[Contains shapeshifting, mainly of the multilimb variety]

It’s been about a week since I first witnessed Kait’s sudden shapeshifting powers, and it’s quite strange to think about that. That whole event basically changed my entire perspective on life, which sounds exaggerative, but it’s true. I’ve never entirely doubted the possibility of magic and stuff, but for the most part it was more so a “wouldn’t that be neat” in my mind. Now, I’m under the impression anything could happen at this point. It’s a little embarrassing how much I’ve thought about it since it happened, but I honestly can’t blame myself, because this was a huge deal.

Anyways, I’m just chilling at my house doing whatever when I get a text from none other than Kait telling me to “come over right now” and that “I have something to show you”. Kait’s usually the one to propose hanging out, and when she does, she usually lets me know what we’re gonna do. The sudden urgency and secrecy was confusing, but I knew this likely had something to do with her powers.

My house isn’t too far from Kait’s, which is nice, especially considering it’s a bit chilly out today. I distracted myself from the cold by pondering what she had in store for me as I walked to her house. Eventually, I reached the front door, knocked, then braced myself. I heard footsteps, then the door opened.

“Oh good, you’re here. How’s it going Teri?”

“Fine.” I took a good look at Kait’s body. She seemed completely normal. Same number of arms, legs, everything. The only unusual thing about her was her smile.

“Okay, so...” She paused for a moment. “I gotta set something up. Can you wait in my room?”

“Sure...” I said. With that, she walked off into the kitchen. I entered and went upstairs to her room. Kait was sitting on her bed, waiting for me.

“Hey Teri, what’s up?” She said with a smile.

“Wait...” I said. I had to actually think for a moment to realize what exactly was wrong. The front door of Kait’s house leads to what is basically the living room. From there, you can either go left into the kitchen, or take the stairs on the right to her bedroom, among other rooms. There’s no other path from the kitchen that goes upstairs. If she went to the kitchen, there’d be no way to get to the bedroom before me without me seeing her.

Kait seemingly noticed my hesitation. “Is something wrong? You seem confused.” She said.

I glanced back through the door, then at her. “How- How did you get here if you went to the kitchen?” I stammered. This seemed somewhat amusing to Kait.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve been waiting for you up here the whole time.” She said, oddly smugly.

I was starting to question my sanity a bit. “Wha- I... Hang on...” I thought for a moment. I heard footsteps behind me. I turned around and Kait was there.

“Is everything alright?” She asked, still grinning. I looked at her standing in the doorframe, then looked behind me. Kait was still sitting on the bed! I looked back and forth between the identical Kaits before speaking up.

“Wait a minute...” I said. “Did you? No...”

Both Kaits started laughing at once, which was honestly one of the most surreal moments in my life. Which is saying a lot, considering some of the other things Kait’s done at this point. Eventually, they both calmed down.

“Yeah,” the Kait by the door said, walking into the room, “I knew I had to try something like this on you.” She sat down on the bed next to... herself.

“I... I don’t think I get it. Did you clone yourself?” I asked.

“Well, not in the way you might think.” The rightmost Kait, the one originally sitting on the bed, said. The other one continued. “While we appear to be separate people, we’re both controlled by the same consciousness.” Left Kait put her arm on Right Kait’s shoulders.

I gave a confused look. “Here, I can prove it.” Right Kait said, covering her eyes with her hands. “Hold up some fingers, and I’ll count how many.”

“O... kay...” I said. I looked at Left Kait, who looked back at me silently yet intently. I held up three fingers on one hand.

“Three.” Right Kait said. I was a little surprised, but perhaps it was just a lucky guess? I lowered a finger and held up two more on my other hand.

“Four.” Right Kait said. She didn’t appear to be peeking. I opened both hands completely. “Ten.” She said. I closed them both into fists. “Zero?” She responded.

“Alright, I believe you.” I said, not that I was necessarily doubtful. Right Kait put her hands back at her sides and chuckled.

“Yeah, that’s basically why I asked you to come over.” She said. “I figured as long as I’m stuck like this, I might as well do something fun with it.” Left Kait continued.

I put my hand on my chin. “Wait, stuck? What do you mean?” I asked.

“Oh, I suppose I never mentioned.” Right Kait said, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “I can usually change forms pretty freely, but sometimes, I’ll get stuck in a certain form.” Left Kait stretched silently as Right Kait talked. “Like, the other day, I was stuck as a head with legs basically all afternoon. It sucked. Never happens at school though. Not sure why, but hey.”

“So, can you not change at all right now?” I asked.

Right Kait stood up. “It’s weird. Only one of my bodies can change. For example...”

That familiar blurry feeling happened again. When I could see again, Right Kait was stretching two pairs of arms.

“Yeah, I guess this is the original body?” She said, shaking all four hands a bit. I blurred out, and Kait had just two arms again.

“If I may ask, what’s it like controlling two bodies at once?” I asked. I just couldn’t imagine how it’d work.

“It’s alot like having multiple heads,” Kait said, “just... more separate. I can see and feel from both bodies at once, and I can control them at the same time.” She turned around and gave her other body a high five, which looked as fluid as two separate people doing it. “It’s like... Y’know when you pat your head and rub your stomach at the same time? It feels like that.” She paused. “At least, when I’m doing something with each body at the same time.”

“I see...” I said. “Maybe it’s easier because you have two brains?”

“Oh, that’s a good point.” Kait responded. “Y’know, it feels like I have two thought processes going at once, so that’s further proof.” The other Kait turned and lied down on the bed. “Still, I’ll let the other one sleep while I experiment further, as long as I’ve got you here.” Kait said. The other Kait closed her eyes.

Kait walked around me to the other side of the room, and I turned to follow her. “Now then...” Kait said once in position. “Any suggestions?”

Despite how much time I’ve thought about this power, my mind was suddenly blank when it came to ideas. I thought about it for a second, but I was interrupted.

“Ooh, the finger game from earlier gave me an idea.” Kait said. I blurred out, but couldn’t tell what had changed at first glance. Then Kait held out her hands, and I realized she had six fingers on each.

“Neat, huh?” She said, wiggling them a bit. She retracted her hands and quickly counted her fingers, counting up to twelve under her breath before looking back up at me. “We could do better, though.”

I went blurry again, and this time, Kait had four arms. She held her hands up, and I counted seven fingers on each. “How about that?” She said. She started counting, but I quickly did seven times four in my head and blurted out the answer before she could finish. “28.”

“Well, I was getting there.” She responded. I suddenly had an idea. “Do six arms, ten fingers each.” I said.

She raised her eyebrows. “Ooh, going big, I like it.” One blur later, my idea became reality as Kait was now holding up three pairs of arms, her hands somewhat widened to fit eight fingers and two thumbs. “Yeah!” She did finger guns with all six hands, her two thumbs pointed up with two “index” fingers pointed at me, her arms spread out in a hexagon-like shape.

“Heh, nice.” I said. “Lemme think of something else.” I started thinking, but was briefly interrupted by blurriness as Kait shifted back to normal. Except not, because she suddenly had no arms.

“Whoops, that’s too many.” She said. “Actually, keep it like that.” I interjected before she could change it so I could observe her body. While her shirt had changed to have enough sleeves for her extra arms earlier, it was completely normal now, and I could see her shoulder through her empty sleeve while looking from the side.

“Something tells me you want me to do more reductions.” Kait said.

“Sure thing, you think you could get rid of your legs next?” I responded.

“Ooh, I’ll need to sit down for this.” Kait said as she carefully bent down to sit, which is easier said than done with no arms. Once she was lying on her back, I blurred out and her legs were gone, leaving her as a torso with a head.

“I feel... oddly compact,” she said, tilting her head up to observe her body closer. I crouched down to do the same, and noticed the blank patches of skin where her legs were through her shorts.

“I don’t think I’m gonna reduce any more than this.” Kait laid her head back on the floor. “I feel like it’d be weird if I was just a torso and nothing else.”

“Fair enough,” I said as I thought about what she should do next. A few moments went by before Kait suddenly spoke up.

“Wait, before you say anything, I’ve got another one.” Blurriness again. This time, Kait’s arms were back, but in place of legs was another head and pair of arms mirroring her originals, like the top halves of two bodies stuck together.

“What do you think?” Kait’s new head asked, looking up at me.

“Do you think you could walk with your hands?” I asked.

Kait’s heads faced eachother as her hands pressed against the floor, slowly pushing her body upwards. As she shakily moved one hand forward, she collapsed back onto the ground.

“Oof. It’ll take some practice,” her original head said, “Although...”

One blur later, Kait was back to normal, or so it seemed. As she stood up, I realized that her feet had been replaced with hands.

“What? You asked if I could walk with my hands,” Kait said with a smile. I just continued to stare at her hand-feet. “Wait, I know what’ll round out the look.” During the blurry moment, I kinda figured what she’d do next, and sure enough, she had now replaced her hands with feet.

Before I could say anything, Kait chimed out, “Ooh, One more thing!” After the blur, I looked at Kait’s face and gasped. Her eyes and mouth were now swapped.

Kait just watched as I silently contemplated what I was looking at, when I suddenly felt and hand on my shoulder. I jumped as I looked behind me to see Kait, completely normal, sitting on the bed. Right, I forgot there was another Kait here.

Both Kaits laughed, though it sounded like three voices instead of two. I turned back around as I remembered what the actual Kait’s face currently looked like. “Sorry, I couldn’t help myself,” her right mouth said as her left mouth licked it’s lips. Her one eye looked at me from under her nose. She brushed aside her hair with her foot-hand. I sound so crazy describing this.

“You uh... seem quite appalled by all this,” Kait said through her left mouth.

I finally managed to get some words out. “Uh, yeah, a little bit.” I shook my head. “Sorry, I guess I’m just a little overwhelmed. Maybe I should head home.”

“What? I was just getting started!” Kait said. “I was just about to go try grabbing something with my feet, err, hands... either or!”

“Right.” I looked down with a hand on my forehead. “You go do that, then like one or two more forms, and then I gotta go, okay?”

“Got it!” Kait said as she walked over to her desk, where an empty coffee mug resided. She tried to grab the handle with her right foot-hand, but her toes couldn’t wrap around it properly, so she used both foot-hands to hold it by the base. She lifted it a foot or two in the air and held it there for a second before setting it back down. “Alright, now the fun part,” her left mouth said.

She lifted a hand-foot to reach for the mug, but it was clear she wasn’t quite flexible enough, so she stood on the nearby chair to make it easier. She reached her right hand-foot out and carefully grabbed it by the handle. Then, she lifted her leg up and lowered her head in an attempt to take a sip from one of her mouths, but to no avail.

“Ah, so close!” She said, stepping off the chair before looking at me. “I’m sure you want me to turn back now, am I right?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, “Fine by me.”

Once the blurriness ended and Kait was back to normal, she raised her eyebrows a bit. “Hey, the other one’s gone! Finally!”

I turned around, and sure enough, the other Kait was absent from the bed. There was just one Kait again.

“Sick. Now, gimme one last form before I head out,” I replied, “And make it good.”

“And make it good...” Kait echoed as she went into thought, as did I. I felt weird, but I couldn’t explain why.

“Now that I think about it, you mentioned we were experimenting. What exactly are we testing?” I asked.

Kait shrugged. “I dunno, I’ve kinda just been messing around.”

“Well, I feel like there’s certain intricacies we could work out,” I suggested. “Have you tried turning into, like, an animal or something?”

“Hmm...” Kait seemed to space out a bit. After a few seconds, she looked back at me. “Nope, doesn’t work.”

“Really?” I asked. “What about giving yourself animal traits, like-“

“I can only shapeshift into natural extensions of my original form.” Kait interrupted.

I gave her a weird look. She said that like she already knew it. “How do you know that?” I asked.

“I don’t, actually. I mean- I dunno, I feel like I know more about this power than I actually do.” Kait seemed like she had a hard time explaining that.

That weird feeling from earlier felt stronger. “Alright, I should really head out now.” I told her.

“You sure?” She asked.

“Yes, I’m sure.” I said, as sternly as I could.

“Alright, alright. In that case,” Kait shifted to have 6 arms and 10 fingers and did the same pose from earlier, “See ya!” She said with a wink.

“You making that a thing now?” I said, already walking towards the bedroom door.

“Heh, if you want me to.” She rubbed her front-left elbow with her middle-right hand.

“I’ll pass.” I went into the hallway, and eventually out of the house. This weird feeling was indescribable. Not good, not bad, just... weird. I thought about what had happened as I walked home. How did my life get so strange? Or rather, why?

*  *  *  ROUGHLY 2 WEEKS EARLIER  *  *  *

“Hey Alicia.”

“Oh, hey Ashley! How are things?”

“Things are how they’ve always been: fine.”

“Good to hear. I assume you gave Subject K the potion like I asked?”

“She has a name, you know.”

“I know, I just think it sounds more science-y and fun.”

“Right... Anyways, yeah, I gave her the potion.”

“Perfect. And you didn’t tell her what it did, right?”

“I did not. Why’d you want me to do that, anyways?”

“Good, because that’s the whole point of the test. You see, I didn’t want to bother writing instructions on how to actually shapeshift, as words on paper can be easily misinterpreted.”

“So how is anyone supposed to know what to do?”

“Why, I incorporated the knowledge of how it works and how to do it into the potion itself! That way, the consumer will be able to change forms like they’ve been doing it their whole lives! An elegant solution if I say so myself.”

“Wow. I never would’ve thought of something like that. This is why I’m stuck as assistant.”

“And what a great assistant you are, Ashley! Subject K should start being able to shift by tomorrow, but we’ll wait a few days before you go back to her, just to be safe.”

“Right. And when I approach Katrina, or Subject K as you call her, what should I ask?”

“Try to get her to shift without straight-up telling her to.”

“And how the heck do I do that?”

“I dunno, I’ll come up with a better way to do that while we wait. For now, that’s all I need you for.”

“Uhh, alright. See you later.”

“Bye!”