Taking Flight
For Arrow
By Engy



Richard wasn’t sure, but he was wide awake at night and anxious. He was usually a deep sleeper, prone to sleeping soundly through the night unless a major storm rolled through. As he looked out to the sky he could see there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the full moon shone brightly through the window.
“At least it’s a pretty night I guess, might as well just try to relax and go back to bed.” He shrugged, staring out at the moon and nothing in particular, enjoying the tranquil night sky. As he leaned up against the window sill he pushed up the window, letting the cool breeze in.
The weird anxiety returned, and he scratched idly at his stomach trying to figure out what was causing this feeling. It felt like everything was sharper, more sensitive, almost itchy and he tried breathing slowly and deeply to calm himself down. After a few deep breaths he sighed and reopened his eyes and all that calmness flew right out the proverbial window.
His fingers were longer, looking almost alien in how long they’d gotten as the rest of his arms had noticeably shortened. He saw what almost looked like small feathers sprouting from his hands and running up the side of his arm past the sleeve of his T-shirt.
“What’s going on, why…?” He stopped talking, now feeling his lips move weirdly and awkwardly. They were stiff and awkward, his voice higher pitched than it had been even a moment ago as he stepped back. He had to steady himself on feet that felt weird, but at this point he was far too focused on trying to keep himself from passing out.
If it wasn’t for the overwhelming amount of sensations he’d swear he was dreaming, but he could now feel the slow pull and push as his body was changing to something else, he looked at the nearby window. He was clearly several inches shorter, his pants were baggy as all get out, and he was honestly surprised at how heavy his clothes were starting to feel. Richard kicked his socks off, able to do with some difficulty with how small his feet were getting. They were getting… scaly?
As he looked over himself, clothes obviously not fitting, his arms sprouting brown feathers as they shortened in parts and lengthened in others, feet now scaling over with black toenails he came to a conclusion.
He was becoming a bird.
He didn’t know how, or why, or even what type of bird, but as he came to that conclusion a sort of calm curiosity came over Richard. The panic started to fade as the shock of his situation brought down an almost serene quality to his thoughts. The changing human took his shirt off, struggling some with his changing arms. As he gritted his teeth he felt more oddness, a quick swipe of the tongue revealed that his teeth seemed to be merging and pushing forward.
With his shirt off a growing carpet of downy white feathers seemed to be growing in on his chest, he brought his arms to it, rather surprised at how soft and pleasant they were to touch. His arm feathers were very much more rigid, and pushing on them seemed to be slightly painful, like he wasn’t supposed to push down on them. He was even more glad that he had gotten his shirt off now, if his wings got further along and he tried to get his shirt off he could have broken something!
While staring at his downy chest, his eyes drifted down to his feet, now definitely talons. His middle two toes had pushed together and almost looked like conjoined twins from how they were currently connected to each other. His big toe and second smallest had migrated to the sides and the little toe seemed to be moving all the way to the back of his foot, providing the wobbly birdman some much needed stability.
The lack of a mirror in the room was really annoying at this point, though the fact that he was down to around 3 feet in height and shrinking quickly meant it probably wouldn’t be of much use for long. Long Brown feathers now covered his arms as his fingers had more or less become just another part of the wing. His vision blurred momentarily, disorienting him as he attempted to focus his vision. As his vision came back he was amazed at the level of detail he could now see, everything brought into sharp focus and a level of detail he had trouble taking in at first.
The amazement at his new vision even prevented him from realising he now had a beak instead of a mouth, which managed to shake him out of his little daze.
I’m really becoming a bird, but what kind of bird?
He started to panic again, trying to move around and having a lot of difficulty, as his feet (talons?) were caught in his pants. He started to thrash around, panicking more and more until…
FWUMP
He fell face first onto the floor, and he at least had one talon out now, though his right one was now somehow even more tangled up in the fabric.
Caught! Out! Flee!
The bird part of him made itself known now in a hurry, causing him to freak out and attack his own pants for a bit before he was about to calm himself down. Luckily he hadn’t hurt himself in the thrashing around, and he took to using his beak to shift the fabric around slowly. He still had his human smarts, he could do this!
He finally extricated himself, and took to looking at himself now that he seemed to have finished changing sometime in his battle with pants. He had a chest of white downy fluff with some black spots, and wings of brown with white and black feathers. His tail feathers were noticeably redder than the rest of him.
Red Tailed Hawk I guess?
That made as much sense as anything else that had happened tonight, if it hadn’t been for the pain of him planting his beak into the flooring he’d swear it was a dream. So he steadied himself on the floor, planting his talons as he thought to himself.
So how did this happen? Aliens? Magic?
He was lost in thought before a noise caught his attention outside. In a moment of bad judgement he attempted to jump up to the window, forgetting one very critical fact.
The window was shut tight.
As he laid on the floor he understood now more than ever why birds would occasionally hit the window, instincts did nothing when dealing with glass. He’d have to think it through going around the house. He’d been lucky that he didn’t hurt anything doing that, and he really didn’t want to try his luck further relying on instincts that weren’t designed for indoor spaces and glass windows. The only problem with that is that he had shut all the windows in his house and there wasn’t any place for a hawk to get outside.
Baby steps, maybe some short hops and walking first?
Walking was weirdly difficult until he figured out how to stop thinking about it and do it automatically, letting his instinctual side take over. Trying to walk like a human as a hawk was a recipe for falling over. He also noticed that he was scratching up his wood flooring, so if he ever went back to being a human he was gonna have to explain some things to his landlord.
That’s if I ever go back to being a human, am I just stuck like this, locked in a place where I can’t eat or get out?
The panic was back again, and it was a heck of a lot harder to stop it, he started pacing around the floor. It only slightly distracted him when he noticed that when he panicked he would spread his wings out before furling them back in.
Distraction it is then
He walked the best he could to the den, maybe he could try some short flights? That would be really cool!
As he walked into the den the hawk was reminded of two things. The first was that he really, really needed to clean up more, these eyes saw way too much detail for his comfort as he looked around the messy living area. The second was that he had forgotten to put up a bag of chips.
That gave him an idea, what would potato chips taste like to a hawk? He experimentally put one in his beak before spitting it out immediately, the salt wasn’t bad but the rest of it tasted just awful. Then again he supposed trying to eat plant matter as a carnivore probably wasn’t a great idea. Mentally shrugging to himself he walked over to the far end, preparing to do some short test flights.
The first attempt, a short little hop-flight thing went really well, it was a lot more fun than walking but did seem to scratch the floor up more. He tried a slightly longer one, and aimed to land on the couch.
It was then that he realized a rather obvious truth, that cloth couch cushions really couldn’t stand up to hawk talons. As he ripped out a small amount of fluff he came to the conclusion that if he became human again he REALLY needed to buy a couple perches in case this happened again. Nothing he could see looked like it would stand up to hawk talons.
Could I hover? Or maybe grasp onto the refrigerator door to open it?
That got him thinking, and a short test soon confirmed that yes, he could hover, though it took a lot more energy to do so than just the small little flights he had been doing. He psyched himself up, walking up to the fridge.
If it doesn’t work just hover back and land, don’t freak out and hurt yourself!
He leapt up, hovered some before grasping onto the fridge door, flapping his wings as hard as he could before it swung open. He was able to mostly get out of the way, only getting slightly pushed out of the way before recovering. A quick landing and walk to the now open fridge showed him his final problem getting to food.
He was short, really short, and human refrigerators are not built at all with hawks in mind. A slow, deliberate climb with claws got him to his goal, a simple package of hot dogs that was already half-empty. A quick swipe of the claws knocked them to the floor, the three wieners rolling out of the package.
With a strut he walked over to them, at least he wouldn’t starve to death anytime soon, provided he could eat these. That’s when his last revelation of this weird night came to him.
Hot dogs tasted amazing to a hawk, better than the finest steak as a human. He remembered to close the fridge, pushing it with his head before returning to his ‘kills’. Richard the Hawk stood there, enjoying a couple of cold hot dogs on the floor before deciding to roost on his couch armrest. He’d worry about life as a hawk in the morning, and as he closed his eyes and dreamt for the first time as a hawk. About weird things to his human brain, flying and chasing and hunting.
But mainly about hot dogs though.


THE END