CHAPTER ONE

Riley wakes up the way she usually does, to the soft electronic chirp of the alarm built into the watch strapped to her wrist. It cycles through the same colors every morning while it beeps, the glow shifting across the inside of her bedroom like a tiny light show she’s seen so many times she barely registers it anymore.

Green.
Red.
Yellow.
Blue.
Green.
Red.
Yellow.
Blue.

The colors slide across the ceiling while the alarm keeps chirping, patient and repetitive, until she finally lifts her arm and squints at it.

She doesn’t even think about the colors anymore. The watch does that every morning when it wakes her up, just running through the system lights before settling where it’s supposed to. The sound is the only thing that actually pulls her out of sleep, that irritating little electronic chirp that keeps going until she taps the glass.

Riley groans quietly and rolls onto her back, staring at the ceiling for a second while the last traces of sleep crawl out of her head. Her hair is a mess and her room still feels cold from the night air. The watch light fades down as the alarm ends, the glow shrinking until it settles into the steady, ordinary green it always shows.

She rubs her eyes with the heel of her hand and lets her arm fall back onto the mattress.
Just another morning.

At least, that’s what she tells herself while she lies there for another minute, pretending she isn’t already thinking about what day it is.

Riley pushes the blankets off and swings her legs out of bed, the floor cold against her feet as she stands up and stretches. The watch on her wrist flashes briefly as it settles into its normal glow, and she barely glances at it before reaching for the clothes she laid out the night before.

Her school uniform is already folded on the chair beside her desk. She pulls on the tights first, hopping slightly as she drags them the rest of the way up her legs before stepping into the pleated skirt and fastening it at the waist. The buttoned shirt comes next, the fabric still a little stiff from the wash. She works through the buttons slowly, fingers half-awake, before shrugging into the dark blazer and tugging the sleeves straight.

By the time she pushes her feet into her smart school shoes and ties them, she looks exactly the way she’s supposed to. Pleated skirt, blazer, tights, polished shoes. Just another student heading to school on a Monday.

She heads downstairs and follows the smell of pancakes into the kitchen.

Her mom is already awake, standing by the stove with the pan in one hand and a spatula in the other, flipping another pancake onto a growing stack on a plate beside her. The kitchen is warm and bright compared to Riley’s room, the windows fogged slightly from the heat.

“Morning sweetie,” her mom says without turning around. “How’d you sleep?”

Riley shrugs and drops into her usual chair at the table, slouching a little as she rests her elbows on the surface.

“Fine, I guess.”

Her dad appears behind her a second later, leaning over the back of the chair and immediately ruffling her hair with one hand.

“Hey, I just brushed that!” Riley twists around and bats his hand away.

“Oh, sorry,” he says, completely ignoring her as he does it again, roughing it up even worse this time. “There. Now it’s even.”

Riley scowls and tries to flatten it back down with both hands.

“You suck.”

“That’s my job, sweetmeat,” he replies easily, already reaching past her for a mug from the cupboard.

“Dad, you can’t call me that,” Riley says, frowning at him across the table. “That’s what they call Red kids.”

Her dad pauses halfway through pouring coffee, glancing down at her over the rim of the mug like he’s deciding whether to argue about it or not.

“Who knows,” he says after a second, shrugging one shoulder. “Might get to use it today.”
Riley’s glare sharpens immediately.

“Don’t say things like that. It’s not funny.”

Her mom slides a plate of pancakes onto the table between them before the moment can stretch any further, syrup already soaking into the top one. She doesn’t comment on the exchange at all, just nudges the plate a little closer to Riley like that settles the matter.

“Eat before it gets cold,” she says, reaching for another pan from the stove.
Her dad finally sits down with his coffee, still looking mildly amused with himself while Riley stabs at the pancakes with her fork a little harder than necessary. The watch on her wrist catches the kitchen light when she lifts her hand, the green display flashing briefly before settling back into its steady glow while the three of them start eating.

Her dad waves a hand dismissively, still chewing.

“Oh honey, you already did your Transition Week,” he reminds her. “Saved us a ton on water bills not having to wash clothes for a whole week.”

Riley immediately rolls her eyes.

“Yeah, that was so great,” she says, dragging the words out as she cuts another piece of pancake. “Walking to school naked every day while Mr. Greern sat on his porch staring like a creep.”

Her dad snorts into his coffee.

“He wasn’t oggling,” he says, like that part is obvious. “He was appreciating.”

“Appreciating what?” Riley shoots back, glaring at him. “The educational value of my ass?”

Her mom sighs softly from the stove but there’s a hint of a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth as she flips another pancake.

“Language,” she says automatically.

Riley stabs at her pancakes again, clearly not impressed.

“I’m serious, he was totally staring. Every morning I’d walk past and he’d just be sitting there with his stupid coffee mug like it was the highlight of his day.”
Her dad shrugs, unconcerned.

“Well, people are curious. That’s the whole point of Transition Week. Gets you used to it, gets everyone else used to it too.”

Riley mutters something under her breath that sounds suspiciously like “fucking pervert,” then shoves another bite into her mouth while the watch on her wrist glows quietly against the kitchen light.

The radio beside the microwave cuts the music off mid-song and switches to the bright little jingle everyone in the country recognizes immediately. It’s cheerful in that forced, overproduced way that makes it stick in your head whether you want it to or not.

The room goes quiet for a moment. Not dramatic quiet, just the automatic pause people make when the Lottery reminder comes on.

Riley keeps chewing her pancake but her stomach tightens anyway, the same way it always does when she hears it.

A smooth, upbeat voice fills the kitchen.

“Don’t forget, today is Lottery Day! If you’re lucky enough to avoid conversion this week, remember to support the brave citizens who weren’t. Respect Animals. Offer them a ride home. Buy them a warm drink. Help make the transition from Human to Animal as painless as possible.”
The voice brightens even more for the last line.

“Remember: it’s FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY!”

The jingle plays again, just as cheerful as before, and then the station drops right back into the regular program like nothing unusual happened.

The DJ’s voice returns, warm and casual.

“And that was your Monday Lottery reminder! Now let’s get back to some music to start the week right. Here’s a classic to shake the sleep out of you…”

The kitchen fills with music again.

Riley stares down at her plate for a second before taking another bite of pancake, pretending the announcement didn’t make her chest feel tight the way it always does. Her dad is already eating again and her mom has gone back to the stove, the whole thing passing as quickly as a weather report.

Riley pokes at the stack of pancakes on the plate between them, looking up toward the stove where her mom is still flipping another one like the pile isn’t already big enough to feed three more people.

“Mom, eat,” Riley says, nudging the plate slightly across the table. “You made way too many.”
Her mom doesn’t even turn around at first. She lifts the pan, slides another pancake onto the stack, and wipes her hands on a dish towel before finally glancing back toward the table.

“Hey,” she says mildly, pointing the spatula at Riley like she’s making an important correction. “It’s a tradition in this house to make pancakes on Lottery Day.” She reaches over and straightens the plate Riley pushed.

“And by the Draw,” she adds matter-of-factly, “I’m cooking pancakes.”

Riley lets out a quiet groan and drops her head forward for a second before sitting back up again.

“You always make too many,” she mutters.

Her dad takes another bite of his pancake and shrugs, completely unconcerned.

“Better too many than too few,” he says around the mouthful, reaching for the syrup again while the music from the radio keeps playing like it’s just another Monday morning.

Riley slides her empty plate away from her, pushing it across the table until it rests near the middle. Her fork and knife sit neatly on top of it, the way her mom insists they should.

“I’m done,” she says, leaning back in her chair. “Guess we’ll have cold pancakes for dinner.”

“Looking forward to it,” her dad replies without missing a beat. He reaches over and piles two more pancakes onto his own plate like he’s trying to beat some personal record.

Riley stands up and grabs her school bag from the back of the chair.

“See you later, kiddo,” he adds.

She leans down automatically so he can kiss her on the cheek. He manages to smear a little syrup there while he does it.

“Gross,” Riley says immediately, wiping at the sticky spot with the sleeve of her blazer.
Her mom leans over from the counter and gives her a quick kiss too before shooing her toward the door.

“Don’t forget your lunch.”

“I didn’t,” Riley mutters, already slinging the bag over her shoulder.

She heads out the front door and pulls it shut behind her, stepping into the cool morning air.
The street looks exactly the same as it always does on a weekday morning: quiet houses, a couple of parked cars, the faint sound of someone mowing a lawn somewhere down the block.

And, like every morning, Mr. Greern is sitting on his porch.

He’s in the same old wooden chair he always uses, coffee mug in one hand while he watches the street with that calm, lazy patience of someone who doesn’t have anywhere else to be.

He spots Riley almost immediately and raises a hand in a friendly little wave.

Riley notices him at once, of course. She always does.

She keeps walking like she didn’t.

Riley walks to school every morning. Her parents insist the bus is a waste of money since the school isn’t that far away, though it’s still far enough to be annoying when the weather’s cold or the wind decides to pick up for no reason.

She cuts down the same streets she always does, passing the same houses, the same trimmed hedges, the same parked cars that barely move during the week. Most of the neighborhood is already awake by the time she’s halfway down the block, people leaving for work or watering plants or standing around with coffee like they don’t have anything better to do.

A gust of wind pushes down the street and catches the edge of her pleated skirt. Riley immediately presses a hand down over it out of instinct, holding the fabric against her legs while the wind passes.

Then she pauses for half a second and wonders why she even bothered.

Everyone around here already saw everything during Transition Week. Every morning she’d walked this same route to school with nothing on at all, the whole stupid neighborhood watching like it was some kind of daily parade. Teachers said it was about “normalizing the human body” and “removing unhealthy modesty habits,” but mostly it just meant a lot of adults suddenly finding excuses to be outside at eight in the morning.

She still remembers how weird it felt that first day, stepping out the door like that and realizing there was no backing out of it. By the third day it wasn’t as bad, and by the end of the week it mostly just felt awkward instead of terrifying.

Still, the habit sticks.

So Riley keeps her hand on the skirt for another few steps before letting go, adjusting the strap of her school bag on her shoulder while the watch on her wrist glows quietly against the morning light as she continues down the street toward school.
The school campus comes into view at the end of the street, the brick buildings already buzzing with students moving toward the entrances. Riley picks up her pace automatically once she sees the crowd, jogging the last stretch of pavement until she spots Amanda ahead of her near the gate.

She creeps up behind her and taps her on the shoulder, just hard enough to get her attention before quickly stepping to the other side so Amanda turns the wrong way.

Amanda spins around, confused for half a second before Riley steps back into view.

“Oh hey!” Amanda says, laughing as she grabs Riley and pulls her into a tight hug.

Riley hugs her back, the two of them squeezing each other for a second before Amanda pulls away and looks her up and down like she’s checking something important.

“How were the pancakes?”

Riley snorts and adjusts her bag on her shoulder.

“I’m pretty sure Mom mistook the bread in my sandwich for more pancakes,” she says. “If I get picked today I really will be sweet meat.”

Amanda giggles immediately, covering her mouth with her hand while Riley grins at her like she’s proud of the joke.

“Shut up,” Amanda says between laughs. “That’s so bad.”

“It’s true though,” Riley replies, nudging her with her elbow as they start walking toward the building with the rest of the students moving around them.

They head inside with the rest of the students, the hallway already filling with noise as lockers slam and people shout across the corridor to friends. The school building always smells faintly like cleaning spray and old books, the kind of smell that never really goes away no matter how many times they mop the floors.

Everyone around them is dressed exactly the same. Blazers, skirts, trousers, polished shoes, ties pulled a little too loose around the neck. The uniform rules here are stricter than most of the schools in the area, something the administration is weirdly proud of.
Some schools let students come in wearing normal clothes if they want to. A couple even allow clothing-optional days outside of Transition Week, supposedly to keep students “comfortable with the human body.”

This school doesn’t do that.

Here, the uniform is mandatory. Always.

Riley has heard teachers talk about it before like it’s about discipline and presentation and maintaining a proper academic environment. She’s pretty sure that’s bullshit.

In Riley’s opinion, the real reason is that it makes Transition Week hit harder.

If everyone spends the entire year carefully dressed in neat uniforms and polished shoes, then suddenly showing up to school with nothing on at all feels a lot more noticeable. A lot more embarrassing. A lot harder to pretend it’s normal when you’re walking past the same teachers and the same classrooms you sit in every day.

She remembers how quiet the hallway felt that first morning of her Transition Week, how everyone tried not to stare while absolutely staring anyway.

Amanda nudges her shoulder as they weave through the crowd toward their lockers.

“You thinking about lunch already?” Amanda asks.

Riley snorts. “Always.”

They make it to homeroom just before the bell, slipping into their usual seats while the rest of the class settles down around them. Bags drop onto the floor, chairs scrape across the tile, and a few people are still talking too loudly until the teacher clears her throat near the front of the room.

Miss Lennox stands beside her desk with a clipboard tucked under one arm, waiting just long enough for the chatter to die down. “Good morning, everyone,” she says evenly. “And happy Lottery Day.”

A couple of kids mumble it back halfheartedly while others just stare at their desks or fidget with the straps of their watches. Miss Lennox doesn’t seem to care either way. She’s done this speech enough times that it comes out the same every week.

“Remember that lunch begins at eleven-thirty,” she continues, tapping the clipboard lightly with a pen. “You will be expected to return to this classroom afterward in time for the Lottery Bell.
I don’t want anyone wandering the halls when the draw happens.”

A boy near the back raises his hand without bothering to stand.

“What if you’re picked, Miss Lennox?”

A few heads turn toward her, including Riley’s.

Miss Lennox doesn’t hesitate.

“Then I will call the substitute and remain present until they arrive,” she replies calmly, like she’s explaining a fire drill. “I will remove my clothing.”

She pauses just long enough to look directly at the boy who asked.
“And if you touch me,” she adds, her tone completely flat, “I will reserve my Animal right to bite.”

A few students snicker under their breath while the boy shrinks back in his chair, looking both embarrassed and slightly impressed at the same time.
Miss Lennox glances down at her clipboard again, already moving on.

“Now then,” she says. “Let’s begin.”
The rest of the morning passes the way school mornings usually do. After homeroom everyone splits off into their first classes, the hallways briefly filling with students before settling back into the quieter rhythm of lessons and the occasional bell.
Riley’s first class is math.

She spends most of it half-paying attention while copying numbers from the board into her notebook, the teacher droning on about equations that Riley is pretty sure she understood five minutes ago but somehow already forgot. A few kids keep glancing down at their watches out of habit even though the draw isn’t until later, and the teacher has to remind them twice to actually focus on their work.

When the bell rings she grabs her bag and heads to her next class.

Home Economics is the one she actually likes.

Mostly when it’s baking. Baking means cookies, cakes, and things you can eat immediately instead of standing around watching something simmer for half an hour. Today isn’t baking, though. Today they’re making stew.

The classroom smells like onions and broth as several groups of students work around the counters, cutting vegetables and stirring pots under the teacher’s supervision. Riley and Amanda end up at the same station, Amanda handling the carrots while Riley stands over the pot, stirring slowly while the meat cooks down with everything else.

The teacher had handed out the meat earlier in small trays, already cut into uneven little strips.

Cheap cuts.

Riley doesn’t really think about where the meat came from as she stirs it into the broth. Nobody in the class does. It’s just another ingredient, no different than the potatoes or the celery.

The slivers soften as they cook, losing whatever shape they might have had before.

It could be one person.

It could be ten.

Sometimes the cheaper batches are mixed together before they get packaged for schools anyway.
Either way, it wasn’t high-grade enough to end up in restaurants or grocery displays where people care about things like origin labels and quality ratings.

School use is good enough.

Riley leans over the pot and stirs again, watching the pieces move through the broth while Amanda drops another handful of chopped vegetables into the mix. The smell fills the room as the stew thickens, and somewhere behind them another group starts arguing about whether theirs has too much salt.

When the stew is finally done simmering, the teacher walks around the stations with a spoon, tasting each group’s pot like a judge on one of those cooking shows. She pauses at Riley and Amanda’s station, dips the spoon into the broth, and blows on it before taking a careful sip.

She nods after a second.

“Not bad,” she says, setting the spoon down on the counter. “Good balance. You didn’t overcook the meat.”

That’s apparently the approval they were waiting for. Amanda grabs a couple of bowls from the shelf while Riley ladles the stew out of the pot, the broth thick and hot as it splashes into the bowls.

They end up eating most of it right there at the station, leaning against the counter with spoons in their hands while the rest of the class does the same. Someone across the room complains that their group’s stew tastes like salty garbage, and another group starts arguing about whose fault that is.

Riley’s is actually pretty good.

She scoops up another spoonful, blowing on it before taking a bite. The meat is soft now, barely holding together after simmering in the broth with everything else. Amanda seems to agree, because she’s already halfway through her bowl and reaching back toward the pot for another scoop.

“Okay yeah,” Amanda says through a mouthful, “this is actually really good.”

“Told you,” Riley replies, scraping the bottom of her bowl with the spoon.

By the time the teacher tells them to stop eating and start cleaning up, there isn’t much left in their pot anyway. It ends up being a small lunch before the real lunch.

Then the bell rings.

The sharp sound cuts through the classroom and the noise drops almost immediately. A few students freeze mid-motion while they wipe down the counters or rinse spoons in the sink.

11:30.

Lunch.

Nobody says it out loud, but everyone in the room knows what that means today.

Half an hour.

Half an hour until the draw.

Half an hour until people across the country—across every timezone connected to the system—have their watches change color and their lives end up somewhere completely different from where they started the morning.

“Come on,” Amanda says, holding out her hand across the counter once they finish rinsing their bowls.

Riley looks at it for a second before taking it, their fingers locking together automatically the way they always do when one of them is nervous about something they don’t want to talk about too much.

They leave the Home Economics room with the rest of the class spilling out into the hallway. The corridors are louder now, students heading toward lunch, lockers opening and closing while people try to act normal even though everyone knows what’s coming.

Amanda doesn’t let go of Riley’s hand as they weave through the crowd.

“Nervous?” she asks after a moment, glancing sideways at her.

Riley shrugs a little, trying to make it look like it doesn’t matter either way.

“Always.”