Zoe contemplated her father, a safe distance away from behind Jon's doorframe. “Hey Dad! What the shit?”
“Help… meeee…” gargled Dave, convulsing on the floor like a sentient wet noodle.
She wondered whether helping her father was worth setting down her soda. It wasn’t. “Nah. You look fucking gross.”
Dave somehow found himself the strength to look at his daughter in despondent bewilderment; did she really have to be sassy now of all times!? “Are… Are you… filming this?”
Zoe was, in fact, filming this, but she couldn’t muster the will to respond to her father. The scene was… enrapturing, to say the least. It was not unlike a car crash—difficult to watch, but somehow, difficult to look away. Well, this could describe Dave in general, the man was an unfortunate combination of comical and sad, but this specific instance bordered on horrific. Muscles twitched and moved in ways they were very much not supposed to, hair was growing out of places that had been hairless for years, and he was…getting so much bigger. And the scars… They just kept appearing and appearing and they just wouldn’t stop.
Zoe was especially confused when the transformation started to end. Despite what it’s “conduction” might lead one to believe, Dave was not turning into some sort of monstrosity—quite the opposite, actually. If asked on the transformation, Zoe would say that the end result was rather unimpressive. After having her arm twisted, however, she’d admit, quite reluctantly, that Dave actually looked good for once. And kinda badass, in a grizzled movie hero sorta way.
Her father was gone. Aymon Skythorne, Elven Ruler of the Sky Kingdom of Aeyr, had taken Dave’s place in all his muscled, chiseled glory.
“Zoe… Am I dying?”
Nah, still good ol’ pathetic Dave, just re-skinned. And re-costumed, his button-up and jeans turning into some kind of Napoleon Bonaparte-esque guise, leaving his overly-muscled-and-shiny chest quite bare. He also had a pirate hat. Neat.
Deep breaths, Zoe, you can be jealous another time.
“Hey Dad! What the shit?”
“I… Don’t know! I was just checking to see if Jon was home—” his voice way much too English and way too confident; Zoe didn’t like it—“And then I touched that weird bookmark, and you were filming me, and then no, please. Zoe, help!!!”
Zoe watched her father literally get sucked into that giant book floating above Jon’s desk. It felt like a shitty transition on imovie, to be honest; his body separated into a mass of varying colors, all of which quickly flew into an open page.
The Hollowed Lands slammed shut and fell to the table in an unceremonious thump.
Zoe finished her drink.
“I should probably do something about this... You know, I think I will.”
She went to the kitchen to grab another soda.
