I’m laying on the ground, looking at the back of the person who swung at me with their sword. Their blow landed, I know this, I can see the bottom of my sandal at the edge of my vision. They didn’t cut my leg off, though. They were aiming higher. Below my line of sight.

Am I dying?

I feel fine. Well, outside of not being able to feel my arms and legs. I’m not breathing. I think I’m in shock. I can feel… Something. I attempt to move, to roll over, to get my face off of the ground and get my hair out of my face.

A twitch. Not from my face. I can’t feel my face. I don’t know why I can’t feel my face. I’m pretty sure it’s almost all I have now. Scratching my nose is gonna be a b****.

I slowly work my way upright. I don’t have arms, but I’m pushing myself up, limbs heavy like I’ve been drugged. I don’t have legs, but it feels like I’m trying to climb to my feet after collapsing from walking too long. I don’t have lungs, but now I can feel myself panting for air, sweat beading on my forehead and running down my face, tickling my cheek. I don’t have hands, but I can brush the sweat away and continue setting myself upright.

“What the hell…”

I feel my vision expanding, no longer seeing with my eyes but now able to see several feet around me in all directions except down through the ground.

“What is this?”

I raise my arms, my body unresponsive, still, on the ground several feet away, but my hair drifts upwards. Several strands forming a sinuous chunk that I can move with some effort. I don’t have a heart anymore, but it feels like I’m having a panic attack, my ears ringing and my vision wavering.

From two arms and two legs I’ve now got what appear to be 8 chunks of hair flowing from my scalp that I can use in lieu of my missing limbs.

“How am I still alive?”

I realize I’m monologuing, my thoughts expressed verbally, talking to myself idly, something I do when I don’t have the presence of mind to keep quiet. But that’s all I have now, isn’t it? I’m just a head now… My hair is so much longer than before, capable of shifting my weight for a short period of time before I have to rest to recover my energy.

“But I’m getting better,” I comment, waving two of my new limbs around.

I managed to make enough headway, heh. I’ve managed to make enough headway in order to move away from my body and into some bushes along the edge of the square. I’m not hidden but I’m not out in the open.

I’d just wanted to go for a walk. It was such a nice day. I thought it was a nice day… I’d wandered into the woods, following animal paths until I’d found this stone paved square with a bench in a little shack. I’d thought to sit and rest there before someone bumped into me from behind. I turned around to see them glaring at me over their shoulder before they’d continued on their path. Where the hell had they come from? Why’d they hit me?

“Hey!” I’d shouted, hand raised. What? Did I think they didn’t see me?

“You dare?”

Their sharp response. So quick. So angry. They’d run into me! I’d recoiled, hesitated, but I don’t know if that would have changed things. If I’d been more decisive. More confident. They’d quick stepped towards me, feet barely moving away from each other, a shuffle, and then I saw them swinging the sword. I didn’t see them draw it, but I saw them sheathe it. I’d settled on the ground by then.

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Is this a nightmare? Were they a sorceror? A mountain spirit? Why have I been cursed? What’s going on?

I turn away from the clearing, my hair making swimming motions. It’s more energy efficient than trying to hold myself up and move. True, I keep resting my neck, my stump?, my body on the ground, but I don’t feel anything on the bottom. Nothing at all. The side of my neck gets itchy whenever something touches it, but I can’t feel the bottom.

“Weird,” I comment, stopping at the sound of my stomach grumbling. “I don’t have a stomach…”

I was afraid that there was an animal or something drooling over me, but I’m alone. The sound comes again, and I cannot for the life of me figure out where it’s coming from.

“Can I eat?”

I have a mouth, and I can move, but I don’t have a stomach. Right? I’m feeling hungry, I can feel my stomach pinching, but I don’t have a body. Can I eat? I look around, idly picking up random things I find around me, nuts, leaves, sticks. I might be dead, but I still have my pride.

“Maybe I can go fishing?”

There should be a river nearby. Or it would have been nearby if I could walk. I can walk, but my stride’s down to a handspan instead of a full leg stride. I’ve never enjoyed walking for the feel of my body moving, but now I’m imagining what it would be like to --.

I make eye contact with a wild pig. No idea how long it’s been watching me talk to myself as I slowly flop on my way. I don’t want to look away, and I’m afraid to move. It’s just standing there. Watching --.

It squeals, I scream and try to turn to run as it charges. It takes me two flopping rotations of my hair to get almost far enough to have the boar at my back before I feel it step on my hair, feel it like something resting on my hand. I grab reflexively as it goes to hit me, stumbling as my hair tangles around its legs, coiling around its body, up to its neck and its face. I don’t know when I went from trying to flee to trying to kill it, but now my hair is seeking its eyes, burrowing into its ears, mouth, nose. It thrashes, slinging me around, screaming, but I’m so focused I don’t know if I’m hurt or not.

By the time I stop trying to strangle it it’s dark. I have no idea how long ago it died or what I did to it, but it’s nearly fully wrapped in my hair.

“It looks smaller…” I mumble as I continue to wrap the body. “Where’d all this hair come from? My hair was only shoulder length. How’d it get so long...?”

By the time the sun comes up my hair is a pool around me, the boar’s corpse is gone, and I have better control over my movements.

“Huh.”

I look at one clump before reaching out, wrapping it around a plant, and using that to pull myself forward.

“This is certainly faster,” I say, reaching out, wrapping my hair in plants, then pulling myself forward. “Easier, too…”

I move along, trying to remember where the river is. The view from the ground is so much different, and I’m still so much slower than when I had legs. Am I even heading in the right direction? I wonder if anyone’s noticed I never returned home. There were other people in the dorm I was in, the large, open room filled with mats instead of being individual rooms. If I don’t return to my sleeping space will someone else take it?

“Probably,” I mutter.

That’s how I’d gotten the space. They’d assumed the person who had occupied one of the mats had gone on to bigger, brighter things, possibly going to the city. Someone had taken his mat, the mat they were on freeing up, and there I went. It was supposed to be temporary. Until I’d found a sect willing to take me in. Then this happened.

“How am I going to get in now,” I grumble, idly changing the direction I’m moving, my speed increasing as I get used to this new way to move.

I continue through the night, the sun starting to rise before it occurs to me that I probably needed sleep, I find a bush, pushing the branches aside with some hair limbs while pulling myself in with other hair limbs, then make myself comfortable, which is to say not very, but more comfortable that I’d thought.

“Weird,” I mumble, trying to smooth the ground. “I can usually feel every pebble under my sandals, but my neck doesn’t hurt. Didn’t I land on my nose?” I rub at it with a hair limb and note the absence of pain. “It didn’t break. That’s good.”

I sigh, suddenly tired, and close my eyes. I don’t know how I managed to make it through the night, nor do I want to waste a whole day, but it’s probably for the best if no one sees me. Not until I can figure this out. I yawn, filling non-existent lungs, and quickly drift off to sleep.