Changes and Perspectives (Gina)

Agnes had her back to Gina. Not that she was really mad at her but it was simply better that they didn’t talk at the moment. Agnes didn’t know why she was so obsessed with having the Twinkies but she simply couldn’t help it. There was a just a hunger in her that she couldn’t help. She wanted to have all the rest of the Twinkies but she managed to force herself to simply eat the one that she had left. She didn’t want to anger her sister any more so she contented herself with the single Twinkie and stared at her side of the room.

Before long, Agnes began to feel her eyelids growing heavy, an unexplainable exhaustion settling in over her mind. Still with a Twinkie half in her mouth, it dropped down onto the sheets as she paused, trying to will herself to away to throw it away. But there was no use. Before long, Agnes had fully drifted into sleep mode.

Silence descended in the room as Agnes fell asleep, apparently at the same time as Gina. As the night wore on though, the runaway’s mind was fevered with dreams, extremely vivid dreams that she could in no way explain. The worst part of it though was the fact that she could not wake up. Instead all she could do was mumble and grab at her pillows, wishing that she could awaken.

They were not nice dreams. Nothing that she could clearly identify. It was as if her dreams were filled by instinct, by a deeper, primordial part of her mind that she couldn’t clearly understand. All she knew was what she felt, basic, instinctual, and it was terrifying.

Still, as she slept, the runaway scarcely moved, even though her mind told her she was. Instead, pores began to excrete a thin layer of fluid, fluid that began to spread all over her body and harden…

******

In the morning hours, laying in Agnes’ bed, the shafts of sunlight would shine through and reflect in a cascade of rainbows off the hardened form. Dressed in Agnes’ pajamas, curled up in bed, lay a hardened shell in the vague shape of the young runaway. It didn’t move, it didn’t twitch, instead, as the light shown through the hardened, slightly greenish, Agnes’ shell, one could just barely catch the outline and movement of the sleeping body within…

DocProf usually had the mornings to himself. Though he lived and worked in a school of mutants and harms were always a possibility at any hour of the day, the mornings were fairly easy for him. Barely a scrape walked through his door, rarely a scratch, or even a bug bite. That was why the good ole doctor normally took the morning to relax in his office and do whatever red blooded American does first thing in the morning…

Enjoy his coffee and watch cartoons.

He chuckled as he watched his small television set in his office.

“Oh, hehehe…Tom, Jerry, you haven’t changed a bit,” he smirked as he took a sip. But before he got too far into his TV watching, a small and familiar voice suddenly called out.

>> "DocProf?"

“Gina?” DocProf muttered as he curiously stood up and made his way out into the waiting room. Dressed in deep brown slacks and a coat he smirked as he watched Gina look around. “Hello dearie. How’s the wing fee--?”

He paused. There was that look in her eye, the look at told him that something must have been off. Something was going on either in her life or in someone’s life outside of this room.

“Gina? Is everything alright?” he asked.

>> "The wing feels fine,"

He nodded with a smile. He definitely glad to hear that. The last thing he wanted was to hear that the girl that grounded herself from flight. Being shot can have a drastic effect on a person. He only hoped she would be able to continue to enjoy her life. Thankfully, she did.

But she was distracted. He tilted his head curiously as he watched her.


>> "It's Agnes…I mean, I don't know if she's hurt or anything, but she was acting really weird last night, and then this morning when I woke up, she was in this big green cocoon-thing, and I don't know what's going on so I'm really freaking out--And I was just wondering if maybe you could possibly check on her and make sure she isn't hurt? Please?"[/color]

“Goodness,” DocProf said with an astounded voice. “Then we don’t have time to waste. I was afraid of this.” He muttered, as he left back into his office, grabbed a clipboard and chart and returned.

As he headed to the front door, he grabbed the hand and pulled it open. He held it and waved for Gina to go through her as he silently went over the chart of Agnes’ last physical. This was a fear of his, every since he met Agnes. It seemed too good to be true that her powers were halting right where they were at the moment. This was so much primordial potential that he was almost surprised that this did not happen sooner.

In the end though, he was right, he knew that her change was going to come about eventually. This was one point that he wished that he was wrong though. Simply because Agnes was so sweet that he didn’t know if she could handle such a drastic shift in her powers.

“Come along, darling,” he said to Gina in an extremely sweet, worried, and yet calm manner. “Take me to her swiftly.”

>> "You were afraid of this? Afraid of what?"[/color]

Gina question had rebounded in his old ears. He really was not sure how much to tell her. He could tell her the truth, about his suspicions, but he didn’t want to reveal too much. Doctor/Patience confidentiality, after all. But then again, Agnes was there for when Gina was shot, so who was he to deny when someone needed to know about their in fallen sister? Agnes demanded the information when Gina was harmed, it was only too obvious that Gina would demand the same.

But for the moment he remained silent as he waited for the clearly worried Gina to lead on.

>> "She's in our dorm room,"[/color]

He nodded as he followed Gina to the dorm rooms. It was a familiar walk. One that he had made none too long ago when he travelled there with Headmistress Tipper to inform Agnes that her sister, Gina, had been shot. Now he was headed back with Gina in tow to investigate what has befallen Agnes. The Mansion had an odd sense of irony.

When they had finally arrived at the room, Gina was the first to open the door and stepped aside to allow him to walk through. He nodded his thanks as he slipped in…and was entranced.

“Goodness…” he muttered as he looked inside. It did not take him long to see what Gina was speaking about.

There was a sparkle in the air, a cascade of rainbows in various spots all over the room. One would have thing that this place had become some entrance or pathway into a fantastical world. But as he crept closer, he immediately spied the source, a translucent, thick, green shell in the vague shape of the runaway girl whom he had treated when she first appeared.

“Agnes?” was all he said as he crept closer. As he walked in he took a closer look at the hard shell that was dressed in Agnes’ pajamas. He leaned down and peered and saw the smallest of movements inside. He sighed.

Slowly he gaze raised as he turned to look for Gina.

“Gina, how was she acting last night? Please be precise,” he asked as he pulled up his clipboard to take notes.

DocProf was still looking down at the shell Agnes was encased in as he waited for Gina to speak. His brow furrowed curiously as he began to read over Agnes’ charts from previous visits and turned his attention back to cocoon. Occasionally he could see the smallest twitch of movement inside the shell but it was not very clear what was going on. He sighed as he shook his head and jotted down another note as he listened to Gina explain the events of last night…

>> "Weird…She stayed in to read last night while I went out flying, and apparently she got this big ol' box of Twinkies for us to share. And, when I got back, she'd eaten a lot of them-- like, easily ten to fifteen of them, and she hadn't even noticed--And she still wanted more, after that, like she had Twinkies on the brain. And I tried to take them from her, but... she was scary-obsessed with eating more."

“My, that is a lot of Twinkies,” DocProf muttered began to piece together last night.

>> "I mean, I knew something was up, but I didn't expect to wake-up and find her like this…I was just going to go to Mama in the morning, but... I woke up, and she was like this."[/color]

DocProf turned to her with a sympathetic look on his face. He smiled encouragingly as he placed a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“My dear, there was nothing you could have done. You didn’t know.”he said as he turned back to the Agnes shell. “Besides…I don’t believe she is being harmed in there.”

Stepping forward he tilted down again to the shell, sighed and very felt placed his hand onto the hardened, yet somewhat sticky surface. He concentrated for a second…then nodded as he turned to face Gina. She did have a right to know what was going on.

“Gina, Agnes is changing. Last night, what you witnessed, its…not unlike what some insects go through…directly before they molt their skin,” he turned back to the shell and gave a heavy sigh. “I was afraid of this. Agnes’ mutation…it’s so…primordial.” A sigh fell from his lips as he straightened up and jotted down another note before he turned back to face Gina fully. “You know how many variety of insects there are on the planet, Gina? Millions upon millions and they are constantly evolving. I think the nature of Agnes power is doing the same. She mutating…but into what…I don’t know.”

>> "So she's... evolving? Possibly...?" [/color]

“Quite possibly,” DocProf said as he continued to observe the cocoon.

So many questions flashed through his mind but there was nothing he could do to answer them off the bat. As much as he wanted to check on Agnes’ well being, he knew that the cocoon should not be tampered with, much less moved or broken into. If things were going as he suspected they were then it could be extremely dangerous to damage that the integrity of the shell. He did not want Agnes’ body to slip into a state of shock or become harmed in the process of trying to remove her from the shell. No, as terrifying as it was…they were going to have to wait it out.

He sighed as he paused and look over at Gina, Agnes’ adopted sister. A few times he’s seen the two run around the mansion together and each time he is impressed by their closeness and their affection for one another. Especially considering that they have only known each other for about a year. It is an inspiring sight to behold.

And it also the reason why he understands Gina’s fear for the situation. She does care about Agnes a lot, she truly does, so the feeling of helplessness that must surely be descending upon her must be a tough feeling to battle. He sighed though, as he reached over to squeeze Gina’s shoulder.

“Dear, I’m sorry, but the best thing that we can do right now is simply observe and wait,” he said as he turned his gaze briefly to the cocoon-clad Agnes. “We can’t disrupt whatever is happening to her body while she is in stasis, otherwise we might end up harming her. I don’t know how long this will last, insects are not exactly my forte. The most we can do is sit, wait, and cross our fingers that Agnes’ body knows exactly that its doing.”

>> "Okay…Watch and wait."

DocProf nodded. He did not like feeling like there was nothing he could do but that was the situation. Really, what could he do? They could not disrupt Agnes inside of that cocoon. He knew nothing about it or physiologically what was going on within. Opening the cocoon could have dire consequences on Agnes’ life and he was not about to threaten it further.

This was a time when the good doctor was going to have to trust nature to run its course for the young woman. Giving the hard life that Agnes had, part of him really did not think it was far. Agnes had no warning of this, no prior knowledge that such a thing was going to happen to her, and for a girl whose life was only now beginning to find a sort of stability, that definitely was not right. But despite the unfairness of the situation, it needed to be done.

They were going to have to sit and wait.

He paused when he glanced over to see that Gina was grabbing her things and setting them onto her bed. She was settling in for the long haul. The idea made him smile a little appreciatively at her. Agnes was lucky to have a sister like Gina…

>> "Umm... do you want to stick around? For doctors' reasons? You could have my desk chair, if so… If not, that's cool. Either way I'm going to keep an eye on her, so..."

DocProf smiled knowingly. He did have an office but the mansion was large and there were always people who needed help. But that Agnes had him worried. She was going to be his patient today.

He shook his head.

“I shall stay with you and keep an eye on her. I will just have my calls transferred here,” he said as he walked around Agnes’ bed and plucked the phone off the cradle. As he did so, he glanced once more to Agnes’ cocoon and sighed. He had no idea what was going on in there…



The dreams were more instinctual than visual. Agnes could feel things around her rather than see anything. She could hear the soft murmur of voices that she was sure she could once remember. But all of it blended into a noisy mess that was hard to tell one thing from another. It was the dreams that were the most pervading and the strongest in front of her eyes. She felt the call of the breeze, the tempting sensation of fluttering through flowers, of crawling through the cool darkness, of wanting to leaving her human life behind and no longer having those responsibilities that the human race puts on itself.

But she was anchored from falling too deeply in that mindset. As she slept, giving only the most occasionally and slight movement, something in the back of her mind kept her from allowing the instincts to overtake. She remained human in thought while her body ached to return to the world of the life crawled out from.

It was a tug-of-war and humanity was winning…but not without a concession or two.

The urge of wanting to crawl and skitter slowly began to wane as Agnes began to feel herself waking up. It was exhausting to wake up, all she wanted to do was continue to sleep, but it couldn’t be helped. She had to awaken and her body was going to force her to. The struggle for her life which she had earned had to continue…



24-Hours Later…

DocProf yawned as he sat at the desk chair, reading classic novel by Dickens. He had spent nearly…24 hours already in this room, wondering what was going to happen with Agnes. The cocoon remained unmoving and eventless. As the day slowly passed, he had only a call or two but at the time he wished he had received more. Just waiting around to see what was going to happen to Agnes was agonizing especially because he didn’t know what she was going through.

But a glance to Gina proved to him that he was not the only one agonizing. He sighed as he glanced to the clock. It was nearly 1am now. He sighed as he called out to her.

“Dear, you should get some sleep,” he mentioned to her. “You can’t stay up all night…”

Under his voice though, occurred a sound which he did not hear in the midst of his talking. The gentle and soft sound of a cocoon cracking…