The driver did not seem to notice; despite not wearing a jacket, she hadn’t thought to turn on the heater. Ever since his impulsive act of heroism, it seemed, all temperatures were perfectly comfortable for her.

He wasn’t about to complain. In a couple minutes, the car would be turning onto his street and pulling up next to his blessedly familiar townhouse and he could finally put these truly bizarre couple of days behind him. His head still recovering from the beating, he warded off car sickness by keeping his eyes glued to an old Twizzlers wrapper stuck to gum on the floor mat.

The agony he’d awoken to in Kara’s apartment — the agony that he’d been certain would finish him off — had settled into a dull ache that he felt… everywhere. Her attentive care, which had matched the tender care of a nurse with the forceful regiment of a drill sergeant, had done its job. Finally she had decided that he would survive outside his care and called his folks with the terrible news. They’d hopped in the car immediately after hanging up the phone. He’d need to get a deferment on his classes; there was no way he’d be able to finish the semester in his condition. While he’d relished the increased attention he’d gotten of late, he was relieved that he’d be able to go home and recuperate.

Finally, the scraping sound ceased, followed promptly by the engine’s uneven purr. A moment of silence. Then he heard the driver’s side door open and slam shut. A moment later, his support gave way beneath him as the passenger door parted for winter’s frigid bite.

A firm hand halted his fall toward the road, getting a solid grip on his blanket-covered shoulder. An arm wrapped around his waist, also blanket-covered, on the opposite side. His world rotated 90 degrees as he felt the seat pull away from him. For a moment the entirety of Derek’s weight bore down on the limb hooked under his arm pit, and then the world rotated back and his feet made gentle contact with the pavement. The arm maintained its support while his legs slowly took on burden of keeping him up right.

After giving his head yet another frustrating moment to clear, Derek surveyed his surroundings. Kara’s traffic cone orange 1988 Chevy Sprint Turbo was double-parked next to his lime green ’96 Dodge Stratus, still partially buried in the snow. The curtains in Jerry’s window parted for a round, pimply face that stared out at the new arrivals. A streak of black ice ran down the driveway.

And then there was Kara. Her long mane of silky dark hair put the models in those Pantene commercials to shame. The sleeves of her once loose fitting tee shirt parted in the slight dip where perfectly round shoulders that would forever preclude the need for pads met the gentle curve of her relaxed biceps. Breasts that seemed to defy gravity strained against the cotton fabric. The bottom hem of the shirt, meanwhile, hung a couple inches in front of her perfectly flat stomach. Alluring hips that had not been distinctive a week before were supported by rock hard thighs that were each as thick as his neck. Her legs each sloped down in a perfect “V” to ankles that he bet he could still encircle with his thumb and middle finger. That she was wearing cut-offs in below freezing weather no longer struck him as extraordinary.

His gaze slowly made its way up all five feet, seven inches of her before finally meeting her eyes with an expression that mixed wariness with gratitude. She followed him  to the front door with a grocery bag containing the few things he’d had with him. As he opened the door and began to step inside, another firm grip on his shoulder cemented him in place. Turning around, he looked down — just barely — into expectant gaze.

“What?” he choked out, with a voice that was finally beginning to regain a bit of its former character.

“That’s my comforter,” she reminded him.

“Oh, right.”

As he unwrapped himself, the cold tore into him with increasing gusto. He tried not to shiver, and failed. Now totally exposed, he handed over the blanket with trembling hands.

Kara lifted a handful of it to her nose, inhaled, and let out a contented sigh. “I love your smell,” she murmured more to herself than to him.

Grabbing the plastic bag from her, he was again about to turn around and head inside when she embraced him with a sudden fierceness, and again began to change.

After a moment she let go and walked over to the living room window. “There,” she exclaimed decisively after examining her reflection. “Just the right amount. Wouldn’t want to overdo it.”

Satisfied she stepped back onto the cracked concrete of the front walk and stared down at the purple-mottled and suddenly shorter figure now backed against the wall. “Thanks for everything, Derek. I hope you feel better real soon.”

It took him a moment to get his words together. “You’re-you’re welcome, Kara! Why don’t you come visit me back home some weekend?”

She laughed, a patronizing little laugh. “Oh, you <em>are</em> a silly boy! Didn’t you just hear me? I’ve gotten all I need from you know. This is good bye.”

And without another look, she turned around and covered the distance to her car in a light, effortless sprint. He watched her shitty subcompact scrape its way down the street, turn the corner and fade into oblivion before the cold forced him back inside.

Jerry was waiting, the writing on his black “There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don’t” tee shirt distorted by a chest that a week ago could have given Kara a run for her money. His face bore a complex mix of concern, horniness and awe.

“Are you alright, buddy?” he asked.

Before Derek could answer, he blurted out an urgent follow-up query.

“Who was that?”

Light emanating from an unadorned archway across the room drew his attention. The source of the light, he suspected, was also the source of the wonderful smell. Still sore pretty much everywhere, he rotated unto his side and fixed his attention on the light, watching for something to happen.

He didn’t have long to wait. After a couple minutes, a silhouette manifested in the archway, carrying two plates heaping with everything that smelled so good. After a few steps, the outline of a person resolved itself into the mousy girl from the previous night, only better. And he realized he knew her. Her name was Kara Dorsey; he had English Composition with her Tuesdays and Thursdays. Until this moment, she had seemed as physically unremarkable to him as he had seemed to others; if he hadn’t found her essays so interesting, he doubted he’d even know her name.

Nobody would call her unremarkable looking now. Her dark hair, which had always been an untamable mess that threatened to swallow her head, now flowed smoothly down her back and catching the light with a shimmer. She’d tucked it behind her left ear, but let it flow over the right side of her face. Her skin, which had always been a pale yellowish, sickly hue, now glowed bronze in the warm light from the kitchen. Her back, usually bent over from the phantom weight of too many library books in hours past, was now straight as a rod. Her better posture also kept her head back and brought her chest forward, where pert breasts that Derek had never noticed before strained against a skin-tight white tank top. Alluringly, her black bra strap was only partially covered by the fabric of her top. The waistband of equally tight jeans caught on her rounded hips in exactly the right way. And while she still wouldn’t fit anybody’s definition of tall, she appeared to be a couple inches taller than she’d been the night before,
even taking into account the more upright stance. And while he’d witnessed her get attacked with every bit of the savagery that he’d endured, there wasn’t a mark of injury on her.

Even as Derek tried to wrap his mind around the sight before him, her warm brown eyes locked onto his open stare.

“Oh! My hero has awoke! Perfect timing!”

As she reached the couch, she bent over and put the two plates down on the battered coffee table. After dragging his eyes away from chest that had spread out before him, he noticed her biceps — biceps he’d never notice before — drop down as her arms straightened.

That done, she rounded the corner of the couch and peeled back the blankets. After surveying the extent of his cuts and bruises, she grabbed onto his forearm to pull him up. But before she’d gotten him into the upright position, she started changing again. The skin-tight clothes got even tighter. She seemed to lean backward, but her hand remained gripped to his arm. Her kneecaps emerged above the edge of the sofa cushion. Letting go, her back arched back and she let out an orgasmic purr. Suddenly the 5′ 2″ girl, who only a day before had been a 4′ 11″ girl, was a 5′ 5″ girl. And all of the areas which Derek had noticed improvements on the walk over were even more improved. The increasingly curvy, newly athletic young woman before him, reexamined him with suddenly appraising eyes.

“So you’re what fixed me!” she exclaimed. “It didn’t make much sense to me last night, but I figured, why question a good thing.”

The extraordinary revelation was, if anything, more shocking to Derek, who was still dumbstruck by Kara’s last iteration and crippled from his previous wounds.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” he croaked out, the words catching in his dry throat.

She shook her head and laughed a high, melodious laugh. The movement caused her hair to dance lyrically around her face.

“You don’t need to lie around me. I’ll keep your secret.”

She flashed him a wink that made him swoon a little, in spite of things.

“No, listen,” he pleaded, his voice clearing a little. “There’s no secret. As far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened before.” Pause. “What makes you think it’s not you?”

She rolled her eyes in response. “Even in your black-and-blue state, you should have been able to see that I was different before. What’s the difference between my before and after pictures? Close quarters with you. Twice.”

Derek’s curiosity overcame his pain and confusion. “You mean I was around for the first changes?”

Her hand flicked onto her hip in impatience. “Try to keep up, boy. Before last night, I could barely handle my thirty-pound backpack. By the time you intervened, I was at least as bruised and battered as you are now. But after they took off, I huddled against you to consolidate body heat.”

A small peak rose among the blankets. She rolled her eyes again.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she snorted, before plunging back into her story. “But anyway, as I pressed against you, the most incredibly thing happened. I felt the pain lift right out of me. I could feel myself healing. And then, once I was all better, I became better than better.”

She paused thoughtfully for a moment.

“How much do you weigh?” she demanded.

Derek couldn’t believe the sheer strangeness he was living. “Around 150-160, why?”

She beamed. “Because,” she replied triumphantly. “I carried you all the way back here last night. And I didn’t even have to catch my breath.”

That is, until the seventh night, when he was walking back home from the library. Further up the empty street, a mousy freshman girl hugged herself against the cold in a winter coat nearly bigger than she was. Hunched forward against the wind, she didn’t notice a creaking 1980’s Oldsmobile turn unto the street.

From a couple blocks back, Derek saw the red tail lights flare up, casting strange shadows across all the nearby buildings. A couple silhouettes got out of the car, and closed on the small huddled figure ahead. Some mocking exclamations in baritone were followed by a high-pitched scream. Before he realized what he was doing, Derek found himself tossing his backpack on the lawn and sprinting into the fray.

Once he got past the bulk of the car, the circles of yellow light cast by the headlights painted a grim picture. Two seniors in university hoodies and Salvation Army rags were holding the girl down against the pavement while a third ruffled through her belongings. All were heavily intoxicated. He froze, just before breaching the glow in front of the car. After they had unearthed her wallet, iPod, and cell phone, The third guy opened his jacket and reached for his zipper.

“Don’t you dare!” Derek yelled out, again without thinking.

The aggressor froze, and his two lackeys turned toward him, jerking their captive violently in the process.

“Well, well, well. It looks like we got ourselves a good Samaritan,” one of the captors smirked, after sizing up Derek’s rather unimpressive physique.

“Shall we show him what happens to good Samaritans?” the other asked, as the aggressor stalked toward Derek.

When the aggressor got within range, Derek took a wild swing that the older boy easily sidestepped. Still off-balance from his lunge, the return punch caught him square in the gut before he even had time to think. His lackeys dropped the girl, who was outright sobbing by this point, to the pavement and hurried over to joint in the beating.
And then the kicks came at Derek from all angles. Utterly helpless, he crouched into the fetal position and formed a protective ball. Just when he thought he could take no more, he found himself being lifted into the air. One of the boys punched him hard in the gut again for good measure, and then the other two swung him back and forth with increasing force before letting go.

For a moment, Derek was airborne. Then, he hit the frozen pavement with a horrible thud. Behind him, he heard three car doors open and slam shut, the whine of an engine sputtering to life in the cold, and then the squeal of tires fading into the distance.

He rolled over bumped against something warm and soft. The cushioned impact was accompanied by a whimper that was not his own. Barely conscious, Derek couldn’t muster the strength to slide over. The small part of his brain that wasn’t ringing with agony hoped that he wasn’t crushing the girl he’d taken the beating trying to save.
Slowly, he felt the warm padded mass slide out from under him, and the back of his head dropped the last inch to the freezing blacktop. In the moments that followed, he was reminded how cold the night truly was.

And then the stars were blotted out by the mousy girl’s face, dark hair and eyebrows set against sickly pale skin, heavily blemished by the scrapes and quickly forming bruises left from the attack. She lowered herself gently down onto him, and hugged him with the entirety of her being. Heat radiated down from his head to his knees, where the toes of her boots fell off each to a side. At first her embrace was as feeble as he felt, but the longer she held on the firmer it got. At first he thought it was his imagination, but abruptly she pulled back a bit and stared again into his face, this time quite intently. As he watched, the bruises on her face faded and the scratches and scrapes began to heal. Soon, a rosy color burst into her cheeks.

“What’s happening to me?” she asked, in an awed yet somewhat concerned.

Derek didn’t know and was still in too much agony to think about it.

“You’ve found yourself where you’re meant to be,” he croaked out, and passed out.

She fell back against him, shielding his battered and exposed frame with her warm. Had he still been aware of his surrounding, he would have felt the heels of her boots drift a couple inches further down his legs.

Unfortunately, the green planet had a red twin equal in size that had fallen into an unruly orbit among their common star. After centuries of close calls, the two planet collided with obliterating force. The impact shattered the planets into shards that exploded out in every direction toward the far corners of the unimaginably great void of outer space

The smaller fragments were caught by the gravity of the dying star, creating an asteroid belt much like the one that separates Mars from Jupiter. But the larger pieces shrugged off the dwarf’s feeble grasp and continued on, further and further into the darkness.

As the decades became centuries, and the centuries became millennia, two of the shards drew closer and closer to our fiery young yellow star. Finally, on a bright afternoon in late November, the shards collided with the intense heat of Earth’s atmosphere. By the time the mighty shard of the green planet hit the sidewalk of a sleepy New England college town, it was scarcely the size of tennis ball. With the entire region in the grips of a massive Nor’easter, no one was outside to witness the spectacular descent from the thick white sky to an unexceptional street on the outskirts of town.

In fact, it wasn’t discovered until the following morning, when Derek Peters unearthed it digging his car out from the massive snowbank. At first he thought, it was a dog turd. Disgusted, he was about to use the shovel to toss in onto his neighbor’s lawn when he noticed that the concrete was as blackened as the oblong pebble. Curious, he grabbed it with his glove and lifted it to his face for closer inspection. Though the strange thing clearly didn’t originate with a dog, it did have a strange odor — spicy, almost, and kind of wild. With a shrug, he stuffed the mysterious thing into his pocket and refocused on the mound of snow that separated the driver’s side of his car from the rest of the pavement.

Unbeknownst to Derek, however, the origin of that smell had jumped ship. The impact that had destroyed two planets was unable to overcome an insanely tenacious virus which had thrived in a hollow pocket of the shard for the entire length of the journey. The impact with the sidewalk had breached that air pocket and exposed a whole new world in which to thrive.

It hit Derek’s nostril en-masse, riding the nasal cavity to the pharynx, the pharynx to the larynx, the larynx to the trachea, and the trachea to the lungs. There it settled in and multiplied, being swept with every breath to every corner of his body.

For scientists, this virus would have been the Holy Grail. As it swept into each cell, it headed directly for the nucleus, and rewrote a specific segment of Derek’s genetic code. If humans could have gotten a hold of it, they could have reprogrammed it to eliminate genetic diseases and cure cancer.

Unfortunately, the virus that had survived millions of years and trillions of miles was unable to overcome Derek’s immune system. Though the virus left him bedridden and miserably sick for days, by the next weekend he was starting to feel more like himself, unaware that an unused and unremarkable slice of his genetic makeup had been transformed into something remarkable.

For days, Derek’s life proceeded much as it always had. At 5′ 9″ tall and 155 pounds, Derek was about as unremarkable as it is possible to be. Calling him handsome would be an act of charity, but he wasn’t notably hideous or deformed, either. He left the house considerably more than his roommate Jerry, a Computer Science major and [i]World of Warcraft[/i] addict he’d known since high school, but no one ever called his name out from across the quad. At parties, he was the wallflower in the corner, awkwardly clutching a red plastic cup full of beer that he never more than sipped. In the photos that popped up on Facebook the next day, he looked like a piece of furniture. Whenever possible, he signed up for lecture hall classes where he could fade into the anonymity of the crowd.

In other words, he avoided people, and they avoided him. But as he plodded along the third floor of the library one afternoon, his attention focused on keeping the dozen or so books in his arms carefully balanced, he didn’t notice the door of the women’s room fly open. The collision was spectacular. Boy and girl tumbled to the floor in a heap. Books scattered. Papers flew everywhere. Derek and his victim traded apologies simultaneously, as they struggled to untangle each other from each other.

As she helped him reassemble his pile of materials, the girl was struck by the seemingly unremarkable Derek: why hadn’t she noticed him around campus before? After taking a closer look at him, she concluded that he wasn’t her type. But what a cologne! Unlike most of the freshmen on campus, here was a guy who avoided bathing himself in Axe body spray. His aroma was subtle but tantalizing, earthy yet sweet. She flashed him her most flirtatious smile and fired off a wink, the first such attention Derek had ever received.

She headed off down the hall before he had time to recover. After turning the corner, she pulled unconsciously at the edge of her shirt, which had fit perfectly only moments before, but now exposed a thin slice of skin between the bottom hem and the waistband on her skirt. Her hand then slid down into a hip pocket, where she kept a stash of Kleenex to fend off her wicked cold. But instead of fishing one out, she paused. After an explorative snuff, she realized the snot in her nose had cleared up. In fact, she thought, I feel great!