"Damn it," Frank Smith cursed as he idly played with a bit of metal he found behind the toilet in the upstairs bathroom and had, at first, thought it was off the toilet. Setting the hunk of whatever it was done, he leaned back in his office chair, swivelled it so that he was looking out the window. Watching a couple birds, he muttered, "It simply doesn't make sense."
Mentally playing out the events of the morning, he focused on how his day had started like it normally did. He'd awoken at his usual time, gotten up and started to get ready for his day. Out in the hallway, he could hear Margo pounding on Jacob's door, telling him to get up and that she didn't want none of his usual shenanigans. Leaning out his bedroom door, he called out, "Jacob. Do as your mother tells you," then, heading for his closet, he pulled on a button down shirt and started working on tying his tie.
As he finished that, he heard Margo again pounding on his son's bedroom door and exclaiming something. Silently, he hoped he wouldn't have to deal with the boy that morning, as every time he did, he always left for the office with a headache. As he chose one of his suit coats, he stopped when suddenly Margo called out, "Frank. Get in here. Now," in a tone that told him she was close to panic.
Concerned that something was wrong with Jacob, he dropped his jacket on the bed and rushed to his sons room. From there, everything sort of became a blur for him, but he could remember taking his son to the hospital, stopping on the way at a department store to buy some clothes, then sitting for about a half an hour before the family doctor would see them. From there, things went even weirder, as he, Margo and Jacob had just been shown into the doctor's office when his phone pinged, alerting to him to a message. Thinking it was a audio message and that it was from work, he excused himself to take it.
Only, it wasn't from work, but rather from Ashley, telling him that she couldn't reach mom. Figuring that, in the rush, Margo had forgotten her mobile, he read further that someone needed to come home and that there was a problem. Frustrated, he went back and tried to talk Margo into dealing with it, but she was adamant about remaining with Jacob. Telling her, "I'll be back as soon as I can," he rushed out of the hospital and, as quickly as he could, without breaking too many road laws, he headed home.
There, he discovered that whatever had happened to his son, had also happened to Ashley. Unable to come to terms with the fact that both his children were now little kids again, Frank had nearly lost his mind. But, somehow managing a stoic attitude, he repeated the same steps he'd taken nearly an hour previously and, after getting Ashley some decent clothes to wear, "The poor girl was trying to wear what she kept calling her 'big girl clothes'," he reminded himself, he dropped her off at the hospital with Margo, who nearly had a full-blown panic attack then and there. After he'd done that, he returned home and began a systematic check of both Jacob and Ashley's rooms.
Unsure of what he was searching for, Frank wanted any sort of proof that could tell him how it was possible for two kids to go to sleep as teenagers, but wake up as children under the age of ten. Swivelling his chair back around, grousing, "Hell, I even searched the bathroom and all I found was this, this, whatever this is," and tapping a finger against the chunk of metal, which he thought actually looked like something off a boiler, he wished Margo would call with an update.
A quick check of the phone on his desk revealed no new messages. Taking out his cell phone, he thumbed through it, but soon gave up, knowing that he wouldn't find anything new. Telling himself, "You would have known if Margo called with anything," he found this didn't relieve the anxious feeling that was threatening to overwhelm him. Turning his attention to the work he needed to complete by lunch time, he tried to focus on it, but eventually gave up, his mind too frazzled by everything that had happened as he wondered if maybe he should tell his boss he needed a personal day due to his children being sick.
"Sick, yeah, that cover it," he laughed as he picked up the hunk of metal and idly began fiddling with it.
Swivelling his chair back around so that he was looking back out the window, he breathed deeply, found the air had to much of a stale feel to it, scooted the chair forward and pushed open the window. Glad that his office was on the ground floor, Frank Smith leaned back and looked out the open window. Watching another bird, "A raptor of some sort," he guessed, swoop and dive, he absently played with the hunk of metal he'd found in the upstairs bathroom. His nerves wearing thinner and thinner as the minutes slowly crawled by, the feelings of anxiety mixing with anxiousness mixing with worry growing and growing, he wasn't sure why he thought what he suddenly thought as he continued to watch the bird.
The animal diving suddenly, Frank Smith sighed and thought, "I wish I could be a bird. No cares. Freedom. Not having a single worry. Content with having only the needs of mating to produce a egg, my next meal and tree to roost in."
No flash of light, dazzling sounds or smoke clouds announced his sudden supernatural change. But as he sat there, his emotions running high, his mind on how great it would be to be a bird, suddenly middle-aged Frank Smith simply vanished. The Toroid of Transformation dropping heavily to the floor, the Red Hawk preened itself for a moment before flapping its wings a bit, hopped from the chair up onto the sill, then launched itself out the window. The minutes continuing to slip by, nearly five minutes passed before the phone on Frank's desk began to ring. When it was clear nobody was picking up, the secretary who'd patched it through contacted an employee near Frank's office to check on him. Ten minutes after Frank the hawk had taken flight, an associate from the same division that Frank worked in was knocking on his office, calling out, "Frank? Is everything all right? Your wife is on line one. She says its urgent."