"It's me Diana!" The snake girl said in the end. Honestly all this prompting and he still didn't recognise her. "You used to call me Didi?"
"Didi?" Harris looked at her again. Surly not... "You.. are..."
"Yes!" the snake girl laughed. "I'm surprised you didn't recognise me. We did study together."
Harris remembered. They went to the same university. "That was quite a long time ago. I thought you were going to go into politics. Why such a change?"
"Of all the questions. I thought you would ask how I ended up looking like this. But I'll answer your question if you answer mine... what in the world happened to you?"
"I don't follow." Harris replied.
"You used to be fun loving. You seem more..."
"Serious?" Asked Harris with a sigh.
"Yes..." Diana nodded.
"People change Didi... I... have seen my fair share of things in this job. As I'm sure you have as well."
"But I never let it got to me." Diana replied.
"But I won..."
Diana fumed slightly at that. "Are you calling me unprofessional?" True enough he did win, but it was probably more luck of the draw.
"N-No... of course not" Harris said surprised at a loss for words. "You took the case seriously... as seriously as I did. I'm sorry. It's just been a difficult couple of days. I don't even think the money was worth it on this one." He used the oldest trick in the book. A lack of evidence of guilt. Which did not mean of course, that he was innocent... there was plenty of signs of his guilt though.
Diana relaxed a bit then smiled. "Ah, I think I can see a bit of who I remember now," She grinned.
"You certainly haven't changed at all, Didi," He gave a shy smile back.
Diana moved her snake tail under the table running it on Harris' leg. "Are you so sure about that?"
Harris jumped slightly at the feeling of the scales. "W-well. Maybe a little," he said sitting back down. "You are a Naga?" he asked curiously.
"Lamia. There is a difference." She said back.
"Such as?"
Diana just smiled.
Anneza wasn't sure how long she slept on the floor of her bathroom for. It was cold... she shivered in her delicate form. She never felt so alone, isolated... scared...
She slowly opened her eyes, feeling incredibly heavy. The pants and shirt she wore felt like they were made of lead. Slowly she tried to get up, pulling herself up against the radiator. She huddled to the sink, washing away the tears barely able to lift her arms.
What was wrong with her? She felt so weak... She wasn't sure how long she slept, but it was still dark outside. Probably no more then a few hours. The ridiculous antenna on her head bobbed up and down by her motions. She ignored them, focusing on the green hair. Green? Why did it have to be green!
She got out her black hair dye. In truth, when she had been male, she was starting to worry about the grey hairs she was seeing. It was probably the stress of the job that did it, and had applied some of it before.
Would it work on green hair?
She slowly washed out the hair, and applied the dye. The hair felt heavy on her head as it wetted. in fact her entire body did, but she relentlessly kept up the pace. She had never had to deal with so much hair before. She had to use the entire bottle...
Yes! Progress!
The dye was on her hair, turning it from that shining green to a more normal black... sort of. There was a tiny patch of green now and then, but at least she had something of herself back. It was a symbolic victory then an actual victory... but she took it for what it was worth. She could fight this! She was half inclined to cut the hair, but she was starting to feel really dizzy now. The effort of all this was just too much, not to mention she still had an aversion to the scissors after what she tried to do earlier. Besides cutting it would just show more of that weird headband...
Anneza still felt sick as she opened the door to the hall. Maybe a little coffee would help.
Each step she took actually hurt the balls of her feet. She had to lean to the side of the wall a few times. She felt her pants loosen again. She tried to hold on to them, but they fell making her trip over. She broke her fall by leaning on the wall again. She struggled back up again pulling her pants up, working her way to the kitchen.
She boiled the kettle, and made a brew of the 'good' coffee. She kept a special sachet aside, for the really bad days. Given how bad a day it was she decided to put three... no four spoons of sugar in the cup. She could barely lift the kettle as she poured the hot water into her mug. She sat on the table, the weight on her back still pressing down on her.
It was almost starting to get difficult to breath.
Anneza slowly sipped her coffee. The rush of caffeine and heavy dose of sugar kick started her brain. Her thoughts were still scattered, but at least she was stimulated enough to actually think now.
She looked at the clock frowning, as even the numbers didn't make sense to her. She knew what time it was by the hands though. She looked at each symbol on the clock, and tried to speak each number."
"I, On, Tes, Sree..." Anneza sighed trying not to let the well of tears get to her. This was progress, she reminded herself. These were the same numbers she had always used. It's just that she no longer recognised them. She tried to burn the image of the clock in her head. Each symbol.. each number. It was like looking at a foreign clock for the first time.
It was then she realised something... the position of keys on her keyboard had not changed. Neither did her cellphone.
She could probably still type and text!
Even if she could not recognise the characters, she knew the order of the alphabet. All she had to do to communicate was send a text message explaining her situation to someone, and maybe she could get some help re-learning everything.
She quickly grabbed her cellphone, and saw the keys with the same symbols as her clock. She had to test it on someone... she didn't even have her lawyer any more. She went into her contacts, realising none of them made any sense to her. She bit her lip... this was going to be harder then it looked. She picked one at random, and tried to type a simple message asking for help. She tried to recall how to spell some basic words...
.... and her mind was blank.
"Kezoh!" she shouted. She had been rendered illiterate as well! She put her phone away... the internet! There has to be something on the internet! She shuffled her way to the living room. She could barely carry her coffee. Why was her body so weak? Each step was now becoming really difficult. It was like her feet lacked the strength to carry her.
Still she finally made it to the living room.
She opened up her laptop... and frowned as she couldn't quite recall how to spell her password. That was okay though, she remembered the position of the keys. She had typed it often enough. Finally logged in, she opened up the menu... and blinked as nothing on there made any sense either. She tried typing in various words in the language she knew, to see if she would get any hits in the search engine. Maybe someone out there spoke the same language as her?
She typed in what she knew to be, "can anyone understand me?" Surly if Solomon out there was afflicted in the same way, they would be typing something along those lines.
There were no hits... it was gibberish, to the entire internet.
Feeling very alone now, she turned on the television. The only substitute left for company... as before, no words made sense. She saw Jay reporting a news bulletin, but what was that fox talking about? Her? there was no way to know...
Her breathing laboured, as she struggled against her heavy clothes. She felt an instinct to point her toes downward, stretching her legs. it just seemed to be a natural position for her feet and for some reason, this helped alleviate a little of the pain, but it would be better to get weight completely off. She lay back on the couch, even as the pressure intensified.
She wanted this nightmare to end...
