The arrival

The trip fo school was relatively uneventful for the young man and if anything faster then it normally would have been; longer limbs and increased muscle mass had a tendency to do that... though the combination of his hulking frame and the baby blue backpack he'd had since grade 4 did cause people to stare at the 18 year old and for a hormonally charged 18 year old introvert this was.... stressful.

More so however, was the smells.

Part of the change had involved his sense of smell vastly improved and thus he was constantly being bombarded by scents that were both familiar and unfamiliar; there was the smell of the cars that drove by with their exhaust but also the rubber of the tires mixing with asphalt, old cigarette butts in the gutter mixed with maple leaves. Even the chain-link fence beside the sidewalk had a smell to it from the iron... and even as he got closer to high school he knew it was going to get worse because the school was full of people. His time at home had been odd enough with just his parents (who had a plethora of smells around them in addition to their own personal scent) and the family's basset hound (who Eric had a new found appreciation for given how he realized this was all probably normal). The school though, with it's 1000+ students and staff was going to be something of a nightmare.

As he went up the stairs Eric was acutely aware of how people staring at him as he tried to make his way to his locker as quickly as possible; it wasn't anything new for him, as the kinds of attention he got were usually the sort that were unkind... but the change to this "orc" frame had left him seething with a combination of testosterone and adrenaline that made him tend to reflexively respond in ways that tended to be... ****; during his time in isolation as his family had tried to figure out what had happened he'd accidentally bumped into his father as they were passing in the hall and suddenly found that he'd shoved him hard enough to embed him in the drywall to the shock of both. Stress only seemed to make these reactions worse and he *really* didn't want to accidentally hurt someone because of an impulse.

While he was somewhat lost in his thoughts, he was also aware that while some people were indeed watching him, no one was in his way, they all seemed to be able to notice his presence and part so that he wouldn't be impeded on his way.

After stashing his bag, Eric grabbed his books and made his way to his first class.