Opening my eyes was a chore of its own, as pain surged through my body in the last moments of my dreaming. Now wide awake, I desperately tried to determine the problem. My back embraced the semi-firm bed and failed to cooperate with my movement. I arched my neck up and forward, gazing along my unrecognizable body, horrified at what I saw. Olive green scales flanked a light eggshell colored surface of skin, which could have easily been mistaken for a poorly designed T-shirt. I lifted my heavy hands to wipe my eyes, but the instant they came into view, I let out a horrified yell, slamming my limbs back to my sides and closing my eyes. They were green and scaly, with three stub-like claws poking out from them. Was it just a dream? Rather, a nightmare? Did someone spike my orange juice before I went to bed? These thoughts raced through my mind, giving me quite the headache to complement the body pain from when I woke.

Eyes open again, I angled my head to one side, my face now mere centimeters away from another freaky change- a solid geometric shell that weighed me down. Images of my former pet flashed through me and I then realized what was going on. My teenage boy body no longer existed, instead I was a smaller, heavier tortoise. My head fell back as my mouth opened, letting out a cry of anguish and disgust. It sounded very abnormal, leading me to stop so I wouldn’t alert anyone in the house. Though painful and discouraging, I decided not to let my new body ruin my day. How do I get out of this bed if I’m on my back? Jeez, now I understand what struggles these creatures go through. National Geographic makes the life of a tortoise look so amazing, but this sucks. Everything was discouraging me again, so I rocked back and forth on my scaley shell, hoping I would somehow flip over out of bed. My expectation was very short of reality, as the second I turned too far over, the bed collapsed off of its supports, tilting it over, and sending me crashing down to the floor with an audible thud.

Suddenly everything went dark, yet I remained awake. My eyes scanned everything nearby, but nothing could be made out in the pitch black before me. My weighted body tumbled over, as if I lost my balance. But as this happened, a bright light filled the space around me, highlighting the entrance to a hole in my protective shell. I realized that instinct allowed me to hastily hide in the shell as I fell from the bed. Perhaps that part of me was a silver-lining. My head emerged from the interior of the shell, coming face to face with a school bag and a small pink book titled The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka. Oh, so that guy gets to be a light and nimble bug but I gotta be this thing? Lucky him. However, I remembered that the character dies without having gone back, and shuddered at the thought of the same happening to me. Now, my attention was turned to the bedroom door. I silently stayed still where I could listen closely. On the other side of that door, my parents walked through the hallway, passing my door as if they thought I was still asleep. I stopped moving around and hid my head back inside to think. I should try going to sleep again, maybe this truly is just a nightmare. I’ll stay in the dark, maybe I’ll sleep faster.

Now huddled up within the confinements of my shell, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. The sounds of movement throughout the house kept me distracted, with footsteps only making me worry that someone was about to walk in. I could only imagine the horror my parents would go through upon seeing their teenage son was replaced by a lazy tortoise and a broken bed. But in a matter of minutes, my eyes became droopy, and I let out soft yawns. I closed my eyes and began to doze off, fading out of my awake state. However, as I began to sleep, I heard one last thing. The bedroom door had swung open…

My eyes were open again, looking towards the source of the noise. It was my parents, who were shocked to see I had fallen out of bed, but reacted normally to the situation, as if there was not a tortoise in their son’s place. After they backed out and shut the door, I gazed down at my body, noticing human features, not a heavy reptilian structure that I possessed before. I stood up and walked towards a mirror, thinking about the amount of schoolwork that needed to be done. I’ll just do the homework later. I could use some food, maybe a milkshake to keep me awake. Anything will do right now. Facing the mirror, I screamed out in horror, falling back to the floor. I saw the face of the tortoise once more, looking sluggish and worn out. Why is this happening? I need a distraction, no need to look back at the mirror again. Ugh, guess it’s time to finish the homework. With a pen in hand, I flipped through papers from my science class, while searching the heavy textbook provided in hopes of finding the answers. Science was the easiest, but math brought on the biggest challenge. The work was like a foreign language, completely cryptic. There’s no numbers, how is this supposed to be finished? Hours later, the work was finished, pens were out of ink, crumpled paper filled the trash bin. But the work was complete.

I walked back to the bathroom mirror to wash my face, prepared to see the face of the tortoise once more. But to my surprise (and relief), I saw my own face again.