Kristy and the others watched over the two Changed, as Colin had begun thinking of them. Kristy had successfully saved both of the Changed and Jenny had been able to turn them both back. While they were occupied, Colin ran out of the garage.

  He wanted to blast his senses to keep an eye on the surrounding area and make sure there were no other Changed that attacked unexpectedly. Part of him feared the gunshots from Higgins would draw them in, but nothing was approaching from Colin’s range of senses.

  When he neared the police car, he began salivating. There were two pulsing glows of energy on the ground coming from the two Changed that Higgins killed. Had he unconsciously made his way to them?

  Hungry

  Colin felt the desperate urge to feast. This was different from when he was a small bug, more picky, but also more desperate. The feeling hadn’t surged around his family even though he could sense them in a similar way. Not since Kristy had calmed him from his primal state of mind. It made him worry that the feeling could come back, but he would have to trust Kristy and Jenny to stop him.

  Colin looked at the two dead humanoid Changed in front of him. It was a shame they couldn’t save them, but he saw no reason to leave a perfectly good meal to rot. They were already dead and eating their brains should help prevent him from losing control. A part of himself felt disgusted at his own justifications, but he suppressed those feelings as he cleanly bit the heads off of both corpses.

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  The surge of energy that flooded into him was staggering. Colin felt every last bit of himself invigorated and he distinctly felt far more alive. A sensation told him that he’d reached past his current plateau and was ready to fall into his Chrysallis form.

  rest

  The urge was there, but he could resist it for now. Colin instinctually felt that if he ate more gray matter, the urge to rest and progress to the next plateau would grow more insistent.

  Colin felt a stab of fear from Kristy and looked towards the home where they were. She was standing outside of the garage, staring at him.

  There were no enemies nearby to cause her fear. Colin looked at the blood dripping down from his scaled maw and realized that Kristy was afraid of him. He absorbed the blood through his skin and changed to a chicken to look less frightening, but as he approached, Kristy’s fear grew and she backed away from him.

  It was quiet, but the words assaulted Colin like a storm, ”Are you really my Colin?”

  Colin’s insides twisted at the question. What was happening to him? He had just justified eating dead people to himself. That was not normal. He reached out to Kristy and she accepted the connection. One powerful emotion radiated from Colin Too Kristy as he saw a look in her eyes that shattered his heart: Shame.

  “I’m scared that I’m not,” Colin said as he crumpled into himself, hiding his head under his wing. Chickens may not be able to cry, but Colin felt the sadness just as deeply.

  Fear turned to worry and Kristy sent feelings of love his way, but it didn’t make him feel any better in that moment. The fear he caused in her was unacceptable, it was unbearable. Colin had promised himself he would think before acting so he wouldn’t hurt his family anymore and he ended up ignoring all of that.

  Rest

  Colin gave into the pulse and collapsed into his chrysalis form. He needed time to think. He needed time to remind himself how to be human.