Oh, god, oh god, oh god!

I scream. Silently. I have no actual mouth! My mouth is more like a little opening to suck in air, and I'm on fire. I am fire.

My panties are completely engulfed in flames, and the fire spreads. It's all around me! Tall flickering tongues of red-orange fire, and this time, it's my human mind freaking out. The mud I'd tracked in dries up, and I'm jiggling and plump and panicking, and somehow, I roll away. I squish against the chair, still enveloped in what’s left of my burning underwear. Fire licks up the wooden leg, and now that's on fire too.

No, no, no, no! This is why I don't visit people. This is why I don't do anything. I try to blow out the flame, but my breath only makes it burn hotter. The whole chair's gonna burn down! The entire cottage is gonna burn down! What have I done?

The door bursts open. A storm wind swoops in, carrying the scent of rain and grass and... blood. My slime body smells everything through its skin, all at once, and it's overwhelming. There are ashes and smoke, the distinct sweet odor of burning wood, and I so badly want to scream. I don’t know what to do.

Something dark and swift flicks across the room, snuffing out the flames. The floor rumbles, and then the woman is towering over me. Her shadows peel off her dress in countless tendrils. Her face is covered in blood. She's huffing. She looks ready to kill.

"Squishy!” she shouts. “You burned Rhinestone's favorite chair!"

I open my mouth to respond. To apologize. But all that comes out is a little puff of flame.

The woman sighs, squeezing the bridge of her nose like she's trying to calm down. Then she glances at the Ember Slime in its cubbyhole. Then back at me. "Wait... where did YOU come from?" Her shadow shifts immediately, extending into the shape of a sword. She takes an offensive stance and points the sword right at me.

I don't need the slime’s mind to inform me that pointy objects are terrifying. It'll puncture my skin. I'll spill all over. I'll die. Maybe not the worst way to go? It would be fairly quick. And it would save me the embarrassment of having to explain I’d burned my underwear and then her chair.

But also... a part of me doesn't want to die? It's a whole new world, and well... being an Ember Slime is very comforting. Other than the fire stuff. I don’t want to die. I never wanted to die.

"Are you an evil spirit?" spits the woman through her clenched teeth. "Taking Squishy's form to burn my house down?" And she's just about to run me through when my line-mouth bursts into human lips.

I'm a little ball of orange jelly with polka-dot eyes and human lips. I try to speak, but I don't have a throat yet. No vocal cords.

But it's enough to make the woman pause. Her nose curls in disgust. She wipes blood from a gash on her forehead and looks like she's about to be sick. I guess it must look disgusting from the outside. What’s funny is that’s exactly the look I’d picture on someone’s face if I were to undress in front of them. You know. To get laid. Partially transforming, I'm even grosser than usual. But at least it doesn't hurt.

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My slime body jets upward, lengthening like the lighthouse. Four tentacles shoot out of me, thickening and turning into limbs. I'm about as tall as the chair, except I'm still jelly stuff. But my head pops out, my neck extends, and before I know it, I'm sucking air through my windpipe, and I have vocal cords again. "It's me!" I call out, my voice raspy like I'd inhaled smoke. "It's me. I met you in the woods."

"The girl..." she says, blinking, looking surprised. Her sword is still pointed at me as I finish the transformation.

When I'm flesh again, human flesh, I'm on all fours, drenched in sweat and exhausted. I'm completely naked now. The ashes of my underwear fall away. But the rainwater's gone. I'm not covered in mud anymore. And the scratches on my legs healed like they were never there. All the effort, struggling through the snow, fighting that squirrel, then running through the storm, it all hits me. I'm completely exhausted. I don't think I've ever done this much physical work before.

"You’re..." she trails off, shaking her head. She lowers her sword and it melts back into her shadow. "You're blessed too, then? You can turn into Slimes? Into Squishy? Are you a Slime Girl? But you can take human shape too?"

I shake my head, sitting on my knees and still trying to cover myself. It takes me a moment to find my breath, and I'm too ashamed to look at Squishy or the woman. The floorboards are scorched. The fancy chair's leg and back are burnt pretty badly.

She waits expectantly, her shadow dress shifting like the surface of a dark lake. She seems even larger inside the cottage, with her muscular form and that fierce look on her blood-covered face. The door’s wide open behind her, and the storm shivers through the air.

"I turned into a squirrel too," I tell her.

"A squirrel?" she asks, inhaling deeply. She takes a second to digest that before her shoulders relax. Then she shuts the door, bolting it locked. She sighs and walks over to the chair and sits down heavily, looking as tired as I felt.

But maybe she sat down a little too heavily. The burnt leg splinters. The chair collapses. She catches herself with a shadow and groans. "Rhinestone's going to be upset."

"I'm sorry," I whisper, my voice as quiet as a mouse. Is Rhinestone her husband or something? Is there someone else in the cottage? I stare at the burnt floorboards, feeling like I might cry. This is why I never visit anyone. This is why I never talk to people. This is why it's safer at home. Maybe I should just leave. I've caused her enough trouble. I could turn back into a slime and roll down the hill and... I wonder if the rain would destroy an Ember Slime.

But the woman's bleeding in several places. Maybe I can help clean and dress the wound or something?

"Sorry is not enough," she says briskly. She doesn't seem to care that I'm naked. To be honest, her shadows stick to her tightly and don't hide much, so in a way, she’s naked too. I guess that's why she had the cloak in the first place. "This is why I don't help strangers. If it wasn’t for the storm, I would’ve sent you into town. At least you didn't harm my books."

She runs her hands along the spines, and I get the sense I never would've gotten the chance to transform back into a human if I had. She would've cut me down with her shadows immediately. These things are important to her. I swallow hard, still remembering the flames licking everything around me. I’d never been in a house fire before, and it’s one of my biggest fears. A nightmare that I'd wake up one day, and the apartment would be on fire, and I'd be trapped in the smoke until I suffocated.

I just want to go back. I want to be an Ember Slime again. I want to be cozy and safe. Or maybe I can turn into a chair. Is that even possible? I could be useful, and she and whoever Rhinestone was could sit on me, and I'd just forget all about being human. I hate being naked in front of someone. I hate how my skin feels. I hate how she can definitely see my scalp through my thinning hair.

"Where is my cloak?" The woman wipes her nose with the back of her hand, glaring at me. Her silvery eyes burn more fierce than the fire had. I don’t know how to tell her I’d lost her cloak in the storm, and my face turns even redder. When I don’t respond, she shakes her head and marches up the stairs, grumbling under her breath.