Warmth is the first thing I experience as I come to. It’s so odd; it’s like I can see, but I can’t actually visualize any of what I’m supposed to be seeing, just darkness. I try to speak, my voice echoing through the void until I hear another voice answer me.

“Vivian? Where are you, Vivian?” 

It sounds like Nebula’s voice. I open my mouth to respond, but just as I try, I feel something pulling away from me, followed by…less? It’s not a vacancy, but there’s less surrounding me.

“Ugh… I haven’t felt that dysphoric since high school gym class…”

Mr. Yexlo? His voice is faint, different from Nebula’s.

“I’m here! Nebula, I’m here!”

I squirm and I struggle, trying so desperately to move. Eventually, I feel my legs moving once again. I hear no footsteps as I stumble forward, running towards Nebula’s voice.

“Vivian! Vivian?!”

Thank god, the darkness begins to subside, fading into what I can only describe as a clearing in an alien forest. The colours are all wrong, the flora is just slightly off from what I know, it’s all so different. In the center of it all, I see Nebula, her…eye? Her singular eye wide in what I think is awe.

“Oh my goodness, Vivian…”

We move towards each other, and my body begins to feel softer. I feel like I should be crying-- I am crying in fact, but without tears. Nebula embraces me and I wrap my arms around her so tight.

“Nebula…! Where are we…? Are…are we dead…?”

All I get out of her is a chuckle before she pulls away. She’s a lot smaller than before...and there’s no trace of white slime in her.

“We are very much alive, Vivian. But you’re not supposed to be here. Come with me, dear,” she says, taking me by the hand and leading me towards the edge of the clearing. “I can’t join you from here, but I will be with you. Just keep walking. Even if it makes you struggle, keep going.”

I look up at the slime lady, nervous for sure, but I trust her. Nodding, I turn to face the woods, letting go of Nebula’s hand as I trudge through the woods. 

“I’ll see you soon, Vivian.”

The forest is dark, but not so dark that I can’t see my way around. Wading my way through the dense foliage, past tree after tree, I soon find walking somehow more difficult. It’s not like I’m tired myself, but it takes so much more energy to move. Yet I keep going. Soon enough, the feeling becomes so strong, it feels like the air has turned into water, then honey, forcing me to put my hands forward to swim through the nothing until I see a light shining through the forest. I keep going. I can’t stop. It’s tiring, painful even, but I push my way through towards the brightness…

And take a huge gasp for air as I fall to the ground. It takes a moment for my vision to adjust, but soon enough, I blink and see the sky. Earth’s sky. In the distance is a city, but surrounding me right now is a forest. A hand is held in front of my face, and I take it, being pulled up and allowed to look around.

“Well, I’ll be damned. This is something those imbeciles back home will never figure out.”

That’s Yexlo’s voice. This is his hand I’m holding. Blinking again, I turn to see our crashed escape pod, smoking and in flames.

“How…how did we survive…?” As I ponder this, Luna makes herself known with a snort as she sits on the ground, looking tired as hell.

“The power of love.” She can barely say that with a straight face, bursting into laughter afterwards and earning herself an eye roll from Yexlo.

“Only half true. The other half of it is that our bodies are incredibly resilient to most things, and especially blunt force.” 

My head tilts instinctively.

“W-wait…but then…why am I here? I was in this dark place at first, but then I found Nebula in a forest, but she was kind of different, and then she told me to walk into the woods and then suddenly, I’m here…?” 

The slimes smile at me, Yexlo looking to Luna.

“You wouldn’t happen to have that hand mirror on you any more, would you?”

“I wouldn’t dare let it out of my possession,” she answers with a grin.

Attempting to stand up, she gives up as her exhausted body just won’t allow it. Instead she taps away at her very banged up looking armour and summons a hand mirror, holding it up to me. Bringing it up to my face, my eyes can barely believe what they’re seeing, or rather, my eye can barely believe it. My hand moves up to cup at my cheek, both now made of slime, just like Yexlo and Nebluna. In fact, all of me is made of slime! 

I have a purple hue, much lighter than Nebula’s, closer to a lavender or a light violet. My hair looks about the same, only it’s more of a whitish pink and a lot more poofy with that whipped cream look Yexlo’s hair has. 

Everything else is basically the same, only slime. My clothes are completely gone, but my body is also featureless at the moment although I instinctively feel it’s a lot more malleable in terms of changing how I want it to look. Still, all the same proportions, my legs don’t even end in a puddle. Instead I have little slime feet, which must have been the default because it’s the most similar to what I know as a human. Using those human-like feet, I stumble backwards and land my ass.

“I… I’m one of you…?”

Luna snorts at my mumbling. Looking up to Yexlo, I see him smirking and shaking his head.

“You always were. Now to an even greater extent.”

Deep breaths. This feeling in my chest, it’s hard to explain, but I’m happy. Incredibly confused and lost, but I’m…really glad this is how it turned out.

“If I had to guess,” Yexlo begins explaining, “whatever happened was something akin to alchemy. Your body changed due to some sort of natural reaction, only instead of the catalyst being alchemic ingredients…”

“...It was you. My body… I can feel it. It felt so close to you both, and… I wanted to be closer, safer.” Looking between the other slime folk, I see two brightly smiling faces before Yexlo ushers me towards Luna and wraps us all in a group hug. “...I love you all.”

“I love you silly creatures, too.”

“Oh, don’t be a dick! We love y’all a ton.”

We all laugh together before stepping back and sitting in a circle.

“So…what now?” I ask, feeling like I’ve been saying that too much lately.

“Well, I always carry all of my alchemy tools on me,” Luna begins, looking to Yexlo to continue, the slime man nodding.

“Likewise, I have the tools and the seeds needed to produce and harvest alchemic material. Though, I will be needing a new spade and a new pair of shears…” He glares at me jokingly, getting a chuckle out of me as I hold my palms up defensively.

“Look, all’s well that ends well, right? At the very least, we’ve been given more time before they start looking for us, if not completely sending them off our trail, right? We have people who’ll defend us up there. We can start a home here. Maybe even try to find some more people like us and help them with alchemy. I’d love to learn the trade, if you’d be willing to teach me.” 

Both Luna and Yexlo seem much too excited by such a prospect, leaning in with determined faces.

“We won’t let you down, Vivian,” Mr Yexlo says. “You’ve got the best and the brightest teaching you.”

“And even before then, you’ve got the most intimate human knowledge of us all,” Luna adds. “If we can figure out a way to blend in with them, you’ll probably be our go-to girl for navigating human society.” 

I think on that for a moment, my mind drifting slightly elsewhere… I’d be treated like a girl in public… Seen as the girl I am, as Vivian… The thought makes me so excited and happy, and I think the others can tell what’s going through my head right now.

“Thanks, you all. I’ll do my best.” 

I can’t help it. I pull them both in for another hug, feeling like melting into nothing but a puddle as I do.

I’m home now.