Writing Prompt: The Change

Writing Prompt: Instead of writing a dark, gritty version of a sweet story, make a grim and horrifying tale genuinely heartwarming

It had all started one day after I sat down for a meal in my home. That day, I had a rather large helping of crisp salad, which still had the dew from the fresh water that had washed over the leaves. I had scurried off to bed after becoming uncharacteristically exhausted and quickly closed my eyes in search for rest.

The next day I noticed a very strange feeling in my body. I had opened my eyes and looked down in confusion of what I had witnessed next. The body that I had woken up in vaguely appeared to be the one that I had before I went to bed the previous day, and what I had lived in since my birth. I was horrified at the sudden change in the massive growth of my size. It looked as though I nearly doubled in dimension. I began to panic, and thought it would be best to find help, but there was no one anywhere to be found. A swirl of fear, anger, and confusion had filled my head. However, the fear won out when I bent over to scratch one of my legs and noticed that the very top layer of the skin of my body was peeling off in large sections.

Why me? What was happening to me? I didn’t know if I was dying or what else to think. Somewhere in the midst of my overwhelming panic I climbed high into a tree to get away from the world for a while. I lied alone and awake in a fetal position after covering myself with the shear blanket that I had made earlier. I lied there as my skin continued to painfully tare aware from my body. I felt sharp stabs of aching agony as, what I felt to be, my very organs twisting and turning in ways that no one’s organs should ever be moved.

I had lain like that for days waiting for death to come, but it never did. I had waited, writhing in torture, until one day the pain in my body became bearable. I emerged from my blanket and looked down at another unfamiliar body. This time I had woken up that day with the most beautifully vibrant-colored wings attached to a slender body. I paused for a moment in awe at this dazzling sight and smiled. I new in my heart that this was the real me, and that all the pain and suffering I had endured was leading up to this very moment of truth. And with a twitch of my big beautiful new wings, I leapt up from the high tree branch and flew away in to the bright blue sky.