1 - Not in Kansas anymore

Hub

The recorded voice of the subway announcer crackled from above. “…Please keep your bag off of the seat next to you, so others may sit down.” It had been a long day. Not a bad one, by any means, but I was more than ready to be home. Just the bike ride there was left, and then I could curl up under my blankets and sleep. Shortly afterward, the doors of the train rattled open again, and I stepped onto the platform. The station was empty, save for a pair of birds perched in the rafters.

There was something to be said about light pollution, but I couldn’t deny that the city was beautiful at night. The lights traced parallel lines out of the water from whence we came, the right angles of the streets and buildings embodied the sum of human ingenuity, all while the moon watched from overhead, mourning the innocence of its partner in the great cosmic dance. I stopped my bike by the curb, taking a moment to admire the world before me, only to be interrupted by a vehicle horn from behind as the quiet was swallowed by searing white pain.

I landed in a crumple on the pavement, and my leg felt like it was on fire. Adrenaline was the only thing keeping me lucid, I could already see that I was losing a lot of blood. I was dimly aware of the driver of the truck standing over me, trying to improvise a tourniquet from a torn piece of their shirt. That only works in movies, go find a real one…! I tried in vain to speak, but all that came out was a gurgle. Fuck, this is it, then. Tears welled in my eyes as I thought of what I was leaving behind. Just a few more days and I would have been able to meet my sister Paisley as myself for the first time. My first HRT appointment was in two weeks. In a month, I would have been able to walk at graduation, a few more and I could have a job and an apartment. I spent all those years wanting to die, and this happens as soon as I have something to live for. Just my luck.

I felt myself slipping into the embrace of the long dark, almost peaceful despite the pandemonium within and without. The moment the continuity of my life winked out, however, something else flicked on like a light switch. I was intact, curled up somewhere soft and warm. The ground was rocking back and forth beneath me. I could hear the muffled booming of thunder and pattering of rain, and someone was gently patting my head. I knew I should be scared, but somehow, I felt calm. Is this… heaven?

Pushing the wave of unnatural comfort to the back of my mind, I opened my eyes to take stock of my surroundings. I was aboard an opulent stagecoach, each wall adorned with a golden coat-of-arms. Across from me sat what I could only assume was some kind of nobleman in an expensive-looking robe, and beside me was a woman in similar garb whose hand was resting on my head. Outside my window, I could see brightly colored flashes of light, silhouetting a distant mountain range against the cloudy sky and casting long shadows in the dim light of the cart.

The nobleman was speaking… not English or any language I could name. I didn’t recognize a single word, yet somehow they meant something to me. “But a mighty jolt that one was, hmm? Good job that gentleman insisted on, err… What did he call it, dear?”

“He said it was a ‘lightning rod’, if memory serves,” the noblewoman replied.

…Isn’t that worse than nothing? I opened my mouth to inquire about it, but before I could speak, I was assaulted by an overwhelming taste of ozone that shot doom down my spine and set my instincts in motion.

My muscles moved before I could think. I was out the door in a split second, turning to shout for the strangers to do the same, but before the syllables could leave my mouth, a blast of red lightning sent me tumbling across the swampy grass. Looking back at where I expected the carriage to be, I couldn’t believe my eyes - there was nothing left but a smoking tangle of metal. Surrounding it was a thin layer of sawdust coating every nearby surface, all mottled with a sickening dark red.

As I backed away into the forest, the past few minutes snapped back into reality all at once. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, my lungs gasping for more air than my throat could deliver. The world was spinning, my ears were ringing, my eyes wouldn’t focus… I gave up fighting to stay upright, curled into a ball in the muck, and did my best to breathe through the tears.

The storm and the forest fell out of focus as I was overwhelmed with emotion. I hadn’t had anyone I knew die since I was too young to remember, and now I had witnessed three gruesome deaths in rapid succession, one of them being my own. Thoughts of the life I had lost stirred into a hurricane in my head. It would have been kinder to have vanished into the void, but life was so cruel as to keep me conscious to grieve everyone and everything in my life all at once, all while knowing they, too, would soon be grieving me.

I recalled my sister Paisley, trying not to imagine what her face would look like at my funeral. Our parents had never been subtle about their preference for her, but she always did her best to make things right. Ironically, she got up to way more mischief than I ever did; she got the idea to sneak into the school at night and vandalize all of the teachers’ nameplates, I was just along for the ride. Even when our dad kicked me out onto the street after he realized I was transitioning, she fought like hell to stay in contact despite our parents’ incessant helicoptering. She had finally managed to get our parents off her back now that she was at college, so we had planned to meet up in person, get dinner, etch something crude into the ad screens at the train station just like old times…

I had grown apart from my old friends somewhat since we all left for college, but they were still all so important to me. Their reactions when I came out were so sweet - Robbie pulled me into a hug right away, James gave me a big pat on the back and said “Hell yeah, be yourself, broth- er, sister!”, and Tom started jokingly hitting on me..? Since then, Robbie came out as nonbinary, and to everyone’s surprise, the playboy Tom turned out to be gay. James was still straight as an arrow, as far as anyone knew, but he made a worthy effort to understand. We still played Dungeons and Dragons online every weekend, our session was supposed to be tomorrow… I put all that effort into preparing the final boss, but… forget about time zones, now we’ve got the mother of all scheduling conflicts.

Though my face was still damp with tears, it just isn’t possible to sustain emotions that intense for long. I took deep breaths, feeling the tension in my heart unwind to a more manageable level. As my senses returned to me, I was bathed in the quiet of the night. The only discernible sounds were crickets and the quiet rustling of small animals in the grass, no doubt kept awake by my wailing. I was shivering, cold and wet from the rain, and I could feel the schlop of the mud as I pulled myself from the ground into a seated position. The sight of the sky took my breath away again: the clouds had parted, revealing innumerable glimmering points of light and two huge moons atop the infinite void. Beyond the jagged shadow of the ridge, I could see an aurora gradually dancing through space. Somehow, I thought, I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore…

I tore my eyes away from the sky to survey the rest of my surroundings. I was in a forest - the trees were dense, but the undergrowth looked fairly hospitable. There was clearly civilization somewhere, the road made that clear enough, but I had no idea how far it would be… I was relieved that I had managed to keep the contents of my stomach inside during my panic attack - my belly was full of precious energy that I couldn’t afford to waste.

When I stood up, I suddenly felt dizzy, and braced myself up against a tree. As I was catching my breath, my hand caught my eye. I thought I was looking at some kind of fancy glove, with a sort of tortoiseshell pattern, but… The hell? I took a moment to examine the fur on my hands, experimentally flexing my fingers to extend my claws. …Why am I not freaking out about this? Taking stock of the rest of my body, I found the other feline features my hands implied - ears on top of my head, whiskers, a tail… I was definitely a cis woman now, too. And yet, it all felt normal… The cognitive dissonance got to be too much, so I shook the thoughts away and returned to the task at hand.

Survivor’s attitude, first aid, shelter, fire, signal for help, water, in that order. My mind flitted to Paisley. I imagined she would be proud if she saw me using the checklist we practiced. I shied away from the thought of examining myself for injuries, but picking a direction and walking was easy. Without any equipment or appreciable skill, the only hope I had was to find something to take shelter under. Before long, my ears perked up: the burbling of a river, just barely audible over the sounds of the night. If it crosses the road…! I rounded a bend in the path, and spotted a stone bridge over the creek a ways down the path. Jackpot! Water, shelter, and rescue, all in one.

I hurried to the bridge, thanking whatever powers were listening for the lucky break. Thankfully, the space under the bridge was relatively large. It would have been cramped at the best of times, but tonight’s storm compounded the problem by raising the level of the water in the creek. There was just enough space on one side of the bridge for me to lie down, and though it was far from comfortable, the gravel foundation spared me from getting even dirtier. Sleep took me almost as soon as I laid my head down, and I passed the night in dreamless slumber.