https://www.furaffinity.net/view/43299312/
Hello, Mother
By Palindrome256
Tara stared out at the gray drizzle from the worn couch. Another day inside. Almost every day of her life spent staring out the window. She shifted, her foot tingling from where she’d been sitting on it too long. Her perfectly normal foot. Not like Jeanie who had feet like an elephant. Just normal dainty human feet.
Sighing she looked down at the worn books that were on her bedside. Years of reading instead of playing had isolated her from everyone else as one by one her friends succumbed to the noxious fumes and chemical laden waters that coursed through the town. By junior year she’d been the last. Bets had been placed as to whether she’d make it out of high school without mutating, but somehow, she had. They’d even given her an award about it, though it seemed more depressing than not. By being normal, she was the one who was different. She glanced at her hands, long slender fingers not a trace of webbing or claw. She wondered how the other kids felt seeing themselves mutate. She had to admit a ping of jealousy.
The lights flickered a moment, reminding her of the tentative power supply. It was getting harder and harder to get supplies into the region, and the region was getting bigger. She’d tried to leave only to find that it’d spread farther than she could get. Her mother had collected her in the car, using precious gas to track her down at the bus station three hours away.
She remembered that bus ride. Her chance at freedom. The bumps from the potholes, the rush of the air as they headed down roads long since abandoned by most cars. Only those few trucks that risked the trek into the blight. That’s what they were calling it now. The aftermath of a chemical disaster that had mixed with the water, leeched into the air, and permeated the ground. She’d tried to escape, only the be hauled back by her irate mother. They’d fought for days. She’d yelled at her mother for not leaving when she had the chance. She still could perhaps, she was barely mutated herself, and she’d raised a daughter with so much caution that even at twenty-three she still retained her humanity.
But it was a humanity without value now. What value was there to being the last human? Her college days had hardly been any better than her high school ones. Alone, hidden in dorms studying aging books with professors who no longer seemed to care. The local college was all she could afford, and she’d tried to succeed. Four more years of study had given her a piece of paper she hadn’t even known what she could do with. Jobs were scarce now, and a degree was hardly worth the paper it was printed on in a world where survival was the order of the day.
She stared outside at the rain again. She wondered what it’d be to have a tail or even to become a blob. Vinny didn’t seem to mind being a sentient bowl of pudding. Not that he could do much more than burble and make fart noises now. She shivered, wondering how much humanity she would eventually lose. She couldn’t stay safe forever. No one could. One by one the people around her had changed.
The postman still delivered, but now had two heads. One that was Miles, and the other they’d named Mildred. She’d wondered how much more of him had changed when he became them.
“You need to stop moping.” Her mother’s voice rasped, harsh from years of working near toxic fumes. “I’m not moping.” Tara replied crossly.
Her mother put her hands on her hips, “Yes, you are. What are you doing about finding a job?” “Waiting,” came the absent reply.
“For?” Her mother inquired.
Tara gestured vaguely at the window, “The rain to stop, of course.”
“Good girl.” Her mother smiled weakly and moved off into the kitchen, her only tell that she wasn’t fully human anymore were the tips of her ears that folded down in a rather porcine manner, peaking through her slowly graying curls.
Tara turned back to the window and wondered.
*** *** ***
The house was still her prison. What else could she call it? The rain had not let up in days. The steady drip of iridescent drops, each promising danger that made her shiver with a mix of fear and excitement. She couldn’t keep going on like this. Days of watching the rain, wondering what the future might hold. She needed to live. But she hesitated. Live for what? She wanted to be around people again. She barely saw anyone anymore. She’d grown up increasingly isolated. Her fingers twitched as she thought about the rain again. About running out and dancing in it, letting the pollution do what it would with her so she might not be the only normal person left. To risk becoming half a giant spider like the lady down the street, perhaps? There were no guarantees what the chemicals would do to her, save change her. She’d thought about it a thousand times before, and each time her mother’s fear made her hide in from the rain as she saw everyone she knew changed.
Her fingers clenched and unclenched, the perfectly trimmed nails leaving small crescents on her palms. She knew one day she’d get caught. Why not make it her decision to when? Getting up from the couch she shivered a little in the cool autumn temperatures. The house’s heat had quit working years ago.
She needed something warmer.
*** *** ***
The door opened to her hand. Six weeks now of rain. Not a single day she could risk leaving the house to even dash to one of the few stores that remained. No one to see her, no one to talk to save her mother. She was slowly going insane. She stood under the porch, watching the splatter of drops fall everywhere. Delicate, soothing, yet so frightening. She’d tired of watching through the window, and for the last week she’d stepped as far as the porch. Inching nearer to catastrophe or salvation.
Each time she set foot outside she wondered if it would finally be the day. Her day. Why should she live as a human when no one else did? The price of her freedom was only her humanity, something her mother valued more than she. Maybe today. Her fingers clenched around the door frame, fear pushing back. Maybe not.
Tara started to turn, her heel coming down on the aging wood of the porch with an awkward twist. The wood cracked and splintered under her, sending her sprawling backwards. Her arms windmilled; balance lost. Time slowed as she felt her body falling backwards onto the green-brown grass, the first drops splashing against her face, cool and soft. Fate had decided for her.
She lay there on the ground for a moment. Her body exposed to the rains as their chemical laden waters drenched her. She should be terrified. She knew what was coming, but instead she laughed. It was over. The fear was over. She knew she’d change, and at last she’d be free of the prison of her house. The fear that had held her for twenty-three years released in a tidal wave of giddy laughter as she just let the rain fall upon her.
Her mind wandered, wondering what would change about her. Would she get tentacles? How about a dozen eyes? What about a tail? Oh, she liked the idea of a tail, but it didn’t matter. What would come, would come. She slowly sat up and lifted herself off the ground, water pouring down her face. Droplets getting into her mouth leaving a taste of acidic metal.
She hobbled inside, her ankle smarting, and stripped off her clothes, throwing them in the tub. There was no hiding what was to come, why should she bother. She took a moment to take a last look at herself in the mirror. She gave herself an appraising look. She felt she was pretty enough, a bit chubbier than she might like with thick thighs. Her brown hair hung limply over her eyes now, making her a bit bedraggled in a just out of the shower kind of way, as rivulets of water traced down her chest, tiny droplets beading off her nipples. This was what she had just given up.
How long it would take? Her mind spun. Some people reacted quickly; others took days. There was no way to tell save to let it happen. She dried herself off with a towel, feeling exhausted, yet giddy. She wanted to stay and watch until it happened, her eyes glued to the mirror for any sign of reaction, but nothing. Five, ten, twenty minutes passed and she grew weary of staring at herself in the mirror. She shouldn’t waste the light anyway. Reluctantly she peeled herself away, her stomach starting to grumble.
There wasn’t much to eat, but she found some leftovers that she ate cold from an old ceramic dish. The ancient microwave was iffy at best and she didn’t think it was worth the risk of getting electrocuted for a meal. At last, feeling a bit better she gave herself another look over, her skin showing nothing save its soft normal golden color that she’d had all her life.
*** *** ***
Tara awoke with a start, still naked on the couch where she’d fallen asleep. Her body felt wracked with pain. She clenched her arms around her waist as she bent forward, her back on fire. She could feel
something there. Something growing. She tried to stand, wanting to see what was happening in the mirror, but her legs would not cooperate. The first attempt ended up no better than reaching her knees before her legs burned and buckled under her. The second try resulted in her falling forward, her legs flopping out behind her unable to shift or move. She reached down, feeling a ridge along her hip that rippled under her fingers. She probed her thighs and pressed deeply into the flesh, feeling no resistance as if her bones were just gone. Grabbing the carpet, she tried to haul herself forward, but her arms couldn’t move her increasing weight with the bulk that continued to press down on her back. She was stuck here.
She couldn’t see much. It was late, and dark. Her body flexing under the mutation. Sometimes she could feel the changes as her body realigned, other times she relied on her fingers to feel. The mass on her back was now large enough to feel all the way to the crack of her ass. The edges were hard, with a whirled texture. Below her waist her legs had fused. She could feel the ridges growing along the edges, now reaching the floor. With a little thought she could control them, and they pressed against the floor giving her the slightest motion. She pulled harder only to feel something squirt from inside herself.
Fingers reflexively reached down to her vulva; its mass pressed out against the floor where her legs joined. A slick goo oozed out of her coating the tailing crest of her hips, slipping downward onto what had been her legs. She shifted the flanges along the remnants of her legs only to feel her pussy belch forth another trail of slime, coating more of her legs, and this time she felt herself lurch slightly forward. Again and again, until she could feel the ooze slipping all the way down to what once were her toes
Pulling herself again, this time her new appendage working with her as the slime let her at last slide across the carpet, she managed to make her way slowly to the bathroom. The light was nearly out of reach from her position on the floor but she managed before scooting herself behind the door to see what the full-length mirror offered her.
The image that revealed was both expected and unexpected. She knew the feel of the weight on her back, but it was quite another thing to see the whorled colored shell of iridescent greens and browns. Her legs were gone, replaced with the slimy foot of the snail she’d become. Her vulva providing lubricant not just for sex now, but for motion itself. She guessed she’d need to get over her modesty. This was made more obvious by the small rises that were slowly growing from her chest as one by one her torso sprouted four more breasts, each full and ripe, sensitive to the touch as her long fingers played with them.
Her focus became blurry, her eyelids drooped as first one eye, then the other popped out and hung down from their socket sending her visual world reeling. It took her a moment to realize she could lift her eyes again. Her vision cleared as she slowly managed to get them both lifted together, blinking slowly as she realized her eyes were now on long stalks that rose up over the top of her head. Still the same soft brown eyes. She experimented turning one then the other until she could process the whole of the room in a single motion, her brain’s visual centers rewiring to process a new three dimensions visual world.
Looking down again she regarded her arms. At least she’d kept her hands. Those long fingers remained her own, and perhaps now they were the last real signs of her humanity. Not that she cared. She slipped them down her breasts, feeling each new nipple, a soft sigh coming from her lips as she felt the tingling from each new nub as it was gently flicked, twisted, or pulled. Her slit now gushing, leaving herself in a pool of her own sticky juices, to which her fingers wandered. She pulled apart her lips, feeling the sensitivity that crept along each fold as she delved into her own womanhood, wondering if more had changed than she realized. Explorations turned into ministrations as she started to drive her fingers deeper with more abandon, her other hand reaching up to play with as many breasts as she could manage, coating them in her own slime.
She reveled in it. Each orgasm sending shivers through her new tail. The ripples of her new flesh in time with the pulsing of her orgasms. She felt herself reaching a crescendo as her body bucked and squirmed. Insider herself she felt a pressure, a need for release. Her fingers drover onward, forcing themselves to crest that mountain she needed. At last, she let out a scream, her vulva pulsing as contractions spasmed through her vagina, pushing out object after object as each drove her to new heights of orgasm as they passed through her canal. Exhausted she let out a moan as she felt the last spherical white egg slip from her now very tender pussy. The floor covered in a mess of her own slime and a pile of nearly two dozen such eggs.
*** *** ***
The door opened and closed, the house was dark save for the light from the bathroom, but there was no noise. “Tara? What happened to the porch? There’s a hole in…” Her mother’s voice caught as she saw the shape emerging from the bathroom hallway. Hands flew to her mouth, “oh, my baby girl,” she cried as tears welled in her eyes.
Tara’s eyestalks bobbed, “Hello, mother. I’ve changed.”