Just as I opened the stall door a sudden wave of vertigo washed over me and with it came the realization of what I had just done. Not only had I grown a beak like a fucking octopus, but I had eaten my friend's fingers! ‘No! This is fucking wrong! Even if she was acting inappropriately what I just did is way worse!’ Sickened by my own actions I stormed back into the stall and began retching. Only when after several seconds still nothing left my stomach, I turned around to Clarissa.

Almost as if the opening of the door had broken a spell over the two of us, she too looked on the edge of a shock. Like she couldn’t believe what her eyes were seeing she stared at the two stumps of her fingers. Slowly noticing my attention on her, her other hand raised to point at the mutilated one. Her mouth tried to form words but no sound came out. Again and again, her eyes darted from the remains of her left hand to my crotch.

I knew what she was looking for; the thing that had hurt her damaged her, eaten her, the thing that was part of me. It made no sense for it to be there. It was a second mouth in my crotch area and it had just, basically with my okay, eaten human flesh. Not only human flesh but the flesh of someone alive, someone that I saw as my friend. I was almost about to embrace Clarissa, tell her that it would never happen again but even a single step forward made her instinctively recoil. After all, who was I fooling? If I had given in to my warped instincts this easily, just what would happen once my metamorphosis was over? What kind of monster would I... No, would we be? Finally, a quiet whisper made me lookup.

“Your crotch ate my fingers... You ate my fingers!” The look she was giving me was full of revulsion and horror. Nothing of the sexually charged air from before was left. Instead, she was no longer looking at a sister but a monster. When she took another few steps back I couldn’t fault her for it. Who would want to be close to something like me? And yet I couldn’t let it end this way. I had to tell her that I didn’t want to do as I had done!

“Clarissa please wait!”

“Why should I?”

“Please! I didn’t want to hurt you! I don’t know what came over me!”

“I know... This thing, this being in our heads... it is warping and twisting us. Our bodies, our minds... How can we even still tell what is us and what Her?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know, but I never would hurt you willingly! Please don’t just leave me!”

“I’m sorry too, Val. I... I need to go. I need to say goodbye to my family. I’m not sure how much longer I can still say that I am myself... I have your number. I will call you once everything is done.”

“Clarissa!”

Without another word, she stormed out of the bathroom and past a very confused looking Karen. I could have run after her, even ordered her to stop but I didn’t. What use would that still have? I had not only broken her trust but seriously harmed her. If she wanted to come back it would be her decision... or Mother’s but certainly not mine. For several minutes I just sat there numbed to the world around me.

If I still had the strength to move then I didn’t want to. It felt as if every decision I had made today had been worse than the one before. Was I truly just the puppet for an insane God-like that had set her mind on gaining back what she had lost? And if all of me had become her daughter... would there still be anything left of me? ‘What point is there even in going on? Should I not just end it all here...’

My thoughts began trailing off and the last thing I felt was someone wrapping a blanket around my trembling form before darkness took me. Once more I found my consciousness floating in this same dark and comforting void like it had before. Despite my mind being in chaos, this place had an incredibly calming effect on me, as if you could just let go and rest. But before the feeling could overtake me, I felt a presence around my being.

By now I had a pretty good idea of what Mother’s touch felt like. Normally it was like a force of nature blowing away all resistance but this time it was far more subdued. It was almost timid in the way she prodded and poked at my being. Like she was searching for something but was scared of what she would find. After a while, she apparently was satisfied and retreated to a short distance from me.

“Daughter... you are... unhappy. Why?”

A dark chuckle escaped me as I thought about her question. Her mind worked so differently from our own.

“Obviously I am! You know what I just did. How could I not be unhappy!?”

The feeling coming from her turned to confusion and uncertainty.

“I do not understand. You wished to do these things... so I removed your inhibitions. But you are unhappy...”

“Just because we think of doing something doesn’t mean we actually want to do it! In our world, everything has consequences, often irreversible once! We... we are not like you. Our reality isn’t fluid and neither are our minds!”

This time I could feel her actively recoil from me. These concepts seemed almost alien to her; the very thought that her actions could have hurt her daughters seemed to truly terrify Mother. For a while, she didn’t speak but I could feel her presence swell and shrink in turmoil. When she was done and turned back to me her intent was full of sadness and regret.

“I... understand. I am sorry... Valerie. I must speak to your Sister. Stay as long as you like...”

The bulk of her presence faded away into the void, of in search of Clarissa’s mind no doubt. A long sigh escaped me and I curled up into a ball. Floating in this vast alien sea of nothingness I sank into a dreamless slumber. The Me of tomorrow could deal with my worries and problems, I was just way too tired right now.

The first thing I heard upon waking up was voices. At first, I would have assumed that it was one person speaking with themselves but after a bit, I realized that it had to be Karen and her sister arguing. Their voices were very similar but their speech patterns entirely different. Still not entirely sure as to what was going on I kept my eyes shut and simply listened.

“Once more I am telling you, there is no record of whatever is happening to her!”

“Maybe it’s just something new?”

“Karen! Listen to me! Who of us is studying meta-biology? Believe me when I said that I searched everywhere I could! The only thing I could find was obscure stuff from ten years ago and that was mostly redacted. By the hells! There were footnotes referring to books or papers that don’t even exist!”

“But just because of that she doesn’t have to be dangerous, right?”

“No... you are right. It isn’t like a MAV. She seems fully sentient despite how fast her body changes...”

“You know Katya, even you have to admit that there is a certain beauty to it. Just look at her! Imagine the possibilities...”

“Karen! No! We talked about this! Even if yes, she is... fascinating. We don’t know enough about what is going on to even consider it!”

“Ah... you’re right. It’s just... we waited and stalled for so long...”

“I’m sorry Karen. I promised you that we will find a way and I intend to keep that promise, we just need to wait a bit longer.”

“I... know. Katya, I love you!”

“I love you too...”

‘Okay. I feel like none of that was meant for my ears. What do I do now?’ Deciding that it wouldn’t really matter if they knew I had listened in or not I slowly began sitting up. Almost immediately I noticed that something was different. My head felt... heavier. ‘Ugh, what is it now? I really don’t have the energy to panic anymore.’

Once I reached up it became pretty clear as to what had changed. During the night my ‘hair’ had grown longer. Even the shortest tentacles reached now almost down to my collar bone. I wasn’t quite sure if tentacles had emotions but if I were to take a guess then I’d say they were rather happy with the new length. Like a bunch of over-excited snakes, they wrapped around each other as if intent on having each and every part of my head tentacled.

When my eyes adjusted to the way too bright light I noticed that other parts of my body had begun changing too. All across my upper body and arms the skin had begun to dry out and flake off. Even just a slight touch resulted in another few flakes falling away. Had I not already experienced so many traumatizing things in the last twenty-four hours I would have probably panicked. Now I was simply watching it with a detached curiosity. While my mind was still adjusting to this new reality, a far greater part of me hoped for the change to finally be over. It was maddening having to wait and slowly see yourself change.

I think I would have preferred the quick change magical beasts went through but then again apparently feeling your body and mind be ripped apart put back together was most likely not a pleasant experience. And yet there actually were people hoping or even trying to get themselves changed into one on a daily basis. Considering how volatile spirits usually were, ideas like that bordered on insanity. Even under a controlled environment thirty to forty percent of bindings resulted in the death and destruction of both spirit and host.

Still, it was hard to fault them for trying. There had even been a kind of cult around a young drake during the beginning of the convergence. That woman had achieved dragon status at an unprecedented age, just a few years after her emergence. Nobody knew where she was now as she hadn’t been seen in five years but she was irrefutable proof of the power one could gain from emerging. Then again there had been several countries outright declaring to open fire on any dragon to ever enter their airspace, so I really hoped that I wouldn’t gain as much renown as the “Dragon Queen of Neo York”.

Another extreme example I wouldn’t want to follow were those of demon worshippers or changelings. While changelings oftentimes had no choice in their conversion, worshippers actively sought out contact with the demonic Miasma. It was the biggest reason for why each demon visiting or living on earth had to wear a tracking bracelet and live in specifically build areas. Because even if they couldn’t do anything about it, every demon infected the mana around them with Miasma spreading their corruption.

This was also why next to everyone had adapted to saying hells instead of hell. You just never knew when another world would succumb to the Miasma. Magea, earth’s sister world the one she had collided with, would have almost shared that fate had it not been for the intervention of the God-like. And full circle my thoughts came back to my own situation.

I had no doubts that Mother was one of these elusive and powerful beings. But even after seeing her influence, I didn’t know what to make if it. Some people worshipped the God-like, most just kinda ignored that they existed hoping to never be noticed, but others like my father were obsessed with them. These people were constantly trying to figure out where the God-like had come from, how they worked, under what rules they operated but most importantly how to destroy them.

I had never figured out where his hate for both Meta-humans and the God-like had come from. He had seemed so proud when I had shown an aptitude for magic early in my life. I could still remember sitting on his lap as he told me about the wonders he had seen in Magea. His stories had fascinated and inspired me just as they must have done so himself in the past. The change to the person he was today, the man that treated his only daughter like garbage, it had been a slow and subtle one.

Each year he had gotten more obsessed with his work, starting to neglect other things. Things like me, one would have thought that where one parent failed, the other would make up for it but so it had never been for me. My birth mother always was a cold and clinical woman. Well, I said birth mother but she hadn’t actually cared to carry me. Instead, I had been a tube baby, literally in my case. And to make matters worse, once they had been confronted with the reality of my sickness I had completely fallen out of their favor. No matter how hard I had tried, nothing had managed to impress them.

But now things were different. If was no longer dependent on them. Instead, I had found a parent for myself that despite her faults actually seemed to care about me. If he had made it his purpose to remove the God-like from existence... Well, then it was on me to stop him. Mother had already been closer to me in this short time than they had ever been in my entire life! And at least with her, I knew that she actually loved her daughters...

“Oh! You are awake!”

‘Huh!?’ ‘By Mother! Did she sneak up on me!?’

“Sorry that you had to sleep on the couch but the flat isn’t really big enough for another bed. I mean my sister and I already sleep in the same bed. Haha~ OH! No- Not like this! Obviously! That would be gross! Hahaha!” ‘If you repeat that now with a straight face I might actually believe you.’

‘Karen.’

“Yes!”

‘I don’t care what you and your sister do or don’t do. That is your business and yours alone. Thank you for taking care of me though. That was very kind.’ I got off the couch and stretched my stiff muscles with a bunch of little pops before walking closer to my dear host.

‘But if I were you, I’d hide those rope burns better. Now then, I already paid for the food and I don’t really think you want a monster like me crashing at your place for too long. I’ll see myself out, thanks for everything, really.’

“Wait!”

‘Yes?’

“Can you give me your number? I... I want to stay in touch! And maybe you can visit me again?”

‘Sure.’

Despite her obvious interest in me I wasn’t sure hanging around her for too long was wise. My change wasn’t yet over and I needed someplace safe for it to run its course. But if it would make her happy I had no reason to object giving her a way of contacting me. A few minutes later I was already on my way out. Pulling up my hoodie I started walking to the nearest tram station.

Looking up with my new eyes, the sky was so bright it was almost a bit terrifying. And yet every step I took felt as if a weight was falling off my heart. While Mother was by no means perfect she was without a doubt the only way forward for me now. With her behind me, I would never again have to try and impress my birth parents. Instead, I could focus on whatever I wanted for myself. Maybe Clarissa and I could go travel once our metamorphosis was over? See the world for a few years before actually settling down somewhere. My delightful daydreams were all of a sudden rudely interrupted by the ringing of my phone.

It was Sadiya, obviously, it was. Who else could ruin a perfectly fine morning? Not thinking about it I already tapped the answer button before I realized the futility of this. Sadiya was a normal human, I couldn’t talk to her and telepathy didn’t work through phones!

“Valerie! Where, by the fucking Hells, have you been!? This is the third time I tried calling you!!! You can be so fucking happy that I haven’t told your parents yet! You will come home right this moment! I didn’t become your babysitter so I’d have to chase your damned ass across the town!”

A dark feeling felt up inside of me. Just who did she think she was? We hadn’t even known each other for much more than a single day and already she was acting as if she should have all control over my life! Once I was home I would make sure to silence her so she wouldn’t interfere in the things to come. But for now, I had a better idea, I could give her a taste of what was awaiting her! Slowly I raised the phone to my mouth and spoke.

“I’m coming home, my DEAR...”

“AH! What the fuck! My ears! Fuck!... Beep!”

There was no need to listen to her screaming I, after all, had a tram to catch!