Her chest feels empty, like her heart just fled her ribcage. Seeing the world in a completely different way is weird. Seeing a stranger in a reflection is unnerving, and coupled with the fact that she feels like she can’t properly control her own body, it's panic attack material. This helplessness makes her blood feel like ice being forced through her veins. Her heart rate and breathing increase, but before her newfound sense of clarity can turn into panic, Astrid catches herself.

“It's all right. Just focus,” she tells herself. Just like when she pulled out her phone and took off her shoes, she concentrates on every move. Every motion she makes is deliberate, and as she slowly stands up, everything falls into place. It's almost as though her brain is learning, or rather remembering, how to control her body. Standing at her full height, Astrid is much taller than she used to be. It gives her a light kind of vertigo, the same kind you feel when someone lifts you onto their shoulders.

‘So, this is what it’s like to be tall. Pretty nice,’ Astrid thinks. She feels almost like a corn stalk. Tall and thin, but bound to tip over if a strong wind were to blow her way.

As soon as the young elf feels like she's gained enough balance, she takes her first, careful step. One bare foot in front of the other. Her legs obey and move her forward. One small step for them, one giant leap for Astrid’s confidence. As soon as she's taken the first step, the next one is only half as hard, and the third feels as natural as one she would have taken yesterday.

The feeling of being disconnected disappears as she moves every muscle. Astrid giggles and immediately feels silly for being happy that she’s able to do something as mundane as walking. Still, as simple as it may be, that feeling of helplessness was terrifying.

Astrid takes a deep breath. Now, she needs to find her family… and a new outfit. Then she can freak out.

Long legs take a step forward, only to place a bare foot on the cellphone she dropped a few moments ago. She wonders whether she should pick it up. ‘Whatever shut down our car probably fried that little, frail thing,’ she thinks, but ever the optimist, she decides to give it another chance. Her hand closes around the little device. The fingerprint scanner doesn’t respond. Neither does the lock button.

For the first time in a long time, she is truly on her own. A friend or even the police are usually no more than a few button presses away, but right now that safety is gone. She feels vulnerable and yet, for some reason she can’t explain, also a bit free.

With a shrug, she puts the broken piece of plastic and glass back in her pocket.

Her bare feet feel cold on the forest floor as she climbs back up the small incline she fell down in the fog.

Reaching the top, she sees that the road they drove on yesterday is still there, and so is their car. It’s apparently undamaged, blocking the left lane about a hundred or so paces away. She tiptoes to the car, trying to keep as much of her feet from touching the dirty and cold bitumen as possible.

As expected, the car doors are still unlocked. Astrid takes a halfhearted look inside and notices that while her father didn’t lock the car, he did take the key out of the ignition. She’s about to pull her head back out when something catches her eye. There’s a piece of paper under the windshield.

Her hand closes around the note and pulls it out. On it is a message scrawled in her mother's handwriting. Astrid is a fast reader and familiar with her mother’s script, so her eyes just skim over the paper to read the message. Yet as her eyes reach the bottom of the note, her brain fails to string the letters together to form any meaning.

She blinks a few times and stares at the paper. It’s almost like the words moved apart as her eyes skimmed over them. While she can see that they're not actually physically moving, it’s almost impossible to decipher the writing. Astrid grinds her teeth and moves the paper closer to her eyes.

‘What the hell is this?’ she thinks. The writing becomes harder and harder to read as she gets angrier, which in turn makes her even angrier. The elf is about to throw the little paper on the ground, then manages to calm herself back down. With a tremendous amount of focus, she reads the words letter by letter.

Astrid. Can’t stay. Flying monsters. Go to next town. Will wait in safety.

Astrid straightens her back and shoves the paper into her pocket. It's good to know that the others are still alive, but the same emptiness she felt in her chest when she couldn’t stand up is coming back. It shouldn’t be this hard to read a few sentences of handwriting, and the fact that it is, makes her feel handicapped. Like this new body is betraying her. But much more powerful than that feeling of emptiness, is a feeling of anger. Anger at her parents and brothers for leaving without her. Walking through the forest screaming her name might not be a great idea with some monster flying around, but what could possibly be so horrible that it would justify leaving her behind, with nothing but a note that’s so uninformative it might as well not exist? The realization that she might not be the only thing that got transformed pierces the veil of brewing anger like a sword and her eyes instinctively move up to the sky. A few clouds dot the heavens, but aside from that, there’s nothing there.

With a few quick steps, she moves to the back of the vehicle and opens the trunk. Her bag is on top of the pile, but whatever is in there is going to fit about as well as what she's wearing now. Instead, she grabs the suitcase that contains her parents’ things. It’s already half empty. Her parents must've stuffed as much as they could into their backpacks and left the rest behind. Since her mother was smaller than her before whatever happened yesterday, she ignores her clothes. Instead, she pulls out one of her father's T-shirts.

Astrid tries to take off her old shirt, but it's stuck on her. With a small burst of anger, she grabs it by the sleeve and pulls. It takes a lot of strength, but after a few hard tugs, the shirt tears at the seams. The expensive rags fall to the ground as she pulls her father's old shirt over her head.

Next, she peels her long legs out of her jeans, and puts on her father's sweatpants and his spare sneakers.

Astrid doesn't even want to know what she looks like, but can't stop herself from taking a peek in the rearview mirror anyway. While her old shirt was too tight everywhere, this one makes her look like an overgrown child. It barely fits her shoulders but is too wide at the stomach and the bit of skin the blue shirt shows isn't enough to make it seem like it's on purpose. The black pants are no better as they are too wide at the waist, yet too short to cover her ankles.

Astrid feels absolutely ridiculous and is about to laugh at her own outfit, when she notices a shape behind her. Her blood instantly fills with adrenaline, and some sort of instinct kicks in. She wants to throw herself onto the ground, but barely manages to lean down before a stab of pain rips across her shoulder.

Even though the monster doesn't manage to grab her, the impact throws her forward so hard that her head is smashed against the mirror with enough force to crack the glass. Blood gushes over her forehead as white spots dance in front of her eyes.

Astrid falls and barely manages to stop herself from hitting the pavement face first. Even though her skull throbs and her shoulder burns, she manages to pull her head up fast enough to see the massive creature that tried to grab her soar over her head. Its body is covered in white feathers, and horrible claws extend from its feet. The creature lets out a roar-like screech as it pulls back up into the air. As it does, she catches a glimpse of its head. It too is feathered, but instead of a beak like a bird, it has a set of teethed jaws like a raptor.

While the monster regains altitude, Astrid jumps to her feet, stumbles towards the edge of the forest and dives into the cover provided by the trees.

The young woman gasps for air as she picks herself up from the ground. With the threat flying away, the adrenaline surge subsides and the pain in Astrid's shoulder intensifies. She falls back to her knees and releases a scream. The fact that she almost died feels like a brick on her head. The searing pain in her shoulder and the knowledge that luck and her quick reflexes were the only thing that saved her from being impaled by talons and carried off by that monster, don't make things one bit better.

The young elf takes a few seconds to calm down, before daring to look at the wound the beast’s claw inflicted. The attack ripped her shirt and blood now stains the blue a deep brown-gray.

The wound looks even worse than it feels. Like paper that has been cut by the blunt side of a knife, the skin looks frayed. Luckily, the gash is neither deep nor long and the trickle of blood slowly subsides. It still hurts like hell though.

A quick look up from the safety of the trees reveals that the flying monster has returned to its cruising altitude and is now flying circles in the sky. Astrid knows that the moment she steps out of the safety of the canopy, that thing is going to come swooping down again. She decides that not having a ripped and blood-stained shirt isn’t worth getting killed by a raptor-eagle thing.

Since her mother didn't specify what town they were headed for, she just decides to follow the road.

In the shadows of the trees, of course.