Orion's Testicle

Chapter 9 - Metamorphic Madness

Chapter 8-Metamorphic Madness

Em didn't actually have a shower. She had told a small bit of a lie as to not make Meg feel jealous. In fact, Em had an Olympic swimming pool sized bath.
She was also just about to get into it, and had once again forgotten to take her socks off at the moment she was almost going to jump in.
After cursing foot garments in general and particular, she ripped off her socks and jumped in. Today had gone fabulous, in her view. Absolutely fabulous. It made a change to how bad her life usually was, and she felt really happy for the first time in months. Things in her life had suddenly changed for the better. And it all started with that strange song.
She jumped into the bath, and swam leisurely around for a few minutes. She wasn't exactly a very strong swimmer, however, so she was moving rather slowly.
She thought about that strange song a little more. The warm water made her feel instantly relaxed. She ducked underwater and started talking, and heard the gargling echo she always heard when she did this. She liked to talk underwater, as when in her youth she discovered it at the local swimming pool; she was delighted that she could communicate with someone at the end of the pool by making whale noises. She smiled. What a strange youth that was. Thinking about the song cuttlefish, and all of the wondrous things it had done for the crowd, she started singing it underwater.

Em's legs attracted each other and bonded instantaneously, and her feet disappeared to be replaced by thick fins.
Fishy scales formed on her now joined legs, and turned a silky blue colour.
She looked down and started.
She gasped.
Upon gasping, she panicked. She'd no air left.
She took a deep breath. Strangely enough, that worked.
She's just breathed underwater.

Within singing the first line of 'Cuttlefish', she had become a mermaid.

She gasped in amazement again, and took another deep breath, just to be sure she could. Her life suddenly got more interesting. She'd always dreamed of this.

Em still couldn't believe it. She had to be going crazy. She moved about through the water, and kicked her legs. She glided through the water at astonishing pace.
She really was swimming… and breathing underwater.
She returned to the surface, and breathed in; just to make sure she could still breathe ordinary folk's air. Thankfully, she could, since it would be a rather embarrassing way to leave existence, knowing you had died by changing into a mermaid and breathing air.
She kicked her new flipper and soared through the water, the feeling was amazing. it was just like flying, with boundaries. She flipped, screamed and twisted in the water, for the sheer fun of being able to do so.
"Em, time for tea. Get you out of there." a voice called up from below.
Em stopped swimming. How would she get downstairs and to the dinner table in the next five minutes without her parents realising that her entire lower half of her anatomy had been transfigured into a fishy tail?
The Only seemingly valid option was to be a true human being and run away from the problem. if she could get to the basement window (for an no readily apparent reason, Em's bathroom was located in the basement, except on the 14th of July, when her home would mysteriously disappear and be replaced by an seemingly identical home, with all of the family's possessions replaced by exact replicas, except for the basement, which would be replaced by a pornography syndicate) she could get out on to the street. Then it would merely be a case of hauling herself across the road into the river nearby. This was made slightly difficult by the fact that it was still broad daylight outside, and would be for another couple of hours.
Still, this was Em's only option. Of course, she could have simply shouted for her parents help, whom after a large amount of shock would discover a way to sort the problem out with strong family bonding and a good work ethic, but this would be far less exciting, and henceforth, with the Universe being a very exciting place (not to mention mind bogglingly large place) was not the option chosen.
Hauling herself out of the swimming pool, Em flopped onto the floor. She pushed herself along with her tail, which was unexpectedly strong out of water, and she edged her way to her escape. Realising she was topless; she quickly grabbed her bra, and slipped it on. If she got caught, she doubted the locals wanted to see a topless mermaiden teenager slugging her way across the country road. She also doubted that a local would want to see a barely dressed mermaiden teenager slugging her way across a country road, but she decided it was best to keep up appearances.
With bra fully hooked and mind set to go, she opened the window, and dragged herself onto the wet sodden ground outside.
Now she was an exceedingly muddy barely dressed mermaiden teenager, just about to slug her way along said country road.
After a few seconds of whining about mud in particular and in general, Em started to move and discovered that she could move quite quickly by pushing her new tail on the floor. Within a few minutes of pushing and heaving, she dropped into the river, exhausted. She let herself drift slowly underwater, and shivered because of the cold. It wasn't exactly prime swimming hours.
She drifted, too tired to swim. Right into the net of a local fisherman.