Crystal sat, reading, on a chair in her brother's bedroom, waiting for her parents to leave the house for their party. Her brother, Cole, hid upstairs with her, too ashamed and frightened to make small talk. He just lay on his bed in his t-shirt and shorts, staring out the window at the stars glistening in the deepening dark. His pale arms folded across his heaving chest, a look of deep concern on his face.
Crystal looked up from her reading to check on her poor younger brother's progress. His body, like her own, was rapidly losing its human form. They were becoming something else... She wondered how much longer either of them would be able to call themselves human anymore. She wondered exactly where the dividing line fell between human and animal; it was quickly becoming blurred.
The nineteen year old scratched carefully at her itchy neck with ever sharpening fingernails. She absently flicked a few small white feathers off her fingers and onto the floor. So as not to alarm her brother further, Crystal covertly swept her eyes slowly across his prone form, making new observations while trying to come up with some sort of time frame for their eventual shift into chicken-hood.
Cole's lithe, athletic body had definitely been altered. His arms and legs had become completely devoid of their usual short hairs. They looked abnormally smooth and almost shined in the light. Crystal suspected the rest of his body, save his head, was the same way. He hadn't volunteered any information due to embarrassment, but during her own time spent in the bathroom she had noticed quite a bit of hair hastily swept into the waste bin.
Like her own, Cole's skin was becoming pale white; she had already noticed that. But the color of his now smooth legs - this was a new change. They were turning a shade of yellow, brightening even as she watched. From the bottoms of his feet to as far up his shorts as she could see, the skin was a shiny, smooth banana colored yellow. Cole didn't seem to notice. Or, he didn't want to notice. He flexed his bare toes a bit, fidgeting about. His toes had become a bit longer, the now thick nails had grown to fine points. He was careful not to brush his skin against them. His yellow ankles seemed more prominent. Maybe it was the color, Crystal mused. Crystal's eyes widened when she saw his heels. Both of them had developed a small callous on the back, jutting out about half an inch. Crystal knew this would develop into a spur before long. Her still flesh-colored feet had already been transformed, about an hour before. She had hoped it wouldn't happen to Cole... None of this was his fault.
Crystal's mind drifted back to yesterday's events, when this whole mess started. There was a strange woman who lived in town named Vanessa, who kept farm birds in her yard. It wasn't really a farm that she lived on, simply a ranch house with a large yard. She had fenced off an area for various birds to move around in. It was attached to some sort of large coop, but it was bigger than any chicken coop Crystal had ever seen. And her parents kept several themselves. It seemed that every time Crystal rode her bike past the place, there were a few chickens or ducks she had never seen. Sometimes there were turkeys or geese. She had sworn she saw a peacock once, but nobody at school had believed her. She searched for it on her way home, but she couldn't find it.
Rumors had swirled through the town as long as Crystal could remember about Vanessa. She was a local legend. A dark sorceress who, it was told, would catch people unawares and put hexes on them. The victims would get amnesia, or swollen heads, or be turned into stone gargoyles for her yard. Crystal had called B.S. on that last one. There wasn't a statue to be found on the whole property. But her friends would just laugh it off, since it was all a big joke anyway. Cole seemed a bit worried, though. He was very superstitious.
Yesterday Cole had ridden on his bike with Crystal to the store, to pick up a present for their friend's birthday party that night. They had been fooling around, racing with each other down the sidewalk, which caused Crystal to run straight into Vanessa with her bike. The woman hadn't been hurt, but she had been furious. Her groceries had spilled all over the sidewalk. A dozen eggs smashed, their fluids running into the street.
That's what Crystal remembered most. Those shattered chicken eggs. And the faint, imperceptible mumbling coming from Vanessa's mouth. The only words she could hear were spoken last. "Chicken, chicken". Vanessa had pointed slowly at first Crystal, and then Cole (who was scared speechless) as they sped away on their bikes.
* * *
A car pulling out of the driveway broke both the silence in the room and Crystal's concentration. Cole yelped with a start, then looked away, feeling self conscious. "I have to use the bathroom." he mumbled. Cole got up and left the room for what seemed like an eternity. Crystal was about to get up and check on him when a startled cry from across the hall caused her to jump up and run to the bathroom door. "Are you ok in there?"
The bathroom door slowly opened, and Cole stood there, head down. A small white object was cradled in a pale white hand. "It's..."
An egg. Her brother had laid a chicken egg.
"Crystal?" he mumbled. "I don't want to become a... chicken. I'm a.. boy..." he broke down in a new round of sobbing as faint white feathers began to crawl out from his hands, arms, neck and shoulders. The spurs on his heels finally broke through. Cole flexed his feet in reaction, tearing holes in the hall carpet. The changes were speeding up; Crystal had to find a way to calm him down. She lay a feathery hand on his shoulder in comfort, pulling his face up toward her own. She glared into his eyes with confident determination. "Cole, listen to me. We are going to Vanessa's house tonight. We are going to put an end to this."
Cole gulped and didn't reply. He dropped his egg as Crystal pulled him along. It shattered on the bathroom tile as the downstairs front door slammed, the two siblings determined to regain their humanity.