After shattering the ground floor bathroom mirror in a fit of ‘passion’, Vice made their way to the upstairs bathroom, which had not so much as seen the light of the outside world in at least 3 months. While its design and layout differed, being smaller and more compact, Vice ignored everything in the room, say for the mirror, which reflected their refreshed body, complete with damp shoulder-length hair that retained its coils even after a thorough brushing. Looking beneath their neck, Vice focused on the outfit they selected for the evening. A simple yet eye-catching red t-shirt paired with a black skirt.
It was presentable, practical, and accentuated Vice’s proportions thanks to the form-fitting nature of the fabrics. It would have certainly been enough to captivate a male gaze. But checking out and fawning over their new body was not what Vice came here to do. Well… not entirely anyway, as Vice primarily came here to test their powers.
Digging into a plastic bag filled with various doodads from around the home, Vice pulled out a simple playing card in order to test if their ability to, as they put it, “shatter things,” could be at will. As opposed to being a power only triggered by masturbation. Following a firm glare and a moment of mental flexing, the card shook for a second before bursting into a series of paper scraps that flurried across the restroom.
After letting out yet another stint of joyful yet unnerving laughter, Vice moved onto the next target, a small ceramic plate from the kitchen, which would serve as yet another thing to ‘shatter.’ Once more, a stern look and a pinch of imagination was all it took to cause the dinnerware to burst into a dozen or so shards that fell into the porcelain sink before them.
“So, I can shatter things with my mind… Cool. But what about—” Vice paused as their hair drifted into their vision. “This fucking hair! Would it have killed Jessie to shell out for a decent hair dryer?”
After less than an hour with this hair, Vice remembered why they always liked to keep their hair at ‘male lengths.’ However, this minor annoyance inspired Vice to undergo a, in retrospect, profoundly stupid experiment where they tried to will their hair dry. …Even though their knowledge about their powers was limited to breaking things.
They drifted their hands through their hair, imagining their hair drying and for its coiled strands to become something more manageable. Thankfully for Vice, they did not wind up shattering their head into 37 distinct pieces. Instead, they found tufts of steam escaping through their locks as their fingers drifted through them, drying and straightening it over the span of a few seconds.
“Now ain’t that just beautiful,” Vice commented as they smiled back at themself in the mirror, taking joy in this small refinement of their appearance. “At the very least, this will be a nice time-saver going forward. But to return to my original quandary, if I can destroy, can I create?”
As Vice mused externally— a habit that is easy for one to fall into when in a quiet and expansive abode without another soul around for at least a kilometer— they looked at the palm of their hand. It was here, in this barren strip of skin and bones, where Vice thought about something coming into existence when there was nothing.
Vice fully understood how preposterous the idea of creating matter out of nothing was, and anticipated this idea bearing no fruit. Yet, they were willing to believe in just about anything after the events of the past hour, and these experiences inspired them to strengthen their focus and clench their fists, channeling their desire to create into their right palm. After a full minute of intense concentration, Vice opened their palm to reveal a small glossy sphere— a marble— primarily black in color, but with a flash of red inside it.
“Heh… hahaha… What is this? What… in the fuck… is this? If I were the religious sort, I would question how I could have been blessed with such divine gifts, especially after leading such a sinful existence. But I suppose that the origin of these abilities matters little next to what I can do with them. I can create, I can destroy, I can… do anything I set my mind to.”
Vice paused their stammering monologue to return to their bag of goods and pull out a trashy pseudo-erotic romance novel— something that Jessie skimmed through when she was bored and biding her time. Vice held the book open in one hand and imagined that the pages were being flipped through rapidly. They thought it, concentrated on this idea, and within seconds, the pages of the book were fluttering as if they were caught in a maelstrom, while the air in the room remained stagnant.
So they thought it, so it came to be. Indicating that Vice was, indeed, master of this reality.
As the book flipped to the last page, Vice shut it and glared at it with a fervorous intensity, picturing the bound papers before them morphing into a tuna sandwich. While the transformation was gradual, involving several seconds of the cover fluffing up into bread and sucking in mass from other pages, while the center of the book began to morph into the contents that Vice craved, the end result was a near immaculate looking snack that Vice slammed their teeth into, eager to consume solid food for the first time in five years.
…But as Vice began to chew the bread and recognize the flavors filling their mouth, they immediately spat the sandwich out in the sink. A twinge of disgust vibrated throughout their body as they glared at this sandwich. As they examined the pristine-looking contents, they asked themself if they were at fault for not fully imagining the taste of this food, or if their powers were lesser than what they had imagined.
Regardless, Vice’s high of discovery was brought down by this vile sandwich that tasted of dank cardboard and sewer fish. In a huff, they tossed the sandwich in the bathroom’s wastebasket and headed downstairs in search of something more edible. However, as they dashed to their destination, they were met with a wave of pressure that assaulted their head, in a manner not dissimilar to a migraine. It only lasted for a moment, but it was something that Vice found bizarre nevertheless, as neither they nor Jessie had any experience with anything of this nature.
For a few seconds, Vice theorized the cause of this, hypothesizing that this momentary headache was a side-effect of them exerting their powers. But before such questions could be finalized in their head, they discarded such concerns, believing that any and all relevant minutiae would be made clear to them in due time. Instead, they pilfered through the fridge in search of a meal, only to find nothing that could be constituted as such, unless one considers a pickle and mayo sandwich a ‘meal’. The cabinets were similarly barren, housing only a half-empty bag of chips, two boxes of cereal, and an unopened container of Maurice Lennel pinwheel cookies.
“What sorry individual lives like this?” Vice verbally pontificated as they began trying to recall any justification Jessie could have had for leaving the kitchen in such a poorly-supplied state. They did not need to think very long before the answer came to them, and their eyes darted to the nearest clock accordingly.
“6:41? So, Juniper should be arriving here to go out any minute now… except for the fact that this is Juniper, one of the least punctual people I have ever known. Or rather, one of the least punctual people Jessie ever knew.”
Vice paused to take in the plethora of memories that were entering the forefront of their mind, all centered around a dear and constant friend of Jessie, Juniper Funkatron. A deluge of hazy memories flashed before them. Beginning from a loosely defined time during Jessie’s early childhood, leading all the way through adolescence and into high school. All before returning to recollections from a few days ago, when the two last met. It was a life-long friendship between two women that Vice vicariously experienced within a matter of seconds. As they took in this information, experiencing many interactions second-hand, Vice let out a guttural scoff.
“Oh, Jessie. If you consider somebody like this a friend, I truly don’t feel bad about killing you. After all, you have to be rock-fucking-stupid to actively engage with a ticking time bomb like her. Given the trajectory of her life, her drive, and her aspirations, the most she can hope for is to die before the suffering truly begins.”
“She certainly is not the type of individual I would ever associate with. And while I have the ability to discard her— to force her to undergo the mental turmoil that comes with a lost friend— I could, alternatively, temporarily act like Jessie. Hm… yes, that should be interesting at the very least. It will provide me the opportunity to humanly engage with another individual for the first time in half a decade, supply me with at least some form of entertainment, and is ultimately preferable to several additional hours of isolated experimentation. Especially if I keep getting migraines whenever I brush against my non-defined limits. Plus, these two typically enjoy a meal during their weekend outings, and in the event that things do take a sour turn, I can always reveal my true nature now can’t I?”
With their next objective set, Vice was reminded of the pungent odor of burning human flesh. Staring into the oven, they could tell that their former body was far from done baking, which was unsurprising given its size. Meaning that it was not ready to be served and consumed like the husk of meat their former body had devolved into and that Vice would need to look elsewhere for an activity to engage with until Juniper arrived. Looking through what served as Jessie’s bedroom, Vice began devising a sort of contingency plan, and began packaging Jessie’s personal effects into her cheap, slightly broken, suitcase. While their plans for the rest of the evening were not set in stone, they knew for certain that they would not be staying in this home for much longer.
Right as Vice finished gathering up all of Jessie’s belongings, and well after the clock struck past 7 PM, they were finally called away by the doorbell, indicating the arrival of their anticipated guest. Putting on a faux smile, Vice opened the door to reveal Juniper Funkatron. A rotund white woman with frizzy ill-kempt brown hair tied back in a ponytail. Her face held scraps of cuteness, yet her poorly maintained skin and sickly girth made her a solid three outta ten as far as Vice was concerned. …And that was before Vice looked down past her face, and saw that Juniper was wearing a skimpy outfit that struggled to contain her form. Clumps of fat poured from the armholes of her tank top, her shorts suffocated the fat of her thighs, and her flabby limbs were covered with unsightly veins.
Memories of weight and dietary issues surrounding this woman hit Vice’s mind as they glanced at the figure before them, whose only true boon was her large chest, put on full display with her choice of a low-cut top. Obesity was something that Vice held a degree of resentment for, and if not for Jessie’s memories, they would have probably dragged her to the bathroom and sliced her like the sow she was so comparable to. Instead, like a good little actor, Vice chose to play along with whatever lines they were dealt, waiting for Juniper to break the metaphorical ice.
“Hoya! How you be, sweet pea?” Juniper said with gusto, her voice containing a subdued drawl.
“New week, same old bullshit,” Vice replied, speaking as the woman they appeared to be. “I’m just glad that I’ve only got another week of this before I can get on with the rest of my life.”
“So, still nothing you can use for a paper?”
“Still nothing, and I’m not banking on having an eleventh-hour revelation over this shit sap.”
“I still don’t think it can be that bad. Sure you don’t have a TV or nothin’, but aside from giving the retard a sponge bath once a week, it can’t be all doo-doo.”
“It is not so much what I need to do while I’m here, but the fact that being here prevents me from doing so many other things,” Vice elaborated, effortlessly channeling Jessie’s resentments while mingling them with their own.
“It sucks, but that’s life for ya! Anyway, you wanna yuck it up here or are you ready to go?”
“Go where exactly? You just said we should ‘hang out.’”
“Movie night!” Juniper exclaimed, slamming her hands against the front door frame. “The drive-in in the next town over is playing some monster movie, um… I think it was Godzilla vs. The Cosmo Monster or something. After that, we’ll prowl around, see what’s open, get some grub, and I’ll drive you back here. Sound like a plan?”
While Juniper was indeed as unappealing as Jessie’s memories indicated, she still provided an offer that was, as it were, better than nothing, and Vice was interested in the film she mentioned. While they were far from a movie buff, only visiting the cinema a few times a year during their former life, they were partial to giant monster movies. Vice found their simulated rampant destruction, and the battles between gargantuan beings, to be appealing on an innate level. Vice momentarily wondered if that correlated to their own fascination with destruction and general misdeeds, but they discarded such thoughts for the moment and instead replied to Juniper.
“Yeah, sure, not like I’ve got anything better to do.”
“That’s my girl! Now let’s blow this lemonade stand and kick out the jams! Woo!”
With that, Juniper dashed towards her busted-up station wagon that sounded like a dying electronic squirrel when she started it up. Vice could not help but laugh as they moseyed their way to the passenger seat, taking momentary delight in the sunlit forestry that surrounded them. While their body may have been wildly different, this sight instilled a sense of nostalgic belonging within Vice’s rotten little heart and, for the first time in years, they felt as if they were back home, in the heart of the Virginia wilderness.
It almost inspired Vice to escape from the shackles of obligation they willingly accepted, and use their new body to hunt whatever game they could find in these woods. Instead, they decided to stay in the car with an obese woman blaring Know Your Rights by The Clash from a well-worn cassette tape. It certainly wasn’t how Vice was expecting to spend their first night of freedom. But, much like everything else that happened these past two hours, they accepted this absurdity with a smile on their face.
