Maxine hurt. A white-hot pain in her chest that ebbed and waned, sometimes flickered and sometimes roared, but never left. She clutched her chest and and the coarse hair that touched her hand only made things worse. Her scalp burned in hot streaks where her nails had dug grooves. Her knees chafed on the wooden floor but she barely noticed. Her throat was raw from the silent crying she'd been doing, curled up in a ball in her bedroom, trying to shed this wretched skin. 

 

All it had taken was an unexpected reflection in a foggy mirror, fresh out of the shower. Sometimes that's all it took. Sometimes seeing her own face, that monstrous, hideous face, and a lump formed in her throat and a voice manifested in her skull and in a flash the old devils were at it again. She'd frozen again. Steadied her breathing, did the exercises like her therapist had told her. Repeated the mantra. It didn't work.

 

She'd stumbled to her bedroom but her legs had given up before she made it to bed. Her arms were covered in red streaks where she'd tried to force her body to open up and let her out. She couldn't even let herself cry, the voice that would come out not her own. Her eyes hurt from being squeezed shut with all the force she could muster, tears streaking down her face where her wet hair clung to it. 

 

She begged. Pleaded. Prayed to high and low and all in between to take this away. She was not strong enough, she repeated, over and over again. Not good enough, not strong enough, not good enough. She wished, with every core of her being, then and there, she'd die. 

 

She lay in silence and pain. Blood ran down her face where she'd broken skin. She sat up and opened her eyes slightly, making sure not to look down. Her arms lay heavy in her lap, fingers drying red. Please, she thought. I'll do anything. 

 

There was a touch on her shoulder and she froze with fear. A voice in her head, like scissors cutting cloth, not her own, red and sweet and full of heat. 

 

Anything

 

She closed her eyes, and opened them again. She couldn't hesitate. Yes. 

 

Good

 

She collapsed, unconscious before her breaking body even hit the floor. 

 

—-

 

Maxine woke up hungry. She corrected herself. Hungry didn't do this feeling justice. She was ravenous. She was ravenous and really, really high up. A quarter mile below her the pavement loomed but it didn carry with it the ominous threat that heights usually did. It was simply something in the distance. The wind on her face was simply a sensation she was aware of, its heat barely relevant. Moonlight, milky white and bright as a winter sun illuminated her. She was aware, but only in the vaguest, strictest sense of the word. In every other sense, she needed to… No, no, not eat. Feed. 

 

Then she woke up a bit more and realised just how high up she was and wondered where she was and she could see her feet, half off the edge of the building, ever so dangerously looming over the precipice. Her brain frantically clicked and whirred and finally it arrived at a conclusion. 

 

“What.” She said. The wind stole her words, and she didn't hear them. . 

 

That wasn't it. Close, but not it. 

 

“What?!”

 

Better. Much better. Still too quiet. 

 

What

 

A voice like a cat with a secret, playfully mimicking her, echoed in her head. This had better be a god-damn dream, she thought. But if I'm this lucid, she reasoned, then i should be in cont-

 

Not a dream

 

Oh, fuck. 

 

If you insist

 

“Wait that's not what I me-”

 

She blacked out again. 

 

—-

 

Maxine woke up and didn't see anything for a moment. She smelled a soft, floral perfume. Tasted… Felt someone's… Her eyes shot open, the girl she had a second ago been making out with looking dejected, surprised, and mildly annoyed. 

 

“You all right?” 

 

Nodding her head no, Maxine looked around. She was in someone's bedroom. She had been sitting on this girl's bed. This girl she didn't know. This very attractive girl. Whose tongue she still tasted on her lips.

 

“I- I don't…”

 

The other girl, spectacularly misreading the situation, leaned in and softly touched her hand. 

 

“Hey, it's okay. If this is your first time with another woman we can take this slow. You don't have to pretend to be confident. It's normal to get a little freaked out.”

 

A little *ding* went off in her head. “Another woman”, she'd said. Most women didn't. They didn't see… She looked at the girl’s hand and saw, looking down, her body. Slim. Pretty. Beautiful, even. Decidedly not the body she'd had when she woke up yesterday. It was also wearing clothes she'd never owned.  

 

“What the f- I… I need to get out of here.”

 

The other girl looked sullen but resigned. “I understand if y-”. Maxine didn't hear the rest of what she said. She heard a voice like a sword being drawn. 

 

Very well 

 

“No, wait! Wai-”

 

Again, she blacked out. 

 

—-

 

She was on the roof again, this time standing a little further from the edge as her senses drifted into focus again. 

 

“What the fuck?!” She managed. 

 

Maxine

 

“What is happening? I'm dreaming or I'm going crazy or I'm…”

 

Maxine Danielle Powers, sit your ass down 

 

It had sounded like… Her mother. But she didn't speak to her mother anymore, and she sure as hell didn't take orders from her. She started whispering to herself. “It's not real”, repeated, over and over again, like a mantra. But when she looked down, that body was still there. Lythe. Soft. Girl. 

 

“It's n-” froze in her throat as she feared now, all of a sudden, that this new body was not real. She'd begged for this. It was here. “P- p-”

 

Please be real? 

 

“Yes.”

 

Hello Maxine. My name is Penumbra. This is real. You are my new host. Congratulations.

 

—-

 

Maxine sat on the edge of the roof, enjoying her newfound lack of fear of heights, completely euphoric, examining her hands, her arms and legs, a little hesitant to look under her clothes just yet, while she talked to the new voice in her head. 

 

“What are you?”

 

Symbiote. You are a suitable host.

 

“A symbiote is like… A mutually beneficial parasite, right?”

 

Something inside her winced. It hadn't liked that. 

 

Not a parasite. Symbiote. Symbiotic relationship with host. You provide sustenance. I… Enhance. Fix. 

 

Maxine’s eyes widened and narrowed as her thoughts came and went. She squished her new boob with a finger. 

 

“You did this?”

 

Yes. Saw image in your… Want. Fixed you. Hard to… Shape. Resistance. 

 

She couldn't help but giggle for a second. 

 

“Yeah, it's a big change. Did you do the clothes too?”

 

No, took what your Want needed from your room then took from your… - it struggled for a moment - the ones who live near you, what you did not have. 

 

She looked at her clothes. The jeans were hers but it fit a little weirder than before, felt her phone in her j- in her neighbour’s jacket pocket. 

 

She jumped up and balanced herself on the edge of the building. 

 

“Why are we up here?”

 

I like the lights. 

 

“Valid. What else can you do?”

 

What else can I… Do? I can count high. 

 

“No, I mean like… You fixed me, right? But if I wanted longer hair or be taller, you could do that.”

 

Yes. You too. Not easy though. Tiring. Need sustenance. 

 

“Like what?”

 

Food. Experience. Feeling. 

 

“Like, all three, or can I just feed you depression?” She smirked, not really worried about that depression as much in her new-body-high. 

 

Just depression is fine 

 

It was subtle, but a very slight tug at the corner of her mouth told her Penumbra was smiling inside. 

 

“Can I call you Penny?”

 

What 

 

“You know, short for Penumbra. It's such a mouthful.”

 

Penny. It smiled. 

 

She figured that was the permission she'd get. 

 

“Well then, Penny, how did we get up here?”

 

Like this, Penumbra said, and threw them off the roof. 

 

In the air, free falling and for a reason she couldn't figure out, still not scared, she saw Penumbra for the first time, a soft, dark purple shape, like wine, poured out of her, from her skin, and enveloped her. She hit the ground with what should have been a crash but was a graceful bounce.

 

She straightened up and looked at the glass facade of the building she’d just evacuated. There stood a creature, Six foot and a half, made of the same purple substance. Before her stood  the Amazonian woman she'd always dreamed of whisking her away, with toned muscles and a… An odd face to be sure. Vaguely defined features where the eyes would be, almost catlike in shape. And a mouth that stretched quite literally from ear to ear. And it smiled at her. 

 

Hello Maxine 

 

She smiled, too, and waved at the reflection. 

 

“Hello Penny.”