The sounds of the car engine dying out woke me up. I almost quite literally jumped, only to remember my current situation. I was in the car. On my way home (or as I already there?). I was with my dad, I think. I mentally facepalmed. Even as a dragon, I still had extremely short term memory, which was further worsened by periodic unconsciousness from things like naps. It was probably one of those more human characteristics of me left, which was I hoped was still hanging around in my head somewhere. The honest last thing I wanted to do was to turn into a different person altogether.

I've read somewhere in Farm's work that all dragons have a 'feral' mind, and that sooner or later they'd have to deal with it in one way or another.  I shuddered at the thought of having to deal with it and the paralysis that would follow after as I tired to relearn how to function properly in any event that I could defeat it, let alone the risk of turning into a taur.

Now, don't get me wrong on taur fans here, it's not that I'm against taurs, I'm actually fine with them, but it was not probably one of my preferences.

Anyway, getting back to topic, my dad came round and opened up the trunk of the car. I cocked my head to one side as a gesture of curiosity, before he signaled for me to get out.

"Don't you think you should warn them in the last?" I asked, not really wanting to scare the living daylights out of my mom. Not yet, at least.

Without giving a moment to think about it, my dad dragged me in anyway by one claw, leading me through the front door, up the stairs, and straight into the dining room, where my mother happened to be typing something on the laptop. That's my dad alright, do first, ask later. It was probably one of those things he might've picked up from the army, being in the commandos and all, where split-second decisions could mean life or death.

"Got the boy." My dad said flatly, pulling me round the corner, in full view of my mother.

"Oh, good. I hope he hasn't – AHHHHGGHHHH!" She said, stopping to scream mid-sentence as she stopped typing to look up. "Adrian! What the heck did you bring into the house?!"

"Our son." He replied coolly.

"That… is not our son!" my mother said in one of those comical, clichéd movie scenes where the lead female actress freaks out.

"Yes he is."

"No it's not!"

"Who's what now?" my sister said, coming down the stairs.

"Dad, did you – JESUS H. CHRIST, WHAT IS THAT?!" my sister said, imitating her mother. Like mother, like daughter, I tell you.

"Your brother." My dad asserted, gesturing to me.

"I don't know dad, that last I check, Ryan didn't have wings and scales…" my sister said.

"I am me, I'm Ryan…" I said, trying to help. "Ee Yi Jun Ryan, 28th October 1995, ID No. S95*****D, passport number E08*****C…"

"Well," my ever-intelligent sister said, "while Ryan probably would be the only one nerdy enough to memorise his ID and passport number, you could've tortured that out of him, considering how wimpy he is all the time…"

"But then again, Ryan was the only one in the family to have crooked knees, and seeing that your feet splay outwards too, you might be him… But just to be safe, do something that only Ryan would do."

I was stumped. I never really had anything to trademark myself, not like Warp2002 who could do his knee-popping thing…

"Uh… I don't really know what you want me to do." I said, sheepishly.

"Yup," my sister said affirmatively, "that's definitely my brother, clueless as ever."

My mother stared at me, then my sister, then my dad, as if everyone was going mad. "I think this is a very bad dream… I'm going to bed now…" she said, walking up to her room. My dad followed suit, putting his hand on her shoulder, before having a hushed conversation of sorts with her on their way up. I couldn't really hear what they were saying, but I could've cared less at the moment.

"So… what happened? Did you fall face-first into a pile of shit, lizardbreath?" my sister said casually.

"I'm just as clueless as you," I said, lying through my teeth, "one minute, I'm walking home, the next minute, scales start growing all over and before you know it, poof! Dragon-reptile-thing..."

"Yeah, definitely Ryan, totally clueless, as always…"

"You face is Clueless." I shot back.

"Unlike me, you ARE clueless." She replied.

"Oh shut up, clueless woman." I said, hoping she'd fall into it.

"Yeah? Your mother's clueless!" she snapped.

"So… that means mom is clueless…?" I said cheekily.

"Yes we-" she said, before stopping mid sentence. She stared at me angrily for a good 30 seconds or so or tricking her, before sighing irritably and going back up the stairs to her room.

I chuckled to myself, mentally fist pumping at the small victory. "Ryan 1, Ariel 0" Out of habit, I walked over to the fridge, albeit clumsily as I still wasn't used to having my tail bump into things here and there.

Even though my house was considered big by most Singaporean standards, it was still pretty small for a creature of my size now, judging from the fact that people from our region happen to be pretty small.

However, I wasn't really counting my self as being average-sized for a dragon, considering to by far, most dragons are supposed to be at least a good 8 feet tall or so, while I was still only about two heads taller than my sister, which wasn't very much.

I grabbed a can of Coke from the fridge, popping the can open before going up to my room. As I was making my way up, I took note of the fact that climbing up stairs was now somewhat more challenging for some reason, which was probably attributed to me interesting new leg structure…

But back to the topic, upon reaching my room, I casually placed my can of coke on my study table, before turning on my ancient, 7-year old Compaq laptop. It was old, and had less than one gigabyte of RAM, but the only reason I didn't scrap it and ask for a new computer yet was because I loved typing on it.

Waiting for the small laptop to boot up, I took the time to gaze at myself in the mirror. Staring back at me was a dark-green, 5"11' tall dragon with white scutes. Unlike Farm, most of my new height seemed to come from my legs and slightly elongated neck. Lime-green, slit eyes with white irises stared back at me in the mirror as my slightly angular snout pointed at my own face in the mirror, which was unnerving to say, at least.

I had two horns on the top of my head and a series of spines running down my back, trailing all the way to the end of my new tail, which was simply pointed at the end.

I stared at my new form in the mirror for a good amount of time, in a state of partial disbelief. Was this really me? One really could've sworn that I was a human about a hour ago… A dying one at that…

The sound of my laptop booting up took my mind off that last thought as I turned around, just in time to see the welcome screen appear. Keying in my ever-special one-digit password, I logged on, staring at my screen.

The funny thing about my password is that nobody seemed to believe me when I said it was one digit. My password was simply the '™' symbol, which was easy enough to obtain by holding down the ALT button on my computer and keying in a four-digit code to get it. But yet, most people didn't really know how to do that, which amused my countless times before.

A quick survey of my desktop was enough to tell me that I had messages to answer, and since I wasn't going to be needed until my dad was done talking to my mom, I probably had a lot of free time to do my own things.

While the idea of making a few set of clothes for myself popped into my mind (all my clothes were ripped off during the transformation), the fact that nothing 'down there' could be seen seemed to put that on the 'can do later' list.

I logged in to MSN messenger and DeviantArt, hoping to find something of interest to eat away at my free time while I waited. I didn't really want to do any homework since I knew I probably wasn't going back to school anytime soon, and eventually settled to reading Novus Vita by GioSpy while I waited…