Page 96 of The Sixth Spring

Hold your breath, Itori said. Will’s lungs expanded, and they too were different, bigger.

Then they were tumbling out of the bowl of the tree and into the rushing waters. Except this time the water wasn’t dark and cold to him anymore.

Will opened his eyes, and there was a kaleidoscope of colors under the surface. He felt his lungs hold the air he’d taken in, and the pressing worry about drowning was gone.

He found Itori’s mouth and kissed him. Their teeth knocked together as they thrashed in the water. Itori was still inside him, moving relentlessly.

Will felt the final edge of the energy approaching. It was a wave in the distance, ready to break over their shores. He slipped back into Itori’s mind and pressed his own against it. He felt a swell of love, desire, and freedom. He tangled himself up in the waterweed of it, feeling alive, alive, alive.

Then, somehow, he was being pressed up against the bark of a tree, half submerged. They clawed at each other, moving in desperate tandem, following instinct. The wave came and overtook them, and the pleasure trembled Will apart.

He cried out, his mouth flooding with water that no longer frightened him. Itori bent to his neck, and there were teeth. It was a deeper bite than last time, a claiming bite. Pleasure poured out of the bite and the hot burst of it made his whole body shiver.

Everything shimmered with energy. They slipped deeper into the water and kept going, down into the spring. Itori kissed him with blood and fang, and it was everything he’d ever wanted. They kissed through the crumbling high and into the other side of softness.

When Will finally came back to himself and opened his eyes, he was different.

Changed.

Chapter 19

For the first time, Will woke up in the morning, and above him were trees.

It was early, and the sky was a soft pink with watercolor streaks of clouds high in the atmosphere. In the distance, birds chirped as they got started with their day.

He stared up at the trees, mesmerized by all their details. A breeze blew through, and the moss swayed as the leaves rippled. It was a dance, the give and take with the air. Will could see every branch and leaf, even high into the canopy. There was a bird nest near the top, and spiders on the far side that got less wind. Down near the roots were bugs and lizards and other tiny creatures finding their way through the new day.

Water lapped at Will’s toes. His gaze shifted down.

He was lying on a bank with a lake spread out before him. He wiggled his clawed toes and felt the wet earth, the gentle background pulse of the water. Deeper down into the spring, life was swimming along–frogs and minnows and snails and snakes. There was a turtle to the right of him, burrowed under the mud, and an amphibian behind him, plucking its way through for breakfast.

In the water was algae and bottom feeding creatures too small to see. An entire world he’d never seen up close, now revealing itself to him.

Will raised his hand and looked at the scales there. He didn’t have webbed fingers like Itori, but his skin was greyer now, with a light pattern of scales. He had claws not as sharp as Itori’s, but definitely not human.

He turned his hand over. The skin of his palm was grayer and tougher looking. Will expected fear or panic at the change, but it didn’t arrive.

He was different now, and that was okay.

He pushed himself up to sit.

He saw now that the rest of him had changed too. There were still two arms and two legs, but he was scales all the way down. When he brushed over his head, he still had human hair instead of tape grass, but it was less soft than it had been before.

There was no mirror here, but Will knew his face must be different now too. His sight was better, his sense of smell more keen. Will pulled in a deep breath, and could smell the water, the salt in the air, the rot of decomposition happening in the mud. He could smell the plumage of birds nearby and the acrid notes of defensive bugs fighting amongst each other.

And not too far off, the sharp citrus scent of Itori.

Will cast a glance around the bank where he’d been laying. He didn’t recognize the area, but had seen lakes like it before.

That thought gave him pause. Had he though? He’d walked a lot of woods around Five Springs in his life, but never quite seen any place like this before, so vivid and pulsing with life.

The lake before him was massive, spreading into the far distance, cut off only by a forest of trees on the other side. It was covered in debris from its sudden appearance, but that didn’t interfere with the creatures making it their new home. It was beautiful, glorious, and awe-inspiring.

Will took it all in. There were no sounds of engines or chatter. No scent of anything human. It was pure here, untouched.

He rolled through his memories of last night. Everything was a jumble of thoughts and feelings more than physical happenings. He remembered mostly Itori and water and desire.

It had worked. His body and this lake were proof. They’d created all of this.