***

A series of knocks interrupted Calypso’s writing. What amounted to both a will and a confession letter.

“Hey, Cal…” Sal’s muffled voice tried to reach out beyond the door. “I know you’re not feelin’ well, but maybe comin’ with us to the Founding Celebration might take a load off, eh…? It's the 200th-or-somethin' b-day for the town, a lotta events planned, I think you'd love--”

Calypso hoped she didn’t figure out that her very back was pressed to the door. In clothing disarray, notepad against her lap, unable to stop shaking.

“No, I just need time alone right now…” Calypso couldn’t hide the despair, how it wavered and crackled her tone. “Go on without me, have fun…”

“…I will stay here with you, if that’s gonna help—”

“And all that’s going to do is make me feel worse,” Calypso mustered the strength to fight back.

She heard Sal’s long, mournful sigh.

“The moment somethin’ happens or you need anythin’: you call, al’ight? Maw has a cell.”

Calypso swallowed, as the terror gripped at her throat from within.

“A-alright, can you d-do me a solid and have wherever the house phone is hooked up—put it in a visible place? It would make things a lot easier…”

“Gotcha. We love you, y’know that right…?”

“I love you all too…” Calypso felt it was going to be the last time she’ll get to say that.

She waited for footfalls to fade. She waited until the sounds of locks rang out. She even waited until she heard a truck pull off and away.

She set aside the note, putting it in plain view for later discovery. She crawled on hands and knees, climbing into her bed as she laid down, shaking alone.

Whatever was coming, it was there. Finally here.

“Oh GOD!” Calypso pathetically reached her hands up at her sweat-drenched face in a blur. “IT’S HAPPENING! IT’S HAPPENING!”

She fell off the bed screaming from the tops of her lungs, from the bottom of her throat that was becoming rawer by the moment, hitting the wooden floor with a sickening thud. Rolling around on the patterned carpet in pain, and it wasn’t because of the fall.

Shivering turned into shuddering. And that turned into outright spasms that she tried to hug herself to keep herself under control in vain.

The sensation itself, putting her body into such an existential panic because the threat is so beyond what it could sense, what it could try to take on. It was different from the invader that tried to hollow her from the inside out, it tried to fit into something that it simply couldn’t, creating a feeling that something was breathing under her own skin.

Here? Her entire body, from muscle, and bone to even cells. They’re dying. All at once, fighting and refusing to let that happen, meaning precious little as they struggle into exhaustion. Succumbing to this death and beginning to become something else entirely.

Calypso grabbed her throat, wondering why there was no sound rumbling out of it. Even the act of screaming was slowly being taken from her.

Her writhing mind was in survival mode, she scrambled back to the bed, watching her twitching fingers grab the mirror on her bed while pulling her sheets down with her on the floor. She had to steady her hand by grabbing it with her other one, looking at the mirror with fervent, desperate eyes.

Only to find, only to see, her entire face shuddering rhythmically. Slower than her beating heart, but fast for it to be clearly abnormal.

The worse part was the fact she was smiling unknowingly in delirium as it happened, when she knew that she felt nothing but despair.

Her shuddering, turned into pulsating.

The shock caused her to snap the handle with her bare hand, causing her to jump. She quickly looked at her hand, noticing no blood coming from it despite having the shards deep within her shaking palm.

And watched as these very shards shot out of her hand. One by one in quick secession, as those “wounds” closed.

Calypso had seen her dead friend talk to her from the beyond. She gathered pieces of her shattered soul and formed it into a stone. She fought and then ate a monster that was going to do the same to her. She’s witnessed the supernatural and knows that it is indeed real.

But she could not simply believe what was happening to her. A human, childish denial in the face of this horrible reality.

Bone. A skeletal frame manifested on her hand, forming itself, drawing from the skin and meat of her hand. Bone replaced veins from the back of the hand, connecting the forming claws, knuckles popping out to act as a mediatory. Giving the appearance of a skinless claw, as the eggshell white and curved nails popped from her fingers. Her pale skin so flushed, that it was turning peach colored. No, it was simply turning into a peach pink hue.

“a-alice,” she sounded so small, before shrieking out: “ALIIIICE! I’M SORRY! I’M SORRY, PLEASE! HELP ME! HELP ME--!”

As she bellowed out her final “HELP MEEEE!”, her elbow destroyed itself before reforming into a long and boney fin. Despite being a clean break, strings of her changing flesh hung off the scythe, as if they were skin-covered veins desperately holding on. Jutting inches away from her arm in a glacial and purposefully painful pace.

In vain she grabbed her changing arm, only to finally notice that said other arm was in the same transformation process. She hugged herself, the tears pouring from her eyes, so potent that they were cutting through the sheen of sweat.

Her new claws were cutting the sleeves of her yellow shirt, until she curled into a ball forwardly and rocked on the floor. Weeping. Gnashing her teeth. Slamming her fists feebly on the floorboards, in so much turmoil that it rivaled the burning death she was feeling on every level of her body.

All before her head shot up, and she hunched forward. Stilling. Her expression blank, her gray eyes fading into white nothingness.

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Her back arched. It kept arching, her back muscles swelling so wildly that they expanded in size before settling back down.

“…O…”

It began pounding again, riding up her baggy shirt effortlessly.

“…O-oooh…”

It started throbbing again, and expression returned to Calypso’s face once more. Despite the mess, the tears, the sweat… It was a pleased, relaxed calm. Her face drenched in dazed curiosity with lowered eyelids.

“Y… Yes… M… More…”

She screamed again, as her spine exploded out of her back, ripping a long strand down her shirt. Soon after, it formed into plates and fastened itself down the girl’s exposed, flushing pink back.

Still shuddering, still holding herself, Calypso’s brown hair covered her dropping head. Panting so hard she was cutting herself off until there were little sounds at all.

And within that stillness, she began to chuckle.

She didn’t know what was remotely funny about this, but she did know how beautifully agonizing it was. It was like an art form to it. Sure, the pain was reaching highs she never thought she could have felt—it felt like she was mere moments of dying for real. But.

This agony, this aching… Was all encompassing, ever-present, had such a grip on her body to the point this pain felt… All pooled together into a very engrossing, sharp tingle.

It was intoxicating.

She couldn’t get enough.

She was falling in love.

“Hehehehe...! … A-ah… yeah…!”

Her head rose up in a snap, her throbbing face sporting pure delirium as her pupils became amber. A rictus grin literally stretched across ear to ear at the point of stretching pass its natural boundaries.

“Yeah! Yes! FINALLY!”

With a wavering smile on her face, twitching uncontrollably, she used her claws to rip her baggy shirt to shreds. She honestly felt that she didn’t need it, or any article, anymore.

She was thrusted forward, as ribs shot from her sides. There was no counterreaction, no flinching. She let this happened, she had hungry eyes watching this unfold before her.

Each the ribs connected and produced a ribcage, fastening with sudden force and locking against the skin. Her flesh, which was completely peach pink... It was mailable, shifting. Her body was destroying itself, then reforming into a more vicious, more feral build. To the point that this armor wasn't "form-fitting", but merged to her body. This process jerking her about like a ragdoll.

With her head hanging back, Calypso basked in this pain for a moment. Her mouth open, feeling a trail of saliva drip from the corner of her mouth, chuckling lowly, shuddering uncontrollably… And for the dwindling life of her, she couldn’t be bothered to stop.

She then jumped for twisted joy, onto her feet. Looking down, she caught that the frame reached down to her legs, forming a bone line pattern that acted as smaller fin edge. She adored how her kneecaps grew spikes, how her toes were shooting claws from her nails, how a foot guard made of bone formed…

Giggling as if she were younger, she shredded her underwear in a frenzy. Watching in opened mouth joy as a pelvis formed itself over her lower half. Locking in place with her spine and her leg fins in discordant harmony.

Only for three elongated prongs of her ribcage from left to right break from the mold, clamping down the sides of her midriff, causing the poor girl to yip out in pain. Breaking themselves, they became more finger-like, with the longer segments of each "back" prong bleeding what could only be described as a "bone-strip" on her sides, connecting the ribcage and her pelvis in a unified look. Giving this appearance of a torn up, ruined dress.

Her shaking pupils stared on, as her pelvis sprouted multiple spikes growing downward, acting as semi-flexible flaps that became a skirt, stopped past her pink thighs.

She was stood in her room, possibly changing irreversibly, and she was loving every single detail of it. Looking at her new body, despite it being already altered, still shifting before her eyes--getting everything right if it meant twitching everything in place, if it meant drawing out the pain.

Grinning ear to ear, she kept giggling mindlessly. Still hugging herself, shivering as if it was absolute zero, swaying over to her room’s door as she felt the transformation still tearing her body apart.

She banged herself against the door, before leaning forward against it with each clawed hand pressed upon the surface, still twitching in delight. Even by barely moving, she was causing the wood to bend against her newfound weight. Of course, she didn’t care in this wonderful moment.

For some reason, she could feel her own hair grow in volume. And it wasn’t a point of feeling it streak past and down her bare back, but she could feel her roots push the hairs out.

She reached at her now-wild bangs with her claw, getting a lock. Watching the boring brown transmute into a magenta hue before her very eyes.

“Ooooh…” Calypso cooed, her eyes empty and yet wild. “What a wonderful makeover I’m getting right now… Suck it, Sally--”

Her brow scrunched in confusion as she heard rattling close to her, before looking down.

Seeing her own arm trying desperately to grab the knob on its own. In a sense.

“Hush yoooou~” Calypso grabbed her rogue arm, making it tense until she’s regained control. “Don’t you dare, the last shred of my humanity. Stop ruining things, you waste~ You were worthless, ineffective and nobody loves you, now die for real this time—”

She reared her head back for a bloodcurdling scream. Her neck having veins appear and twitching as fangs erupted around the collar bone area.

She felt herself grow in height, her spine stretching her upwards until it simply didn’t anymore, causing her to stumble onto her spiked knees. Putting her on all fours as she panted visible steam out of her mouth. Too busy enjoying the pain to notice that she now sported sharp fangs within her mouth of her own.

The fangs sprouting around her neck became a jaw, raising out of her entirely peach-colored flesh until it formed a mockery of a high collar. The large fangs pressed flatly against her pink neck, still throbbing and the jawbone itself merging onto the top of her ribcage, the connection point fattening fast. Smaller, jagged teeth sprouting from this jawbone.

Clutching at the sides of her head, trembling as she screamed out. It felt like her head was on the verge of splitting, as much as that thought sounded sublime in her warped mind.

While she couldn’t see it herself, a skull burst from the top of the head. Forcing her already wild hair to push down to cover the tops of her squeezed-shut eyes. It pushed, and pushed, and pushed out at such a slow, methodical rhythm until it finally stopped.

Reaching at with the tips of her claws, she felt the top half of a deformed skull rest on her as a makeshift crown, with two fangs stopping near her now hidden forehead. Exaggerated so much that it was so wide to cover her head easily. She purred with pleasure at the discovery.

Trying not to gash her own face, she moved her claws downwards upon her twitching face, slowly throbbing and easing to a halt. Gently feeling her cheek as much as could be done, she felt in real-time herself age a couple of years in one sitting. Her lips getting fuller, face longer and angled, as her eyelids were lowering in approval.

As she hummed, the sensation of dying slowly gave way to that all embodying, ever-present, aching.

Her heart was hammering away at speeds she never thought possible unless it was an imminent heart attack. The burning blood coursing through her making it feel like entire body was ablaze. Limbs so heavy, yet could feel the power stored within them. Not to mention how yummy she felt she looked.

She had to look at herself. Now.

Her newly christened eyesight made things not only look sharp, but enabled her to do “sharp turns” with this new vision. Searching, her new eyes suited for hunting.

Just needed the mirror to prove it. How much better she looked.

She crawled towards the mirror on the floor, despite her body being nothing but burning. Exhausted yet rejuvenated, she briefly shook her head of the sweat coating her face and mane of hair before making her way.

Looming over the mirror, she jumped back in surprise, her already hammering heart spiked in pace faster as she dragged herself way a few feet. She panted so much, she drove her claws into the wood of the floor to have some grip to bring her back to reality.

If a mere glimpse was enough to scare her…

Quickly crawling back, giggling with such a lack of innocence, she loomed back over the cracked mirror. Missing pieces, cracked beyond repair.

It was enough.

And what stared back were pitch black, void eyes with shining amber irises. A pink-skinned monster taking the aspects of a girl, or a girl who finally threw away her needless skin so she could finally be what she looked like underneath. And a crooked, lost smile that said it all.

She could feel herself physically well up in tears, as she looked on.

Then Calypso laughed. And it grew loud. And grew louder. Laughter that soon turned sinister, guttural--almost as if she wasn’t physically capable of it. And yet still sadly human, as it sounded pained and out of breath at points.

Taking her slimy, long red tongue to glisten her maw as she continued into a low chuckle, her face steeling into a pleased, terrifying expression.