Maxine could scarcely believe she was under there. Probably picking up on her thoughts, Penumbra shrank. The way the dark mass was absorbed by her skin was a warm, wholly pleasant experience, like a full contact body massage on steroids. 

 

After a few seconds, the shape in the window was, well, it was still new, but it was decidedly hers. She was shorter now than she'd been, closer to 5’6 than her previous 5’11. She bit her lip as she couldn't help but look at her newfound curves. She had an ass, and it took some willpower not to slap it. 

 

Penumbra retreated from her face and she finally saw it for the first time. It was hers, definitely. But it was also… Not. It was feminine. It was beautiful. She was taken aback. A woman's face looked back at her with shock. Thin but powerful eyebrows. A full upper lip. Her jawline, her eyes, those had stayed the same but they only served to make her look more powerful. She was gorgeous - like all women, she added - and she couldn't deal with it. 

 

She'd been in a daze. Everything had been different and weird and wonderful. Penumbra had been completely new but this? This was… 

 

She shattered. Tears welled up in her eyes and she discovered that her beautiful face could ugly-cry. And she did. In big, heaving sobs, she dropped to her knees as her mind reeled at the implication, the reality of the situation. Happiness, fear, gratitude, disbelief, they all came together and overwhelmed her. 

 

Penumbra enveloped her again, not letting her see through their eyes just yet and simply allowing her to sit in darkness for a moment. She felt it feel her emotions. This was a new pain. A fear of losing what she had. A total mistrust of her newfound happiness. She felt, in her soul, that nothing good would last. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop and for all of this to be taken away like it always was. 

 

Do you want to go home? 

 

She nodded. Penumbra held her. They stood up. She saw again. And raised her hand as more of Penumbra came out and she gained some height again. They turned around. 

 

“Do you feel that?”

 

?, it said. 

 

“I'm not choosing to move. Neither are you. We are.”

 

They nodded with satisfaction. 

 

Symbiosis. 

 

“We need a name!”

 

This again? 

 

“No, a name for the two of us. When we're like this. Together.”

 

It paused for a moment. 

 

Continue

 

“I don't want to think of this,” she gestured at her entire purple-clad body, “as me. But it's also not just you. So if Penumbra is like, half shadow…

How about ‘Dusk’?”

 

Let's not jump to anything 

 

They smiled. Fair enough. 

 

—-

 

Penny/Maxine soared through the air and landed gracefully on a rooftop. The sun was beginning to rise. They were taking the long way home. She was going to enjoy her newfound body and the freedom, the sheer bliss that came with it as best she could. She landed on another roof, Penny safely inside her so she could feel every gust of wind, every crack of pavement, every ray of burgeoning daylight, with her own senses. It was heaven. 

 

They paused on a roof.

 

“Where are you from, Penny?”

 

Don't know. Far. 

 

“You don't remember?”

 

Was born while… Traveling. 

 

“Oh my god you're baby.”

 

I'm baby, Penumbra agreed solemnly. They giggled. 

 

“So you can read my memories, right? Like, that seems obvious.”

 

Surface only. What you hide from yourself you hide from me. 

 

“Weird. Cool. So you can do colloquialisms?”

 

Bet. 

 

“Nice.”

 

She paused for a second and then tapped her foot, hands on her hips. 

 

“So, the girl from earlier…” She let that hang on the air for a bit. 

 

She was your type. You wanted to-

 

“Alright, alright, fair enough. Where did you find her?”

 

On the phone

 

Maxine paused for a moment. The phone in her pocket was not hers. She'd have to figure out whose it was.

 

“Please don't make me black out anymore.”

 

I'm sorry. Was trying to help 

 

“It's okay. You didn't know. But… I have memory problems. Losing time scares me. A lot.”

 

I'm sorry 

 

“I forgive you. Now stop apologising, dork.”

 

There was a moment of silence. 

 

No you

 

They walked to the edge of the roof and took a seat to bask in the sun. She could feel Penumbra just under the surface, enjoying this as much as she did, but it was a little restless, and it was getting worse by the minute. 

 

“What's wrong?”

 

Very tired. Too tired. Made mistake. 

 

They stood up. Maxine was suddenly very worried about her new passenger, completely unaware she was about to have it much worse than Penny. 

 

Can not 

 

Am

 

Need 

 

Sorry 

 

Penny fell silent for one horrible, deafeningly silent second. 

 

Then the pain came. Unimaginable pain. It started in her back as her spine shattered, every vertebra splitting and splintering, bone fragments firing into her nervous system. She was already on the ground. 

 

Her arms and legs twisted and bent in unnatural shapes as they broke, twisted, reformed and broke again, her muscles twisting around them, tearing themselves apart.

 

As her eyes burst, she cried its white contents and blood, over and over again as she saw her hands in flashes, her beautiful long nails falling out and growing back short and strong, dark bristles of hair pushing through the skin on the back of her hand and finally she screamed. 

 

Screamed at the horrible, incomprehensibly agonising realisation of what was happening as the flesh on her chest stretched and squirmed away tearing her skin as quickly as it healed. She wailed, her voice breaking and lowering with the crushing and reforming of her larynx as even her teeth fell out and grew back with a grinding she could feel in her skull as that, too, reshaped itself. 

 

Finally, as her body spasmed a few more times, she lay still in a pool of blood, and cried normal, salty tears. Softly, the expanding pool dripped over the edge of the building. She kept her eyes closed. She knew what she'd see. What she'd feel. She knew her dream was over. Her nightmare was back, hope gone with the morning twilight. A pain in her head made it hard to even hear herself think. 

 

She tried to move but barely managed to twitch her finger. Tried to speak but couldn't even manage a dull croak. She tried to simply think at it very hard. It hurt. 

 

Penumbra?

 

Ys

 

She was relieved to hear it was still there. She was afraid it… Something. Something she didn't like thinking about. She tried to form another response, her head pounding. 

 

What

 

Exhausted 

 

And,

 

Msorry

 

And then, miraculously,

 

I fix later 

 

The implication of what it had just said was like a skylight bursting through the fog of her migraine. She found a burst of energy. “Wait does that mean you-” she managed, spinning around, finding nothing to lean on, and fell off the roof.