Part 2 – You Are Not Alone

Chapter 6 – Hatches

They quietly stared at one another until Seth pronounced, “Something inside here must be messing with us. All our last names can’t be the same.”

Cupping his mouth, Isaac wondered, “But if we can’t trust our own thoughts…then we have nothing.”

Marley also cupped her mouth and offered a quick apology, “I’m sorry I said my name!”

Seth waved it off and said, gesturing to herself, “I don’t know about our thoughts but I know what I know.”

Isaac remarked, “Do you? Really? What about our new old friend right here?” He gestured to Marley, who grimaced. Isaac added, “What if that’s the Marley who blew into the room just a bit before? The same Marley.”

Seth answered, “We don’t know that.”

Isaac bowed his head. “You’re right. We don’t know. Same as we don’t know what would turn a man into a woman.” He gestured to Seth. Marley leaned her head in confusion. Isaac concluded, “How can you possibly know if there are so many unknowable things?”

Folding her arms in frustration, Seth glared and reacted, “Fine, then. We know nothing and everything can change? How does that help us?”

Isaac could only shrug. Seth dipped her head and responded, “That’s right. Not knowing keeps digging deeper. Well, I’m sick of that pit. I’m gonna find out whatever I can.

Marley gazed back and forth between them desperately and begged, “Please don’t be mad!”

Seth ignored Marley and asked Isaac, “There’s one thing though. When we met, you told me all that happened to you. Supposedly all. You didn’t say anything about a vision.” They stepped closer to one another.

Isaac answered, “And you made me look in a mirror which turned you into a girl. Which may be turning me into a girl.” He flapped his hair for emphasis and added, “Another thing. You went along with that bomb lady claiming to be Marley awfully quick. She just told you to make some turns. You didn’t ask what was there. You didn’t ask why…”

Seth clenched her teeth. “You may recall I did that because you were afraid.”

“I wasn’t afraid! I just didn’t trust her because she was going to launch a grenade at me.”

Snorting, Seth snapped, “I don't really see the difference.”

Marley whimpered and screamed, “STOP FIGHTING PLEASE! It hurts!” Tears streamed down her face as she clutched her eyes and tried to cup them. Seth frowned and stepped back as Isaac dipped his head and chewed on a cracker.

After a minute of silence, Isaac said, “I’m gonna check the other room for anything else useful.” He left the door open as he walked through to his original side of the wall.

Seth rubbed at her temples and approached Marley. She was crouched on the floor and trying to dry her eyes. Carefully, so she wouldn’t jump, Seth put her arm around her. She leaned into Seth and said, “I feel like I did something terrible to be in this place.”

With a sigh, Seth rubbed Marley’s shoulders softly and told her, “We don’t even know what this place is. It could be a hallucination or some scientific or behavioral test.”

Marley clenched her mouth and didn’t say anything. Seth shut her eyes and opened them. No sequence of opening and closing made the world around her dissipate or shift. Whispering, she asked Marley, “Could you help me close off the hole in the wall over there?”

She met Seth's gaze calmly then nodded, before looking across the room. Seth looked too. The hole in the wall was gone, completely sealed. Furthermore, the broken furniture and scattered items were rearranged in orderly lines to the sides. It happened without sounds or senses that something had changed. Seth wasn’t about to complain though, she said, “Well, at least this time it was useful.” Marley nodded. They stood up together and looked at the furniture which had been restored.

Tapping her chin, Seth asked Marley, “Is there anything else you’d like?” Marley looked away and waited. After a few nervous sounds, she said, “I…maybe…if it’s okay. Some clothes more like yours. They’re pretty.”

Seth couldn’t promise anything with the inconsistency of the drawers, offering, “It depends on what this furniture chooses to give us. But I’ll look with you.” She resisted a sour feeling at her attire being called 'pretty'. She could only imagine what her brother Steven might say about it…if he was real.

They’d just started pulling open the drawers when a yell cut through the wall. It was loud enough to feel like it was right next to them and not the next room over. Isaac had yelled but the only clear words were, “HELP!”

Marley trailed behind as Seth bolted for the door separating the two rooms. However, as soon as she was close to it, the door slammed shut and gave a harsh *CLICK*. A twist and pull of the knob confirmed that it was locked tight. No amount of bashing with Seth’s feet and fists pried it open.

Panting, she instructed Marley, “Get the sledgehammer!” It had been put next to one of the dressers in the realignment of the room. Marley dragged it and passed it off to Seth, who had some trouble raising it high enough to swing but grit her teeth and slammed it against the door.

It rebounded off like it had struck hard metal. A swing at the wall gave no holes either. Crouching and setting the sledgehammer down, Seth heard strange, plaintive yells from Isaac. She concluded, relaying to Marley, “He’s being changed. Or an eye has him trapped.” Marley held her cheeks in shock.

Seth clutched the doorknob. They’d argued but he was the first person she met outside of her cube. She yelled into the wall, clearly and decisively, “LET GO OF MY FRIEND!” She pulled on the door. She glared at it. She focused on the door yielding to her.

She even used the words she’d heard spoken, “You said I am authorized! So, you let me in NOW!” She had no idea what that meant or if it would do anything, but it was all she could think of. Tensed and ready to swing the hammer again, the door finally *clicked* and she could swing it open, saying a soft, “Thank you…”

The other room was as sparse as Isaac had claimed. Just a few closets built into the walls, a couch, and some lamps. And something new. A pipe, like a periscope of a submarine, projected from the floor with a wide end blasting what looked like a beam over Isaac. He was pressed against the far wall by force. His hair was much longer than before and glossy like it had been thoroughly-polished. It fell past his neck in neat locks. Isaac’s face had also lost some of its masculine presence, becoming androgynous. He noticed Marley and Seth and immediately pleaded, “Please help me!”

Seth raised the sledgehammer to break the pipe but, right before it would’ve struck it, the hammer's head dissolved, leaving behind only the wooden handle. Though she raised a fist as well, Seth resisted trying to hit the pipe with it. There was a sense of charged static in the air like with the eyeball she’d encountered. Their options were few and it was unlikely that a hairbrush would do the trick this time. She hurried over to reach for Isaac’s hand, but the force kept them from touching.

She asked Isaac, “Can you push yourself away?” He gave her a skeptical look but strained and reached with his hands, gripping the wall and trying to pull himself out of the beam. He budged a little, but the strain had him sweating. Marley returned from the other room holding the mirror which Seth had taken off the wall. Nudging carefully, they pushed the mirror in front of Isaac. The pipe gave a plaintive, rising sound before a sudden explosion occurred which would’ve made the other Marley quite happy.

As it was, when the smoke cleared, Marley sat up with wide eyes and softly said, “Cooool…but eep! Everyone okay?”

Seth held Isaac and helped him to his feet. His hair was almost as long as hers. She helped him brush it out of his eyes as he groaned and asked, “Any other damage?”

There was a small depression in the floor which Seth glanced at but she looked back to Isaac. She’d only opened her mouth to speak before the automated voice from before boomed in the room, “ISAAC HATCH WILL BE REASSIGNED FROM MALE TO FEMALE. SHE WILL CHOOSE HER IDEAL FORM.”

Isaac said an immediate, “Shit…” while he grimaced. His voice was at least the same. He answered back, “I REFUSE! SCREW YOU!”

A faint, familiar laugh rose from by the destroyed pipe. Another Isaac, in his original form, stood by the damage and chuckled as he said, “You can’t refuse…because your mind will betray you.”

Clinging tightly to Seth as Marley staggered backwards, Isaac asked, “What are you?”

The other Isaac rolled his eyes and said, “Always the same questions. But the one you all should be asking is ‘what am I?’ For instance, think of a beautiful girl’s hands…”

Isaac frowned and then gasped as he saw his hands shifting, becoming sleek and hairless with paler skin and longer nails. They were bigger than Seth’s but shared much in common with hers. Still staring, Isaac said, “I imagined these.” It clicked for Seth as he explained, “His mind betrays him as he thinks of an ideal girl…is that it?”

The other Isaac shrugged and asked, “Isn’t it more fun that way?”

Isaac clenched his teeth and flailed at his doppelganger but he was frozen in place, stopped from advancing, as though the beam was still in effect. The other Isaac resembled original Isaac but his body language made Seth think of a woman. She eyed the duplicate and asked him, point-blank, “That’s an unfamiliar body for you, isn’t it?”

The double chuckled and asked with a grin, “I have no idea what you mean...but I did much prefer sweet Marley over there. She has *explosive* potential in the right hands.” He gestured out and Marley crouched in fear. Seth stepped forward, proclaiming, “You’re the one who has been doing all this to us! How? Why?”

Double Isaac laid out his hands. “You got me. Not that it matters. How? Why? Because you’re mine and because I want to.” He focused his gaze on long-haired Isaac and asked, “Now, isn’t it time you thought about your pretty face and lovely, girlish voice?”

Isaac looked back in horror as he clutched his throat. Seth stepped in front of him and asked, “All because we signed a contract?”

Behind Seth, Isaac’s face shifted. His eyebrows formed narrow, hazy arches of dusty-blond hair. His eyes appeared larger, looming blue and bright. His nose flowed in a tapering arc down his face. With softened, rounded cheeks, glossy and hairless, his lips looked much different than they had before though they changed the least. From the neck up, he was a girl, his ideal girl.

The double’s eyes flicked to Seth as he said, “I knew you were going to be the most trouble. Seth. You don’t even know if that’s your real name.”

Marley crept over to hold Isaac’s hand. Seth stood between them and the double as she answered, “It may be my name. It may not. But I choose to keep it. No matter what name you give this body you’ve put me in. No matter if you claim I’m a boy or a girl or whatever. I choose to be Seth and it doesn’t matter if there are pendulous breasts on me or not!”

Some amusement seeped away from the double’s expression but he still kept a smirk as he remarked, “Your friend, Isaac, should think about her breasts.”

With whimpering, Isaac watched as new, altered flesh tented the front of his top. Not to the same degree as Seth’s form, but still enough to strike fear in his senses. Marley stepped between Seth and Isaac and leaned around to yell, “You…you’re just a big jerky…jerkenface!” Her words were louder and bolder than anything else this version of Marley had yet said.

The duplicate cackled and clapped. “Way to go, Marley. I knew you had fire in you. See…I don’t mind fire. Spice of life. Struggle, tenacity, spirit. It makes you useful. Otherwise, you’d just be purged and we’d have to start again. And Isaac needs to start on her womanly legs and petite form.”

Grimacing and holding himself, Isaac dwindled, smaller and shorter than even Marley, who wrapped herself around him. Seth clenched her fists with resolve. She was getting a lot out of this person, this controller. And she had a theory.

She stepped closer to the double and pressed, “You said ‘we’. It’s not just you. And you’re not even in charge. You’re just our jailer. You’re someone else’s errand boy.”

That struck a nerve with the double as he lowered his head and the walls behind him splintered and cracked like glass. “I can crush you into nothing.”

Folding her arms, Seth called his bluff, saying, “Do it.”

The being’s hand clenched like a claw but it didn’t make another move as it said, “I don’t want to. I want Isaac to imagine herself female, completely and utterly. Her whole body her ideal with lovely clothing to match.”

Isaac staggered out of Marley’s grasp and to the wall. Pressure pushed them away as they watched the rest of Isaac’s changes. Her hips pushed out as her waist caved. Changes unseen continued as her clothes shifted. Her top became a white blouse with long sleeves. Over the blouse, like a combination of a vest and a dress, flowed a black, glossy outfit which tightened her slim waist and stopped at the top of her thighs. In shiny black heels, she looked like a female bartender or a British policewoman (in something non-regulation). She staggered on her feet, clutching her narrow stomach as Marley tried to support her.

Across the way, the double changed to match girl Isaac as she surveyed her form and remarked, “Not a bad imagination on that one. And that concludes our lesson for today. Just one more reminder:  N E V E R   O P E N   T H E   B O X….” Behind her, the walls repaired themselves.

She raised a hand, poised to snap her fingers when she cocked her head and added, “Okay, I’ll give you one. I’ll give you my name. It’s Sim. It’s easy to spell…just remember…”

She bent her hand and pointed in turn at each as she named them, “S for Seth. I for Isaac. And M for Marley. Sim. Toodles.”

She was gone with a snap of her fingers.