We ran up the stairs as fast as we could to try to get to her before the attacker had their way. Or at the very least, get a good look at them. One of the officers was leading in front of us while the other one remained with Kaitlyn. Reaching Vanessa’s bedroom door, the officer swung it open and drew out his pistol, scanning the corners of the room in a quick and calculated stare as he looked for the offender. But as we clearly saw ourselves, there was no such offender in the room. There was no one, except Vanessa.

My gut immediately reeled at what I saw of Vanessa, and I think the same happened with Elise and the officer. I actually took a step back, unsure if it really was Vanessa at first, or… something else. Even after I confirmed it was her, my stomach still felt knotted up and twisted as a sense of nausea grew within. While Kaitlyn at least looked relatively human, the same could not be said for Vanessa.

While her head remained perfectly intact, that was all that could be said of that. Because that’s all she was. A head, with several meaty red tentacles morphing out from the bottom of her neck. And that was it. No arms, legs, torso, or anything.

“What the hell happened to me?!?” Vanessa screamed, far more characteristic of the Vanessa I knew compared to earlier regarding her reaction to Kaitlyn’s changes. Upset and angry, teeth clenched as her face became as red as the tentacles that writhed beneath her. But unlike most of her rants, this time it was actually really serious.

“Vanessa! Oh my god, what…” I tried to speak, but I was still taken aback by what had happened to her.

“Whoever fucked Kaitlyn up must have saw me through the window and… fuck!” she cursed, her eyes ever staring at the tentacles she now possessed as she tried to reason with what had happened to her. She then looked up at the officer, eyes narrowed in frustration. “You guys better find that bastard and…”

The officer meanwhile had radioed in his partner, informing them of what’s happened, before holding his hand out and trying to calm Vanessa down. His eyes darted from her to the window she claimed the attacker saw her from. It was decided to vacate the bedroom into the hallway for safety precautions. The officer met with the other at the base of the stairs to discuss what had happened, and radioed HQ regarding the situation.

The three of us sat on the floor of the hallway just outside Vanessa’s bedroom. Vanessa was still staring at her the tentacles which remained uncomfortably close in her vision. Elise was shaking her head.

“This is so unreal,” she said. “First Kaitlyn, and now…” She gently motioned her head towards Vanessa. “I really don’t know what’s going on. Nothing like this has ever happened here in Idallen before. Ever.”

“Well, it just happened!” exclaimed Vanessa. “And if the fucking police can’t solve this, then-“

I interrupted Vanessa, telling her that I was well aware of who was responsible to solve her problem. The same people who she always charged with solving her problems if the authorities couldn’t. Us. But this wasn’t just for her. This was for Kaitlyn, too. And anyone else who might have been a victim of this magical person. I was profoundly nervous about what was happened recently because of a past connection I had involving surreal body morphic artwork that was… kinda like this.

It was during the same time when I made that weird sculpture that’s sitting in our living room. Back when I was into all that weird transformation sort of stuff. But it wasn’t just those shows on TV that egged me into that interest. It was also a very good friend of mine. My art teacher, Narelle. When she wasn’t teaching us the necessities of colour theory, human proportions, and all sorts of other stuff, she was working on her own projects, which often involved hybridized people. She helped me see some excitement in the oddity which was the changing of the human body. And she had a point when she mentioned that it’s the reason why all the different races exist today. Cultures whom developed affinities and connections with certain animals, whom over time were reformed to resemble such by inadvertently using mana to reshape themselves over the course of centuries. But what she was interested in surpassed simple anthros and mixed bloods; much stranger things, like centaurs, conjoinment, and chimeras.

Considering what’s happened to my friends, that past relationship I had with Narelle was coming back to me. She had since stopped being a teacher, and was working as an art gallery curator. Curiosity mixed with dread suspicion as assumptions of coinciding relationships began to manifest in my mind. And Elise could read it right off my face.

“What’s on your mind, Lucy?” she asked.

“Just…” I stuttered, unsure how to put into words my thoughts. “What if-”

Just then my phone buzzed. I stopped speaking to check to see what the message was. Considering last time one of us received a message, I wanted to see-

“Oh no…”

“What is it?” Elise asked, her voice dipping into concern.

I looked up at her. “My old art teacher, Narelle. She needs to see me. She… she got attacked too.”

My heart sunk as I said those words out loud, my eyes widening with the freak reality of what’s happened, which just happened to coincide with what I was thinking.

“We need to go see-”

“What about me, guys?!” cried Vanessa, who despite her state, still managed to remain more upset than shocked by her reduced form, flailing her tentacles about to get our attention.

“We’ll take you downstairs and you and Kaitlyn just sit-”

“Oh hell no! No one’s touching me!” she stated as she started to maneuver herself with her many tentacles across the floor to the stairs. “Sure sure, go pay a visit to your childhood teacher, and leave your tentacle-necked friend to fend for herself. Ugggh…”

Elise looked at me and shrugged. “Think I should stay and look after her?”

“Eeh, she’ll be fine. She’s got Kaitlyn to boss around,” I said, feeling guilty for leaving Vanessa at a time like this, but at the same time not feeling sorry for it, considering it was Vanessa. “Let’s go see Narelle.”

-Lucy

PS. This was... I'm not sure if my post did this justice, but it really was a nasty shock to see Vanessa like that. And looking back, I do feel bad that we left her, and Kaitlyn. Elise probably should have stayed with them. But at the same time... what if something happened to me on the way to Narelle's? I don't think there was a straight up right answer for that situation. Whatever happened happened. The best one can do is to just keep moving forward.