Zero to Infinity

It was storming out. One of the days of the year she would not go out. Her birthday. Sort of a superstition, Jenny never left the house on her birthday. She would often see her birthday flash, 10:21. whether a.m. or p.m., she was reminded that she needs to be careful. She took it as a sign that something significant would occur. Well of course, because that significance could have just been her age change. I mean after all, it was her birthday. But something about seeing it on the clock right on time and during no other time sort of freaked her out. She didn’t want to think anything of it but she always did.

Unable to watch television because the weather was so bad and kept dropping her Wi-Fi signal, Jenny was not even interested in listening to music, so that was out of the question. She had nothing to do. She was absolutely on 100% bored. She painted her nails for herself and then her toes. She knew she was getting ready to get a manicure, so she could manage having her nails look a bit on the crazy side if it only meant for a couple days.

Just then, she heard a loud crash occur right outside. Knowing it was her birthday and she was not leaving the house, she looked out of every window she could find towards the direction of the crash. Stumbling over coffee tables and stubbing toes on the corner of the couch, she rushed as much as she could to try to get a good glimpse in the dark out the window. It was hard to see anything. The rain was coming down so hard it was great and it was missed coming off of the ground. In fact she really couldn’t see anything at all but her reflection in the window but she kept looking.

About 3 minutes had gone by and she didn’t hear a sound again. Not a single sound. Until...

“Hello?”, Jenny said with fear and nervousness.

Man in a deep voice in the dark said towards her direction.

“Who are you? What are you doing in my house?”

“I I, I seem to be injured. I’m a little disoriented., Can I just have a seat real quick so I can get myself together. I promise I’ll leave in a minute”, the mystery man said in agony.

“No. Get out right now.”

“I’m… I”

Just then, the man who had fallen out of the sky or at least randomly appeared and Jenny’s living room, seemed disoriented, and peaceful. Yeah, glitchy. Jenny was confused because what she saw could not be what she thought she saw. As the man continued to glitch on her living room floor, he sunk down into a ball and turned into a cat. Still in glitch mode, his body seemed to jump from animal to animal without hesitation cat, bird, dog, giraffe, goat, chicken, she, butterfly, cat.

“What the hell?”, Jenny yelled out as she realized that the cat in her living room, or rather, the man in her living room was also a shape shifter. How could he be a shapeshifter she thought. Well, it did seem odd that she would appear in her house without a peep moments after hearing a loud bang.

“Are you a... Shape shifter?” She said with curiosity and confusion. She inched closer to the cat on the ground but not too close to be seen. Because she really didn’t want to be seen. Confused and unsure she just wanted to know what was going on.

“Yes”, the husky voice said from the cat.

“Wait a minute? You can talk?”

“Yes?! Should I not be able to?” the cat said sarcastically.

“But you’re a cat right now. Animals don’t talk.”

“And humans don’t shape shift”, he said mockingly as if she didn’t know the answer to that.

“Well I mean, I’m just saying. I’ve never heard anyone talk as a shapeshifter. Then again, I guess I don’t really know too many.”

“No you don’t. Because there aren’t very many of us here. Plus, why the hell would you choose to talk to animals. You know they can’t respond”.

“Yeah, I guess you’re right”. That made all the sense in the world, she thought. Considering she would never stop to try to speak to an animal when she knows their animals.

“So what can I help you with?” She said as she began walking closer. He seemed to be less of a threat than he was when he initially popped in her home. Call it shifter tuition but she felt the connection. Like she had known him before. Then again, she didn’t really know much about anything. So maybe this was a part of that process.

All of this was irrelevant however because one thing was for sure, he was sexy as hell. And not knowing what that connection was made her more curious.

With a wisp of the icy breeze as the AC unit turned on, Mr. Shapeshifter began to glitch again. Once again changing forms from animal to animal, he seemed to be displaying some sickness like behavior. Sneezing and shifting, shifting and sneezing.

“Is there something I can do?”, Jenny said as she began to worry.

“Nothing choo, really.. choo”, he responded between each sneeze he let out.

“Well, you get yourself together and then I think it’s best that you leave.”

“I will not leave until I have collected what I’ve come for”, he said in the most sure and confident tone.

“Come for? I don’t have anything.” Perplexed, Jenny started looking around in her home to see what he could possibly be looking for.

“I’ve come for you, Jenny” the shifter responded with authority and tenacity.

“Me?”

“Yes, you. It’s time for you to come home. “

No freaking way, she thought. She knew something would always happen on her birthday. She knew it would be something exciting yet familiar, she knew it would be dangerous. And how cool was it that it was happening tonight on her birthday. It would appear that after all these years, her superstition never failed her.

“Where exactly is home? I mean all these years I felt and known that this was not my place and I need to be sent somewhere. I knew that eventually someone would come for me. I don’t know how I knew that but I just knew”.

“Because, it’s within us. But we don’t have time to talk about that right now. We need to go.” Mr. Shifter knew it was a life or death situation upon them but she had also just met him. Being too aggressive might lead to her not coming along. And that would not be acceptable right now.

“Why? Is something going on?”

“I promise, I will answer all your questions, but we have to leave now.”

Rolling her eyes because she had seen plenty of movies, she knew that this statement really meant “get ready to hold on to your pants because the world is about to go nuts”.

“Okay hold on, but let me just get my....”

“Well we really don’t have time to hold on. But make it quick.” He interrupted.