Death was strange. There was no light for one, and no spectral figure with a droopy cloak for another.

There was darkness, though, that much fit. And she was there, immersed, suspended, a fly in amber. Aware, vaguely sensate, but entangled deep inside of herself. Thoughts didn't race so much as crumble, crash together. It was difficult to keep them in one piece long enough to make a sentence, but with a faint sense of pride, she did manage one, on a technicality:

Why am I--?

Ever the poet.

Time was merciful, for a wonder. She wouldn't know how long she'd been there, wouldn't feel the slow churn, as her fingers and toes began to tingle. Indistinctly at first, sparks in a cold room, but spreading. Like goosepimples, they crawled up her arms, across her chest, fanned out toward her waist, her neck, her legs, her face. Her body was a network of flashing neurons, racing, pulsing.

Throbbing, bulging. Something near panic glinted in her mind, but swiftly burned out.

Her feet seemed to curl, balling like fists, an immense pressure clamping down around them. Something percolated just above her rump, growing like a stem, winding around a rod.

The oddest was her face. Her cheeks shifted, bone scraping along bone, tectonic plates pressing together, disrupting surficial sediment. Her ears drooped, the tickling suggestion of them traveling up her scalp, hair parting around them like waves. Eyes and mouth came next, sockets stretching out, retinas dilating, lips pinching, teeth and gums aching, particularly on the bottom jaw.

The nose was last, as the tingles faded. Dimly, Olive felt two fingers hook inside her nostrils, dragging them upward. Cartilage snapped, swelled, shoved bone and muscle aside like an aggressive tumour, growing quickly.

It thrummed and thrummed, an infection laying its claim as, distantly, Olive caught the lightest gust of laughter.

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As quick as the turn of a valve, sensation flooded back, overwhelming her as she opened her eyes to scolding light, her brain back to form.

It all came into relief. Blood fountaining down her chest. Pretty blue eyes. A hair bun. Cold. Tears...

Holy shit holy shit holy shit holy shit! She panicked, heaving, drawing thick breaths through her nose, gaping her mouth.

Bitter, loamy dirt rammed her tongue, clogging her cheeks, making her sputter, gag, wriggle in place like a worm. She was packed in, soil all around her, burying her to her nose.

To her suddenly broad, suddenly thick nose, that took up sizeable real estate at the corners of her eyes.

Did Lisa come back and break it? That bitch! She grumbled, then felt an odd pang. Diane, I mean. Whatever.

With the initial panic passed, she breathed, took an audit of herself and her surroudings. There were patches of yellow grass spotted around her, trees, birdsong. With a sniff, she detected hints of resin, pine, droppings, and floral sweetness over the pervading loam. The scents were vivid, full in her nose, deeper and more potent than she expected, leaving her light-headed, overwhelmed. I guess I haven't been in a forest in a while, she thought, closing her eyes and clearing her thoughts. Smelly places.

Squirming, her motor functions seemed fine, no stiffness or coordination issues. Her chest seemed normal, if a bit heavy, though that could just as easily be explained by the pounds of soil heaped atop it. Nothing that suggested it was still weathering a bullet, however.

There was an itch above her bum, a few inches up and behind, that made her squint, cant her head into the dirt.

Whoever did this probably drugged me, she deduced, wriggling her bottom to get a better sense of it. The itch seemed to jiggle, languidly. Explains the dreams, overstimulation, and sensory illusions. She wagered, face pensive. 'Sensory illusions' are a thing, right? Like phantom pain. Maybe this is a phantom tail or something?

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The 'drugging' theory held about the same volume of water as a sieve, upon further consideration. For one, Diane would need to have stabilized her in time, while also stomping on her nose. Then, she would have needed to take a gunshot victim to a medical professional who wouldn't then inform the proper authorties, thus preventing any kidnapping or chemical malfeasance. Possible, but illegal, expensive. She knew Diane's pay: the minx couldn't afford a doctor on sly payroll. Not unless she worked full-time as a drug queenpin when she wasn't working full-time as a secretary.

Not to mention the bald absurdity of going to all that effort, risking jail time and her career, just to leave the victim squirming in the woods somewhere. Alive.

To be fair, it was beyond annoying, not to mention belittling.

And it's lost its novelty, she groaned, jostling her shoulders, the ground shifting around her face. The dirt was tightly pressed about her legs and torso and arms, lending them little slack.

Seconds ticked by, rolling to minutes. Meagre progress. The ground was too compact. Growing sore, she stopped, body falling limp. She felt tears sting at her eyes, her breath rush in her nose, her blood pump like a bellows. Why was she still trying? She had everything, all she ever wanted: certainty, wealth, recognition, personhood, all of it gone in a flash! It was hard to glean where she was, when she was, but she could wager a guess that it wasn't the city, wasn't anywhere close. With her disappearance, she would have been swiftly removed and replaced by another cutthroat, one who hadn't toiled and bled for that chance. And who would believe her, when she made it back? That she had been shot, healed, dragged far away and left in a hole to rot?

Her career was over. Her life was over. And everything she'd done with it, every play, every sin, was for nothing.

No it wasn't! She insisted, scraping her chin along the loam and blinking away the wet. I earned that office! I earned that power! I earned that parking space! And I did it all without daddy's money, or mommy's recommendation! I came from nothing before, and I failed before! I could do it all again! And I know the steps! I'll win bigger this time!

Olive Farrier, CFO of Life! She renewed her struggles, energized, working up lather. No matter what brought her to that patch of earth to play carrot, the only way forward was up. She could start putting the pieces together when she was above ground, and her tongue wasn't dull with crud.

Her cursory squirms had yielded some fruit, unsettling the earth around her head and letting her insinuate her shoulders some. The wind turned her hair and tickled her ears (strangely high on her scalp) as she wriggled, grunted, slickened with sweat.

Her cheeks warmed as, unbidden, the image of a worm invaded her thoughts.

If anyone sees this, they're dead! She swore, the soil deflating around her head as she shoved her face up, crooking it back as she spat muddy globs.

"I. Won!" She screamed, the words echoing, brushing the grass, bouncing off tree boles, and floating right back to her floppy ears.

A chill rolled down her spine. She sounded wrong. Nasally, high-pitched, lispy. There was no command in it, no cunning. Just harmless squealing.

The lisp was an easy solve: her lower canines jutted out a touch, and felt larger on her tongue. Dental implants? They certainly felt natural. Did they shift?

Can teeth just... do that? She had to admit, she didn't know enough about dentistry to say for certain. Frankly, she didn't want to know.

Not important. Be a dolphin now, worry later! She decided, continuing her work, trying to leverage herself to push her way up. The soil had grown loose, lightening around her feet, enough to shift them, flex her toes...

Four toes. Two large, in the middle, two small, at their sides. She gasped, her heart tripping over itself. Her feet felt compact, stretched out, twisted up. It made them more nimble in the earth, moving through the cold soil like a chisel, cutting, making space. But each gain meant a twist in her stomach, as she ran a tongue over her jutting teeth, crossed her eyes at her fat nose.

What happened to the last toe?! She heard a damp, shrill sound shoot through her throat and out her nostrils. That didn't seem normal, either!

Worry later! She gripped the soil with her foot, braced, then pushed.

The hole collapsed as she surfaced, a mole coming up for scraps, flopping onto the cold humus that seemed to seep through her clothes. Least no one stripped me. And I did it. I won... She gasped, sweat dripping from her brow, hair affray, blurs of red flicking about her eyes.

She was a blonde...

Blood racing in thick torrents, she pushed to her feet, tugged at a forelock. Red, wine red, rolling down her shoulders, down her chest. A chest that protruded further, dragged just a bit lower. A tatty grey shirt clung to it, shot through with sweat and grime, pink skin shining through at patches.

Okay, worry now! She looked at her hand. Pink, glowing softly in a sunbeam. Her mouth went dry, and she bent over, checked her feet. They were narrow, but thick. Two fat toes, ending in points, and two smaller below. Face smouldering, she recognized them. A meal at a Chinease restaurant, a meeting with Westbrook, a silver platter, sauce. She wrinkled her nose at it, felt sick.

She wrinkled her nose, now, the blob puckering up, shifting on her face as she gagged.

Trembling, taking ragged breaths, she raised her hands, brought them to her face, began to feel it out. Her nose projected, made a thick circle like a stump, had two, broad slits for nostrils...

She lurched, vomited into the hole she sprouted from. It was a snout. A pig's snout.

With pig's feet, piggish skin, tusks...

She screamed, like something made for slaughter.