Survivor of Souls 10

Sharing Beauty

Sam’s hand reaches down towards the katana, determined to not allow Kristie to pay for his mistakes.  He started this game, and he isn’t going to let her pay for it.  His fingers open, ready to accept the sword as their own, but as they grasp for the handle, they pass through it as if it were smoke.  Sam tries to grasp it again, but they come up empty.  “No… Kristie…I…”  He sits dejectedly on the carpet.  Kate walks over to his side, “Sam, I don’t know what to say…”

“Then don’t say anything… just go back to your… girlfriend…”

“Sam… I’ll never forget what Kristie did for me… and this is for her…” *SMACK!*  “Don’t you ever say that again…  What has Todd ever done to you!  Just look at her, her gender has been changed and she’s half snake.  Look at Sara, she’s not even human anymore!  On top of that, she can’t even make physical contact with anyone… just think about how she feels!  If Kristie was here she would have given you a black eye.  You’re lucky I only smacked you…”

Sam looks into Kate’s eyes, then back down at the floor… “I know, and I’m sorry.  I just feel responsible for all of this and just… I don’t know… I’m so sorry guys…”  Kate hugs him from behind.  “Listen, I came back… maybe Kristie can too!  We’ll make it through this, we just have to trust each other.”

Sam wipes the few tears that had started to form in his eyes from his face,  “Okay, the sooner we can get this game over with, the sooner we can… well… do something that is a heck of a lot more fun than this…”  He looks back at Kate and whispers, “Thanks, I owe you one!”  Kate smiles back as she gets up and walks back towards Todd, “I’ll remember that!”

“Hello?  Can anyone hear me?  HELLO!!!”  Kristie looks around desperately in the foggy darkness.  Her only source of light being emitted by the glowing katana gripped tightly in her hands.  She continues to walk cautiously through the nebulous expanse, her eyes and ears peeled for any stimulus.  “Is there anyone here… SOMEBODY ANSWER ME!”  She beings to run, glowing sword in hand, searching for anyone… anything…”

“Well, I guess if we are going to get this over with, I’m gonna need to take my turn, right!”  Rebecca laughs, trying to psyche herself up enough to press the glowing button on her screen.  She closes her eyes and draws a breath, releasing it slowly.  Her finger taps the screen and her turn begins.  Before hearing her instructions, a forcefield forms around herself and Paul, blocking them off from the rest of the group.  “What’s going on here!”  Rebecca bangs her fist on the forcefield.  “Don’t look at me…” Paul shrugs his shoulders.

Suddenly, the voice chimes in giving her instructions.  “Congratulations, you two are now natural born enemies!  I hope you are comfortable, because neither one of you can leave until the other is destroyed.”  

“Big deal, we can just play the game from in here!  Right, Paul?”  She looks at Paul smiling, only to see dread written in his eyes.  “Hey, what’s up?”

“That…”  Paul points to the ground.  There, lying a few feet outside of the forcefield, sits his handheld.  “Oh crap…”  Rebecca mutters under her breath.
“Please choose an ability from the on screen selections, but be careful, your choice could be the difference between life and death.”  The voice instructs Rebecca.  She looks down at the screen.  “There has to be something that can help us get out of here…”  Her eyes scan across the ability list.  Invisibility, climb, fly, swim, growth, shrink, ice, fire, wind, and water all appear in bold white letters on her screen.  “Look, I’m gonna get us out of here… I don’t kill you, you don’t kill me!  Agreed?”  Rebecca smiles at Paul.   She outstretches her arm towards Paul, palm open…

“PAUL DON’T…”  Sam yells, but the forcefield blocks his warning.  Paul reaches out and shakes Rebecca’s hand.  A white flash emits from their hands causing Rebecca to let out a quick scream.  “What the heck was that!” She gasps, her breathing quickening.  

“I don’t know, but I uh… think you can let go of my hand now…”  Paul laughs.  “Oh… hehe…sorry…” Rebecca blushes as she attempts to let go of his hand, only to find that their hands have fused together.  “WHAT!”  She screams in terror and shock…  Practically laughing, the voice chimes back in, “Sharing beauty in progress…”  

“Sharing what?”  Paul looks at Rebecca.  Looking down at the floor, she remembers back to her first turn, “Oh no… Paul I’m so sorry…”  Paul watches as Rebecca winces in pain as her blond hair recedes back into her skull.  He can feel pulses of energy flowing from her, through their arms, and spreading through his body, the energy slowly becoming more and more powerful by the second.  The process continues, soon leaving Rebecca completely bald.  Staring intently at her, Paul doesn’t notice his own black hair begin to lengthen, already having reached halfway down his neck.  As it continues to lengthen, the strands begin to take on a lighter hue, the highlights working their way up to their roots.  Rebecca’s own scalp begins to become recovered by a mess of black follicles, each growing to about 2 inches long before falling flat against her skin.  She glances back over at Paul, who has finally discovered the changes to his own appearance, and watches as he hold a clump of his hair in front his face, staring at it in disbelief as the rest of it dangles just below shoulder height.

“What are you doing to me!” Paul shouts at Rebecca.  “Paul, I… I… I completely forgot about this… I’m sorry!”  Tears begin to stream down her face as her eyelashes shorten and her eyes begin their change from deep hazel to a dark brown.  As she continues to cry her nose becomes slightly more pronounced and her lips begin to shrink slightly back into her face.  She looks up at Paul, his face having gone completely feminine.  His eyes having turned a deep hazel, framed by long curved lashes reminiscent of Rebecca’s, blended flawlessly with the now gentler features of his face.  “This…This isn’t going to stop is it…”  Paul says dejectedly in his new feminine voice.  “I doubt it…”  Rebecca responds  with her baritone vocal chords.  

“Well, looks like I got the good end of the stick… because you were hot!”  Rebecca blushes from the compliment, and jokes back.  “Wish I could say the same about you…”  

“Yeah, I know…”  Paul laughs, “Sucks doesn’t it!”  Rebecca looks down and watches as her breasts recede back into her chest and sighs, “Yeah…”

“HEY!  I was kidding… you weren’t supposed to agree with me!” Paul giggles, while taking notice of the pressure building in his chest.  Tears begin to trickle down Rebecca’s face once again, “Yeah, but I mean… aren’t you scared?  How are you taking this so well…”

Paul, still looking down at his expanding shirt, smiles, “Well, you know… I’ve always had this secret desire… you know… this really is a dream come true for me…”

“WHAT!”  Rebecca exclaims.  “You have got to be kidding me!”

“Yeah, I am… Look, of course I’m scared!  You think I want this to happen?  But, I can’t do anything about it… just have to deal with it and go on… you know?  It could be worse, just look at everyone else!  I figured something would happen to me eventually… so I guess I was sort of mentally prepared for it…”  Paul winks at her, “We’ll be okay!”

Rebecca wipes a few more tears from her eyes as she chokes out a few laughs behind the tears.  She points to Paul’s chest which has swelled out to a modest B-size.  “Those are very nice by the way…”  She continues to laugh through her tears.  Paul takes his free hand and pulls the collar of his T-shirt forward and looks down.  “Yes, I must say you did a wonderful job… I’ll take good care of them, they won’t get a scratch!  Although, they looked a lot better on you…”  Rebecca blushes one again, the tears fading from her eyes as she smiles, “Thanks…”

“In fact, you can have them back right now if you want!”  He looks down at his shirt again, “You girls want to go back home?”  Rebecca doubles over in laughter.  Paul smiles, his plan was working.  Rebecca hadn’t even noticed the loss of her female figure, which was contorting his own body with pronounced curves.  Paul laughs once again, “My promise has one condition though… You have to take care of mine… Promise me now, not a scratch…”

“Take care of your… what?...oh…”  She looks down, she had been laughing so hard she hadn’t even noticed.  She smiles back at Paul, “You got it, not a scratch!”  The rest of the transformation proceeded down their legs quickly, finishing their transformations.  The white flash emitted from their hands once again.  Paul pulled her new soft pedicured hand away from the now much larger and masculine hand of Rebecca.  “See?  Now that wasn’t so hard was it!”  Paul smiles at him.  

“Thank you so much…”  Rebecca leans over and plants a kiss on Paul’s cheek, who begins blushing immediately.  “Now, the funny thing is, if I had done that to you… you probably would have smacked me…”  Paul remarks, her cheeks still red with embarrassment.  “Yeah probably…” Rebecca begins blushing as well.

“So… now all we have to do is get out of here without killing each other… sounds easy enough!”  Paul sarcastically remarks, glancing down at Rebecca’s handheld.  “Now which one of these will most likely help us get out of here…”

“I think I’m going to go with fly… See if I can find a way out of here… none of the others seem to have much of an advantage as to helping us escape…”

“Sounds good to me…  Go for it!”  Paul cheers him on as Rebecca presses the “fly” button on the handheld, only to get blasted in the face immediately by a puff of smoke, causing him to cough uncontrollably for a few seconds.  “I’m never going to get used to that… Oh my gosh!”  Rebecca screams as two black appendages begin bursting from his waist…  “These… these don’t look like wings… what’s happening…”

Paul looks at the growing appendages, “I have no idea…”  Then it occurs to her, “Those look like… oh no…”