In my proud tradition of getting things out of my head and onto paper in some form, behold! a transformation thingy! Also shows how bad I am at drawing human bodies! Still in the sketch side of things but it’s what I worked on today along with a short story to go with it. Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

Rebecca was humming to herself as she made her way to her apartment. A successful first date for a new victim. Her husband and her had been running this scam for a long time. Finding loners with too much money who were putting their hopes on finding love, luring them along to drain them of their money, then disappearing without a trace. As far as livelihoods went it wasn’t a game that could be played forever, but with the money she had set aside in her personal accounts, splitting evenly with her husband, both of them would be able to live on their nest eggs even if either of them decided to leave the other.

She unlocked the apartment door and reached her hand to the doorknob. When she want to turn it, she felt something prick her finger. She let out a sharp expletive in surprise, then examined the doorknob to see a small needle had been attached to the underside of it, out of view. Soft laughter from inside made her bring her attention from the tiny annoyance, to the door itself. It was a woman’s laugh. Would Jake have really been that stupid to have another person in their hideaway? She pushed the door open calmly, acting like their was nothing wrong and called out.

“Jake? do you have company?” Jake didn’t reply, but the woman’s voice did.

“Oh Rebecca! Glad you made it, come in, come in.” Someone was welcoming her into her own home? She had to act like her and Jake weren’t married to anyone else that might be an onlooker. It wouldn’t do to have someone calling her a cheater in front of a mark. It was why they had two separate rooms in the apartment, even if they did spend time mostly in one bed when unobserved. She stepped clear of the hallway and kitchen to the opened up living room where a woman sat on the couch. In front of her was a plastic container with a little white mouse in it. “So glad she could join us.” Rebecca’s palms began to itch and she clenched her fists as she saw the person and recognized her.

“You’re Ronny’s sister aren’t you? Charlotte was it?” The woman nodded.

“You know my face? Well that’s nice. You drove Ronny and the rest of the family apart before you stole all his money and disappeared so I wasn’t sure if you would know who I was. He spoke so highly of you Rebecca.”

“How did you find me here?” Charlotte shrugged.

“Does it really matter? I found out who your real name, and where you really lived. I’m here now. I know you can’t call the police, so we’re going to have a little chat

“Where’s Jake?” The woman shrugged again.

“Safe for now, but you’re the one who’s going to decide if he stays that way or not. I just want to tell you a story.”

“And then?” Charlotte shrugged. The room started feeling colder, and Rebecca shivered before rubbing her hands along to her arms to heat up.

“And then I’ll leave you alone. I’ll let Jake go, and you two will never see me again.” Rebecca eyed the woman warily before nodding.

“So talk then.” She smiled and leaned forward, looking down at the mouse in the container.

“Well, let’s start with how happy I was to hear that Ronny had finally found someone that seemed to like him, and he liked. I cared a great deal for my little brother. His job didn’t leave him much time to socialize, so when he found someone that kept similar hours with their work, and shared so many similar interests I was thrilled.” The mouse in the container frantically scratched as the sides of the container to try and escape, squeaking pitifully while Charlotte continued. “When we started to hear from him less and less, I was less and less happy, but if he was happy I could live with him being a little distant.” Rebecca felt a pain in her stomach, like she was about to be sick, but hid it behind a stoic, well practiced demeanor of icy indifference used to ward off marks that turned out to be inappropriate for her scams.

“If this is going to be a sob story about how I broke your brother’s heart and now he’s living at home, you’re not going to get any sympathy out of me.” The woman stared at Rebecca in a way that made her already chilling blood turn even colder.

“Oh, he didn’t move back home. The note he left said he thought we all hated him, he had nowhere to go after you left him, and he took his own life to escape from a world he would have to live without you.” Rebecca suddenly found herself doubling over in pain. Her knees grew too weak to hold her up. She stared in surprise as she noticed her feet had shrunk out of her shoes.

“W-what?” Charlotte leaned back on the couch.

“I swore that I would track down the woman who broke my brother’s heart and make her pay. In my search, it turned out that you had broken quite a few hearts, and left more than one body. you and Jake.” Rebecca’s tongue slithered from her mouth as she tasted the air. A quick flick out, then back in to reveal that it had grown forked. The pain kept her from responding with more than,

“Bitch!” The woman shrugged.

“Fine, if we’re going to be calling each-other names then, you snake!” She smiled as she said it. Rebecca’s hair shrunk slowly back into her skull while her face pushed forward into a snout. She felt her jaws reshape, the cracking bones and sprouting scales made her want to scream, but all that came out were distressed hisses, speech completely robbed of her. Then, the world seemed to grow larger as she began to shrink out of her clothing. “My insult will stick though. A lesson that you will never get to appreciate is, always check on the family of your prey. I’m an alchemist. I also happen to specialize in body modification elixirs. Which is a fancy way to say I can brew potions and poisons that change people’s shape. Usually I do this to give people eyes that can see in the dark, or ears that can hear better. In your case, and Jake’s case, I brewed something more specialized. You’ll have your brain but you’ll just be a snake.” She dumped the container on the ground to let the mouse run loose before stepping past the transforming Rebecca. “We’ll see how long you and your only food source can live together in this apartment. Goodbye.” By the time she had left and locked the door behind her, a fully transformed serpent slithered from Rebecca’s clothes, fixing its eyes upon the nervous mouse which had frozen nearby in terror.