Anneza couldn't take it any more. Why was she feeling so heavy, so confined? This didn't make any sense - it felt more like she was wearing a lead vest than a T-shirt and pants. She recalled the way she'd dropped to the floor when she'd first dressed, before she'd slept. It was insane to think that a mere shirt and pants could weigh her down like this...but then, this whole thing was insane. She sighed and tried removing them.
It wasn't an instant-relief deal, but she did feel the weight gradually lift, leaving her free to move and breathe. But she wasn't just going to go around naked! Especially not with the strange, unsettling body she now possessed. She hated to think that she'd have to do this, but...she walked back to where she'd left the dress.
Walking un-weighted was a bizarre experience - she only gently drifted earthwards with each push of her feet, which put quite a spring in her step (and in other parts of her as well.) Anneza retrieved it from the floor where she'd left it and pulled it over her head - nothing. No weight other than what might be expected from the fabric. What, did cotton-polyester block...anti-gravity rays, or something? Maybe she could get some saner clothes made in a fabric like this. Maybe there was even a tailor somewhere who could make it look not stupid...
Anneza turned to go back to the computer desk, but noticed something and stopped in front of the mirror. The green patches in her hair were larger than they had been! There were maybe half a dozen small green spots when she'd emptied the bottle of hair dye, but now there were a few larger patches and a lot of streaks. She grabbed a lock of hair and rubbed it between her fingers; sure enough, the coloring came right off.
It wasn't wet, either; it came off as a dry powder like toner - it seemed like the dye just didn't want to make any kind of bond with her hair, for some reason. Maybe it had to do with that vaguely-metallic sheen it had...she sighed in exasperation. Wasn't there any way to differentiate herself from this space-girl thing she had become?
Hoping to at least make some progress tonight, Anneza returned to the living room. She sat at the computer desk, determined to make some kind of headway on the language problem. She'd been able to remember her password by muscle memory - maybe she could do the same for other stuff? She opened up her email client (thankfully the icons were enough of a clue as to what was what) and started an email to the contact who'd tried to call her earlier. This was practically form-letter stuff anyway - surely she could do it from memory!
She set her fingers on the keyboard and let fly, tapping out what her subconscious had learned to pick up for this task. She looked at the completed message...and realized that while she might have successfully typed out the intended message, she had absolutely no way to know. Anneza huffed, aggravated - where could she even start in learning to cope with all this? Every avenue she tried seemed to lead to a dead end!
Maybe the numbers, at least - she couldn't remember the names in her old language, but she could figure out the numbers, right? She looked back at the clock, following the hand - first number, second, third, fourth, fifth...she balked as she realized they didn't stop at five digits - there looked to be ten of them! (Wait, why did that seem strange to her?) And which one was zero? Oh, she was never that good at math to begin with...
Oh, damn it all...she was too tired to think about any of this. She needed sleep - she could figure this all out in the morning. There had to be solutions to her problems, she just needed to be rested enough to figure them out. Anneza laid on the couch and went to sleep, drifting in her unconsciousness up towards the middle of the room.
Alex felt the adrenaline rushing through his system as he settled into his hiding place. It was the end of the school night, and the other students were making their way to the buses to be home before the sun came up. He was pretty sure he'd seen Susan head off to the bus, and nobody was around when he hid himself - he should be able to do this!
Harris woke up groggy. When he'd regained consciousness, he realized that he was on a couch in a living room that was not his own. Well, there were a lot worse situations to wake up in - outside in the sunlight, for example. He did his best to wake up enough to be presentable and had a look around.
Diana was in the kitchen, putting on some coffee. "Oh, you're up!" the lamia said. "Sorry for the surprise, but you passed out and I didn't know where your house was, and it was coming up on dawn..."
Harris nodded. "No, thank you very much," he said. "I...uh, I didn't say anything stupid, did I?"
Diana laughed. "Don't worry, you were sleepy, not drunk. Oh, uh, don't open the windows or anything - it's broad daylight out."
