This is an alternate branch of the storyline continuing from [7A]

The Tall and Short Problems of a Cute Gamer Girl

[8A]
For the Primary Branch [8]

Giselle had no idea what to make of all this, especially after eight exhausting hours of school she never wanted to be a part of. No matter what though, she knew in her heart that she could go home, and Rachel would be there, the same as she had always been for all these years. Her constant, her light in her life. A soulmate, no matter what. So long as she was there.

But the Rachel in the seat next to her had been warped and twisted by whatever this was. If it could make her believe anything, then what was the limit for what it might choose to change? What if Giselle forgot all the important things in her life?

It was her great and overwhelming dementia fear. The terror that her own brain or the brain of someone she loved might give out in the worst way and the world spiral into a confusing nothingness. Everything she loved forfeit. Everything that mattered to her unraveling.

At that point, she would basically be dead while living. She felt like she was at the cliffside of her worst fears anyway. If she was stuck like this, then she was over two decades behind Rachel. She would never catch up and whatever life they might make of this would be completely different. On the one hand, if she had to be stuck, then at least she could transform her love, as the best daughter anyone could ever imagine.

It didn’t take them long to get home. Beside the driveway, Giselle noticed a black van with dark windows she wasn’t able to see through. It took some doing to rouse Britney, but she energetically popped up and stretched her legs after a minute. Fervently, she thanked them for the ride and for everything.

Outside, the passenger side door of the black van popped open. Stepping around the front of the car was a very skinny man wearing a denim jumpsuit and a cap that looked like it was about to slide off. While he didn’t seem particularly frail, Giselle got an unsettling impression that he hadn’t eaten in a long time. His eyes looked a little irritated, as though the pollen was perhaps getting to him. He spoke with a thin, wheezy voice, “I’m with Cerberus. Just tidying up a few things. I know you purchased a product, and it appears to be broken. Let’s see what we can do about that.”

Rachel led him inside the house and Giselle and Britney followed. Whispering, Britney noted, “That guy looks like a serial killer.” The notion sent a sharp shiver down Giselle‘s spine, which she didn’t even get through years of playing spooky games for streams, outside of fretting whether Herschel knocked something over in the dark.

Herschel didn’t seem like he had a very good opinion of their visitor either. He stopped snacking from the auto feeder to tuck his tail down, arch his back lightly, and give just the faint impression of a hiss without being loud about it. Britney and Giselle went upstairs to the loft and Herschel soon joined them. Britney tried to pet the kitty, but it slipped just out of her reach.

In the room together, Giselle wasn’t sure what to say. So much was on her mind from the absolute onslaught of having to worry about junior high classes, to dealing with a girl who acted like her friend and who seemed like a decent person, to the shell shock of Rachel thinking that this is the way that things were supposed to be. And she felt so helpless about all those different pieces.

Hemorrhaging frustration, Giselle plopped down on her bed and cupped her hands around her face. It didn’t take long for Britney to gingerly ease onto a spot next to her on the bed. She put her arm around her shoulder and offered, “I’m sure things will be alright. Not to overlook all the things you’re going through right now. All those things and you don’t need to share them with me. But if you need to, feel free. I try to be a good listener.”

Giselle glanced over and managed a kind expression while responding, “Thanks. I hope so. It just feels like everything has a long way to go before it might ever feel normal again.”

Britney diligently nodded to that and segued into trying to cheer Giselle up by pointing out different things around the room. She delighted in Kirby, gawked at photos of galaxies, and remarked off the top of her head about the history of a remade RPG game. The girl also leaned into the possibility of fashion, nail painting, and other cute ideas, but also balanced it with the kind of geeky language that Giselle appreciated.

Things settled, and the house felt collectively quiet. Maybe a little too quiet. Herschel, who had taken to supervising their shenanigans, also appeared anxious but didn’t venture down the steps. Between reviewing some homework and sipping some soda, Giselle excused herself to check on the others.

The door to the master bedroom was closed. Giselle carefully looked around and slowly propped it open to get a better look. Over by the doorway leading to the bathroom, Rachel stood motionless with her arms bent in an uncomfortable position and her face twisted in alarm. Holding back a gasp, Giselle crept over and tried to shake Rachel. It was like grasping a shockingly lifelike store mannequin. She rocked in place stiffly but didn’t respond or move.

Through the doorway, a strange man spoke, “She deserves that for macing me in the eye. Don’t worry. I didn’t hurt her. Just needed some quiet time to work. And then I’ll be out of here forever.”

Giselle wanted to stand protectively beside Rachel, safeguard her the way she always did. She scowled and glared at the strange man, as she held Rachel‘s stiff hand tenderly. “What do you want and what are you doing?”

He stood beside the toilet with the swapped seat they’d been using lately. “I’m here to make sure there’s no fuss. Do you know how many people in the world, in all the worlds, report that their toilet seat has changed their sex?”

Giselle frowned and gave a quick shake of her head. The creepy man responded, “Come on. Not even a guess? Think about how many reports of that kind of problem you’ve heard. None? Sounds about right. And why is that? Because we make sure of it. It’s not always clean and convenient and always seems to verge on the precipice of a paradox or something weird, like deleting the horn of plenty from Fruit of the Loom underwear. Keeping worlds together is a thankless job.“

All that sounded like he was going off on a rant and comprehending the details passed over her far above like a plane. But she gathered that something was up, and this guy seemed to be with whatever forces were making people forget about the way things used to be. She could not abide that.

“Let Rachel go.”

“No. I’d rather she stays in one place for the moment.“ He kept his eye on her while swiftly unscrewing the seat and setting it aside. “I haven’t decided how she’s going to end up yet. There are so many possibilities. The seat couldn’t remove her from all this, because she ordered the part and that meant its destiny was tied to her. Fortunately, I’m an independent contractor, and I can go a little outside that. Still makes a mess. Fortunately, she doesn’t have to be human by the time I’m done.”

That did it. Fire burst through Giselle‘s heart. She wasn’t having this, no matter what it took. Scanning the floor, she noticed a big bag of tools and a remote-sized device which appeared to have been recently replaced in a slot. Her limbs felt slightly tired from the day and gym especially, but she reached into the new reserves of her youth and barreled over towards the bag.

The weird man was crouched over, working, and had several blind seconds before he caught what she was doing. Yelling and latching onto opposite ends of the bag, they tussled and fought. Giselle had no qualms about actively kicking him as close to the crotch as possible. Swinging around and knocking over stuff on the counter, the remote soon shot loose and into the master bedroom. It slid over to the bed and Giselle scrambled to pick it up. With a bony hand, the man shoved her to the ground and rose to his feet.

“I was gonna leave you with some of your memories and personality. As a kindness”, he intoned. “But now, I can’t wait to see what a silly, flirty, dumb little twit of a tween you turn out to be.” Grinning darkly, the skinny man walked to the doorway.

Before he could get through, a mass flung through the air and practically took his head off. Wheezing with a pained breath, the strange man crumpled to the carpet like a flattened spider and didn’t look like he was going to get up anytime soon.

Rushing over, Giselle met up with Britney, who recovered her backpack. Considering the insane weight of some of the textbooks and the absolute mass of the thing, Giselle had to wonder how the guy wasn’t dead. She picked up the remote and aimed it around.

None of the buttons were labeled, so it left her with quite a quandary about which, if any of them, might unfreeze Rachel. Creepy guy wasn’t going to tell her, but she pondered and realized he still could be of some assistance. She glanced in Britney‘s direction with a quick flutter of nerves. She had no idea how to explain any of this.

To her credit, Britney wasn’t freaking out or yelling questions. She just wanted to make sure that Giselle was alright. And she had gathered that something was wrong, suspected the weird guy, and had some experience “wielding [her] backpack for protection”, as she characterized it.

Aiming the remote at the stunned guy and pressing buttons in order resulted in some interesting things. First, all his color vanished. Then it shifted to a bright tone. He started to duplicate into twins. His appearance shifted to what appeared to be a Mediterranean one although his body type remained the same. He briefly shifted into female forms, but Giselle didn’t realize it at first, because their shape seemed even more emaciated with scraggly hair and no real attributes to distinguish one mode from the other. She was tempted to leave him like that but continued with her experiments.

All the while, Britney not only didn’t bat an eye at what was happening but skimmed over the buttons and gave light suggestions. Eventually, creepy guy tensed up, as though paused on a screen. She aimed the remote at Rachel and she stumbled forward to the edge of the bed, released.

Frantically, she embraced Giselle and kissed her on the forehead. She had her suspicions to pass along about the weird guy but soon deduced that things had advanced far beyond such simple suspicions. Giselle felt disheartened that Rachel had returned to the motherly mode that greeted her in the car.

While Britney took watch over the frozen guy, Rachel made sure to call the police. Peering into the master bathroom, Giselle soon noticed that, where they had been fighting for the remote, the seat that the weird guy was going to place had a slight indistinct shimmer, like a blocked laser light show.

She approached it carefully and, when she reached down to touch the lid, a blinding strobe fill the room with blue light. No sounds rung out. In fact, everything was so quiet that even a natural ringing wasn’t there. Giselle opened her eyes and looked in surprise at a girl about her age and height standing before her with her arms folded. Her hair almost stretched to the ground and was a stark, blank off-white that practically matched the tone of the toilet seat. In fact, it exactly matched that tone. And the toilet seat that had been there a moment ago was completely gone. Or was it?

“…hello?” Giselle offered.

The pale new girl rolled her eyes with a visible stretch of her white eyebrows as she asked simply, “Soooo, do you want me or not?”

[Since this is meant to be interactive, feel free to suggest ideas and prompts for future/alternate branch storylines. Some branches are already written but this will allow me to best pick new/alternate ones. I'm currently just rolling dice.]

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