Chance to Change, Alayna Turney [ebook and pdf reader .TXT] 📗

“See Tezzin, its okay to know their names,” Lokilay told Tezzin. She then stuck her tongue out. It was a snake tongue. The Lord, and only the Lord, knew why it had to be a snake’s tongue.
Tezzin rolled his eyes and said “Loki shut up, and you 0065071, come over here.” I sat exactly where I was. “I said get over here”
“It's okay Raylie, we just have to change what you look like” said Lokilay.
“No, no I am not changing.” I picked myself up and ran.
I didn’t know where I was going only that I had to get away. I couldn’t disfigure myself. I just couldn’t. I was sore all over because of the way the guards treated me. Running was not helping.
Tezzin dropped down in front of me. I fell and scrambled back as far away as I could get. “Did you really think that you could get away from us? We own this forest. The government just doesn’t know it yet,” said Tezzin as he smiled at me. He wasn’t so scary when he smiled.
“I am not changing,” I said as firm as I could, my voice only shaking a little.
“Look, you can change as much or as little as you want. Some people with the freedom of change go a little overboard with the change, take me for example. My mother and I were playing in the trees, when I was younger. I fell out of the tree. That’s how I got this scar. Our Records appointment was the next day. When they saw my face, they killed my mother. Fortunately I was given to a family of secret renegades. They let me change and I went crazy, worse than Loki. I have toned down a lot since then. You think this is bad? You should have seen me then.”
“I’m scared,” I whispered. I can’t believe the government, the ones who were supposed to save us, hurt that poor little boy who was this man. Wait, wasn’t I told this story by my father?
Tezzin bent to help me up, “can you walk?”
“Yes,” I was sore but I wasn’t going to be a baby. I limped and hobbled. I tried to hide it. No such luck.
“Liar, you are so hurting,” said Tezzin as he picked me up like a baby. The baby I didn’t want to be.
At first I struggled then he looked at me with a quelling look, I guess I was going to be still. I settled in and lay my head on the stranger’s shoulder and fell asleep.
I felt water dripping on my face and I let my eyes lift. Well if you can call it lifting, they sort of just cracked open a bit. I was inside a redwood tree; it was big enough to be a house. The changed were milling around and talking. The inside “walls” were lined with metals, the “ceiling” as well. Only some panels have fallen off to reveal the tree that was actually there.
“How are you doing?” I looked up and saw Tezzin looking at me.
“Fine,” I took a deep breath and made a decision, “I am ready to change.”
He looked shocked but then he smiled. “What do you want to do?”
“You change me,” I said because I just didn’t know, “make it a surprise.”
“Alright in a minute, let’s get you something to eat first,” said Tezzin.
While we ate, we talked. He asked me questions, things like favorite: hair color and style, eye color and shape, and facial feature I would hate to lose. But he skillfully snuck them into the conversation, so that I didn’t notice. Before I realized it, I had told him exactly what I want to look like.
He and Lokilay, well Loki as she told me to call her, got started.
Looking in that mirror, I decided that change in moderation was good. In fact, it was great. I had red hair cut into the bob style and wide green eyes with long lashes. My face was more round, not fat just not square anymore. I looked beautiful. I looked like my mother, not exactly or too close, I mean I still looked like me.
“Come on, guys. It’s time to move, we have a new assignment. Aren’t you coming Ray?” asked Loki.
“She isn’t even trained yet. What would she do? Well, I guess she could come and watch,” said Tezzin as he looked at me with a look that spoke of acceptance.
“Thanks, but what are we doing?” I asked
“Well we are going to save someone else from the terror of unchanging-ness,” said Loki as she jumped through the "door".
“What she means is that there are others out there who need to be saved from Emperor Magnus,” said Tezzin.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the tree. Off to a new adventure as a fugitive. Forever running from the law until the law was gone, until everyone had a chance to change.
“That was what it was like for us in an unchangeable world,” I tell the children at my feet, surrounding my chair.
“What happened next momma?” asks my little girl of fourteen.
“Well obviously we changed the world, but we have not changed bed time, so it’s off to bed for all of you,” I say to my four children.
I hear the usual four whines.
“But mommy we not tiwerd,” says my youngest son, who probably hasn’t even heard a word I’ve said all night
“Listen to your mother kids,” says Tezzin, my husband, as he picks up the two younger ones.
I gather my older children, twelve and fourteen, and my husband and go up the stairs to go to bed and tomorrow I will wake up in a free world. One of freedom. One of change.

Imprint

Text: This book belongs to Alayna Turney
Publication Date: 07-15-2012

All Rights Reserved