Becoming Monsters 1: Ch. 04

"Da...darn it, are you telling the truth?" Diane sounded skeptical, but she didn't seem angry anymore.

Honoka moved her head slightly in a nod, still weeping.

"Ok, maybe this was...a mistake. Bring up your Status and tell me what you see."

Trying to calm herself down, Honoka did so and received the second surprising change of the night.

It was painful to talk, the swelling and blood forcing her to speak slowly. Honoka read everything, leaving nothing out as Diane listened silently. Then she described the strange dream and the messages she experienced there, hoping someone made sense of it all because the young architect didn't understand most of it. Unsure what else to say, Honoka continued to talk about her problems, her inability to find answers about her Race or Class and her self-determined failure as a person.

"Only my family knows, no one else. My uncle is a doctor and he does my checkups. He risked his license to fake paperwork so no one would see me as a freak or a guinea pig." Honoka stopped crying, her voice more resigned and monotone now. "Driver's license reads Giant/Architect and I play it off like I'm some deformed runt if HR or government officials ask me questions. Everything else I know comes from a large collection of Norse mythology books and blind experience, but I never found any answers to the big questions until today."

She paused, shivering stronger as she grew colder, her hands wholly numb and her arms pulsing in pain with her jaw. "I've lived in fear of being discovered for so long I cut everyone out. I stopped talking to old friends. My family barely hears from me outside of a birthday text or a few holidays. I lived my life day by day, disappointment getting heavier and heavier until I figured I'd eventually take a few pills and never wake up." Honoka glanced up, gallows laughter wracking her body quietly when she faced Diane with a conflicted expression. "Tonight was the first time in my life, before or after the Change, that I've ever been on a date. Even got lucky. Woohoo."

The laughter faded. Honoka dipped her head again, her voice clear of sadness, only apathy left. "Are you going to kill me?"

Honoka didn't get a reply, so she wasn't ready and cried out when she felt Diane remove the straps and let her limp arms fall. Then she felt the throw blanket cover her frigid skin. Shaking hair out of her eyes, Honoka saw the succubus walking behind the screen and come back wearing gray sweatpants and a comfortable black t-shirt with some faded band logo on it. She held out her hands, showing two teeth in one and a vial with swirling yellows glowing in the other.

"Might be able to save your teeth if we can fit them in properly. Drink this, its a healing potion. My most potent one I have at the moment, but I've never tested the full effects of this brew, so I don't know if those teeth will heal."

Honoka tried to move her arms, but all she was able to do was flop them around, still lacking circulation. Diane sighed, hovering over the bed and saying with a wince, "This is going to hurt."

Diane was right. After much screaming, blood and tears, Honoka gulped the potion down (it tasted like bitter chalk floating in a filthy public pool) and immediately felt her gums tighten around her teeth, the swelling and pain dissipating, even her arms and hands only a little tingly. The young black woman sat up against the headboard, her mind clear enough to look around the room. The bottom half of the bed was soaked in viscous slime just past Honoka's feet and an alarming amount of blood spread over her chest and stomach. A familiar sticky white goo coated her crotch and thighs.

"Um, can you tell me what happened?" Honoka was a little embarrassed at the statement but she found herself too traumatically exhausted to care. "And thank you."

Diane peered around without focus, scratching her head innocuously before flopping herself onto the bed on her chest, face buried in a pillow to stifle a groan. The shirt included a missing bottom half in the back to let the wings out and her tail snaked over the waistband of her sweats. She kept to the edge of the mattress to avoid the worst of the fluids.

"Shower," came the answer from the pillow, one of Diane's hands and wings vaguely waving towards the bathroom. "You first, but leave me some hot water: the tank is super tiny!" Flipping her head to the side, she presented Honoka an adorably squished face mixed with irritation and acceptance. "After, we are going to talk."