MidReal Story
1
Scenario: 1
Create my version of this story
When we’d asked the librarian about the book, she’d told us that the story was pure fantasy.
She said that there was no such thing as shapeshifters and that the writer of the book had been a delusional madman.
But then she’d ordered us to leave, and she’d called the police to report that we were trying to steal books from the library.
We’d managed to get away before they’d arrived, but now we were hiding in the woods behind the library, trying to make sense of what we’d read.
“Do you think it’s really true?”
I asked, looking at my two best friends.
Sarah Lee was the smartest girl in our class, and she was our historian and strategist.
She was also petite, with long black hair and glasses that gave her a shy, bookish appearance.
She looked up at us, her dark eyes wide with excitement.
She was practically bouncing with energy.
“Well, I can’t say for sure,” she said.
“But there’s only one way to find out, right?”
I nodded, and Sarah slowly smiled.
I knew that look.
We were about to get ourselves into a whole lot of trouble.
I knew it even before Sarah said anything.
But I was still so excited that I could barely contain myself.
“We have to find out what this is all about,” she said.
“Who’s with me?”
Jake Thompson grinned at her and punched his fist in the air like a superhero.
You know I’m always up for an adventure.”
He turned to me, his piercing blue eyes twinkling mischievously.
“Especially when it involves my favorite person in the whole wide world.”
I scowled at him.
“Don’t push it, Jake.”
He laughed and ruffled my hair.
“You know you love me.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” I muttered as I swatted his hand away.
Jake and I had been friends since we were little kids.
We lived next door to each other, and our moms had even been pregnant at the same time.
He was taller than me by a few inches and had a lean swimmer’s build.
He also had short blond hair and a winning smile.
But I was pretty sure he was also a few sandwiches short of a picnic, if you know what I mean.
Sarah rolled her eyes at us—she always did when Jake and I started flirting—and then she turned back to the book, which was sitting on a rock in front of her.
It was still open, and she leaned closer to get a better look at the words on the page.
“So, what does it say?”
Jake asked, looking over her shoulder.
Like me, he wasn’t much of a reader, and he usually left all the history stuff to Sarah anyway.
“They’re born this way, apparently,” she said, wrinkling her nose as she read.
“They have a gift, and they can use it whenever they want.”
“Is that like X-Men or something?”
I asked, trying to wrap my brain around it all.
Sarah shook her head and kept reading.
“No, it’s different from mutants who are born with special abilities but don’t actually change their physical form,” she said.
Sarah went back to reading the book while Jake and I waited for her answer with barely concealed impatience, our toes scuffing through the leaves that littered the ground in front of us.
She frowned as she read the page, her expression growing more and more perplexed by the second.
“Are you okay?”
I asked after a moment, noticing how pale she’d become.
“Yes,” she said slowly.
“It’s just…”
She turned the page and continued reading in silence for another minute or two, her forehead furrowed with concentration as she scanned the words on the page.
Then she suddenly gasped out loud and dropped the book in her lap as if it had suddenly burst into flames in her hands.
“What is it?”
Jake and I asked at the same time.
She just stared at us with wide eyes, looking as if she’d seen a ghost.
“They can heal themselves,” she whispered in disbelief.
“Even from things that would be fatal to us.”
I snatched up the book and read the passage that had shocked her so much as fast as I could, my heart pounding in my chest the whole time.
It was true—according to the book, shapeshifters could regenerate their own cells at will so that they could heal from any injury quickly and easily.
It was almost as if they were immortal.
Sarah shivered and pulled her coat tighter around herself, looking terrified.
“Get this,” she said, pointing to a line in the book.
“It says that if a shapeshifter loses their human partner, they’ll probably choose death over living on without them.”
“So, wait,” Jake said.
“If these shapeshifters are so great, why haven’t we seen them around before?”
Sarah shook her head and kept reading, and I leaned closer so I could see over her shoulder.
“They’re reclusive creatures,” she said.
“They don’t like to be around humans if they can help it.”
“But what about all those people who’ve disappeared in the mountains over the years?”
I asked, thinking of all the stories I’d heard about hikers and campers who had gotten lost in the woods and never returned.
Sarah turned another page and kept reading, but I could see the way she was frowning as if she was really worried about something.
“What is it?”
I asked after a moment.
“If they can take on any form they want, then how can we ever be sure what they really are?”
I stared at her, my heart suddenly pounding in my chest with fear.
“You mean to tell me that some of them could already be living among us?In our own town?”
“It’s possible,” Sarah said, looking just as scared as I felt.
“But there’s no way to know for sure.”
“So, what do we do?”
Jake asked, looking from one of us to the other, not sure what to make of it all.
“You’re asking me?”
Sarah asked, rolling her eyes.
She turned another page and kept right on reading.
And that was that.
The librarian had been right—this whole thing was nothing more than a fairy tale.
Right?
“Hey, what if we found out that one of these shapeshifters was imprinted on us?”
He asked, his eyes twinkling with mischief once again.
“What would we do then?”
I thought about it for a moment, turning over all the possibilities in my head.
“Ew, gross,” I finally said.
“They’re human on the inside,” Jake pointed out.
“Think of all those people who call themselves furries—people who dress up in animal costumes and have sex with each other.”
