Butterflies

Some of those changes, natural changes even without this new process, would someday be seen when John grew older. Older men lose testosterone, and their masculinity that comes with it, as do women their estrogen during menopause. It's why men, later in life, grow breast of a sort, and woman on occasion, a mustache. Those natural hormones, had he been born a girl and still carried, were now under new instructions and this time with a new power behind them.

John's sleep was surrounded by dreams of butterflies fluttering about, and those boys taunting him as a sissy for fluttering about with them. His mind also accepting a portion of a new potion his own body was now making. A potion that science would someday know about when the discussions of what makes males male and females, female. John, like the caterpillar, was changing and it would be striking those changes.

There was a metamorphose underway and like a caterpillar changing into a butterfly it's an incredible change. A change so complete and so striking as to alter fully the nature or appearance of that caterpillar turned butterfly, and now it was John's turn.

John too was turning into something not completely John. Remarkably John's first changes were for the new chemicals his body would need. John's circulatory system began accepting a new fluid similar to hemolymph (also spelled haemolymph). Hemolymph made up of mostly water, inorganic salts and organic compounds (close to sea water) now carried a lot of newer salts and compounds John's new body needed.

John was changing physically and mentally and was doing so within hours of that moment in the forest. It takes twelve hours for the common cold to take hold and give us a hint that we have it. It took about that same amount of time for all of the signals that flow through us naturally to change as well, and John woke to a new world. John woke to the same sun, room and bed, but clearly it didn't feel the same.

In this case it was that dream remembered on his way to his shower and that notice of his skin when he woke. He had moved to scratch and in doing so stopped to notice the texture of his skin. There was an odd texture to his skin that left him slightly aware of it and slightly curious over it. A rough texture just a tad more dry than normal.