[Contains shapeshifting, mainly of the multilimb variety]

I yawned as I made my way down the school halls. I didn’t get much sleep last night. In fact, I was almost late for first period. Now I have math class coming up. Fun. I am good at math, my marks prove that much, but that doesn’t necessarily mean I enjoy it. I’m at my locker now, just gotta open up that lock... “Hey, Teri! How’s it going?” Oh, it’s Kait. The sole reason I had trouble sleeping, thanks to her sudden shapeshifting yesterday. Well, I might as well ask. “Oh, hey Kait. I’m fine. Um, can you still, y’know, do that... thing?” She gave me a quick smile. “Of course! I’m doing it right now, actually. Wanna guess what’s different?” I looked around for any oddities, but as far as I could tell, she seemed completely normal. “Uhh... I’m not sure.” I replied. She giggled to herself. “I wouldn’t blame you. Here...” She then took off her left shoe and sock. It took me a second of looking at her foot to notice she had six toes instead of the usual five. “Oh, I see. But why?” I asked. “It’s weird. I can’t actually make my body go back to normal, I’ve gotta have something different.” She explained while putting her sock and shoe back on. “So I’m doing it this way to avoid suspicion.” “Huh, ok. Makes sense that you’d wanna keep it a secret. Kinda weird how it forces you though.” “Yeah, it is. Not that I particularly mind, though. I gotta get to class now, see ya!” And with that, she headed further down the hall, leaving me on my own.

To be honest, I didn’t really pay much attention in math class. I’d been wrapped up thinking about the logic of Kait’s powers again. I feel I should just accept it for what it is, but my mind keeps going back to asking questions. How it works, where it came from, why specifically Kait can do it, that sort of thing. Anyways, the rest of the day was a blur up until lunch. See, I usually eat lunch outside, because you can do that. There’s this nice secluded area beside the school where not many people come by. There’s even a picnic table out there. It’s where me and my other loner friends go to hang out. There’s April, a shorter kid with medium-length brown hair, and Riley, who’s a little taller than me and has blond hair with a pink streak. I usually arrive a few minutes before the other two, but was surprised to see Kait sitting at the picnic table, apparently waiting for me. “Oh, there you are. I was afraid this might’ve been the wrong place.” I’m not 100% sure how Kait found this place, considering I’ve never told her exactly where it was. Then again, I suppose it wasn’t exactly a secret. “Hey Kait. Uhh, what brings you here?” She stood up. “I wanted to show you something, follow me!” Although she didn’t say it, I somehow knew this was about her new powers. I sighed as I followed her into the woods by the school.

“Alright, hopefully no one finds us out here.” Kait said as we stepped into a somewhat open, yet still secluded space in the woods. We didn’t go particularly deep, but I wasn’t exactly afraid someone was gonna spot us or anything. Kait turned back towards me. “So, lemme ask you something. What do you think the limit is on my powers?” I suddenly felt a little nervous for some reason. “Uh, I dunno.” I said it in a way that made it seem like I hadn’t put much thought into it, but in reality, I totally had, yet I still had no clue. My only theory was that she’d eventually have too many limbs to be able to control, but even then I wasn’t exactly sure when that threshold would be passed. “Well,” she put her hands on her hips, “we’re gonna find out together!” I started spacing out and knew this meant she was changing. That’s another thing I don’t understand about her powers. It only works when nobody’s looking. And even if someone is, they space out so they won’t notice the transformation process. When I did space back in, Kait was standing there with an extra head. “Any thoughts?” Both of her heads said in unison. Despite such a major change, she was still Kait. “Well, I’m sure you could do way more.” She smiled at me. “Oh, we don’t wanna do it all at once, now, let’s take it slow.” One space out later, she now had three heads. To make room for all those heads, her torso had extended and she’d grown another leg. And with that extra space, she had room for a third boob. Guess I should stop being touchy about that, huh. “Oh, woah.” I said, taking in her latest transformation. I somehow wasn’t expecting so much to be added. “But we can do more, of course.” Her middle head said to me. I spaced out once more, and her body extended again. Now she had four heads, four legs, four boobs. “So, you just gonna keep doing that until you hit the limit? Provided there is one, of course.” She smiled. Three of her heads looked down, while the remaining one talked to me. “Your right, we don’t got all day. How about we... double up?” Oh boy. I was simultaneously excited and scared to look at her once I’d spaced in again. I blinked as I saw her body had expanded again, but at the back this time. Another row of four heads had appeared behind her original four, with another four legs to boot. And on top of all that, she now had four pairs of arms. As she paced around in her new body, I observed her many arms swaying about and bouncing off each other, her heads all looking around in different directions, her legs all stepping around the uneven floor of the woods. Eventually she stopped and faced me. “Well, what do you think? Should I keep going?” She said with only one voice, though I couldn’t see which head it was coming from. Must’ve been one in the back. “Yeah, sure, go for it.” I said.

And for it she went, slowly adding more and more parts one at a time. Every time I spaced out, she’d have one more column of heads, one more column of legs, and one more boob. Occasionally, she’d spice things up and add another row of heads and legs, increasing her body part count even more. After about ten minutes, I was kinda over it. “Alright, I know you’re having fun showing off and everything, but do you mind if I just leave you to it? I gotta eat lunch, y’know.” At this point, she had five rows of sixteen heads, enough legs to match, thirty-two boobs (at some point she decided to add another row of them), and ten pairs of arms. She was starting to fill most of the space of this opening. I think she got carried away and forgot how many heads she had, because her response sounded like a crowd of confused “Huh?”s and “What?”s before she got herself together and spoke with only one head. “Oh, well, I shouldn’t force you to stay here if you don’t wanna, so fine. I can stay here and continue by myself.” “Alright, sounds good.” I headed back to where we’d came. “See you around.” “Wait!” Twenty or so heads said in unison. I turned around. “Remember, this whole thing is a secret between you and me!” One of her heads said. “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.” I said before turning and heading back through the woods.

Riley and April were already at the table when I got back. They were talking about something else when I walked in. “I was thinking I could go as, like, a headless horseman or something, because I can already- Oh, there you are. Thought you weren’t here today.” April said. “Yeah, sorry, I was out, uh...” Shoot, don’t wanna give away the secret this soon. “...i-in the woods, I guess...” Riley gave me a look. “In the woods? What were you doing in the woods?” I looked away briefly. “Uhh... I was... out for a walk? Yeah.” I thought this would satisfy her, considering I had been talking about being more active. “Why don’t I believe you? Are you hiding something?” Riley asked. “Okay, fine. I was talking to a friend.” “Oh? About what?” I was getting nervous now. “Nothing! I mean, she asked me not to tell anyone.” “Oh, come one. We’re your friends too. Tell us!” I was really nervous now. “Come on, Riley.” April’s cute little voice spoke up. “She doesn’t want to tell you, so forget about it.” Even someone as hot-headed as Riley couldn’t stay mad at April, so she let out a “Fine.” and sat down. And that was the end of that.

The rest of the day went on with no events, though it felt much faster because I was distracted thinking about Kait and her powers. Did she reach any sort of limit eventually? Her heads seemed to have their own brains, all connected up by the same consciousness, so would she be able to control more limbs the more heads she had? I saw her at the end of school and asked her about what happened in the woods after I’d left. “Honestly, I lost count of how many heads I ended up having when I stopped, but I definitely had over five hundred and felt I could still go way further.” I gasped a little. “No way, five hundred?!” “Yep. I’m gonna have to keep going and see where I end up. I’ll keep you updated.” We went our separate ways after that. Unsurprisingly, I was still thinking about it when I got home. I just wonder how she ended up like this in the first place.

 *  *  *  1 WEEK EARLIER  *  *  *

“Hey Alicia. How’s the potion coming along?”

“Oh, hey! Things are going great! It’s pretty much almost done at this point.”

“What? Didn’t you say you were struggling the other day?”

“I was, but sometimes, progress can be a bit unpredictable. I was able to circumvent the problem I encountered and get a ton of work done!”

“Wow. So, does it work?”

“From the temporary versions I tested on myself, things seem good. Now I just need another person to test on. And that’s where you come in.”

“What? Me?”

“Yes, you! I need you to go and find a willing subject to give this potion a test. You can do that for me, right Ashley?”

“I mean, I’m not sure where to start...”

“Just ask around! I’m sure you’ll find someone eventually!”

“O-Okay... I best be going then.”

“Perfect. Good luck!”

“You too.”