Tim emerged back to civilization, though his mind remained in the forest in that squirrel's body. He was still shaken by it. Which, honestly, felt reasonable. He was a normal guy with human thoughts for one minute. Next, he was a squirrel whose entire brain was just screaming between his ears, ordering him to gather nuts because winter was coming. It's the middle of July for fuck's sake.
Becoming a squirrel was a fucking experience, and he did not like it one bit. So yeah, he made a promise to himself: If he was ever dumb enough to try possessing someone again, it would never be an animal. Ever.
Tim left the stone path and stepped back onto the asphalt. It was a little further to go before he arrived at the city park where the geology club meets every Saturday. It was a nice park with plenty of open space, picnic tables, and, most importantly, rocks. It's usually quartz, feldspar, calcite, sandstone, or marble. They found a rock containing fossilized ammonite once, which they thought was pretty rare. Then they found out it was dropped by a fellow member, and he bought the rock from Gammazon. He was rather angry when they hammered the rock to see if there were more ammonites inside. He got angrier when the rock cracked in jagged lines across the ammonite.
The club wasn't exactly the hottest social scene, but Tim liked it. It was a small knick-knack of people like him, a few other people from school, and some adults who shared the same interest in Earth's minerals. The oldest member was Mr. Lawson, Tim's geology professor, and the club's sponsor. He semi-retired from being a geologist and settled down as a professor in a not-so-famous campus in this mountain town. He could get too excited about sedimentary layers, but Tim respected that quirky side of his balding professor.
As Tim approached the usual meeting spot—a picnic blanket on a hill overseeing the park pond, he tried to forget his time as a squirrel even for a little bit. The blanket was already propped with this week's latest rock finds and well-worn geology books. This meant they'd already finished preparing and are currently doing today's seminar.
"Tim! You're late," said Emily, the club's unofficial leader. She was the kind of person who always had a clipboard and probably had her entire life planned out through age fifty. She was the same age as Tim but her utilitarian, bitchy attitude placed her older than his mom.
"Sorry," Tim muttered, dropping his backpack under a tree. Saying more would earn more bitching from Emily so he left before she could compute how many minutes he wasted her previous time.
"Find anything good this week?" asked Ravi, another club member. Tim looked down and saw one of the only three Indian students on their campus. He can't believe he was the same age. Ravi was holding up a chunk of quartz, turning it into the sunlight before placing it with the other rocks. "Got this near the creek. Might have some impurities, but it's still cool. Not as cool as the jade I got from my grandma."
"Uh, yeah," Tim said, hesitating. He opened his bag filled with rocks. His fingers picked the Tupperware one by one before he stopped at the one that contained that weird rock. He pulled it closer, and it looked the same—dark, smooth, and weirdly light. Its effects and his experiences were ringing in his head again.
Before Tim realized it, Mr. Lawson noticed the weird rock and picked it up from the Tupperware. "Well now, what do we have here?" He picked it up, turning it over in his hands. "Interesting texture. Almost obsidian-like, but there was no gloss to it. And it ain't brittle. A weird metamorphic rock, perhaps?" He pulled out a magnifying glass and inspected it closer. "Where'd you find this?"
"In the woods," Tim said, suddenly nervous.
"Mr. Lawson nodded, still examining, before tossing the rock back. "Fascinating. It doesn't match anything common to this area. I'd assume this rock should have formed near volcanoes or fault lines, but I think I'm also wrong on that hypothesis. If you want to discover more about that rock, please visit me in my lab after the group activities. I don't mean to brag, but I got a new spectrometer, and you can't describe how excited I am to try it out."
Mr. Lawson walked back without a hitch. Tim was stunned, for he expected Mr. Lawson to freeze up or find a nearby squirrel chirping in panic. Against his expectations, nothing happened. So. It only worked on him? That seemed like a good thing because that power remained exclusive to him. He hasn't even used it on anyone new, but he felt a sense of ownership of the ability. It's his.
Before he could think too hard about it, Emily clapped her hands. "Alright, let's get started! Today we're going to categorize our latest finds and—"
Tim picked out a random rock from his bag while he hid the magic rock in his pocket. He placed it in the blanket before turning out Emily's prattling about proper rock organization. Tim loved everything about geology, but Emily's take on it was absolutely grating. He preferred the messiness of rock-finding and collecting, not this overtly utilitarian arrangement based on the Mohs' scaling.