My change had gone smoother and faster than the others. There was a lot of pain, but I was asleep and drugged during the worst of it. One day I woke up and I had a giant pair of dragonfly wings on my back.

After I had my nervous breakdown and got used to the idea, I realized they were actually sort of pretty. Gossamer sky blue with hints of purple iridescence. They were tougher than they appeared. They felt more like hardened leather rather than the thin transparent paper they looked like. Pretty.

My hair had also changed. Blue, to match the wings. I had talked one of the healers into cutting off the leftover brown fuzzy hair leaving only a small portion of blue little curls swirling around my head.

My physical appearance had changed as well. I had already been short but I had lost a few inches in height. On the other hand, my overall extremities had elongated. My arms looked longer and so did my legs. My torso was shorter but it still looked stretched with how thin I'd gotten. Even my face, once full and rounded, was thinner and narrow.

I could tell it was me but at the same time, I didn't look like me. I could have been closely related to the old me but no one would confuse us as the same person.

As I was adapting to my new self, the others in the hospital were dying around me. Every day a new person would be brought in. Every day two or three people were wheeled out, dead.

Why did I survive and they didn't?

Apparently, it may have something to do with having contact with a divine being.

From what my handler told me nearly 90% of the people who contracted the epidemic died. Of the remaining 10%, the majority of them had had contact with a god at some point in their past. Not everyone, but most. So my sacrificing my abusive family at the age of ten had been good for something.

The first wave of patients was hard. Watching all those people die. The second wave was even worse. Children. There were children. None of the children survived.

It wasn't long before they realized that keeping the people who were likely to survive in the same area with the people dying was a bad idea. So they separated us.

Then the survivors around me began to break. Mental Corruption. If the survivors afflicted with Metal Corruption weren't coming up with new and inventive ways to suicide they were coming up with new and inventive ways to try and murder the healers and their fellow survivors. They began checking us daily. Those that were unstable were sent somewhere else.

My handler was kind enough to let me check on the twins. Janette and Gregory were both here but in a different area. I was glad to know that the entire family had survived, but I was curious about what god they had been involved with.

I was taken to a nursery. There were six infants that had been born during the epidemic that survived. The twins Starley and Prestley were fine. They acted like normal newborns, pooped, ate, slept, cried. Though they didn't look like normal newborns. None of the infants did.

The twins had cute little butterfly wings. They would flutter and get in the way when they got fussy. Starley had pastel purple wings with hints of pastel green markings. Prestley had pastel green wings with pastel purple markings. Neither of them had hair yet, but when it did finally come in their hair color would likely match their wing color.

There were three babies that looked exactly like potatoes. They moved and cried but they looked like potatoes. They didn't drink milk or poop. They had them sitting in bassinets with a little bit of dirt and a sun lamp turned on over top of them.

The last baby was different. She had what looked like a tiny branch sprouting from her back. It even had a few leaves.

Janette was allowed to come once a day to interact with the twins. I was glad she was able to bond with her babies. I hoped that the birth had gone well. Considering that we were all sick with the epidemic we hadn't been certain if Janette or the twins would survive. Gregory had seemed so certain, but Janette had confessed in her fevered state that she feared they would all die.

"Maize?" A woman with brown skin and a huge bosom called from behind me. The fact that her bust line was the first thing I noticed rather than the small tree attached to the base of her spine was a clue on just who it was. Even if her skin color had changed I could recognize those breasts anywhere.

"Marcy?"

"Oh, Maize it is you." I was suddenly engulfed in an awkward hug. Awkward because neither of us knew where to put our hands. I hit a tree and she was suddenly groping my wings.

"I'm so glad you're ok. Filmore is here too, but they won't let me see him. They say he's not out of his metamorphosis yet. I don't know what to do. If I didn't have Paisley I'd would have just given up." She began to cry hard wracking tears.

"Now dear, we don't want to upset the babies," the healer in charge of the nursery swept up beside us from nowhere. Where had she been lurking?

"Yes, yes I know," Marcy wiped her face on her hospital gown neckline and tried to smile through the tears. "Maize will you sit with me while I feed Paisley?"

"Uh," I agreed. Paisley? Marcy had been pregnant at the wedding. My guess was the baby with the branch sticking out of her was Paisley.

"Twins," I pointed to the twins.

"Oh, Janette's twins? Is she here too?"

"Yes, survived. Gregory."

"Gregory as well? Are they in air, fire, or water?"

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

"Fire, both."

"Fire? Oh, how is she handling the babies then?"

"Dunno, first I've been allowed to see them."

"The twins are bottle-fed, but we allow the mother to have time with them," the healer commented from the side.

"Maize, if Janette is fire how is she going to care for the babies when we get released?"

"Dunno," I shrugged. I hadn't thought about it.

"Perhaps 00707 would like to feed them? They are about due to be fed," the nurse addressed me.

"This number nonsense," Marcy huffed. "This is Maize. Use her proper name."

"You know that we aren't allowed to do that 48306."

"What do you call the babies?" I asked her.

"The twins are I002 and I003. Infant number 2 and 3. She's I005," the healer pointed to the baby with the branch.

"That is Paisley," Marcy corrected her.

"Starley, Prestley," I said pointing to each twin. I wasn't certain if Janette had told Marcy the names she'd planned for her babies.

"Would you like to feed them?" The healer asked again.

"Uh," I nodded.

"Take a seat on the couch. I have to bring the infants to you. They like to be held together it can be tricky with the wings. They don't like to be separated that's why we keep them in the same bassinet. So If you can hold one like this," the healer demonstrated the hold, "then the other like this," once again she held out her arms. "You can prop the bottles between your legs and let them drink." The healer picked up a bottle that had a long tube attached like a straw and a nipple on one end.

"Maize?" Marcy asked as we both sat on the couch waiting for the babies to be brought to us.

"Do you think Janette would allow me to breastfeed the twins? I make more than enough milk for Paisley and it can't be healthy having no motherly contact at all."

"Ask," I said and shrugged.

"I think I will. I'll have the healer pass on the request and see if Janette agrees."

"I think it's a nice idea, 48306," the healer said placing the baby girl into her mother's arms.

"Marcy," Marcy corrected the woman before shifting the baby so that it would latch. The baby must have known what was coming because she suddenly got very animated snuffling around for her mother. When she found what she was looking for she gave a happy baby sigh and relaxed into the feeding.

"Here you go," two babies were placed in my arms and two bottles were propped up. They began to feed as soon as the nipple had been placed. Starley got a bit fussy but I adjusted her so that she was touching her brother and she calmed down.

"Maize, Rille's mother is here," Marcy said in a quiet voice.

"Maple?"

"Yes, she's in the earth area but she's already rooting."

"Rooting?"

Marcy looked from her child and nodded to the potato babies.

"There are two types in the earth area. The ones that carry the tree and the ones that become the tree. Rille's mom is becoming a tree."

"Don't understand."

"The majority of the survivors are in earth. You know that?"

I nodded.

"Well, they say survive but I'm not certain if that's what it is.

"Some of us have these branches sticking out of us. We can feel the trees. I don't know how to explain that part, just that we can feel them. Trees aren't sentient but they are living and you can feel the life in them.

"Other people become trees. They start out with their skin looking all calloused and brown," Marcy nodded at the potato babies again. "Then they start to form roots. If the roots aren't placed in soil the 'tree' dies" Marcy made air quotes with her free hand. "The tree in this case being the person. So they have an area where survivors are being planted outside. The survivors slowly begin to morph into what looks like an actual tree. There isn't any semblance of humanity left in them when they are done.

"I mentioned that I can feel the trees? The trees born from the survivors feel no different than any other tree on The Island."

"Death?"

"They," Marcy nodded at the healer flipping over a potato baby, "don't think so, but I disagree. While, yes, there is still life, there isn't anyone there. Understand?"

"Rille's mom?"

"Rille's mom is rooting. She'll have to be planted soon. She'll never leave this place and in time she will no longer be Rille's mom. She'll be just a tree."

I thought about that. Was Rille here? Had she died with so many others? She wasn't in air and Marcy would have said something if she was in earth.

"Excuse me," I said to the healer.

"Yes?"

"Rille?" I asked her.

"Excuse me?" She answered.

"She wants to know if you can find out if there is a patient named Rille among the survivors. She'd probably be in fire with Janette."

"I'll go check when I'm done here," the healer told us.

I nodded at her.

"Those babies?" I asked Marcy nodding at the potatoes.

"What about them?"

"Trees?"

Marcy frowned and bent down to smell Paisley's head.

"They will root and become trees, yes."

"Those babies will die?"

"Yes," Marcy said quietly.

"Fuck," I swore images of the children that had been brought in swam through my memory. I had the feeling Marcy was thinking the same thing. She buried her face into her daughter's hair and gave her a small kiss.

"Fuck," whispered Marcy in agreement. "We survived though, we will make it home." Then she glanced over at the twins. "You will have to talk to Janette and Gregory, Maize. They won't be going home and the twins can't stay here."

I looked at her baffled for a second. Then it hit me. The twins. I was their guardian. Well, I was hired to guard their bodies. Did that mean I was also responsible for raising them in place of Janette and Gregory?

They were both fire, they had to stay up in the building that was built on the side of the volcano. They were prone to burst into flames at random moments. If they got to close to someone the heat radiating off their bodies could burn. If they got stuck in the cold or wet they would extinguish and die.

Gods Above, they couldn't leave the volcano, or if they did they would have to go to another volcano. The twins certainly couldn't live in a volcano.

"The Mental Corruption is the worst among the fire," Marcy sighed. "I'm not saying that Janette is going to lose her mind and try and kill everyone," she frowned and sighed. "I don't know what I'm saying. I just don't think she'll be able to raise her own babies and that breaks my heart all over again.

"I also don't think she'll want those grandparents of her's raising them. After everything they did? No. I'm not certain if Gregory has family, but even if he does who would keep the children safe from her family? No, Maize, I think you are the best choice here."

"We'll see," I hedged. It was too much. I'd just been through so much, seen so much, to have this problem come up... I just couldn't process it. The babies were cute but it's not like I had any connection with them other than a bodyguarding contract and a short friendship with their parents.

"Good news, Subject 00938 is alive. She's not in the fire section though. Your friend is the lone female survivor of the water section. I say survivor loosely since she hasn't come out of her metamorphosis yet," the healer came out of a back room and was looking at a stack of papers.

"She's with my Filmore?" Marcy asked scooting forward suddenly. She accidentally dislodged baby Paisley from her nipple and the infant began to cry. Marcy soothed the child and switched her to the other breast.

"He's still undergoing metamorphosis as well. So far there has only been one completed water transformation and it was of male Subject 58008. He's been transferred to the lake."

Marcy looked at me with a puzzled expression.

"Why would they have to transfer him to a lake?"

"Oh," the healer looked uncomfortable. Then down at her papers. "Um, I think your handler should explain to you everything that happens with a water type."

"But why the lake?"

"Water-type? Lake water?" I guessed.

"But the lake system on the north side of The Island is a salt lake right?"

"I think it's fed from the ocean, so it may not actually be a lake," the healer shrugged and sort of scuttled off back to her office.

"What has happened to us Maize?" Marcy swallowed another sob.