Lutae glared through the girl's bedroom window. The star's light slowly pierced their dreams. Cutlery and Rega stirred. They fought against their bodies waking up. Cutlery opened her eyes and looked about the room. It was much nicer than the bunks of doom. The stone floors of the slaughterhouse had been cold and rough. A rug in the center was warm and polished. Their beds were nicer as well. Cutlery had never used a real stuffed pillow or a thick warm blanket. These comforts had stolen her fear last night.
The crunches of bodies echoed in her mind. Rega shrunk back under her covers after a minute of being awake. A knock came on their door. There will be no rest for us, Cutlery thought.
"Breakfast in ten minutes! Get changed with the clothes in your drawers! Food will help, trust me! Been there done that!" The soldier said through the door. Cutlery knew the soldier was right. Food solved most problems. Rega however turned into a cocoon and groaned.
Cutlery swung her legs from her bed.
"It'll be alright. The soldier is right, let's eat and talk and do more weird tests." Cutlery said.
"It's only been one day!" Rega spouted. Her cocoon exploded and Rega's sadness turned to anger. "They told us a fairytale, and fed us a nice meal! Now! Now..." Rega yelled.
"Good last memories for them, I guess." Cutlery said. Rega looked at her. "Before the killing part. The fun things." Cutlery added.
"I guess, yea... And the soldiers saved us in the end. Thought it took them so long. How did that thing get in?" Rega asked.
"I think they were gonna do something else in the night and something went wrong. Then when they heard the noises... they came in." Cutlery guessed. Rega shuddered. Her stupor had broken through. Whether or not they liked the soldiers, they were still in their castle. Hunger won. Rega might not care if they had to do something.
Both of them found and changed into new clothes. These had sleeves that went to their wrists and marks on their backs with four colored lines coming from a flat black line, like a book of sorts. The symbol didn't mean anything to either of them. The shirts were soft and the pants hung loosely at the ankles but held at the waist. Swanky, thought Cutlery. Rega and her smiled and complimented each other's casual style.
They creaked open the door and walked with slippered feet to the dining hall. Once they arrived they peeked in. Only two tables were filled by the surviving children. It was quiet. They had arrived pretty quickly in light of last night's events. So they entered. Most kids looked at them and smiled or stared.
"We must be early," Rega said. They found a spot near the end of a table. The Goliath was next to them with scars on one arm and marks on their head. Everything seemed to already have sealed up from the healing magic. They greeted the goliath. They grunted back. The kitchen clinked and steamed distantly.
Twenty minutes passed and no other kids came in. Then Haze entered.
"Everyone here?" He asked. A soldier nodded. "Good!" He said and smiled.
Everyone was here. All forty-five of them. A stretched silence surrounded Haze's metallic footsteps. Everyone's mind processed what they had just heard. Weren't they missing anyone? Then it clicked. One girl let out a loud built-up sob.
Fifty-five children had died last night. Cutlery's jaw dropped. The group slowly began to look around and all their faces went deathly pale.
"After breakfast, we have a gift for all of you. In time, it will dwarf last night's tragedy." Haze said. He snapped his finger, and the quietest meal of Cutlery's life began. "Sorry about that again!" Haze added.
-
The silent breakfast wrapped up with forty-five empty children starting at empty plates. A few of the rougher kids who weren't used to meals like this were perked back up. They had scars to prove they were already used to the world of uppercuts. Others though were barely able to breathe still.
Haze for his part had his feet up on an empty table. He read the paper while drinking steaming red liquid. He had told the group, "This drink here is Suxing! Most of you will be downing it like water within a few days." He heartily said. Silence answered him. His sips at the hot liquid reverberated off the walls. Cutlery hated that sound. Just let it cool a little more, she always thought. It ground on her nerves the whole meal.
"Welp, it's the time! Clear those plates and head back to your rooms! We will be retrieving you in groups of four to receive your gifts! Get excited! Hoorah!" Haze yelled and marched out of the room. His armor clinked loudly with his quick movements. The soldiers began to micromanage the kids again. They told them to put their plate here, to leave through those doors, to head straight to their room, and so on. Didn't they know if they said nothing, that all of these things would still happen? Cutlery chaffed at most things this morning, it was no wonder.
Rega seemed to have lightened up after the meal while Cutlery stayed at the same low simmer. Rega tried to cheer her up. She taught Cutlery how to sew using the kit in their drawers. Together they sewed a patch from the carpet onto their shirts. The patch lay over their hearts. The rug pattern was a bunch of straight lines of faded brown so it didn't add much flair. Almost all the kids had changed and wore the same shirts at breakfast. Now they would stand out no matter what.
The shirts were oddly stretchy and it had taken them nearly ten minutes to sew the patch on. A knock came on their door.
"It's the time! Step on out if you're decent." A soldier said on the other side. The two girls nervously strode out, ready to be reprimanded for the patch. The soldier on the other side was a new one. They wore less armor to allow their muscles to push outward further. Their skin was feathered and white. Some kind of avian.
The avian let out a high-pitched clucking. Cutlery thought it might be a snicker, she wasn't sure. As the avian's huge frame moved, she saw a girl and a boy stood had been behind them. It was the blue demon girl and goliath from before.
"I'm sergeant Kkraocpol," Kkraocpol said. "You can call me Crack," Crack said with another high-pitched string of clucks. "Follow me." Crack ordered. Turning on a taloned three-pronged foot, he clacked down the hallway. The group of four children looked to each other for answers and found none. They moved towards their impending gift.
-
Crack the bird soldier lead his squad of children up the tower. They had to use the stairs again. Cutlery watched breathlessly through windows as mages flew up the center of the tower. Groups of soldiers rode large rising platforms as well. Cutlery asked why they didn't just use the platforms.
"We're not important enough. To think they assigned me, me! Who can fly! The nerve of wingless leaders." Crack said. Cutlery would have enjoyed his complaints were she not fighting for her life. After an eternity, Crack led them off the stairs onto a floor made of gray metal. The area was shimmering with arcane energy. The roof was three times as high as other tower levels.
Statues like the ones at the gate flanked every window. Soldiers blocked every door. Though Cutlery only saw the door they had come in, a much larger one in the far central wall, and another that was at the end of the hallway.
The level was a thin but tall tunnel that curved inward slowly with walls blocking the way every hundred feet. Their group of five moved through several of these. At each door, a soldier would check the whole group for anything beyond clothes. Crack was allowed to keep his sword but everything down to his common clothes was taken from him. They passed through four doors like this when they ran into another group of five going the other way to exit.
The group of civilians in simple clothes walked out with two soldiers. The civilians stared at them. The civilians seemed shell-shocked, their walk was lifeless and slow. Their clothes were stretched into crop tops and long shorts. It was just like there's but way too small. Though the stretchiness seemed to work out.
One of them had pale skin and no hair with small circles with bumps on them along their body. They towered over the others like some kind of half-giant. They had to be at least eight feet tall. Maybe they and goliath were related. The castle did like their beefy soldiers, Cutlery thought.
They continued through the vault-like floor. After the first four doors, there were no more windows. Cutlery guessed they were near the twentieth floor, just below the middle of the castle. Thirteen total checkpoints went by when they arrived. Three large vault doors sat embedded in the wall. An array of glyphs were etched into each one. The glyphs crackled, sparked, dripped, and brightened at random. A golem-like humanoid made of light and two soldiers stood in this room. The golem was huge and had the same anatomy as the statues, but with full legs and feet that moved about. For now, it stood mostly still.
They crossed the twenty feet to stand in front of the golem who blocked the center vault. Crack pulled a small piece of paper from his pocket. He read off of it in an odd rough voice using words Cutlery didn't know. The golem moved.
It turned and grabbed the door. The hands melted into tiny sockets across the door's face. After some whirring and popping, the door clicked loudly. Slowly it began to roll the door sideways. The golem let go and stepped to the side as the door passed into a nook in the wall.
Inside a soft yellow light shone from above, spotlighting an occupied throne. A skeleton sat on it. The skeleton had a shimmering sandy robe on. Within its left hand was a blade of four colors. The blade crackled just like the glyphs on the door. Inside two golden armored soldiers stood astride the throne, staring them down. Crack motioned for them to go in.
They looked side to side. All the surfaces in the large cubic room were smooth and spotless. The yellow light reflected with ease.
"Approach the throne," One golden soldier said. The soldier had a clean round face with a hard expression that didn't match. They walked side to side towards the dark wood throne. Once they were ten steps from it the other guard said,
"Stop. Kneel. Put these on and close your eyes." The golden-armored woman was young and had dark oily hair. She handed them big fuzzy earmuffs and a blindfold. The room's large silence shifted to a small softness as the earmuffs went on. Then the yellow light went to black as the large blindfold blocked even the edges of her vision.
A hand fell on her left collarbone. She twitched in reaction but stopped in fear. The hand moved across to her other collarbone and moved away. It felt like a soft line had been drawn there at her collar. A warmth fell on the top of her head. It was a liquid, a thick ooze of some kind. It dripped into her hair and down her lowered forehead. It gave off heat and seemed to seep into her skin pleasantly.
It stayed on her face rather than drip off her nose and eyebrows like water would. Tracing her neck it fell under her clothes and ran along her spine and breasts. She shivered as it began to thicken over her mouth. She could still move but feared doing so, was this another monster, killing her slowly, through her ignorance? It seeped into her throat, nostrils, and ears. The pressure built then died once the liquid filled her head. She tried to breathe but couldn't. The need to inhale in never came either.
If this thing was killing her, it was being nice about it. The fluid reached her waist and ran onto her anus and over her crotch. Her thighs were engulfed. Her body was forcibly relaxed somehow. It seeped into her every gap at this point. She would have jumped up but she couldn't command her body. No more, she didn't want to. It was easy to just let go and relax fully into the liquid's embrace. Finally, it ended at her toes and she felt it pool around her. As it finally seeped into the skin of her feet, she felt large. She was at the perfect body temperature. Her muscles had relaxed more than ever. Her mind faded slightly like she was daydreaming. Consciousness flowed back in, a moment, or a minute later. She wasn't sure.
Her chest felt heavy, her mind seemed empty yet fast and able. Her hair pulled heavily at her head. The unknown liquid weighed it down greater than before. Her legs felt limber and long, her skin stretched across her bones and had no looseness to it. Then the fluid began to stop falling on her head and instead fell away from her as it continued down. Slowly the room's air touched her again.
The fluid pulled at itself, leaving no trace of oil or wetness behind. The earmuffs pressed on the sides of her head and the knot they had made on the blindfold pressed against the back of her skull. Her body felt full of energy and power.
Then the blindfold was untied from her head, and the earmuffs removed. As she opened her eyes a hand was placed on her left temple. Sudden energy jerked into her skull and she felt numb, empty, and devoid of thought. Mud poured into her mind from that hand and she couldn't think so well anymore. What, happens, ugghhhhh? Cutler can't think, Cutlery thought.
Her eyes fluttered open. A golden hand pulled away from her and moved onto the person on her left. Who was that? Regal? Rouge? The hand sparked against their temple. The golden person murmured. Then Regal jerked and relaxed. Her eyes fluttered as well.
They made slow eye contact. Regal's cheeks were angular, her hair fell to her hip. Her white shirt was like a crop top now. Her belly was slender and angular like a dancer's. Regal's eyes fluttered again. This time they were looking at Cutlery. Cutlery tried to read Rega, that was her name, but it was so hard to think.
They were helped to their feet before they even noticed the hand under their arm. The door had closed, when had it closed, but it slid open again. The big buff bird awaited them. Had he gotten shorter? Cutlery looked directly at his chest now instead of his waist. Regal looked him levelly in the eye! That was a lot of thinking, Cutlery was tired.
A blur of hands helped her over the vault doorframe and out through the floor quickly, so quickly. A group of four boys passed by, did she know them? Heads tilted up towards her to make eye contact, then down. They stared at her with lingering looks. A few glanced at her shirt and pants. Why were her pants at her knee's now?
Time darkened and then she was staring at two beds, at herself. A mirror was in their room. She must have been staring at it for some time. The door clicked, the sound in the back of Cutlery's mind. She looked about. Regal, no Rega, had her face buried in a pillow, her feet hung off the other end of the bed.
Cutlery looked back into the mirror. Her feet hurt, and her bones hurt! Her chest was heavy, her muscles ached like they had been pulled by fairies. Her vision took so long to focus. A woman looked at her in the mirror. Where was she? She looked around the mirror but only saw the woman. She must be the woman. How odd. The bed looks nice, Cutlery thought.
She fell onto it face first. That wasn't too comfortable for some reason so she flipped over and her mind went from muddy to oblivion.
-
The ache of ages dragged Cutlery through the thickest mud of sleep she had ever known. Somehow the ache in her chest was outside her ribs, which had never happened. Her lower back felt light a knot. Her bed was wet. Why was it wet?
She shot up. Her white sheet and thick blanket that were white and red flew off She looked down and couldn't see her crotch, why couldn't she see her crotch?
A woman soldier flung open the door at the sound of Cutlery's scream.
"Are you hurrrr..." The woman cut off. Cutlery looked at her with red hands. Rega was now sitting up and pressed into the corner looking at Cutlery. She had pulled the sheet up to her nose. She peeked out with wide eyes.
"Now calm down, not the best word choice I guess, this is normal, you see uh, once a month... maybe not the place to start." The soldier said. She put a hand to her chin and started thinking. "You have a new body! It's you, but in a new body, an adult one!" She said. The soldier smiled at her explanation.
"Where's the old one!? I need my old meat!" Cutlery screamed. Her voice was deeper now, almost at a boy's voice. Her mind raced, she was hungry.
"Your... old meat is still a part of you. It's just grown now." The woman said. A second soldier appeared at the door.
"What is going on, oh godammit... let me know, if... ah fuck whatever." He said and closed the door on the three of them. The woman turned towards the door to respond. Seeing it was already closed she turned back and smiled at them. The soldier woman was of average height and most of her build was hidden beneath the armor. Cutlery saw a lock of dark hair. Her eyes were brown and her cheeks angled flat. She pointed at the ceiling and planted a hand on her hip and swayed a little. The woman explained to Cutlery, and Rega three things.
They were adult women now, how adult women worked, and the schedule that work was on.
"Why did this happen!" Rega asked. She had thrown the sheet aside to inspect herself. Rega had grown into her elf half and was slender and smooth. Her body was a taunt and her eyes seemed to sparkle, a slight point had come to her previously rounded ears. Cutlery was jealous of the fact that Rega could see her crotch by looking down. Cutlery for her part had giant boobs in the way.
The woman explain that she was quite lucky in fact. She had a new reason to slap all the boys. If they even looked at her chest she could, and they would feel bad!
"I'm only sixteen!" The woman said pointing at herself. Rega squinted at her. Some of the older kids back at Many House were sixteen but looked a lot smaller than her.
"You're still six! You just get to be like this now!" The woman said. "I'm also named Chloe Anchorsmith. Nice to meet you. I'll be around for a week to help you adjust." Chloe explained. Cutlery considered the idea for a few seconds and an important detail came to mind.
"Hungry." Cutlery said. Despite all that had happened, her mind seemed extra elastic right now, like it had lots of space to fill. Growing up all at once seemed to still be settling into her being. Chloe laughed and told them to change. Cutlery discarded her sheets and clothes at the laundry shoot outside their room after changing. Their clothes stretchiness made sense now. Rega and her still had their rug sewn patches on so despite their visual differences it seemed Chloe was telling the truth about them just having new bodies. Cutlery wasn't sure what the alternative explanation was.
The three of them walked. Rega and Chloe went on and on about everything.
"So is this body permanent?" Rega asked, her curiosity frothing. Rega tripped. "Oops can't quite walk yet," Rega said.
"Kinda, many people experience a few more changes over the first three days. The first sliver likes to settle in and move around." Chloe said with a chuckle.
"Do we have more magic, muscle, power, and anything else?" Rega asked broadly. Cutlery tuned her out. No one wanted to know that kinda stuff. No one at all. All that mattered was that she had a new epic body. Except for her chest, she was quite limber and thin. Everything felt right and super agile. Life in the castle was gonna be slick. Unless she got super old tomorrow as well. That would suck, Cutlery thought. Otherwise, she had just powered up big time.
