A frustrated pounding on the outside of the bathroom door startles me so hard I nearly fall into the toilet.

"Hurry up, Hannah!" my brother shouts at me. "I have to shower, too!"

"S-sorry!" I call back. "I'll be out in a minute!"

Annoyingly, I don't think I've even spent as long as I usually do in the bathroom today. My shower is already done, and I'm currently busy bandaging my feet up. I don't really know what's going on but I do not have the time to deal with it right now. School. Job. Rest. Repeat. I realize this is definitely abnormal. My dream was weird and now my toes are all simultaneously screwed up in a way that can't be anything other than a physiological issue. But there's still a chance it will heal on its own, right? Right. Of course. I just gotta get through the day. The alternative is heading to the emergency room, getting poked at by strangers, freaking out my whole family and just… no. No thanks. No doctors, and definitely no getting my family involved. I'll figure this out on my own.

I finish wrapping up my feet, steal our gauze roll in case I have to change them out at school, and get to completing the rest of my morning routine. My brother yells at me two more times before I get out of the bathroom, but screw him. Today's one of the days I really have to pay attention to my makeup. Also, my toes might be mutating.

I manage to limp out to the bus, enjoy listening to Brendan's nonstop ramblings on our way to school, and do my best to keep my weight on my heels as I stagger into my first class. Brendan, unfortunately, notices that I'm in a lot of pain. He's usually very unobservant, but I guess as he would say 'everybody nat twenties sometimes.'

"Is there something wrong with your feet?" he asks with obvious concern.

"...Yes," I admit, because as much as I don't want to have this conversation there's no way I'm lying to Brendan. "My toes hurt like hell. I'm not sure what's wrong with them."

"You seem tired today, too," he notes. "Maybe you should take some sick days?"

"I'll be fine," I insist, reassuring both of us. "It's a little weird, but… um. I'll tell you after school?"

Brendan hesitates, giving me that confused squint he does which means 'I think I'm misreading something in this conversation but I'm not sure what.' Which is usually my cue to explain something, but I'm really not up for an in-depth conversation right now. I hope he at least picks up on that much. He hunches down a little when no explanation is forthcoming, retreating further into the recesses of a hoodie that's somehow simultaneously too baggy and too small.

"...If you're sure," he agrees to my relief. "Don't push yourself too hard, okay Hannah?"

"Don't worry about it," I tell him. "I don't have work today anyway."

"Which just means you're doing your 'other work,' doesn't it?"

"Well… yes," I admit. "But it's still basically relaxing. And I don't have to stand up for that, so it's fine. Anyway, I gotta go to class! Bye, Brendan!"

He sputters a few of his usual protests about overworking myself as I run (or I guess quickly stagger) to my first class. I gratefully plop down in my seat nearly ten minutes before the class is scheduled to start, partly because punctuality is an important gesture of respect but mostly because my feet hurt. People start trickling in shortly after, including my friend Ida who approaches me with the sort of shit-eating grin that makes me mentally place a parenthetical question mark after the word 'friend.'

Ida is a tiny and incorrigible bundle of chaos. The first word that comes to mind when I think of her is 'gremlin.' She's one of the few people in the school even shorter than I am, with a blonde pixie cut, almost childishly thin body, and mischievous glint in her eye that all combine to make me wonder if she was replaced by a fae as a child. She approaches with one of her other friends, some curly-haired gossip girl who carries herself exactly like the kind of person I tend to avoid for the sake of my mental health.

"Hey Hannah," Ida greets me with a concerning air of smugness. "Are you taking your autistic boyfriend to the dance this year?"

I blink, utterly blindsided. That… how dare she? She knows better than that! What the… why!? There's only one response I can muster which properly expresses how I feel.

"Fuck. You," I hiss vitriolically.

Ida just grins brightly, turns to the girl next to her, and holds out her hand, palm-up. The curly-haired girl groans, pulls out ten dollars, and slaps it dramatically into Ida's hand. Then she walks away, leaving Ida to triumphantly beam at my furious glare. What the f— what the heck just happened!?

"Did… did you just win a bet?" I ask Ida disbelievingly.

"Yeah, sorry Hannah," Ida says, projecting token contrition. "We were talking about you and she said you were too much of a goodie-two-shoes to ever swear, so I bet her that I could make you cuss me out after only a single sentence. And then she bet against me, because she's a fool."

Wh—really? That's it? I know I don't swear much, but I don't get why anyone would swear much. If you swear too often then none of your swears have meaning. Using them constantly is just intellectual laziness. There are better ways to indicate more general disgruntledness. When I tell someone 'fuck you' I want them to know I'm getting dangerously close to punching them in the mouth. Speaking of…

"You don't get to talk about Brendan that way," I say, glowering at her. "You should know better."

"What way?" she asks. "The boyfriend way? Because like, he is autistic, right? It's pretty obvious."

"That is his business," I snap. "Not yours, especially not when you say it that way. And the boyfriend thing isn't your business either, but you already know we aren't!"

"Okay, okay!" Ida says, raising both hands placatingly. It's not very effective, since one of them is still holding the money she won by betting she could piss me off. "I can see that I owe you an apology! I'm sorry for implying you are anything other than an absolutely massive lesbian."

"Ida I swear to god—"

"Let me make it up to you!" she continues, barreling through my fury. "I'll buy you lunch. No tricks, just girl talk. After all, thanks to you I happen to be ten dollars richer."

I scowl at her. She's a smarmy bitch, but also I am quite hungry.

"...Not wanting to date my best friend doesn't make me gay, Ida," I protest lamely.

"Of course, of course, yeah," Ida agrees in that blithe manner that means she doesn't believe a word of it. "So. Free food?"

"...I'll be ordering more than your winnings will pay for," I tell her.

She shrugs.

"Sure, it's your waistline."

Gah! She never cared about the money, did she? I've definitely been played, but I don't know how!

"Just… please don't test my patience any more today, Ida," I grumble. "I'm in a lot of pain."

"Aw, I'm sorry Hannah," she replies genuinely (for once). "What happened? You okay?"

"I… think so," I hedge. "It's my feet. I'm fine as long as we sit down."

"Alright," she nods, quickly perking back up. "I'll see you at lunch, then!"

Class starts shortly after that, and I do my usual bit of largely ignoring the teacher since today's material is all review. It's fine. Unfortunately, the next period is gym class, which is absolutely not fine.

I fit solidly in the nerd/geek clique and so somewhat predictably, I'm not the biggest fan of gym class. I don't really hate it, though. I'm pretty firmly middle-of-the-pack in terms of athletic capability, under all the kids on actual sports teams (and the marching band, all of whom are secretly kinda jacked). But not being on a sports team means I'm still in that group of people the gym teacher doesn't really care about. It can be… frustrating. But today, of course, I have bigger problems.

I head into the locker room and take off my shoes in order to switch to gym shoes and find my socks stained red. I grimace and quickly put the shoe back on before anyone can see. Wonderful. I can't ignore this. Running around for an entire class period would be an absolutely horrible decision. But if I talk with the gym teacher, he's going to send me to the nurse's office. And then the nurse is going to look at my feet, and then she's going to freak out and tell my family, and then…!

An unexpected surge of panic hits me, but I swallow it down. I don't know what to do. This clearly isn't normal!

"You okay?" someone asks me. What's her name? Amanda or something?

"Just ducky," I respond, my voice cracking just a little bit.

"You sure?"

I flash her my best smile, remember I have a mask on, and give her a thumbs-up instead.

"I've repressed worse!" I reassure her. It does not seem to have the desired effect.

"Well, um… class is about to start, so you should get changed."

I put a bit of pressure on my foot and decide that, regardless of the consequences, I'm definitely going to mess myself up if I try to actually run around on my feet today. My choices are to request permission to go to the nurse's office or to just ditch, and I'll definitely get an earful at home if I'm ever caught ditching.

"I think I need to go to the nurse, actually," I admit. "I'll go talk with Mr. Attenborough."

"Autumn, Hannah, you're late!" the gym teacher barks when we emerge. (Ohhh, her name is Autumn. Eh, I was close.) "Five extra laps for both of you!"

"Sorry sir, she was helping me," I say, doing my best to take the blame for her. "My feet are bleeding."

"Like blood-blood?" he asks.

The heck does that mean? What other kind of blood would I be talking about?

"...Yes sir, I have open wounds. Autumn was just helping me. May I go to the nurse?"

He considers this imperiously for a moment before nodding, because thankfully my school is not a ridiculous fantasy land in which gym teachers wouldn't get fired so hard you'd hear gunshots if they made a student run around while actively wounded.

"Yeah, get out of here," Mr. Attenborough grunts. "Autumn, you still get five more laps."

Wow! I guess he's still a jerk though! I whisper 'sorry' at Autumn and put 'making it up to her' on my mental to-do list just under 'scream into a pillow for four hours.' She just groans and starts jogging, which I suppose is an entirely fair reaction under the circumstances. Time to limp to the nurse's office, I suppose.

I stagger on over to the front of the building and let myself into the medical room, earning a pleasant smile from the nurse sitting inside. She is not wearing a mask. Why is our nurse not wearing a mask!? Like I know it's no longer mandated but… seriously? Gahhh!

"Ms. Hiiragi!" she greets me. "Welcome! Do you need something?"

No, I'm limping into the nurse's office for a social visit, obviously. How does she even remember my name? We've talked like, maybe twice ever. In lieu of a verbal answer I just plop down in the nearest seat and take a shoe off, showing the blood on my socks.

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"I need to change my bandages," I tell her.

On the way here, I developed a genius strategy: pretend this is entirely mundane and that I don't need or want help. That's my strategy for most things, really. The more in control of a situation you pretend to be, the less people try to help you. I pull out the bandages I brought myself and remove my sock, carefully refusing to wince at the sight of the bloody red rows of gauze over the front of my foot. Why is it bleeding so much? Shouldn't it have scabbed over by now? I'm being careful not to put much pressure on my toes!

I try to angle my body away to not show much to the nurse, but I am unfortunately the only other person in here so I have her full attention. That's fine, it's fine. Just keep pretending it's normal. I'm careful to block the nurse's view with an innocuous hand placement as I peel the bandages away from my big toe.

I almost vomit.

No. No no no no. That's bone. That's definitely bone. Even as stained with red as it is, it's impossible to mistake the curved white structure as anything but a claw. It's grown since this morning, the core of my foot straining to gouge its way free of my flesh.

"Do you need any help?" the nurse asks, noticing me freeze up.

I barely register her words. My bones are growing out of my feet. Hesitantly, a numb horror moving me, I pinch the protruding spear of bone between two fingers. It's sturdy. It's not broken. I'm growing claws. Fuck. What the fuck. No. No no no no.

"Ms. Hiiragi?" the nurse addresses me again, placing her hand lightly on my shoulder.

"Don't touch me!" I snap at her.

She pulls back immediately, schooling her face into a calm expression and putting her hands on her lap.

"Breathe slowly, Ms. Hiiragi," she suggests.

What? Oh. I… I'm hyperventilating. I feel cold.

"Look at me," the nurse says. "It's okay. Breathe in, breathe out."

Numbly, I try to follow her orders. Breathe in, breathe out. My breath is shaky. My chest is starting to hurt. Wait, my chest hurts!? Am I having a heart attack!?

"I… I…" I start to stutter, but the words don't come out. "I f-feel…"

Tears run down my cheeks. Am I dying? What's going on? I'm growing fucking talons out of my feet and I'm dying and everything is insane and I can't speak, I can't fucking breathe…!

"You're having a panic attack," the nurse says calmly. "This is perfectly normal. I promise you're going to be okay."

Panic attack? Panic attack!? I don't get panic attacks, I'm not… I never…! This is so much worse than that!

"M-my chest…!" I manage to choke out. I'm dying. I'm dying I'm dying I'm dying…!

"Does it feel like squeezing, or stabbing?"

"S-stabbing!"

"Do your arms hurt?"

What? My arms?

"No?"

"Tell me if your arms or hands start to tingle," she instructs, as calm as ever. "Would you like to lie down?"

I shake my head emphatically no. I still have one hand grasping my toe, blocking it from her view. I squeeze it slightly, verifying that the claw is still there. I can't let go. I can't let her see it!

"Would you like me to go farther away?" she asks.

I quickly nod yes, and she scoots her chair to the other side of the room. Oh god I just walked into her office with an unexplained injury and started acting like a PTSD victim when she touched my shoulder she's going to call fucking social services. I'm an idiot. I'm a freak. I'm the world's stupidest moron freak and everything is going insane.

Okay. No. Hold on a second, brain. Calm down.

So I might… I might actually be having a panic attack. The more I think about that the more signs seem to be pointing that way. That's, um… that's good, right? Better than a heart attack, haha.

Yeah, no, this doesn't feel good at all. This is hell. I must be going insane, I would never… I mean. Okay so panic attacks are normal. Intellectually, I know that. But I feel weak and pathetic anyway. This isn't something that should be happening to me. I should be better than this. I know that's a horrible thing to think but it still claws at my mind anyway.

I shudder. Ugh. 'Claws.' What a horrible choice of words.

It takes another couple minutes that feel like eternities, but my breathing starts to stabilize. My aching chest starts to dull down, and the tears running down my face start to dry. I did not, it would seem, have a heart attack. Oh boy!

I still have talons, though, so as soon as my hands stop shaking I bind my toe back up. The nurse waits patiently while I do so, likely not wanting to be the first to address me after I asked her to give me some space. Credit to her, she probably has dealt with this before. She seems in her element. I finally turn to face her once I finish my patch job.

"S-sorry," I manage to choke out, because 'thank you' feels foreign and wrong.

"You have nothing to apologize for," the nurse tells me firmly. "Have you ever had a panic attack before?"

"No," I admit. "Never."

"Well, like I said, it's normal," she assures me. "Downright common, really. Now if you're comfortable with it I'd really like to take a look at your f—"

"N-no!" I blurt immediately. "I… I don't consent."

She sighs slightly, but nods.

"Okay," she allows. "Well then, if nothing else you should definitely rest. I'm going to write you an attendance exemption. Feel free to take as long as you need in here. There are cots you can lie down on in the room next door. Are you comfortable walking?"

"Yes," I tell her, and stand up to prove it. "I… I'm fine."

I'm fine.

"Then rest well, Ms. Hiiragi."

"C-call me Hannah," I tell her. "Please."

"Hannah, then," she agrees, and I walk next door and collapse into a cot.

Immediately, I realize I've made a mistake. Because I'm exhausted. The cot isn't very comfortable, but my panic-addled body doesn't care and demands rest immediately. I'm very much the kind of fallen-log sleeper that can immediately pass out pretty much anywhere I lie down, so if I'm not careful I might end up… I might… I…

…

I shudder as I suddenly become aware of my surroundings without ever opening my eyes. I'm in an underground burrow, all ten of my legs curled up in a ball. My stomach growls at me, and I roll slightly as it causes me to flinch.

Dang it. I'm here again.

I have a mouth, but I still can't scream. I settle for uncurling my body and furiously clawing at the walls, trying to make my silent despair known through violence. I'm here again! I'm here again! It's all real, isn't it? It's either real or I'm sobbing somewhere in a padded cell! What is happening to me!?

Unfortunately, my silent tantrum is soon interrupted by strange, quiet noises that catch the edge of my attention. At least I can still hear things that are outside my weird sensory bubble. And if I'm not mistaken, what I hear sounds like… voices.

Not English-speaking voices, of course, it's all gibberish to me. But the sounds absolutely have the complexity and the back-and-forth between speakers that I associate with language. The voices themselves even sound pretty close to human, albeit not speaking any Earth language I know of. It sounds like there's two men and one woman, and their conversation seems to be entirely congenial. Of course, I'm recently coming down from a panic attack and I'm also currently shaped like a horrible little ball-spider monster, so I'm less than confident that a social interaction is going to go well for me. Not to mention that if this is some freaky fantasy world (and it certainly appears to be), this could just as easily be a terrifying voice-mimicry monster as it could be a person. Brendan has told me harrowing stories about those! As such, I opt to wait inside my burrow as the voices continue to approach.

They start to get quieter as they get closer, and eventually the voices stop. I don't find this particularly reassuring. And sure enough, when something finally steps into my range, I can't help but shudder with terror. I am clearly looking at a monster.

The three creatures that approach me are vaguely humanoid, in that they seem to have arms, legs, a torso, a head… you know, human stuff. But the closer I look, the more twisted and distorted it all becomes. What I thought was clothing on two of the figures is actually a thick coat of fur, and they have two extra arms, long and low-hanging. Though the third doesn't have any such alien features (even, seemingly, on the inside of his body; it all looks like human anatomy to me) he walks in front, and as he does his visage warps horribly, shifting and stretching and twisting as he moves like he's a reflection in a funhouse mirror. The others suffer similar horrid twists of body, and the worst is when they pass over one of the barren zones. These creatures are far bigger than anything else around, so large that I could barely reach their knees if I stretch my body as tall as I can go. As such, they don't zig-zag around the smaller barren zones because they can't. They're too large. Instead, they just… unravel. Their bodies twist and warp like horrid flesh monsters as they split open their own foot so it lands evenly on either side of the barren zone.

The horrid creatures have stopped talking entirely, though sometimes they turn to look at each other and make what I can only assume would be facial expressions on a body not twisted into a Cronenberg horror creature. One of them points at my exact hiding spot.

For the second time today, I'm certain I'm about to die.

I watch as the mostly-human-looking one kneels down and holds out its hand. Not at me, though; it seems to be pointing at nothing in particular. Yet then I notice one of the small animals nearby halt and start slowly walking towards them. It seems hesitant and stiff, undulating around the barren spots of land as it approaches the monsters.

It stops right in front of the hand, leans forward, and nuzzles it. The monster pets it kindly. And then its partner stabs it in the brain with a spear that seemed to materialize out of nowhere.

Oh god.

I'm not moving. I am completely, utterly still, curled into my little hole as I pray to whatever horrid god brought me here to make this stop. I'm just a little spider-ball! Don't mind me! But my prayers, of course, go unanswered, as any god horrible enough to make this world clearly isn't interested in preventing my suffering. The corpse of the small animal is set gently outside my den. The smell of it is enticing. Then the monster stretches out its hand to me, and waits.

I… am being baited. I'm obviously being baited. There's no fucking way I'm going out there! In fact, maybe I can dig myself a different exit? Crap, I should have been doing that this entire time! I turn to face a wall before remembering that the concept of turning isn't really a thing for my body, and scrabble away at the back of the burrow. Just as I start, however, a nagging feeling starts to itch its way into my head.

What if they're friendly?

Haha, what? I just saw them murder a little creature, and I am currently a little creature! Nope, no way.

They have food. They're friendly.

That's… no. What? That is bait. That is a trap. No thanks. Except, y'know, what if it's not a trap? I am pretty hungry. They could be friends. Friendly friendly friends. They're nice and I should go to them. Yes, that makes sense. A refreshing breeze wafts over my body as I step out of the burrow, right in front of them. How nice of them to bring me a me… a… how nice of them to… to… to get me…

A freakish, twisted thing that looks like a hand run through a taffy machine reaches forward to pet the top of my carapace. This is wrong. It's wrong. No, it's fine. They're friends. They're not friends, they just killed something by doing this! But not me though. They only killed that animal to feed me. I'll be fine. It's fine. They're friends!

The hand touches me. I freak out and bolt.

I don't even think about it, I just sprint away. This seems to startle the monsters, and as a result I feel the fog on my mind disappear with a jolt. Holy crap, did I just get siren song'd? Does this world have predators with mind magic? Crap crap crap crap!

The monsters recover from their surprise quickly and give chase, which is extremely bad because I'm currently very small and their legs are very long. They are absolutely going to catch up to me in a footrace. Worse, a bunch of those barren patches are coming up, and I still don't know what sort of horrible thing happens if I step in them!

I swerve to avoid the first one, and my pursuers twist to do the same. What are they? How the heck do their bodies work? They look like they're being constantly warped by a weird instagram filter. There's no time to consider it, though, because they're still gaining on me! If I don't do something, they will catch me. In front of us is a particularly large patch of barren terrain. Going around it will require me to drastically change direction and move in a wide arc around it. Going through it, however… I mean, I have no idea what could possibly happen to me in that case. But surely, nothing lives in the barren patches for a reason?

Well, I suppose I should just stop running, then. The ones behind me are going to catch me no matter what, and they just want to be friends!

I almost start to slow down before I catch myself, a redoubling panic casting the foreign thoughts out of my mind. You know what? Better the unknown problem in front of me than the certain mortal danger behind me! When we reach the next barren patch, I don't swerve around it. I go straight.

My legs skitter across the empty space, no longer impeded by errant rocks or inconveniently-placed shrubs. Instead, I note there's only solid wood underneath me, the same kind of wood that I dug through before reaching the surface last night. Well, last Earth night. I don't have any idea if it's day or night here in this world, or if the concept of day and night even exists. Though I suppose I recall feeling the sun on my chitin when I first stepped outside. I think there was something that felt like sunlight while I was running away, too.

There isn't any sunlight anymore.

It's cold here, very cold. Not uncomfortably so, but the difference in temperature is immediate and stark. The monsters behind me skid to a stop as I pass into the barren patch, looking around with apparent confusion, as if they can no longer see me. Maybe they can't? Are these areas some kind of dark patch or something? That could explain why no plants grow here, but there's no dirt either. Just wood.

Either way, my pursuers have stopped. That's great news, but I'm going to keep on running! I dash to the other side of the barren patch, but the moment I step back out on normal ground the monsters seem to spot me and they start chasing me again! Gah!

I duck onto a different barren patch nearby and the monsters slow down, jogging up to the intersection between the normal ground and the barren ground and stopping to wait, once again with apparent confusion. I slow to a stop and wait. They begin to babble at each other as I watch. I scuttle in a terrified circle, realizing suddenly that my body is incredibly tired. Just that short little run really took it out of me, which does not bode well for my escape chances.

The monsters start to pace around the barren patch, sometimes in a normal circle but often in horrid, jittery warping movements where they seem to stretch along the outside of the barren zone like a shadow crawling up a wall. They're pinpointing me somehow, but they don't ever step inside. It seems like their bodies might be physically incapable of it. I can hide from them here. They can't come in. I'm safe. But I'm also hungry, and this area is barren. My singular valve of a heart beats rapidly as my panic starts to come out of fight-or-flight mode. I can rest and think a little, but I can't stay here forever.

What's my next move?