I woke to a dull, aching soreness between my legs. The memory of last night flooded back—Rayan's body pressed against mine, the strange sliding friction of our bird-like parts, the clucking cries we'd made together. My face burned, but not entirely from shame. There had been something... freeing about it.

I sat up, and my heart sank.

My feet. What happened to my feet?

They were wrong. Where my human toes should have been, I now had three long, scaly digits, covered in rough yellow skin. And where my nails used to be—the ones I'd always taken such care to keep pretty—there were now thick, curved black claws.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed. When my feet touched the floor, the claws made a horrible click-clack sound against the wooden boards. I tried to stand, but my weight shifted wrong. The new shape of my feet, combined with that hard triangular backside, threw my balance off completely. I toppled sideways, landing hard on the mattress.

"Rayan?" I called out.

No answer.

I looked over to where he'd been sleeping. The bed was empty, the sheets cold. Already up, then. Good. I didn't want him to see me like this, flopping around like a fish.

I tried again. Slowly this time. I pushed myself up, leaning forward to counterbalance the weight of my chicken-like rear. My new claws scraped the floor, scratching lines into the wood. I wobbled, my arms flailing, but I stayed upright.

Click. Clack. Click.

The sound followed me as I took hesitant steps. Each one felt alien. The claws gripping the floor, the strange spread of my digits. But after a few steps, I found a rhythm. A weird, awkward waddle that kept me from falling.

I passed the mirror standing in the corner of the room.

I stopped.

The reflection looking back at me was barely human anymore. My red hair was a mess, tangled from sleep. My face was still mine, mostly, but below that... my body was becoming something else entirely. That tapered rear, the strange new opening between my legs. And now the talons.

I lifted my dress and looked closer. My vagina looked even more wrong than yesterday. The broad, soft slit was crusted with dried white fluids—bird waste and traces from the egg I'd laid. I should have cleaned myself last night. I should have...

But there …