~SKYLAR AMBERLY VITALIS

---

(Image above of Skye Vitalis. Made in EvE Online's Avatar Engine)

I snapped out of my thoughts once more to find my reflection facing me through the full-length mirror in the corner of my room.

Being rather tall for a girl, I had a physical frame shaped by lean muscles beneath a layer of flawless mocha skin. My form being more athletic than anything else, made my curves rather reserved… and my chest moderate.

Frigid, platinum-silver eyes stared back at me, encompassed by long, full lashes, beneath a pair of thick brows slightly tilted in a frown.

My hair was a messy mane of spikes and short loose wisps, styled in a boyish cut. Coloured in a very dark deep-blue that was almost metallic in looks.

Smug lips pulled up in one corner into a calm, sly smirk that my reflection returned.

I wasn’t a vain person. But when my own body was something I had trained hard for, I couldn’t help the sense of satisfaction.

Feeling refreshed after the short shower, I had pulled on a white tank-top and a pair of jean shorts.

Oliver and his twin sister had both remarked on two separate occasions that my tomboy style and short haircut almost made me look androgynous… if it wasn’t for my chest and face.

I had shrugged it off back then. However, I couldn’t help but notice it every time I looked at my reflection or photos since.

Choosing to go barefoot, I stepped out into the short hallway and made my way into the kitchen.

Fumiko was still busy stirring a pot, so I hovered over her shoulder to see what she was up too.

“Smells nice.” I spoke.

“I thought I would go with a thicker broth today.” she replied.

“I was talking about your hair.” I noted. “Peach shampoo?”

She stared at me hard with narrowed eyes. “Sometimes I can’t decide if you’re being nice or just acting like an old pervert.”

I shrugged as I sat down on a stool at the kitchen island.

“How was uni today? Found a boyfriend yet?” I asked.

“See! That’s what I mean!” she pointed the wooden spoon at me. “An old man.”

“I’m twenty-one!” I said in a dramatic mock offence-taken gesture.

“And behave like you’re sixty.”

“Come on…” I whined. “We’ve been sisters for months now… spill the juicy titbits!”

“Three months.” she specified, “and I still haven’t fully figured you out yet.”

“In my defence, I can’t figure me out either.”

Fumiko growled as she turned her back to me.

I held back my laugh.

As a Japanese girl raised in rather strict household before her mother married my stepfather, Fumiko had yet to learn to be more casual around me. Which made it very fun to tease her.

But I loved having her as a sister regardless of her reservations.

She relied on me to guide her while she familiarised herself with the looser etiquette of the west, and I didn’t take that lightly.

Fumiko was a head shorter than me, with dark eyes and a beautiful flow of waist-length black hair – tied in a ponytail.

She was pale, and looked more like a walking porcelain doll with a childish pout on her small pink lips more than anything else.

Her habit of wearing dresses with flowery designs only emphasized that fact.

“Need any help?” I asked genuinely.

“You cook with two left hands, and you make me fear for my life.” she pouted.

It was hard to suppress my smile.

Dinner was a brief affair between the two of us since my stepparents hadn’t been with us for almost an entire week now.

Fumiko discussed that her mother – my stepmother – would be back in a couple more days.

We made light conversation about mundane things and I managed to sneak in a couple of jokes and a few teases.

My sister frowned, but couldn’t entirely erase the small smile constantly tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“So, you freelance?” she asked. “Didn’t you go to uni?”

“I did.” I nodded. “I was home-schooled and got to apply and finish early.”

“You majored in art?”

“Photography and Digital media… mashed in some self-taught graphic-design as well. However, I just like to draw in the traditional manner… lots of pencils and paintbrushes.”

“But mister Xander said you had degrees in physics and chemistry…”

“You still call him mister?” I chuckled at the way she addressed our stepfather.

“Wait, doesn’t that make it four uni subjects?!” she realised. “Exactly how smart are you?!”

I smiled, “You’d never be able to tell from this face, right?” I pointed at myself.

The look she gave me showed escalating suspicion.

I sighed. “Sorry to have avoided it all until now. It’s not a fun story.”

“Oh!” she realised. “Then you don’t have to tell me…”

“The brief of it is. My father died when I was young, and mum died a few years after marrying Xander. Now we’re here.” I shrugged. “Nothing complex to it. I grew up much like you, with lots of expectation on my shoulders. Just know that you are not obligated to live up to all of them around me.”

“Is that why you’re nice to me?” Fumiko gingerly asked, “I remind you of yourself?”

I waved the notion away with a dismissive gesture. “No. I was a lonely child, with barely a single friend. I’m just really happy to have a sister.”

Fumiko nodded lightly, but said nothing further.

The rest of the dinner went by in relative silence. But it was comforting rather than awkward.

~

[(LOADING… 89.04%) ESTIMATED TIME TO FULL AWAKENING: 20MINS]

[ALL AUXILARY SYSTEMS SWITCHING TO ACTIVE]

[MAGICA CHARGE THRESHOLD REACHED]

[INITIALISING METAMORPHOSIS]

I woke up extremely parched, and found out that it was ten minutes past midnight by nearly blinding myself with my phone’s brightness.

I was cold, and yet somehow still sweating enough to have soaked through my clothes, sheets and pillows.

I didn’t know exactly what I was coming down with, but I knew that it wasn’t a fever.

I felt boosted with energy! Like I had done a triathlon and yet still had enough adrenaline and strength for more!

Yet when I moved, every limb trembled slightly, and my movements were ever so unsteady.

However, through all of this, my mind was crystal-clear and abnormally sharp.

I stepped out of my bed and made a slow path to the fridge by steadying myself against the walls.

I tapped the light, grabbed a glass, dropped in some ice, and filled it under the tap.

When the first glass wasn’t enough, I drank another…

Then another…

Then another…

At my eleventh glass I nearly choked on something and was forced to spit it back into the container.

Puzzling at the fact that it hadn’t felt cold like ice despite the solidity, I brought the glass up to my eyes to see.

Swirls of pink curled around the half-melted cubes of ice as three, small white objects, settled into the bottom.

It was hard to see through the cold condensation on the outside of the glass, but the horror dawned on me regardless.

Teeth!

My teeth!

My free hand came up to my lips in an instant as I tried to deny what my mind was confirming!

Three upper incisors were missing. And as I clenched my jaws to muffle the cry of panic from my throat, I felt all the others come loose!

I half-way slammed the glass onto the marble countertop as I spun around and hurried to my bathroom. Slamming the lights on the way in. And instantly spluttering the rest of my teeth out into the sink along with spit-infused splatters of blood.

I couldn’t believe what was happening.

The girl in the mirror stared back at me with eyes wide in horror and panic that equalled my own.

It wasn’t a dream!

I could taste the heavy copper at the back of my throat!

I took a few deep breaths, turning the tap open and splashing my face with a few handfuls of water to calm myself and to think through this.

I was so distracted with my racing thoughts that it took a second to register the clinging wet feeling on my fingers… that clearly wasn’t the water.

I looked down at my hands. And immediately wished I hadn’t.

Along with a copious amount of blood… the whole skin of my face had come off… and had partially been turned into a pulpy mash from the movement of my fingers under the running water of the tap.

In my peripheral I could see the imprint of the horror in the mirror, but I didn’t lift my gaze.

‘What the fuck is happening to me?!’

My thoughts raced faster and more wildly as I struggled to wash the skin of my face off my fingers.

However, my hands skinned instead as the fingernails peeled off!

Not knowing what to do as the white of bones and sinew began to show when the blood and disintegrating flesh started to wash away, I closed the tap – smearing blood everywhere – and backed away from the sink.

Blood started to stain my clothes… running down my arms and legs as the friction of the fabrics against my body scrapped my skin from my flesh.

Maybe it was the shock that had kept it at bay, but now the pain came creeping in as every nerve exposed to the air began to tingle…

Then sting…

Then Burn!

I could barely see anything through the crimson of my own fluid and falling clumps of hair and scalp.

… Could barely even mumble out the squeak of a sound, as my throat and lungs filled up and I started drowning on my own disintegrating muck.

By some miracle I managed to scramble myself into the bathtub and curl into myself as everything turned to black.