Eldritch Part 10 – Family Troubles

When Adrienne and I finally got out of the house, it was already close to mid-day. I didn’t mind though, at least she was happy about her appearance. Unlike me who had, at first, severely struggled to accept the changes to my body, she didn’t seem to mind as much. In a way, she hadn’t lost anything but only gained new and exciting abilities. Not only would she never again age or lose her beauty but she also was able to mimic almost anything she saw.

I was happy for her but the voice in the back of my mind, the little cautionary whispers, they couldn’t help but be concerned about our situation. At first, I had thought that my final transitioning would have gotten rid of it but the voice proved to be tenacious. Whenever I was uncertain or my mind wandered eventually I met the voice again. Did the other girls feel the same way or was it only me? As soon as the thoughts had come I pushed them back into the dark hole they had emerged from. Shaking my head I turned to my companion.

‘Adrienne! Stop gawking at your own reflection, will you?’

“It’s fine! You said nobody would notice us anyway!”

‘Yeah... I’m not so sure about that. Maybe stop yelling?’

While the Suggestion might have kept the people from truly understanding what they were looking at, I wasn’t entirely sure how well it worked. Passer-bys kept looking in my direction with distraught or confused expressions, so they certainly could see me. Yet despite my admittedly strange appearance after a short glance at me or Adrienne, they went back to their business. I had learned about illusion magic in university and I had been rather good at using them. But where before it had been my own creativity and power weaving the spell, now with Mother behind my every move it was no longer up to me. I was merely borrowing her might... almost instantly the nagging voice came back.

‘Why am I even following her? Why did I allow her to not only enslave my body but also my mind? Why should I... What was I thinking? I am a bad daughter for even asking those questions!’

With an amused smile, I turned towards Adrienne. She had ignored my calls before, hadn’t she? Maybe it was time for some punishment after all... Sneaking around the silly little humans was easy enough thanks to Mother’s Suggestion. It worked like charm as soon I started moving. I swam between the people as if they were waves and quickly enough I had made my way over to my cute little sister. She was so enamored with her own appearance that she didn’t even notice me. Quickly before she could react I wrapped my hands around her head. The surprised gasp she let out made the webbing between my fingers vibrate, it was an odd feeling.

“Adrienne,” I whispered into her ear. “My dear beloved Sister... you wouldn’t ignore my orders. Now would you?”

“Valerie!” She tried turning around but I held her in place. “Uhm... could you maybe just let go of my head?”

“Shush dear Sister.” With almost gleeful joy I increased the pressure on her head. “Simply answer my question. Did you, or did you not just ignore my order?”

It was clear that she didn’t quite understand what I was getting at. Seeing her desperately trying to figure how she could have slighted me was adorable, especially the way she twitched every time I clenched my fingers. After a minute of false guesses, she was whimpering already in pain, just the way it should be. After all, she was so much more pathetic than me! She was less and I had to let her feel it. With a sudden crack, my arms moved and crushed Adrienne’s facsimile of her head.

Membrane, bone, and slime ripped apart as my claws went through it like hot knives through butter. The weird state of mind I had been in faded almost immediately. When I realized just what I had done it was already too late; I could only watch in horror as the goo that once was my lover's head dripped down between my fingers. ‘By the gods what have I done? I... I smashed Adrienne’s head like a fucking grape! Oh, gods. Oh, gods. Oh, gods! Wait! Maybe I can still fix her? I just have to pile all the goo back on her body!’

‘My head! You crushed my head! Oh, Mother, I am so sorry!’

My mind did a double-take when all of a sudden I heard Adrienne’s voice.

‘Adrienne?’ I called out confused while slowly looking up from the goo in my hands.

‘Ah! Yes! I am here! Sorry for bothering you! It’s not going to happen again!’

The sight before me only confused me even more. The entirely headless body of Adrienne was currently trying to bow down in front of me while having no idea whatsoever where I actually was. Not only was that odd enough, but apparently having her head removed seemed to barely bother her; other than the fact that she couldn’t see. Seeing her like this, I wanted to apologize for what I had done, but for some reason I couldn’t, I just couldn’t do it! The more I wanted to tell that I was sorry, the more I wanted to make sure she was okay... the more my body resisted. What was going on with me? I felt almost violently ill at the thought of caring about the well-being of others.

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I didn’t understand why I felt this way but it certainly made me change my course of action. Instead of apologized like I initially had wanted to, I just scoffed and turned away from her.

“Just... fix your face and we’ll be on our way. I’m starving and I have a weird feeling about today...”

. . . . . .

“Val! Can we buy this? Oh! Oh! THIS!”

I could only skeptically look at the number of sweets and chocolate that she was piling in the shopping cart. Unlike Clarissa or me it seemed that Adrienne had still retained her sweet tooth. To be fair stuffing yourself with snacks was entirely acceptable when you didn’t have to build muscle mass. And even after her transformation, I couldn’t say that Adrienne was particularly strong. Her talents laid in a different direction; which I had to find out when she dropped something behind a shelf and promptly slithered into the gap on the bottom only to re-emerge a moment later with a bunch of chewed up praline floating inside of her gelatinous form.

As she was busy with finding new creative ways to avoid the cameras just so that she could stuff herself without paying for it, I started looking around the store. For some time now I had the weird feeling of being watched. Now back when I had been human I would have easily demised the concern, but since then my senses had not only improved but changed. I could easily pick up on things I would have considered impossible before and right now they told me that something was... iffy. The only problem was that I still hadn’t figured out just what it was that kept me on edge. Thankfully getting a good view of the room was rather easy. With but a single thought my tentacles pushed me up high enough so that I could survey the area. It was near impossible for anything to escape my many-eyed view. This, by the way, took some getting used to.

“Stay here for a moment Adrienne. I have to check up on something.”

Not even bothering to wait for her reply I rushed off. Just now I could have sworn to see someone quickly rush into the supermarket's storage area. Instead of following the walk lines I just stepped over the shelves. As I was getting closer to the area my tentacles picked up all kinds of information; some of which I would have rather not known. A lot of people came this way on a regular basis, which wasn’t a surprise because even to this day humans and not machines stocked the shelves and baskets. Sure we had automated trucks and cars but a supermarket was simply too disorderly for the quick action and thinking that was required to efficiently restock and resupply all the lines. And so I had to filter through all the stink humans left in their wake.

In the actual storage area, the smell was even worse, sweat and motor oil mixed to create a truly unpleasant odor. I was more than thankful for the fact that the end of my head tentacles couldn’t taste or smell. I most likely would have puked.

Much to my immediate joy, I didn’t have to wait for my stalker to come out by themself. For almost as soon as I had set foot in the room a voice called out to me from the shadows; a voice that I immediately recognized.

“Valerie... it is you, no? I’ve been following you for a few days now... and you are wearing her clothes. So it better be...”

‘Taya... I would have expected for you to call me. Why didn’t you?’

“That voice... it is yours but more like a shallow copy of yourself. I now see that I was right not to call you.” There was a sudden movement to my right but when I look there was nothing. “Something happened to you, Val... something terrible.”

‘Terrible?’ A mental chuckle accompanied my words. ‘There is nothing terrible about me my dear!’

“Yeah... that isn’t going to work. I saw your... your real appearance. You can somehow hide it but the pictures I took were unmistakable. What happened to you?”

‘Why don’t you come out, Tanya? We haven’t seen each other in days! Are you okay? Did the AFI mercs hurt you? It’s okay, you can trust me.’

“Stop!” Another erratic movement, this time to my left. “You’re trying to get into my head... just like you did with your friends before you corrupted them. What is wrong with you!? This is NOTHING like you Valerie!”

Her outcry confused me; of course, I was like myself, or not? ‘Tanya. You need to believe me, I have no intention of hurting you. I only gave Clarissa and Adrienne what they wanted, what they needed.’

Suddenly a great idea came to my mind, I could turn Tanya too! No, I couldn’t, she wasn’t a mage... I needed a catalyst.

‘Tanya! I just had the best idea, if I had a catalyst I could give you Mother’s gift too!’ A concept for it was early forming in my mind but was immediately interrupted by Tanya yelling at me.

“Mother’s gift? Do you mean you want to turn me into what you are? No, I like the way that I am, and I liked the way you used to be too. I will not join you in this, especially not if forced.” A metallic click was almost drowned out by her ranting.

“No. I will not let you do this. I’m going to admit, I love you like a Sister, no... Probably even more than that BUT that doesn’t mean I will just accept every bad decision that you make!” I could hear Tanya spit on the ground somewhere in front of me.

“And that ritual you did, that was one hell of a bad decision! Well, for what it is worth I will keep an eye on you.” The sudden influx of vibrations coming from the store made me wrinkle my brow.

“I am sorry Val, but I informed the police of you being here... I can’t stop you but maybe they can. Goodbye Valerie... for now.”

Something whizzed towards me and my sight was cut off by white acrid smoke. Breathing in was enough to make me cough and tear up. ‘What the fuck? Did Tanya seriously just throw a tear gas grenade my way? Shit, I need to get out of this stuff, my skin is burning! Mother be damned, where is Adrienne when I need her?’ Trying my best not to breathe, I stumbled out of the biting cloud. Almost immediately I could hear the excited chatter of Adrienne.

“By Mother! Valerie! There you are!”

“Ye-” A coughing fit interrupted me. “Yes. I am. What is going on? Why are you screaming... again?”

“Uhm, there was Police but... what is going on here? What’s with this weird cloud?”

“Yeah turns out Tanya is a bit pissed. Anyway, we need to leave. I’m not sure I want to tangle with the police right now, or ever.”

“But our food?”

“Did you not listen?” I snarled in her direction. “We need to leave. The police are here for us! Now get a move on!”

“Oh... okay.”

I didn’t bother looking for Tanya, if she didn’t want anything to do with me anymore that suited me just fine. After all, I only needed Mother and my Sisters in my life and nobody else mattered.