Morning Star

Chapter 26: glass cannon | Livia

I was in the surgery room, that damned white walled room with the various operating tables, but I wasn't on any of them. I was tied to a chair, my hands bound behind my back by ropes. The roughness of the ropes dug into my skin as I strained against my bonds, and I bit down on my lip hard to hide a wince.

My body was bare. I spotted my clothes, discarded in a heap in the corner of the room, and I shivered, feeling exposed in the most uncomfortable way possible. Why was I stripped naked? What was going to happen to me? What had happened to me?

I was still partly disorientated from the dart that the man had thrown at me, but I knew I couldn't stay here. I had to escape. I wrestled with the rope, ignoring how it burned my skin.

He came out of nowhere.

One moment, I was alone, and the next, he was standing right in front of me. He bent down and grabbed my chin with his hand, tilting my head upwards at a painful angle. He said no words. He asked no questions. He only forced my mouth open, and poured an unfamiliar liquid down my throat.

If acid was edible, it would taste like this concoction - for it burned my throat so severely that I couldn't even bring myself to speak. One intake of breath caused my throat to sting badly, and bile rose, but I pushed it down.

I had to find a way to escape my kidnapper. Vomiting on him wasn't going to make me feel any better. I felt the ropes around my wrists loosening, falling to the ground, and I tensed, ready to bolt for the door - but there was something wrong.

The room seemed to be falling away from me, and as I glanced down, trying to get my bearings, the floor appeared to rush to meet me. I gasped, stumbling back, but I didn't stumble, I hopped. My legs gave out from underneath me, and I crashed to the ground, my body hitting the floor. It was cold as ice.

I frowned, and looked down again - only to be greeted with the sight of green skin. I screamed, but the man only laughed as he watched me. Could he even hear me?

I peered at myself again, holding back the wave of terror as I tried to make sense of my new appearance. What in the world of Jendilya was I?

I had to get out of here. I had to find Eva, find anyone.

I managed to make one feeble step towards the door before I was picked up by the man. His strong hand wrapped around my middle, preventing me from breaking free of his grasp, even as I struggled. "Welcome to your new home," he cackled. "Looks like you and I, little frog, are going to be seeing a lot of each other."

Little frog.

Frog?

I couldn't be. It was impossible. No one alive was capable of forced transformation like this, except perhaps the witches, but even then, it would be a highly complicated spell. How could this man, a man that displayed no powers at all, do this to me?

I am a frog.

That man had changed me.

I am a tiny green frog, and I don't know what to do.

I tried calling out for help. I screamed, again and again, but nobody heard me. I reached out to Eva through our telepathy link, begging for her to sense me, to just notice me -

But it was dead.

For the first time in my life, I couldn't reach Eva. She was cut off from me, and I could no longer find her.

I was well and truly alone.

"Olivia!"

Someone was calling my name. I sifted through my thoughts, my memories, trying to locate the source of the sound. It was a familiar sound, that voice. It was soothing.