Sunday Morning

Lubic woke up, looking around wildly for a minute. His eyes found the familiar picture of his father, which always sat on the desk across from his bed. I’m home . . . he thought, trying to remember what had happened the night before. And then he wished he hadn’t. He could remember flying away from the raven cave with Elara and Jay. Not in an airplane or anything; he had simply declared they would fly home, and then they did. It had been just like he imagined Peter Pan would fly. Once home, he’d called Stevens to cancel poker, then gone straight to bed.

Was all that a dream? he wondered as the door opened and Elara rushed in.

"Uncle!" she yelled cheerily, "time to wake up!"

Maybe not, he thought, groaning as she threw open the blinds. "What are you doing? It’s 6am! And this is my day off!"

"But the sun is up! Do you want to waste the day away?"

"If the day starts at 6, then yes!" He pulled a pillow over his head, blocking out the bright rays.

She grabbed the pillow from him. "But you promised we’d go to the library!"

"Elara," he glared at her, "the library doesn’t open till 10. We can still sleep for an hour or two, then head there when they open."

"Then can you show me around a bit? Please? Everything is so strange and new, and I was only able to see a bit of it from the air yesterday. You’re up now, anyway!"

He rolled his eyes. "Alright. But you’re going to have to let me sleep in a bit more tomorrow. I have to get ready before we go. Can you give me like a half an hour?"

"Alright. Thank you!" She bounded out of the room.

Lubic groaned. No one should have that kind of energy this early! But after lounging around for 15 minutes, he hauled himself out of bed like he’d promised.

It was around that time that he became a bit disturbed: he had flown out of the raven cave? And Elara was okay with that? What the heck was going on? He decided it was too early to deal with this right now; he'd ask Elara later, maybe over breakfast.

After throwing on some jeans and a t-shirt, he headed to the bathroom. He was reaching for his toothbrush when he glanced into the mirror. Right where his reflection should have been, there was a woman with scaled, pale green skin and strawberry blonde hair. Lubic screamed.