JESSICA : N/A
DAY 4 : D-DAY, FIRSTWEEK, AGNI, YEAR 1
PURGATORY 4 : INTERLUDE 3 : APPEARANCE
[ BEGIN APPEARANCE CUSTOMIZATION ]
The same ‘CONFIRM’ button came with another warning. Although it was really less of a warning and more of a pick-me-up.
[ WARNING: YOU NO LONGER AGE ]
As the timer reset to eight hours and started counting down, all the colored silhouettes disappeared from the grassy field. That left me alone with nothing but a far-too-exact copy of myself for company.
Except now there were all sorts of sliders and switches that appeared and disappeared from various parts of not-my body as I focused on them. Along with those was a big ‘RESET DEFAULTS’ button centered above my double’s head.
But it was greyed out. Except… How had I known that? I’d never seen anything even remotely like the floaty-hologram-button. Let alone enough of them to tell whether its color was any more or less ‘grey’ than normal.
But I’d just had my entire chemical makeup changed a minute ago… Twice. No reason to think this place would shy away from implanting some ‘innate’ understanding of how all this shit worked.
But… Sliders? I was never good at sliders. Unless I used a guide, any character I customized too deeply always came out looking like a cartoon clown. But did I actually have to consciously manipulate every little thing?
Experimentally, I tried to make my entire left arm longer-Woah!
This was so fucking weird.
As about a dozen sliders on my double went every which way, I could literally feel my bones stretching. And my muscles. And… Shouldn’t this hurt? Like, a lot? Or maybe my nerves were stretching too?
As soon as my left wrist finished painlessly distorting itself, I somehow knew I could finally press the vaunted ‘RESET DEFAULTS’ button.
So I did.
My wrist snapped back to normal. “Whaaat?”
That wasn’t nearly as jarring as turning into a ball of living tentacle porn. But it was still the second weirdest thing I’d ever experienced.
As I experimented with all my options, that record was broken over and over as everything about me changed bit by bit.
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When I found the age slider, I spent several minutes, or centuries depending on how you measured time, just sliding it up and down.
Okay, never mind. Rapidly going from a little girl to an old lady and back several times in a row, I had to admit the truth to myself. This was, in fact, the creepiest shit ever. I could literally feel all the cells in my body splitting, decaying, recombining, and restoring themselves over and over again.
Actually, I was starting to get kinda queasy. And twice was already one past my daily puke limit.
So I settled down playing with the sliders and decided to just figure what changes I actually wanted to make.
On the other hand… What did the prompt really mean? ‘You no longer age’? So had I just stopped getting older? Or was my appearance locked entirely? Like… Would my hair even grow anymore? If that was the case, I could never lose weight. Or gain muscle. Or… Anything.
This whole thing suddenly felt way too real. “Okay… Okay then, in that case…”
I made some minor touch-ups here and there. I liked who I was and all, but it changed my priorities a bit if I could really never improve my looks except through a menu. Sooo, I might as well just set myself right where I wanna be. It was either that, or be stubborn and then maybe regret it for the rest of my life… Or whatever.
The touch-ups looked good. Like me, only better. A long-overdue patch on some poorly maintained software. But this whole thing just seemed so… I wasn’t quite sure what to think of it. I felt like I was crossing some sort of moral line here. But I couldn’t quite place my finger on why. Was it just societal pressure?
Well, fuck that. I’d gone this far already. And I wanted this. That was good enough. Right?
Gathering my conviction, I psyched myself up.
Finally, after several minutes of not moving, I did as many things in quick succession.
I slid my age up a few years, increased my cup size, gave my eyes a new shade, and switched around a couple dozen other minor proportions that I’ve always been self-conscious about.
Nodding in approval at my now-much-prettier taciturn clone, I Reset Defaults. I mean of course I did. How could I not?
This was the real me. Short, fat, covered in zits… But it was me. My own body. The only one that was ever truly mine. The one I’d… Earned?
Hold the fuck on. “No! I died for my fucking brother god damn it! If I want to look like a goddamned Disney princess, then I have fucking EARNED THAT!!! Yeah… YEAH!!! And mom and dad and James and Thomas and Regina and Mr. Johansen and THAT BITCH ASHLEY!!! And whoever the fuck ELSE has issues with changing who I AM, into who I WANNA BE, can all GO FUCK THEMSELVES WITH A RUSTY LEAD PIPE!!!”
Age. “Older!”
Cheeks. “Higher!”
Jaw. “Less!”
Chin. “More!”
Lips. “Fuller!”
Hairline. “Straighter!”
Shoulders. “Narrower!”
Eyes. “Sky blue! And BIGGER!!!”
Legs. “Further apart! and LONGER!!!”
Arms. “LONGER!!!”
Waist. “SMALLER!!!”
Ass. “BIGGER!!!”
Boobs. “BIGGER!!!”
Muscles. “BIGGER!!!”
Hair. “Longer! And FLOWING!!! AND CRIMSON!!!”
Ears. “STRAIGHTER!!! AND POINTY!! LIKE A GODDAMNED FUCKING ELF!!!”
“Heh… Heheheh… Hahahahah! HAH!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAAAH!!! FUCK YOU, ASHLEY!!! COOONNNFFFIIIRRRMMM!!!”