Lisa stared. Two sets of human legs where there had been one? There they were, the rear set separated by what looked like an extension of her back. No, no, this was all wrong! This was just far enough away from being a normal human or humanoid that it didn't look correct, but not enough that her new body registered as a demi-human...
She'd landed in the uncanny valley! No, this couldn't be happening! She couldn't be stuck like this! She couldn't-
Lisa woke with a gasp and a jerk, a cold sweat on her face, further chilled by the cool morning air. Was it all just a dream? Well, the tripping part wasn't - she'd fallen off the cot in her sleep and was now lying on her side, one arm awkwardly caught under her torso.
Her top half did seem unchanged, but it was hardly likely that she'd escaped unscathed - the sun's shimmering rainbow light beat down on her, gradually warming everything up. Heart still pounding, she took a deep breath and threw aside her blanket.
She did, in fact, have four legs, but they were anything but human. They were spindly-looking things, covered in coarse brown hair and ending in dainty cloven hooves. The body between them shared the same brown coat, except on the underside, where it was a soft white. At the far end, peeking out from behind her rump, she spied a perky little deer's tail.
Lisa let out a sigh of relief - she never thought she'd be glad to be farther away from being human! This...well, it wasn't really what she was hoping for, but she could manage. Carefully, she stood up, remembering what she'd heard from some transformed coworkers about letting her body do the driving, and looked over her new body.
She'd seen centaurs around, though like most transformees they tended to keep a day schedule, and one thing she'd been struck by was how they maintained the same proportion between human half and horse half, no matter the size. That was fine for centaurs based off ponies or smaller horses, where the human half was only a little larger than normal size, but for larger horses the human half scaled up well beyond normal bounds - she'd seen some draft-horse centaurs that were veritable goliaths!
Lisa, on the other hand, while shapely, had never been tall, and while her human half maintained about the same proportion, the size of her deer half (a typical whitetail) meant that she was about the same size she'd always been - maybe a little smaller, but not much. Unlike centaurs, she'd have little to no trouble navigating environments designed for humans.
"Humans." How strange to think of them that way...now that she no longer was one. She didn't feel that different...this was going to take some getting used to. She'd have to talk to Jay about that. But...it was over with, it went a lot better than it might have, it was a beautiful crisp fall morning, and she was free.
Alex lay in bed, trying to get to sleep. He was tired, but he still hadn't quite fallen into the nocturnal schedule. And even if he had, he was kept awake thinking of the woman on the balcony.
She had looked so peaceful...like she knew what was going to happen to her and accepted it. Would it really be so bad, he wondered? All it would take was a couple minutes, and then all the trouble, all the anxiety could be over with. Nothing to prevent you from going outside whenever you wanted to, or staying out as long as you liked...
He almost thought of going out and exposing himself to the light right then and there, but then he remembered earlier in the day. Ben and Steven had obviously just been playing a not-very-amusing joke on him, but all the same...what if he did turn into a slug-girl? He doubted that sharing a seat with one would affect anything, but it could just happen at random - he'd heard tell of even stranger things!
Alex shuddered. No, he couldn't face that kind of possibility. Besides, if he changed they'd make him go to day school, and who would look out for Sally? He didn't like her trying to outdo him, but he really did like his little sister...it was just a pity they couldn't be closer.
As of that morning, Jon knew exactly what uterine cramps felt like, something she had never actually wanted to find out. She thought of trying to pretend to be sick (pretend, hell!) but she knew that if there was one thing she would enjoy less than going to school like this, it was spending the evening trying to tune out Zoe's mockery if she admitted defeat by something her sister and mother had lived with for years.
This just sucked. Even with the painkillers it was going to suck. At least she wouldn't have to deal with Tiffany, though - and maybe, if Jon was lucky, this period would be over with by tomorrow, when her suspension was up. Assuming she returned to class then, that was.
Jon noticed Mikey looking at her as she slid out into the hall, a concerned expression on her face. She forced a weary smile for her little sister. Mikey was lucky; Jon didn't imagine that a robot would have to deal with anything like this. She didn't begrudge Mikey that, though - she was actually more happy for her than jealous.
