3...2...1... Engine start. We have liftoff!

The shuttle shook as it slowly climbed into the air, taking me higher and higher into orbit. Within eight minutes I was weightless, docking the ship to the International Space Station, where I was going to be staying for half a year.

I entered the ISS, bringing my belongings and equipment on board. Saying hello to the other American occupants, Vincent and Chloe, I passed them and stowed my belongings before checking up on the various American projects.

When I was finished, I went back and properly greeted Vincent and Chloe, and we all ate a meager meal of astronaut lunch and then went back to work on our projects.

Chloe was videoing how cello music effects weightless water for an experiment, and I was propelling myself through the station to join her when the whole station shook. I looked at Chloe, she looked at me, and we immediately began cleaning up the floating water before going to find the others to figure out what happened. Everyone in the station gathered in the central room, where all of our monitoring systems were. Dmitri, one of the Russian astronauts, was checking the monitors, trying to figure out what struck us.

"I do not know what happened, because everything is good," he said in his Russian accent. "Electronics are good, experiments are good, solar arrays are good, everything. It like nothing happened."

That confused everyone. Surely we weren't imagining the station shaking? "Let's report this to NASA," I said, decisively.

"Good idea," Dmitri replied. He pushed off the side of the station where he was at, floating over to the monitor that held our communication systems with Earth. "NASA, something made station visibly shake, but all  systems good. Everyone okay and everyone is where should be. Please advise, we not sure what happened."

"From what we can tell, Dmitri, everything seems fine on our end as well," came the reply after a moment or two. "When is the next planned spacewalk?"

"Vincent and I were scheduled to go out in three days, sir," I spoke up, answering for Dmitri.

"Okay, good," NASA responded. "When you go out, check the hull for any light damage- you may have been struck by a small object that caused the shaking."

"Roger that, sir," I replied. "And until then?"

"Continue as you were," he said, and we dropped the link.

Everyone shrugged and dispersed to go back to our projects. Chloe and I went back to the water, and began playing the music again and videoed as the water danced. Before too long, it was time for bed, and we strapped ourselves into our sleeping bags for the night.

In three days, as scheduled, Vincent and I suited up and got ready to go out on our spacewalk. When we were out there, I had to take a moment to look down at Earth in its breathtaking beauty. I saw endless amounts of green and brown and blue and white, amazing cloud formations, beautiful snow-capped mountain ranges and golden plains. It took my breath away, and it made me feel so miniscule, I felt like the smallest thing in the universe. I turned and looked over my shoulder into the black void of space, and that made me feel like I was looking into infinity, and that I could stare into it for hours if I so chose to. Then I was distracted by Vincent, and got to work on examining the hull.

As we searched the hull for damage, I found a small score in the side of the station with a small meteorite inside. Picking it up carefully in my bulky space gloves, I called Vincent over.

"Vincent, I found the source of the problem," I said.

"Okay, making my way over to you," he replied.

When he joined me, I carefully showed him the meteorite, and how small it was, then I showed him the score in the hull's metal that I had found it in.

"Wow," he said, appreciating the scar. "It must've been going pretty fast to make a mark like that."

"Yeah, no kidding," I said. "Well, let's report it and get back inside to show everyone."

"Sounds good."

Once inside, I had Vincent hold the meteorite while I got out of my suit until I could take it back from him with my bare hands. Taking a closer look at it, I saw that it had beautiful streaks of bright blue within its main color of rust red. I ran my finger along the streaks, figuring that they were some kind of copper-based chemical from the blue color.

The other astronauts, having heard that I found the source of what had caused the shaking, gathered around to see it as Vincent finished getting out of his suit. I passed him the meteorite first, since he was out there with me when I found it. He took it and examined it, then passed it around to the others, who all took a glance at it, then passed it back to me.

"Well, that is interesting," Ivan said, as he passed it back to me. "You said it was in a deep score in metal of hull?"

I nodded, looking at its beautiful colors again. "Yeah, we figured it must've been moving pretty quickly through space and hit us in a glancing blow to cause such a score without going through the metal completely."

I kept the meteorite in my pocket, and after we reported the find to NASA, continued on with life on the International Space Station.

Three days passed and I began feeling sick. I told the others that I was feeling under the weather, and they joked and said "Wait, we're above the weather, what are you talking about?" but then they sympathized and told me to drink plenty of water and get lots of rest. I nodded forlornly, knowing that I wouldn't be sent home for a minor sickness.

Over the next few days, however, my sickness got continually worse. I had a high fever, I felt completely disoriented -and not just because I was in a zero-gravity environment- and the area between my shoulder blades was getting increasingly sore for no apparent reason. Soon Vincent was getting sick with the same illness, but his progressed slower. When he got to the point I was, Chloe got sick as well. During the course of our sicknesses, the others had been reporting the state of our respective health to NASA for us. NASA, as they tell us, has been getting increasingly worried that we aren't getting better. Then Stella, one of the Russian astronauts on board, began getting sick as well, and that alarmed everyone back at home enough to get us all home to monitor our sickness to see if they could identify it, since it didn't quite match any of the illnesses or viruses anyone ever knew about on Earth.

The well gathered the belongings of the unwell and placed them into the space shuttle that would take us all home. They then gathered all of their belongings and found spots for them as well. Both our American commander and pilot were sick, but the Russians had also been trained for the shuttle, just as we had been trained for their Russian spacecraft. The shuttle just had more room within it's body for all of the astronauts on board the station.

Dmitri, our Russian commander, and Ivan, our Russian pilot, took their seats in the cockpit of the shuttle after they carefully transported all of the sick people into the shuttle.

They communicated with NASA, waiting for the go-ahead to uncouple from the station. I was mostly out of it, just ready to go home and get better. My back was hurting and I didn't know why, my head felt so stuffy I couldn't even move air through my nose at all, and I felt really hot and really cold in bursts. Vincent and Chloe and Stella all looked like they felt the same.

Soon we were uncoupling from the station and beginning the descent into Earth's atmosphere. I didn't pay much attention to the process of getting home, instead I just focused on that I was getting home.

Within an hour and a half, we were wheels down on the long airstrip at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, and I didn't move. I couldn't move. I was so sick I had lost all my strength to fight against gravity because I hadn't needed much energy or strength in space when I was weightless to move around. Vincent, Chloe, and Stella weren't much better. Dmitri and Ivan came back to tell us that they were putting all of us in quarantine so that whatever the heck we had didn't get spread to the rest of the world. I didn't really care, I just wanted to get off the ship and into a bed, whether it be my own bed or a hospital bed in quarantine.

Soon enough, people in hazmat suits came to get us, with extra hazmat suits for all six of us to wear to be moved into quarantine. They gave the suits to Dmitri and Ivan, who first helped the rest of us who were sick into ours before getting into theirs. Stella could still get up and move around, since she wasn't as far gone as us Americans were, but we were all pretty much dead with how little we could move. After Dmitri and Ivan helped us with our suits, we were lying on the floor of the shuttle, unable to get up.

When Dmitri and Ivan told the people on the ground that we were all ready, they also told them that the Americans could not move and would need heavy assistance. With that knowledge, we had to wait a bit longer to be moved while they got stretchers for us all.

That happened in under half an hour, and they had Dmitri and Ivan carry us out one-by-one to be put onto the stretchers. Once everyone was out, they all moved us into an airtight room with six hospital beds and several various things for our entertainment while we were in the room, such as individual tablets for watching movies or TV shows, board games, jigsaw puzzles, and face cards. Dmitri and Ivan helped the nurses who had gotten the stretchers for us get us onto three of the beds. I was the first, since I was the most sick, being the first to catch the sickness. Vincent was next, as he had gotten sick next. Chloe came after him, and then Stella chose her own bed and flopped herself onto it, and Dmitri and Ivan got the remaining beds, but as they weren't sick yet, they didn't get into them right away. Instead, they chose a puzzle and began working on it on the table in the room.

The next few hours passed in a blur. Doctors and nurses in hazmat suits came into the room to take samples from Vincent, Chloe, Stella, and me before also taking samples from Dmitri and Ivan, to see how the sickness progressed.

I passed in and out of consciousness, not really caring what was going on around me, just knowing that my back was getting incredibly sore and hurting to the blazes and back. I decided to roll over onto my side to try and relieve the pressure, but I couldn't. I still had no strength, at all. I called out as loudly as I could for assistance.

"Dmitri," I said, barely more than a whisper. "Ivan."

Only Ivan came over. "Dmitri has gotten sick. What do you need, Crystal?" he said.

"Will you," I started, beginning to lose consciousness again, "roll me onto my.. my side? I can't move..."

"Of course," he said, and carefully lifted my right side, rolling me onto my left. I sighed in relief, the pain in my back having mostly gone with that.

"That's much... much better," I sighed. What I didn't notice, however, was that Ivan was staring in horror at my back. He backed away slowly, and ran to the airlock, calling for assistance. Someone soon came, and he showed them my back. Hearing the commotion, I asked what was going on.

"You're growing wings, Crystal," Ivan replied. "You have wings growing out of your back."

My mind was so clouded by sickness I couldn't really comprehend what he was saying because it was so bizarre. "What?"

He must've gotten the idea that I couldn't comprehend what he was saying so he instead grabbed my hand and stretched it behind me, putting it onto a fuzzy something that was attached to my back.

I. Freaked. Out.

"What is that?! It's attached to me! Get it off!"

The nurses in hazmat suits took over and tried calming me down, but it didn't work, so instead they gave me something through my IV that knocked me out.

Eventually, when I was close to death from the fever, and everyone including Ivan had gotten sick, the doctors and nurses had a breakthrough in finding the cure. They tested it on Vincent and me first, since we were the closest to death. Within hours, my fever broke and I was able to begin getting my strength back. Vincent was also having the same results, and when I could lift my head on my own accord for the first time since getting sick, I looked over and saw that he had grown wings, too. His wings had mostly yellow fuzz on them, with small pinfeathers coming through it. It seemed that they weren't done growing yet. I reached my hand around and felt my own wings. From what I could feel, mine probably looked about the same as his did.

More days passed, and I was soon able to sit up on my own and stretch my wings out, admiring the small white feathers growing on them. Vincent could also sit up, and we began talking more to pass the time, since we still couldn't move about much. Getting to know each other better, since we had nothing else to do, I found out that he wasn't a huge singer like I was, but instead preferred listening to music. We were both into video games, but I preferred more geeky games like The Legend of Zelda while he preferred racing games such as Need For Speed; Heat. We both enjoyed a game of Minecraft now and then, and we began playing together on the tablets provided.

When we were able to stand on our own, we started helping care for the others as they had done for us. Our wings kept growing, and soon they were quite large and starting to get in the way. Chloe's wings were at the yellow fuzz stage when the doctors came rushing into the airlock in their hazmat suits telling us of a new cure that would cure the others' illness and genetic defect at the same time. I was skeptical, thinking that Chloe and Stella, who had both already begun growing their wings, wouldn't be able to just stop the process, no matter the cure. But I listened to the doctors, and allowed them to administer the cure to the other astronauts.

Now began the wait to see if they would recover. During the night, though, all of their fevers rose steadily to an even higher temperature, and the alarms woke us. Rushing out of bed to Chloe's side, I checked her forehead and flinched away at the heat I felt there. Looking at the monitor, I froze as I saw 109°F flashing on the screen. Vincent, the cooler head, rushed to the sink and back with cool, wet rags to place on our friends' foreheads, hoping to cool them down. I was galvanized into action and rushed to do the same, my wings getting in the way again. We took turns refreshing each rag with cool water, trying to keep them as cool as possible. Soon we were joined by a couple nurses in the same old hazmat suits, who took over Dmitri and Stella, and so there was one carer to each fevered astronaut, constantly refreshing their cool rags.

It was two in the morning when Chloe died. I was going back for another round to cool off the rag, but when I turned back, she'd stopped breathing.

"Chloe?" I said, hoping against hope that she was still alive. She didn't respond. I put my hand on her shoulder, shaking it a little. "Chloe, stay with me, my friend, please!"

One of the nurses heard me and came over. She took a look at Chloe, checking her pulse and vitals. "I'm sorry, Ms. Kunz," she said, putting a gloved hand on my shoulder. "She's gone. The fever was too much for her."

I sank to the floor in my shock, my wings going limp. "No," I whispered, in denial. "I should've noticed sooner, I should've been able to help her better. I should've been there for her..."

The nurse got down with me and shook me, bringing me back to the present. "No!" she shouted, startling me. "Don't you dare start blaming yourself for her death! You did as much as you could do for her in her final moments, and that's all anyone could ever ask for!"

I stared at her, and realized that she was right. I couldn't blame myself for Chloe's death, because I did all I could and that was it. I did my best and she still died- that must've meant that it was her time to go.

I took another minute to ponder on it before throwing myself into the work again. There were three other astronauts in the room who were on the brink of death, and I'd be damned if I didn't do as much as I could to help them. I took over at the water station, getting extra rags to soak in cool water so that there was a reserve system. Vincent or the nurses would come to me for a new rag and give me the warm one, which I would put in the cool water again.

Another hour had passed when Stella died. I didn't know her as well and didn't grieve as much for her, continuing my work for Dmitri and Ivan. But, they soon passed as well, and there wasn't much I could do about it. Vincent was as distraught over Ivan as I had been over Chloe, but before he could begin blaming himself as I had done I gave him the same treatment the nurse had given to me, telling him he had done the best he could do.

They carefully moved the four astronauts into airtight bodybags and took them away to be cremated, as they couldn't be buried for fear of spreading the sickness.

Vincent and I went back to bed, exhausted after the night's events.

When I awoke, I didn't move, not really wanting to after the deaths of my friends. I looked over and saw that Vincent was staring vacantly at the ceiling as well. Feeling empathy for him, I got up for his sake and walked over to sit by him, seeking comfort myself as much as I was comforting him. He saw me walking towards him, and sat up.

"How you holdin' up?" I asked him. He sighed. "That good, huh?"

That earned a small smile, but it quickly disappeared. He ran a hand through his hair and shifted his wings before speaking. "What do you do when your friends die?"

At that, it was my turn to sigh, run my hand through my hair, and shift my wings. I didn't really know what to say, so I just shrugged helplessly. I turned and pulled my right wing forward to look at it and run my hands through my feathers. Both of my wings were mostly white, with a gradient blue stripe along the leading edge, with the darker edge closest to my back and the lightest edge at the tip. Vincent's wings were the same, except his gradient stripe was green rather than blue. Running my hands through my feathers, a thought struck me.

"Do you think we'd be able to fly with these things?"

He looked at my wing, pulled around in front of me, then at his own wings over his shoulder. He stood and went over to the middle of the room and spread his wings as wide as he could, stretching them before beginning to flap them. Up and down and up and down and up and down. After a few minutes of that, he stopped and gestured for me to take his place in the center of the room and do the same.

I obliged, walking to the center of the room as he relaxed his wings and folded them. I stretched my wings out as far as they could go, before carefully raising them to the highest they could go and pushing down hard.

Smack! I yelped as they hit the floor of the room, jarring the joints straight to my shoulder. Vincent winced in empathy, but then began laughing at me. I glared at him.

"You said to start flapping!" I exclaimed, indignant at his laughter.

"I didn't say flap so hard you hit the floor!" he laughed back. I scowled at him again.

"We're going to need a bigger room," I said resolutely.

~~~¥~~~

Vincent's wings at the top, Crystal's wings on the cover.

This story is another take on Upon Wings of Change by CrystalScherer where I explore the question of "What if some humans survived the goo-ifying light?"

And, once again, the main character's name has nothing to do with the author of the original work :)

Think of this chapter as kind of a "teaser trailer"-- I'm still working on the rest of the story but I wanted to post the first chapter to get a read on if people would actually read it. And, so people can get it into their libraries so they'll be notified when I begin posting the rest of the chapters :3