Quoted By:
"What? No, I just think— have you ever seen a squashed slug in the hot sun? It looks and smells like that. It's a, 'scuze me, fucked up way to go, especially given I just extracted you— curing helps with water retention too, by the way. You still need some full immersion so you <span class="mu-i">have</span> the water, but it beats being carted around in a tank— speaking of."
"Water retention." "Full immersion." Where did this woman pick up the 'Maddie' from? Because you have a terrible, terrible feeling about that, but you don't intend to go into it now. You have enough to grapple with as is.
She leaves. You wait ignominiously on the floor for a minute or two until she returns, scrapes you up, and dumps you into the tank.
It's blurry after that. In retrospect you think the goo reacted with the water in the tank, maybe diffusing in it— to you it feels like deep relaxation then shallow sleep. If you'd known about it, you would've put in some kind of effort: asleep with your <span class="mu-i">kidnapper?</span> Who's wheeling you god-knows-where to do god-knows-what? You didn't know, so you doze even as fine-ground chit (among other mystery powders) is swirled into you, as the unincorporated water is drained off the top, and even as you're lifted and poured into the open metal mold. This, also in retrospect, was wholly for the best: if you knew your kidnapper were locking you into a close, dark, dense, hot prison, you would've done or said something stupid. But you didn't and you couldn't and your kidnapper watches closely as the steam billows out and unfathomable changes happen in you, and when the mold swings open you become aware again.
You don't scream. (Good on you.) You are confused and don't want to show confusion— would've liked to not show weakness in general, but that hope died with the first round of screaming. So instead you step out of the mold, cracking your knuckles, cracking your wrist, looking nonchalant so you can feel the same. You're doing great. You're doing normal. You have a stable body now somehow, which you're not going to ask questions about— not going to ask why it's cloudy blue, why it's <span class="mu-i">someone else's</span> (the fingers are too long, the wrists too dainty), why you're nude— not even regular nude, which you could chalk up to your kidnapper being a perv. Weird, inhuman, doll-like nude. And your smooth blue tits are too small.
You are not going to fucking ask about these things, because they're not relevant. Freaky, yes, distracting, yes, but you are a grown-ass woman and you're capable of sticking to your priorities. Meaning: scraping for as much info as she'll stupidly give you.
"Feel better?" your kidnapper says. "It's just the stock female mold, sorry. If I had your blood you wouldn't have to go through all this crap, but I still think— it should still adapt to your koss. May take a few days, though. Skin color <span class="mu-i">should</span> come in first, if I remember—"
(2/TBC)
