Chapter 1: Great Falls, Montana

Dustin Martens woke. Every sense he had, other than his eyes and ears, screamed there was someone in his room. Keeping his eyes slitted so the intruder would believe he still slept, he listened and searched the room for what had woken him. He didn’t dare move in case the intruder realised he was awake. However, his eyes and ears found nothing.

So, sighing as if he’d become uncomfortable in the position he was in, Dustin moved so that he could search the rest of the room. But no matter where he looked, there was nothing to see or hear, yet still, his senses screamed that there was an intruder.

Dustin began to move again, but as he searched the darkened corners, an arm slipped around his throat and gripped tightly. Then, as he felt a large, firm breast push against his cheek and the tip of something sharp press against the skin under his ear, a woman whispered, “Shut up and hold still. Don’t make me cut you!” Then the woman’s voice demanded, “Remember who you are! They’re here to kill you. If you don’t remember who you are, we both die!”

“Who the fuck are you?” Dustin quietly hissed, keeping his voice low despite thinking this was a dream or a case of mistaken identity.

“Your mother.”

“Mum?” Dustin questioned, knowing the size and strength of the woman holding him down meant it wasn’t his mother, Lucy. “What are you doing?”

“I’m not your ‘mum’,” the voice corrected. “I’m your mother. You were expelled from my vagina more than three thousand years ago.”

Despite the knife held to his cheek, Dustin replied, “I turned eighteen yesterday. What on earth are you talking about?”

“Fuck!” The woman swore. “You assimilated your chosen personality completely, didn’t you? You didn’t retain your previous memories when you assumed this body and became this person totally.”

“Lady, I have no idea what the fuck you’re talking about,” Dustin quietly snarled, still heeding her demand to be quiet.

“Remember!” The woman repeated. “Remember, or die, and kill me with you!”

Dustin had no idea what the woman wanted, but he tried to do what she commanded, so he loosened the restraints on his memory and remembered. Suddenly, memories of hundreds, maybe thousands of lives coursed through his mind.

“Yes!” His ‘mother’ quietly crowed. “Remember the first. Forget those that came after, and remember who you are!”

An image formed in his subconscious —A woman: Tall, around 178 cm (5ft 8in), weighing about 56 kg (125 lbs). Black: So black as to shine like ebony. Lips: Full and pouting. Teeth: White, even and gleaming. Eyes: Dark brown, appearing black, with corneas gleaming even whiter than her teeth. Her eyes, nose, mouth and chin in perfect symmetrical sync. Breasts, waist and hips in perfect symmetry, 35-26-35.

Then a memory formed —Tall, muscled, her King’s body lying dead and bloodied on the battlefield behind her, taking up the ‘King’s’ headdress, then leading her warriors against the white slavers. She’d bested the best of the rest, her King the only one to have bettered her in battle on the night of their marriage, so her King’s warriors followed her eagerly.

That day, this ‘warrior-queen’ led her tribe to victory, despite the odds stacked against them and ruthlessly slaughtered the white invaders as she ignored their pleas for mercy.

“Good!” His ‘mother’ whispered. “Now change!”

Unable to comprehend what she meant, Dustin did nothing.

Despairing, the woman said, “Change and fight. Remember, and we have a chance of getting out of here alive and keeping your family safe.”

‘Change?’ Dustin thought.

But suddenly, he remembered the woman in his memory’s name, प्रातः सूर्य (Morning Sun), and felt himself change. His body shortened from the 193 cm (6ft 4in) he was to 178 cm (5ft 8in). His weight plummeted from a podgy 96 kg (212 lbs) to 56 kg (125 lbs), and he could feel breasts, large but firm, forming on his chest as his 7-inch cock retracted and something else (?) appeared.

His mother fingered his newly formed ‘button’ and cried, “Yes!”, then showed ‘him’, no, her, the weapons that she held. Taking the battle axe in her strong hands, Morning said, “Mother, what are we facing here?

“They’ve found you again, baby,” दिनं प्रभात इति (Day Dawning) answered, “It’s time to fight to escape, then run again, and re-establish yourself elsewhere.”

“Why don’t we kill them and be done with it?”

“Because they can’t be permanently killed. Every time we kill one, another gets added to their number, and they become stronger and faster than before. The last time they came for you, we barely escaped.”

“Why do they want to kill me? I don’t understand,” Morning asked.

Day hissed, “Remember! You must remember!” Then she tweaked Morning’s tits and fingered her button again.

‘Were she and her mother intimate?’ Morning wondered. She didn’t think so, but there was a familiarity to her mother’s caress, so maybe they were. What Morning did know was that as her sexual arousal grew, her memories strengthened, and she felt her mind, her psyche, becoming more attuned to the body she now inhabited.

Feeling her mind mesh with her memories, Morning answered her own question, “My ability to shapeshift! They believe I carry it in my blood and can harvest it from me if they kill me and drain me dry.”

Knowing now, Morning asked the only question that mattered now, “How many and how long have we got?”

“Five, and they’re here now,” Day yelled as she dove apart from her daughter, creating a gap and two single targets for their attackers to aim for.

The bedroom door crashed in, and five hulking, ogre-sized men boiled into the room, their spears stabbing towards the bed. Morning contemptuously slapped the first two spears aside with her axe, shattering their shafts and rendering them temporarily useless. Her counter swing sheared an arm off one of her assailants and cut a thick gouge across another’s stomach, spilling his entrails onto the floor.

At Day’s shouted, “No!” Morning held back her killing blow and turned to face her third attacker. Day had laid one of the other two assailants out unconscious but seemed to be struggling to contend with her second as the close confines of the bedroom’s corner were more suited to the stabbing spear than Day’s swinging sword.

Not thinking, Morning swiftly spun and side-kicked Day’s opponent in the back of the head, slumping him unconscious and forward onto Day’s stabbing sword.

“Maraigh sinn, a shoithí, agus troid deich amárach! (Kill us, you bitches, and fight ten tomorrow!)”, the final man shouted.

Ignoring him, Morning casually took off an arm and a leg before turning her back and walking out of the room, still proudly naked. Despite the damage to the man-like creatures in her bedroom, Morning knew that none of their wounds were fatal. However, it would take weeks, possibly months, before their limbs regrew and their injuries healed, and they could confront Morning and her mother again.