Groundhog Day

by SparklingPotato15, 2024-06-22 01:05:21

Day 1

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!"

Amber sprung up on the bed screaming at the top of her lungs, drenched in sweat. Apart from the flashing green light of her smartwatch on the side table, the room was pitch black. Images ran through her mind like the remnants of a dream, like projected on the darkness that surrounded her. The sleeping figure beside her machinally felt his way to her hand and slid their fingers together.

"M'you 'kay hon'?" He grumbled.

Slightly out of breath, she took a few seconds to answer. "Yeah.. Just a nightmare, that's all. It all felt so… real."

"Don't worry 'bout ithen." Turning around, he reached over to grab his girlfriend's buttcheek, brushing against her short leg. "Come here and get back to sleep…"

As he tugged on her hips, she felt the sheets brush against her thigh in the strangest of ways. She frowned, trying to make sense of it. Looking down was no help either, as she couldn't see past her nose. She laid down beside her boyfriend again, lifting her leg, meaning to hook it behind his back, but the same sensation came over her. It was as if the skin of her thigh curved at the front of her leg and dipped so far as to reach the bottom of her butt cheek. It felt as if this was where her leg ended, or like the rest of it was still numb from sleep.

Marcus kissed his way to her lips, sliding his hands over her hips, dipping at her waist, nestling his hand against her arm. She froze. The same feeling had overcome her left arm. Had she slept so contorted that both of her limbs went numb during the night? She reached over with her right arm and screamed again.

"Marcus!!! Marcus!! Marcus, my arm!!"

He forced his eyes open even through the dark. "Calm down, Amber, calm down…" She heard him shift besides her as he yawned, reaching for his phone. The flashlight came on. "It's okay, it's okay, Amber. What's going on?"

Her hand was still hovering near her shoulder when the phone lit up the shortened stump of her left arm. She yelped : "Oh my god Marcus!! What happened to my arm?!?" She stared at the short limb as she tried to command the muscles of her lower arm and hand to react.

What happened next went down very differently in Amber’s mind. What she tried was to lean on her left elbow, boosting herself forwards to turn on the lamp on her nightstand and then jolting herself off of the bed.

What actually happened was she fell limply on her left side, her ribs and face hitting the hardwood of the nightstand. She then kicked the empty air with her bare left hip, offering no anchor on the ground below her. Gravity finally took its toll and she plummeted to the floor, her right leg still tangled in the sheet near her boyfriend.

"Oh my god, Amber! Are you okay?" Marcus jumped out of the bed, flicking on the light on the ceiling fan. "Here, give me your hand."

“My fucking head…” She ordered her left arm to her face but was met with radio silence. She turned towards it and screamed again. “What the hell is happening?! Why is my arm gone?!?”

“Calm down, honey! Calm down! Looks like you’re still high from last night, take a few deep breaths, okay? I’ll get you some water.”

As Marcus walked out of the room, she closed her eyes to focus on her breathing and scoured her body with her mind. Something was off. Something was way off. As she tried to get up, she realized that from her left hip sprouted nothing more than the shriveled bud of a leg. She looked down and shrieked, impossibly seeing the floor right through where it was supposed to be.

She lifted her right hand, her only hand, her fingers shaking like leaves in a storm. She reached towards her leg, slowly, until her fingers dipped out of her field of view. As they brushed against something, Amber felt a sensation somewhere on her leg, although she wasn’t sure of where it was. Marcus’ face appeared again, holding a glass of water. The stump of her left arm lifted towards him ridiculously and the sound of a drum banged in the back of her head like a wakeup call.

“There. Better?” He said lovingly. "You had one hell of a bad trip last night, I think you still need some time to shed it completely. I'll get some coffee dripping.”

Why was he so calm? Why wasn’t this a big deal to him?! She thought to herself. She grabbed the glass and drank it whole, even spilling some over her top, and he was gone once again, thinking nothing more of his terrified girlfriend lying on the bedroom floor. She found her arm stump again with trembling fingers, recoiling at first, but then able to lay a hand against it.

Something must’ve happened. She had an accident that she could not remember. What else could it be? How else could she have lost two limbs in the span of a single night?! Lifting her short stump, she craned her neck looking for a scar, inspecting it thoroughly using her fingertips but found none. Retrieving her foot from the tangled sheets, she brought it close to her hips and squatted up with some help from her remaining arm.

Balancing on her leg, her eyes darted around the room. There, at the foot of the bed. A short rolling stool. She sat back on the mattress and scooted sideways before transferring to it, relatively in control of her center of gravity. From there, holding on to nearby walls and furniture, she pushed her way into the adjacent bathroom.

Her reflection in the full length mirror hit her like a freight train. Tears rolling down her cheeks, she brought her hand to her mouth to silence her sobs, sealing her eyes shut.

Marcus looped back into the room and noticed her distress. "Come here, precious." He pressed her head against his stomach, unfazed by his girlfriend's new stumps resting against him.

"Marcus… Where's…" She choked up. "Where's my arm? Where's my leg?"

"Oh, precious. I know it all seemed so real, I'll throw away the rest of the pills if they affect you this much, okay?"

"Pills? What are you talking about?"

"We took psilocybin capsules last night, do you remember? After Brie left?"

None of this made any sense to her. Her vanishing limbs, and now pills she supposedly took the night before? "I… I don't…" She kept looking at her arm, hoping it would magically reappear where it had always been. She closed her eyes again. "Remind me. Please."

"You walked in a circle using your crutch saying look Marcus, I have two legs! over and over again. I think your brain got a little mixed up, you hallucinated for a while."

"I'm.. I'm not…" She put her palm against her forehead. "I have two legs, yesterday I did, and the day before that, and the day before…" She grunted, frustrated, scared. "I'll prove it to you! Bring me my phone."

He produced it from one of his pockets, showing her the locked screen picture, one she recognized immediately: both of them posing in front of a sunset on a beach of white sand. That was during their honeymoon three years ago. He was as handsome as the setting sun, sporting an unbuttoned white collared shirt and a few days old beard.

Lovingly snuggled in his arms, she wore a delicate short coral dress, smiling from ear to ear. She knew this photo by heart, but not like this. From the frilled sleeves, only one arm came about, the left one remaining empty, slightly bent by the invisible breeze. As for her legs, there was only one left. The right.

She stared at it until her phone went black and her boyfriend tapped her on the shoulder. “Give yourself a few minutes and I’m sure it’ll all come back to you. I’ll get some breakfast started, alright?”

—

Amber called in sick that morning. Between Marcus not acknowledging her newly lost limbs and trying to cope with it herself, she didn't have the energy to try and figure out how to do her job looking like this.

She threw herself on the couch wearing the baggiest clothes she could find to drown her brain into mindless television, drifting in and out of sleep for most of the day. Later that night, when Marcus had finally returned from work, she nibbled at her chicken nuggets without too much interest and eventually sent him to bed.

Two Office episodes later, after the credits had finished rolling, she turned off the television and stared at herself in the screen's black mirror. She could see her puffy eyes from across the distance, even in the dark, and the twisted shape of her sweater, crumpled at her left shoulder, sent chills down her spine.

Crutch in hand, she slowly made her way back to the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Tiptoed, she set her left hip on the countertop and tugged on her left sleeve, flipping her sweatshirt off herself. Absent-mindedly, she reached for it using her disabled side and sighed, frustrated. Her loose pants easily fell away from her left hip and onto the floor. Only then, did she turn on the light.

She jumped at the sight of her body, unable to repress another flow of tears. What could’ve possibly happened? She felt for her stump and shook her head. Barely three inches down her shoulder, instead of forming her bicep, then her elbow, and then the rest of her arm, it didn’t. It stopped short, rounding up in a stump as smooth as the tip of a finger, without nail, scar or bump. She tried to flex her muscles but raised her nub to the ceiling instead, shrugging the shoulder in the process. She let it down again and sighed.

Her attention turned to her leg, or rather the absence of it. In comparison, there wasn’t much at all left on her hip. Not even a short stump like her arm. Her ass simply curved all the way to the front and up to her stomach, without ever growing a limb. The only thing that disturbed her flawless skin were toes, two of them to be exact. They had grown directly out of her pelvis without the need for a proper foot, and so twisted on themselves that they naturally sank halfway into her flesh like an ingrown belly button. When she focused her attention on them, she thought she could feel them move, although barely at all. She buried a finger in the skin fold around them to reach the base of the bone, like trying to free a rock stuck into the soil. They did move, she learned, but the discrepancy between her mental efforts and their actual motion was laughable.

Day 2

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!"

"M'you 'kay hon'?" He grumbled.

Slightly out of breath, she took a few seconds to answer. "Yeah.. Just a… a nightmare, that's all.” She looked around her again. “It all felt so… real."

"Don't worry 'bout ithen." Turning around, he reached over to grab his girlfriend's buttcheek, brushing against her breasts purposefully. "Come here and get back to sleep…"

As he tugged on her hips, she felt the sheets brush against her in the strangest of ways. She frowned, trying to make sense of it. Looking down was no help either, as she couldn't see past her nose. She laid down beside her boyfriend again, trying to hook her leg behind his back, but the same sensation came over her. It was as if the skin of her thigh curved at the front of her leg and dipped so far as to reach the bottom of her butt cheek. Her other side felt similar, as if this was where her legs ended, or like the rest of them were still numb from sleep.

Marcus kissed his way to her lips, sliding one hand under her to grab her arm and squeeze her close, while the other slid down her stomach over her mound and grabbed her entire leg with one hand.

She froze. This didn't feel right. This had happened before, yesterday even, and suddenly the déjà vu hit her. She clenched her fists, both of them this time, and sighed with some relief. Then she reached down to feel her hips and screamed again.

"Marcus!!! Marcus!! Marcus, my legs!!"

Her hand was hovering near his face when the phone lit up her face and she flipped the sheets away from her, raised up on her elbows, staring down the bed.

She yelped : "Oh my god Marcus!! What happened to my legs?!?" She couldn't detach her gaze from her pelvis as she tried to command the muscles of her legs and feet to react.

What actually happened was after turning on the light, she tried to swing her legs off the bed but their absence gave no torque to her movement. When she hopped off the bed, she tumbled onto the floor face first, her limbless rump banging hard against the hardwood bedframe. She flipped upside down, her ass up against the wall.

"Oh my god, Amber! Are you okay?" Marcus jumped out of the bed, flicking on the light on the ceiling fan. "Here, give me your hand."

“My fucking head…” As he sat her up, she ordered her legs to stand up but was met with radio silence. She turned her attention downward and screamed again. “What the hell is happening?! Why are my legs gone?!?”

“Calm down, honey! Calm down! Looks like you’re still high from last night, take a few deep breaths, okay? I’ll get you some water.”

As Marcus walked out of the room, she closed her eyes to focus on her breathing and scoured her body with her mind. Something was off. Something was way off. She couldn't even try to get up, her legs had completely disappeared. She sat directly on the spot where her legs should’ve been, as if they had phased right through the floor. She could see the ground before her as clear as day, unobstructed by her missing thighs.

She inspected her hands, shaking like leaves in a storm, at least finding solace in having gotten her left one back, and counted her fingers. All up to code on this side. She reached towards her hips, slowly, until her fingers dipped out of her field of view. As they brushed against something, Amber felt a sensation near her groin, although she wasn't sure of where it was.

Marcus’s face appeared again, holding a glass of water. Leaning forwards, she almost face planted again. With her legs gone, they couldn't push down to keep her from falling. The sound of a drum banged in the back of her head like a wakeup call.

“There. Better?” He said lovingly. "You had one hell of a bad trip last night, I think you still need some time to shed it completely. I'll get some coffee dripping.”

Why was he so calm? Why wasn’t this a big deal to him?! She thought to herself. She grabbed the glass and drank it whole, even spilling some over her top, and he was gone once again, thinking nothing more of his terrified girlfriend lying on the bedroom floor. She rounded her back to find her hips again with trembling fingers, recoiling at first, but then able to lay a hand against them.

Something must’ve happened. She had an accident that she could not remember. What else could it be? How else could she have lost two limbs in the span of a single night?! Wait. Something did happen, she remembered. Yesterday, her left arm and leg had vanished, and now it was her legs? It was too similar to be a coincidence but again, how do you explain losing limbs overnight to yourself?

Focusing on her pelvis, she tried to extend her legs, wiggle her toes, or find anything she could move, actually. With her newly recovered left hand, she inspected it thoroughly using her fingertips in search of scars but found none. She anchored her hands at her sides and pushed herself off the floor, surprised at what little effort it took her to do so. She leaned forward and did it again, sending her rump ahead like a pendulum again and again to walk to the foot of the bed.

There, she saw a wheelchair. Her wheelchair. It seemed fairly narrow, easier to navigate indoors she thought, and had been decorated with purple velvet on the armrests. She looked up to it and sighed, then walked around it to reach the adjacent bathroom.

Her reflection in the full length mirror hit her like a freight train. Tears rolling down her cheeks, she brought her hands to her mouth to silence her sobs, sealing her eyes shut.

Marcus looped back into the room and noticed her distress. "Come here, precious." He leveled with her and pressed her head against his stomach, unfazed by his girlfriend's absence of legs.

"Marcus… Where's…" She choked up. "Where are my legs? Where are my legs?!

"Oh, precious. I know it all seemed so real, I'll throw away the rest of the pills if they affect you this much, okay?"

"Pills? What are you talking about?"

"We took psilocybin capsules last night, do you remember? After Brie left?"

None of this made any sense to her. Her left limbs vanished yesterday, and now her legs… But why was he still referring to her bad trip with pills as the night before? "I… I don't…" She kept looking at her legs, hoping they would magically reappear where they had always been. She closed her eyes again. "What day are we?”

“Today’s Monday, honey.”

Amber shook her head. “No, no, no. Yesterday was Monday. I wasn't feeling well and called off work.”

Marcus shifted. “No, yesterday was Sunday. After dinner when Brie left, that's when we took the pills. I carried you in my arms and you kept saying look Marcus, I have two legs! over and over again. I think your brain got a little mixed up, you hallucinated for a while."

"I'm.. I'm not…" She put her palms against her forehead. "I have two legs, yesterday I did, and the day before that, and the day before…" She grunted, frustrated, scared. " Bring me my phone, I want to check something."

Lovingly snuggled in his arms, she wore a delicate short coral dress, smiling from ear to ear. She knew this photo by heart, but not like this. From the frilled sleeves, two arms came about, thank god, as opposed to yesterday's single one. However, it's now the bottom of the dress that clashed against the rest. Marcus held her in his arms, angled on his left hip which let the fabric flow freely along the invisible breeze, undisturbed by the presence of legs.

She stared at it for a few seconds before flicking it open to see the date. June 10th. Monday. Her boyfriend tapped her on the shoulder. “Give yourself a few minutes and I’m sure it’ll all come back to you. I’ll get some breakfast started, alright?”

—

Amber called in sick that morning. Again, she thought, although it seemed that yesterday had not happened to anyone else except her. Between Marcus not acknowledging her newly lost limbs and trying to cope with it herself, she didn't have the energy to try and figure out how to do her job looking like this.

She climbed on the couch wearing the baggiest clothes she could find to drown her brain into mindless television, drifting in and out of sleep for most of the day. Later that night, when Marcus had finally returned from work, she nibbled at her chicken nuggets without too much interest and eventually sent him to bed.

Using her arms, she walked to the other end of the couch where Marcus had left her wheelchair. She leaned forward to waddle onto it, sat back comfortably, and released the brakes, navigating her apartment carrying a weird feeling in her gut. Back in the bathroom, she closed the door and climbed on the countertop, pulling herself using the towel rack and the backrest of her wheelchair. She lifted each side of her empty hips separately to free her sweatshirt from under her cheeks and flipped it off to the side. Only then, did she turn on the light.

She jumped at the sight of her body, unable to repress another flow of tears. What was happening to her? Yesterday, she had no arm or leg on the left side of her body, and now both of her legs had vanished overnight. Could it all be just a dream? She placed a hand on the spot where her leg would normally grow out of her panties. No scars, no bumps, no stumps, and no pain. She tried to flex her muscles to squat or point her toes but nothing happened. Rocking her hips was easy enough, and she did so to lighten her mood. Even without legs, they remained wide and strong, if a little saggy on the sides. Probably because they lacked certain muscle groups she didn't have anymore, she thought.

She transferred back to her bed to join Marcus, who had been sleeping for a long time already. Feeling her at his side, he turned around and spooned her. Unable to anchor her feet or her legs at all, it was impossible for her to grind her rump against his groin like she usually did. She stayed awake trying to think of a possible explanation for all of this. An explanation to an impossible thing… After all, maybe it was a dream. That would explain why she seemed to have lived the same day twice in a row. She’d have to sort this out tomorrow…

Day 3

"AAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!"

"M'you 'kay hon'?" He grumbled.

Slightly out of breath, she took a few seconds to answer. "Yeah.. Just a nightmare, that's all.” Déjà vu washed over her again. “It all felt so… real."

"Don't worry 'bout ithen." Turning around, he reached over to grab his girlfriend's buttcheek, brushing against her thighs. "Come here and get back to sleep…"

As he tugged on her hips, she felt the sheets brush against her legs in ways she was able to recognize. She sighed with relief. Two legs… Two complete legs! She stretched them long and hard, enjoying their return, before hooking one to secure her boyfriend at her side. She reached down to pull the sheets back over her and felt them brush against her arms in the strangest of ways. She frowned, trying to make sense of it. Looking down was no help either, as she couldn't see past her nose. She sat back up and reached for the sheets once more, but the same sensation came over her. It was as if the skin of her arms curved inwards right before her wrists. It felt like this was where her arms stopped, or if the rest of them were still numb from sleep.

Marcus kissed his way to her lips, sliding his hands over her hips, dipping at her waist, nestling his hand against her arm. She froze. It was still going. She thought about her current predicament for a minute and slowly brought her hands together. She screamed. Again.

"Marcus!!! Marcus!! Marcus, my hands!!"

Her arms were still hovering near each other when the phone lit up the shortened stumps of her forearms. She yelped : "Oh my god Marcus!! What happened to my hands?!?" She stared at where her limbs simply ended as she tried to command the muscles of her fingers to react.

What happened next went down differently in Amber’s mind. What she tried was to lean on her left elbow, boosting herself forwards to turn on the lamp on her nightstand and then jolting herself off of the bed.

What actually happened was instead of turning on the lamp, she punched it into the wall and the lightbulb exploded all over her face and into the bed. She yelped, instantly trying to cover her eyes with hands that were no longer there.

"Oh my god, Amber! Are you okay?" Marcus jumped out of the bed, flicking on the light on the ceiling fan. "Don’t move, I’ll get the vacuum."

“My fucking head…” As she laid on her left elbow, she ordered her left hand to massage her temple but was met with radio silence. She turned her attention downward again and screamed once more. “What the hell is happening?! Why are my…”

“Calm down, honey! Calm down! It’s alright, give me a minute and you’ll be able to get out of bed. Take a few deep breaths, okay?”

As Marcus cleared most of her mess, she closed her eyes to focus on her breathing and scoured her body with her mind. Obviously, something was off. She was starting to understand that part. She stood up and as she shook the glass shards out of her shirt, took the time to inspect her hands, or rather her lack thereof. Halfway down her forearms, her limbs stopped. Just like her left arm and left leg two days ago, and just like her legs yesterday. She stared right through where her hands should have been in absolute disbelief.

Marcus’s face appeared again, asking her to hold the few books that laid around her bedside table. Without thinking, she tried to grab them with a hand, but swished a stump through the air instead. The sound of a drum banged in the back of her head like a wakeup call.

He pushed them further towards her elbows, allowing her to hold them in precarious balance pressed against her stomach. “There. Better.” He said lovingly, taking back the books after having vacuumed the bedside table. "You had one hell of a bad trip last night, I think you still need some time to shed it completely. I'll get some coffee dripping.” He was so calm about all of this, she thought.

Of course he was calm. To him, this wasn’t a big deal. Enjoying the return of her two legs, she walked up to the adjacent bathroom, navigating the tap with fingerless stumps, prodding and pushing things around imprecisely to fill a glass of water. Pressing it between her arms about an inch below her stumps, she grabbed the glass and drank it whole, even spilling some over her top, remembering that there was still glass on it. As carefully as she could, but not without effort, she slipped her arms under it and flipped it over her head. She held it at arms lengths, astonished at the way the fabric smoothed itself around her rounded stump.

Two days ago, it was her left limbs. Yesterday, it was her legs. Today, her hands shone in their absence. If there was no pattern, it was at the very least very constant. A new day brought new disappearing limbs. She looked at herself in the mirror and gasped, managing to hold back her tears this time. Everything else on her looked the same. In an oversized hoodie, she would look completely normal. Maybe if she convinced herself she was, it would all go back to the way it was… She shook her head. There was no point in wallowing in her misery. If it was bound to happen anyway, the least she could do was get through her day as normally as she could.

She walked to her wardrobe and fished for a clean top, unceremoniously yanking it off the hanger. She laid it on the bed and pushed her arms through the sleeves before fitting it over her head. Marcus looped back into the room behind her back and slid a hand inside her pajama shorts to feel her ass. Amber chuckled and reached for his hand, once more forgetting she no longer had hands to feel his. He thought nothing of it, instead closing his fingers around the stump and turning her around to kiss her. This moment alone almost erased the bad memories of the past two days. Actively aware of her other stump, she brought it to his face and detached herself, drowning in his hazelnut eyes.

“I'll get breakfast started.” He whispered.

“Good, I'm starving.” The thought of using utensils without hands barged into her mind like a runaway bull. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Have you seen my phone?”

He produced it from one of his pockets and Amber pressed it between her stumps. “Forgot to give it back after vacuuming.” She balanced it on one arm to look at the locked screen picture, one she recognized immediately: both of them posing in front of a sunset on a beach of white sand. That was during their honeymoon three years ago. He was as handsome as the setting sun, sporting an unbuttoned white collared shirt and a few days old beard.

Lovingly snuggled in his arms, she wore a delicate short coral dress, smiling from ear to ear. She knew this photo by heart, but not like this. From the frilled sleeves, two arms came about yes, but the one that rested against his stomach was obviously missing a hand. Her legs and feet were complete again, tiptoed, sinking halfway into the sand.

Amber debated whether or not to call in sick that day, after all it was Monday again, but decided against it. Not out of principle, but because not having hands didn't seem like an insurmountable task for her job. She asked Marcus’ help to put on a bra, pretending that all her adaptive ones were dirty, and slipped on her usual garb ; a flowery skirt that tickled her ankles and a (velcro!) button down. She stared at her reflection and smiled. She was going to make it a good day no matter what.