Tiffany dumped the creature right in front of the hotel right after pretending to care about its fate and declaring she would check the hotel's background.

Something came up.

A shitty excuse, but when Tiffany said it, the crazed look in her eyes made the sentence so much more convincing. Whatever happened, it had her attention way more than the creature did. It was a lost fight to try to make her stay.

The creature didn’t say anything when Tiffany chased it out of the taxi and gave the driver another address. It was barely out of the car that the car's wheels were turning again. Tiffany yelled "Take care !" from an open window and the taxi disappeared at the end of the street, taking a left turn. After the car had left, the creature shifted its line of sight.

Its eyes fell on the hotel sign hanging from the hotel's front door.

Bienvenue à La Maison.

A different language then the one people spoke around here, but not something the creature couldn’t read. The creature pushed the door open. The hotel’s lobby was just big enough to accommodate a reception desk and a few chairs for the guests. It was small, but tidy - and for some reason, everything was painfully white. White walls, white floors, white desk. The chairs were ivory. Both walls and floors were covered in tiles, up to the ceiling, giving the whole room an odd feeling.

The creature walked to the reception desk, and the woman behind it greeted it with a smile.

“Good evening, what can I do for you ?”

The creature looked at her spotless glasses, and her nude nails. It answered her a few seconds late :

“They said I could stay here tonight.”

The woman's face immediately lit up.

“You’re Pete’s friend ?”

“Hmm.”

“Good, I was waiting for you. Pete called my husband this afternoon, we already prepared everything.”

The woman tapped something on her computer, then she raised her head again. This time, her smile was genuine.

“You can stay here for the night, don’t worry. We won’t ask you to explain, and you don’t need to pay.”

The creature blinked, but didn’t answer. The woman who was suddenly feeling a bit energic went to fetch the key to the room and explained a few things to the creature while waiting for the elevator.

“We thought that maybe you didn’t eat tonight, so we put some things for you in the fridge. You just need to heat it up. Your room is on the third floor.”

When they reached the door of the hotel room, the woman opened the door and gave the key to the creature.

“Don’t hesitate to call 9 for the reception if you have a problem. Hope you enjoy your stay here !” The woman said happily before leaving.

The creature watched her back for a second, then it entered the room before locking it from the inside.

This time, the floor was a yellow carpet and the walls were covered by an old wallpaper with hints of green and brown. The bed had an old metallic frame but they had put a new mattress on it. The nightstands were in wood, as well as the shelves on the walls where a few books had been placed to make the room look less empty. The room had a window with brown curtains, and the view gave to the opposite building, whose window shutters were closed. In one corner, there was a table with a little fridge and microwave sitting on it, as well as a welcome card from the hotel.

All in all, the room looked old but clean.

Nothing here looked new, but nothing looked about to shatter away either. The furniture seemed to be kept in good condition by the owners.

No, actually, the creature took it back. There was something that did look new.

The camera hanging from the right corner of the room, staring straight at the creature. And it didn’t just look new, it looked modern. The creature took a step aside, and the camera followed its movements. A sudden realization came to the creature’s mind, and it stared back at the camera for a couple of minutes.

Then, it just let it go.

The creature went to the bathroom, which was covered in the same tiles that it had seen in the hotel lobby. The bathroom was only large enough to hold a toilet, a sink, and a shower. The creature ignored the camera hanging above the sink, and focused on the mirror.

It wanted to see itself.

Thanks to the meal it had at lunch, its body had ended its mutation and now, not only did it have a face, it also had its own shape. The creature took a quick glance at its own eyes, before quickly looking away to study its clothes. It read the word spelled by its t-shirt backward, and let the sound roll out of its tongue.

Joy.

Not bad, the creature thought. Then it raised its hands and started to take off its clothes. Once completely naked, it looked at itself attentively.

A woman.

This was the body of a woman. Straight long legs, narrow waist, flat butt and small breasts, wide shoulders, strong neck and arms. The creature's new body had a V shape, with an impressive large back and a natural tendency to build muscles. Its hands were also surprisingly big. But still, there was no doubt about it. That was a woman. A tall, sturdy woman with very light body hair.

The creature stretched its body and soon realized this body was pretty flexible, despite its huge frame. It wondered how tall it was, as it was close to hitting its head on the door's frame when walking through rooms. The answer was 1m92, and that explained why the jeans that had fit the creature were now too short. The t-shirt too felt a bit tight on its body. It was expected, as the officer's wife had a slender and more petite body shape compared to the creature.

Nonetheless, the creature liked it.

It liked the fact that it was a woman, but the opposite would have been surprising since that body had been partly molded by its subconscious. And it very much liked the fact that it was so big.

Tiffany had said that it was too big, you look scary. But the creature didn't care. It wanted to take space, and now it did.

That body was sweet.

The creature touched its skin, which was firm and oily. The color of its skin had changed too. The creature was still pale but the shade of it wasn't that sickening grey white it was before. It didn't catch the eye like before when the creature was close to other people, and that explained why the woman at the reception had let down her guard so quickly.

Because the creature now looked perfectly human.

It still didn't have genitals though, but it was a personal choice. It was bad enough that from now on, it needed to shit; it didn't want to have more holes dedicated to purposes that were beyond its field of interest.

The creature moved around for a while, completely ignoring the camera watching its every move, until it had enough. Happy with this body, the creature's eyes were sparkling. It studied its face too, bit by bit, trying to avoid its own eyes as much as it could. It wanted to see properly what it looked like now.

But it didn't want to be seen.

The camera was fine, whoever was behind it watching was fine.

But ―

The creature was playing with its shoulder length hair when it suddenly felt its body heat up abnormally. This heat was foreign and overwhelming, and the creature panicked. It immediately lowered itself, disappearing from the mirror's reflection, but it was too late.

It had already caught the main body's attention.

And now it was losing control. The creature's mind blurred as it felt something occupy this new body it had just got; and soon after, the creature's limbs went completely limp, and its body crashed against the floor.

It stayed like that for a few seconds.

Then, a breath escaped its throat and it propped itself up on an arm before slowly standing up. Its hands went to grab the sink, its eyes stared at the mirror directly, without the previous shyness. On its body appeared, one after the other, dozens of eyes looking in the same direction. But be it the two eyes on the creature's face or the eyes covering its naked body, none of them had the same shade of blue as the creature's usual eyes.

Because those weren't the creature's eyes.

That shade of yellow belonged to the main body. That was the main body looking into that mirror, through the creature's eyes. The creature's consciousness was still here but badly repressed. It couldn't do anything except wait for the main body to satisfy its curiosity.

For some reason, all the creatures born from the main body shared some common knowledge about the main body's existence and habits. One of the things they knew, which was quite specific, was the fact that the main body absolutely adored mirrors. It especially liked to look at faces, probably because it didn't have one itself, and if a creature it gave birth to was spotted using a mirror, the main body would forcefully take control of the creature's body and use it to look at its face ― for sometimes an awfully long time, depending on how much it liked it.

Being under the main body's control was painful so many of the main body's children feared and avoided mirrors as much as they could for fear of attracting the main body's attention.

The creature was like that, too.

But now it was too late to do anything about it. It could only wait for the main body to get bored of playing with its body.

**

It took an hour for the main body to leave and when it finally did, the creature fell to the floor like a disarticulated puppet. It was sweating profusely and its head was aching. It stayed like that on the floor for a few minutes before finding the strength to stand up and get in the shower. There was a camera here too, but the creature couldn't care less.

It turned the water on and closed its eyes, feeling uncomfortable.

What a cunt, the creature thought about the main body.

It breathed deeply and exhaled, trying to get rid of its nausea. Then it grabbed the soap and started washing itself.

Twenty minutes later, the creature got out of the shower and put on the bathrobe provided by the hotel. It then left the bathroom and went to open the fridge in the room.

Inside there was a bottle of water and a little carton box. The creature grabbed the box and looked at it. It was precooked pasta bought in a supermarket that just needed to be heated up. And it was still carbonara.

The creature silently put the thing in the microwave, following the instructions written on the box. A little plastic fork was also inside the box, and the creature took it out and started to play with it while waiting for the microwave to bip. It was exhausted. It laid back on the chair while listening to the sounds of the city around the hotel.

It was nodding off when the microwave bipped, waking it up. The creature took the plate out of the microwave and started to eat, burning its tongue but not slowing down. When it was finished, it grabbed the bottle of water and went to sleep while hugging it.

Before falling asleep, the creature realized it was the end of its first day in this world. Then it realized it had only been one day and it got so tired it fell asleep instantly.