After several minutes of crying on the ground, Cory gathered his resolve and used his new bee body to lift himself into the air. His body knew what to do; it didn't take Cory any time to teach himself to fly. He dimly attributed this to a side effect of his Chronivac curse and buzzed his way to the rosebush he had seen previously. It was a wild pink rosebush, and Cory could smell the nectar inside the flowers. He didn't really want to collect it, but his bee body did what nature intended and he found himself sniffing the nectar ravenously.
"I can't eat this stuff, I'm a human!" Cory thought. His eyes welled up again as he sucked the nectar into his mouth, storing it in his stomach for later honey making. Swallowing mouthful upon mouthful, Cory became full. He tried again to scream.
"Buzzz. Buzzz."
Cory felt despondent. He considered flying into his house through a window, but couldn't see a reason for it. He flitted out of the flower and into his neighbor's yard to look for more nectar, having nothing better to do.
Disgusted, Cory was about to stuff himself on a Lily plant when his neighbor Lisa walked into his field of vision. Cory tried to buzz around her, to get her attention. Cory recalled an old movie he had once seen about a man's head on a fly's body. "If she sees my face," Cory thought, "she might be able to... help me!"
Lisa wanted no part of bees, however, and began to swat at Cory dangerously. Cory's instincts took over again and he found himself in a straight dive right at her arm. Lisa screamed. Cory's stinger was lodged in her bicep. It tore itself free from his rear end. The pain for Cory was a hundred fold what Lisa had felt; a bee's stinger was literally ripped from their body and the bee often died soon after.
Cory buzzed as fast as he could back over the fence. He heard Lisa run inside and slam the door as he dropped near his pile of clothes. Cory felt like throwing up, but his bee body wouldn't allow this so far from the hive. Cory felt dizzy... weak...
***
Cory awoke a few minutes later with a start. He was human sized again; normal. A flood of relief rushed through him. He ran his tongue over his teeth and tasted something vaguely sweet. "That nectar must still be in my stomach..."
Cory sat on the ground for a while, not even bothering to dress himself. The yard had a high enough fence for privacy. Beside this, Cory was too busy trying to figure out what had caused his restoration, and what had caused his transformation into a bee in the first place. He went over the events in his mind, trying to piece something logical together. The bee had stung him, he reasoned. In getting rid of his own stinger, he had returned himself to normal. That seemed fairly obvious.
The stress placed on his body caused a blackout, but he noticed it was a lot shorter than his last fainting spell. Maybe he was building up a tolerance.
As for the transformation itself, Cory could think of three possibilities. Could it be completely random? Cory doubted this, the Chronivac had been built on precepts and rules. Could it be the organic bee stinger? This was also unlikely; Cory had come in contact with many other organic materials that morning. Nothing had happened.
But the panic. Cory had panicked greatly when the bee had stung him in the first place. The stress, he reasoned, could have been the trigger. No, not only the stress, but the stress combined with the presence of the stinger. Both factors must be present to trigger a physical change. If, Cory reasoned, he could remain calm, no change would occur.
Cory had his theory. Now he had to test it. He looked around the yard before settling his gaze once more on the rosebush. Suppressing his nerves, he deliberately stuck his finger into a thorn.