Nowhere to Run: Chapter 1

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Chapter One
This Strange Feeling

"We're almost there, Nathan," my mother said, driving to her boyfriend’s house on the hill outside the city. I never liked him. He was this weird scientist, just like the ones you see in horror movies. I almost feel like Dracula, or Frankenstein's monster, would come out of the building at any minute.

"Mom, did we have to move here?" I said. You can tell, I didn't like the idea of moving. Mom didn't say a word. I believe that's because I had said it about a hundred times before we even left the old house. We pulled up to the creepy building. It sure looked like the house we recognize in Transylvania. Now, where is Scooby and the Gang? I look around. Getting out of the car, I took my only bag with me. We sold most of the things before we moved, so we didn't have to pack any up and haul the shit over here. Her "boyfriend" George, came out of the building and walked over to us.

"Hi little squirt," he said in a friendly voice. He could tell I wasn't happy and rushed over to mom, giving her a big kiss on the lips. I felt like I was about to barf. I went inside the building, not wanting to watch the lovebirds. It was a hot day today, so I went to the kitchen for something to drink. Looking in the fridge, I notice there is nothing but water. Oh wait, I notice a bottle of soda. "What brand is this?" I thought. I opened the bottle, and without thinking, I swallowed the whole thing. "Yuck!" It tasted awful. But it was so refreshing, besides the taste.

I went upstairs to look in my room. It was such a big house; I hope I can find my way. I can hear my mom and George coming into the house. Mom is giggling, and I can tell they were heading into the kitchen. I think I found my room. There were many rooms in the house, but the room I believe was mine was already filled with a bed, just like the other with a bed. But mine was smaller and a twin bed. Theirs was a King Size Bed. So I figured this room was mine. I walk into the room and start unpacking my things into the dresser.

Downstairs, mom was sitting at the table. George figured she was thirsty. He went into the fridge to get her a drink. "I hope you don't mind water. I don't have any other type of drink at the moment, otherwise, I would offer you more choices."

"That's fine honey," Mom said with a sigh.
George grabbed a bottle of water and shut the door. He paused for a second and opened the door again. "That's strange."
"What's strange, dear?"

"I thought I put a bottle in here with a secret formula I was working on."

"What is the formula?"

"Well, it’s just an experiment. I believe I found a way to change the male gender into females, without surgery. This could help the transgender community. The terrible thing is, I don't have a formula to turn females into males. Even if I did, if someone takes the formula and becomes male, they can't take another and go back to the original gender they were born with."

"I hope Nathan didn't drink it."

"Well, we won't know right away if he did. It takes a few days to kick in." The first thing he will notice is he starts to feel faint. Then dizzy. Next thing he blanks out. That’s where the changes start happening. But even then, he won't even notice. Except for a few changes. If he has facial hair, it will stop growing. His hair will grow faster, and he will notice getting shorter. Eventually, he will notice breasts growing. He might think it's simply man boobs or something. His penis will start to shrink and..."

Just then I came into the room. I didn't hear the conversation. I was just going to the fridge for another drink. All they had was water, which sucked big time. I grabbed one and stepped out of the room. "Nathan, you didn't perhaps take a bottle that wasn't water earlier, did you?" I thought I would get in trouble, so I lied. "Of course not, I just grabbed water and headed to my room. Why was there some other drink in there I didn't know of?"

"No. Maybe I put it in the fridge downstairs." George looked puzzled. "Run along now. Oh, did you find your room alright?"

"Yes," I said with a snarl.

"That's good. By the way, there's a big screen TV in the family room. I bought a PlayStation 87 and many games. I hope you like the choices I chose."

"Thanks," I said. Hmm, maybe this guy isn't bad after all. I went to the family room and found a huge 3D, 16 feet tall, Ultra High Definition, flat screen TV with surround sound. I am in heaven here. My friends would love to come over and play games with me. I turned the TV on. The first thing I noticed was the old horror movie Night of the Living Dead. I jumped a little bit. You would also if you spotted a zombie about the same size as you on the screen. I raced over the phone and dialed my friend Jack. He wasn't busy and said he would come over immediately.

While I waited for him to come over, I went into the kitchen for a bite to eat. Mom and George were still there.

"Nathan, we need to talk, “Mom said to me when I walked in.

"What for you ask? Did I do something wrong?"

"We found this bottle in the recycling bin," George said, looking into my eyes.

"I didn't drink that!" I yelled.

"Don't lie to us, tell us the truth. Did you drink it?" George yelled back at me.

"Why the fuck do you think I drank it?"

"Don't use that language at me! Did you or didn't you?"

"Sweetie," Mom said in a soft voice. "Please tell us if you drank it. It's crucial that you tell the truth."

Sweetie? She has never called me sweetie? "I'm sorry, mom," I started to cry. "I did drink it. I just didn't want to get in trouble. Now I am going to anyways."
My mom started to cry as well. She walked over to me and gave me a big hug.

"I'm sorry as well, sweetie," she said.

"Why exactly are you sorry? I'm the one that drank it and lied to you both."

Suddenly, the doorbell rang. "Uh, mom, my friend is here, can I go, please? I won't lie to you again." Mom excused me, and I answered the door. Jack brought another friend of mine, Mike. We all went into the family room. The next thing you knew, two enormous eyes were staring at the TV.
"Wow!" Jack said. That is one big Mother of a TV."
Mike was checking out the games I have. "Whoa! You got the Legend of Zelda: Guardian of Time? It's not officially released yet. How did you get it?"

"Don't ask me how George got those games."
We started playing a game; we didn't want to play the Zelda game quite yet. We decided to play the fighting game Brutalmania.
After a while, we all got hungry and went to the kitchen to find something to eat. Mom and George were not in there. I found a bucket of chicken from Popeye's, and we all started munching on it. I just hope we don't get in trouble for eating this, like I did when drinking the soda earlier.

"Want to check out the house?" I said after we stuffed our faces. They all agreed enthusiastically. We ran to the stairs. Race you to the top. I said. We both ran as fast as possible. I usually was the fastest runner, but for some reason, I was the slowest. I started feeling queasy. I thought it was just because I was hot. "My room is over here," I said, pointing down the hall. We started walking, and I began getting dizzy.

"Nathan, are you alright?" Jack said, trying to keep me from falling.

"I guess so," I said. "I feel really confused. Help me to my bed."
It wasn't long until I blacked out and fell to the ground.

~o~O~o~

Beep... Beep... Beep... I kept hearing this annoying beeping sound. Not knowing where it was coming from or why. I slowly opened my eyes. Everything was bright, like I'm staring directly at the sun. My eyes begin to focus. Beep... Beep... Beep... Well, now I know where the beeping is coming from. I stare at a machine in the room I was in. It looked like a hospital room, but it wasn't. The bed was just an ordinary bed. No button to call a nurse or anything.

“Hello?” I call out. I could hear footsteps heading to the door. I expected a nurse or doctor to be coming in. Well, it appears someone was listening. He was wearing a white coat. “Who the hell are you?”

“My name is Alfred,” he said, “I am the assistant to George. I work down in his lab.”

“That explains who you are, but why are you here and why am I here?”

“Why I work here.”

Okay, this is so weird. I am not in a hospital or clinic. There must be one place I must be. Down is George's fucking laboratory. “Why am I down here?” Alfred didn't say anything. He just started typing on a computer located in the room. “What is that you’re doing?” Again, no answer. Now I was getting worried. I wanted to get out of the bed, but I was strapped down. Alfred took an IV Needle and stuck it in my vein and started drawing blood. “What the fuck are you doing” He wasn't listening to me. He left the room with a sample of my blood.

Mom came in after he left.
“Mom, why am I in here?” I cried.

Mom went over and started unstrapping me. “I'm sorry we had to put you in here. It was so George can do some tests on you.”

“Why would he want to do tests?” I said, getting out of the bed.

“I can't explain it fully, but you will find out in a few days.”

“What do you mean?” Mom didn't answer. She just laughed and stepped out of the room. I followed right behind her. I saw Alfred and George in another room. I tried to get in the room, but it was locked from the inside. I looked through the window and saw they were looking at some DNA samples. More likely mine. It didn't make much sense to me. Why me? I went back to find mom. Weird, I couldn't find her anywhere. All my friends have left. I would have hoped they would have stayed with me. I decided to sit on the couch and call them up.

Jack answered. “Nathan? What happened, man?”

“I don't know nobody's telling me anything.”

“You just fainted right before you made it in your room. They told us to leave.”

“I can't do anything at the moment over here, can I come over to your place for a while?”

“Sure man, come right over.”

I went to the door and looked for the car keys. “Damn! Mom must have taken them. I had to ride the bike. I went to the garage and took the ten speeds out. I started to pedal. I didn't go far. The bike wheel was flat. “This is not my day.” I threw the bike and went back inside to the phone.

“Hey Jack, can you come and get me. Mom took the car, and my bike wheel is flat.”

“Sorry man, my dad brought the car to the shop.”

“That's fine. I will just walk there. I went into the kitchen and took something out of the fridge for the trip, and started walking down the long hill.
I walked the bike back to the garage and put it away. Just then I noticed an old plastic sled. Well, I knew it wasn't winter yet, but this would come in handy while trying to get down the hill faster. He took it and away he went. Well, it may be faster, but it wasn't the safest way down. Every bump made him fly in the air and land with a violent crash. He made it to the bottom, but the sled didn't. Well, it did, but in pieces. “So much for my quick way down.”

I ended up walking the rest of the way. Things were going well until I started getting these pains all over. I couldn't take it for much longer. I immediately fell to the ground.

~o~O~o~

Back at the lab, George checked out the samples.
“Wow!” George said, “Nathan's blood samples are extraordinary. It is rapidly changing from the XY Chromosomes to XX Chromosomes. This isn't normal from what I noticed when I did it to that rabbit a few days ago.
“Well, he did drink the whole bottle. You only gave a small portion to the rabbit.” Alfred explained.
“We got to find him quick. “George ran out of the room, “He won't know what's going on.”

Down the hill, I was just getting up off the ground. Jack was riding his bike when he found me on the ground. He drove over. “I was just coming to see you. I knew you were going down a long hill. “Boy, you need a haircut.”

“What do you mean?” I said, touching my head. “I simply got one a few days ago. What the Fuck!” My hair has grown a few inches since this morning. I was still laying on the ground. I kept getting pains all over my body. Jack helped me up.

“We should get you to the hospital,” he said. I agreed with him wholeheartedly. If I went back to my house, they would end up putting me on the bed and strapping me down again. Besides, it’s easier to go to the hospital than climb that big hill again.

We made it to the hospital in about 3 minutes. It wasn't very hard. We went straight away to the emergency room. I was in so much pain that I collapsed immediately before I was signed in. A bunch of nurses and doctors came rushing over to help me. One nurse brought me a wheelchair so I can sit down right away.
They didn't even have to sign me in. I was immediately sent to a room. A doctor rushed in and checked me over. A nurse came in and asked me my name, address, insurance, and phone number. Since I have been there before, I only needed to tell them my name and address.

I was taken in to check how tall I was and how much I weighed. I was okay with walking for a little bit.
“Stand up straight Nathan,” said the nurse. “Okay, your 5 foot 6 and 130 pounds.”

“Wait!” I was shocked. “I'm not 5 foot 6. Last week I was at 5 feet 11. How can I be shorter?”
The nurse had to double check me again. “Wait, you just turned five feet exactly.” She said shocked, “And now you’re 102 Pounds. Doctor Wheeler, we need assistance right away.” Right away, Doctor Wheeler came over to me.

“What appears to be a problem?”

“I just recorded Nathan 2 times in a row. He claimed he was supposed to be 5 feet 11, but he was 5 feet 6, and then I checked again, and he was 5 feet, a few seconds later.”

“Let me recheck you, son,” Doctor Wheeler asked me. I got up from the chair and stood on the scale again. He checked my height. “Hmm... Strange. You are now at 4 feet 3.” I started freaking out.

“What's wrong with me?” I cried.

“I'm not sure, but let’s take you in to get blood drawn right away.”

~o~O~o~

At the house, mom was just pulling into the driveway. George came outside. “Have you seen Nathan?”

“No, I have not,” Mom said. “I thought he was still with you when I left to pick up a few groceries.”

“Well, something terrible could be happening to your son right now. Instead of a few days, He will be a girl in a matter of minutes.”

“Oh,” mom said without even panicking. “Well, he will have to learn his lesson from stealing.

~o~O~o~

Back at the hospital, I am looked at by a few doctors. I was getting bored. I twirled my hair around my finger. “What the fuck!” I yelled, “My hair is really long now?” I noticed my voice was higher now and not as low as I used to be. “What's wrong with me?” I cried.

“We have no idea of what is going on. This is a first for us.”

“Nathan,” a nurse came into the room. “We have tried to call your house, but the number has been disconnected. Do you know another number we can reach your mom at?”

I thought about that for a second. “Well, we did just move into George Russell's House up the hill today. I don't know his number, but I believe he's in the phone directory.”
Just then, a man came into the room. “Sorry for keeping you waiting, Doctor Wheeler. I got the test reports on the blood back.

Doctor Wheeler took it and read some interesting news. He stared blankly at me.
“Well, I have some Good News and Some Bad News.” He said. “The good news is, you’re a healthy little girl.”

“I'm a what?” I said I started to cry.

“Unfortunately, that's also the bad news. Your Chromosomes have turned from XY to XX. Also, you are now a preteen around the age of 10 years.”

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