Becoming monsters is the creation of AiLovesToGrow, setting used with permission

  This idea comes from Amethyst Dragonfly. An enormous thanks to Agathon of the Quaranteam Writers Room for reviewing my medical scene here.

  —

  Due to popur request, my Dramatis Personae:

  Abbey “Dee” Williams: A Marid genie presently employed as a bank teller, who found herself bound by one of her Wishes to be a good girlfriend.

  Justin Majors: Human student pursuing an art degree, described as looking like he belonged on the beach. Accidentally Wished for a good girlfriend, and it turned out to be Abbey.

  Todd Reed: College student visiting from Yellowstone University, a fairly skinny and nondescript Bard. His team stars in Tidbits, though what happened in the intervening two years is a mystery.

  May: Todd’s Greater Succubus wife, mother of little Alex, and the reason their group was visiting.

  Ghata: A petite Indian woman and shapeshifter, friend of Todd and May as well as one of their fellow students.

  Song: Another shapeshifter, this one a Korean woman.

  —

  Chapter 15: Sun and Sand

  The temptation for Justin to give posing directions to the seagull like he was taking a photoshoot was, to say the least, intense. Ghata, in the seagull’s body, was strutting like she was on a catwalk. Not precisely the most natural behavior for that kind of bird. Then again, Justin was quite sure that if a seagull knew what a catwalk was and somehow associated strutting on one with french fries, they’d do it.

  They did eventually get her into a more natural, if dramatic, pose. Which she then held for longer than wildlife would have to give Justin the chance to get his sketch and skeleton done. At that point, it was all downhill for him, so Ghata changed back into Human form and dried off. Then, since the only other people left in the house were a fussy baby and a breastfeeding mother trying to fix that “fussy” thing, she decided to catch up on some sunbathing. There would be time for her to do homework and compile data ter. For now? It was time to rex a bit, for the first time in what seemed like forever. Between school, drama, extracurricurs, family, and this excursion? Free time was precious. She set herself up on a slice of beach a bit away from Justin so she’d be out of sight, then got to soaking up some of that good sun.

  Then promptly dozed off, fatigue unexpectedly catching up to her. This was not the best idea for several reasons, but to be fair the Indian woman didn’t realize quite how tired she actually was.

  Justin, for his part, hit his stride and was eagerly charging forward with the traditional media piece. Wildlife Study didn’t demand it, but he felt that it was more appropriate to do his art piece on the spot where he had been observing what he drew. The paper could be scanned into a digital portfolio ter. It wasn’t long before he looked up, stretched out, and realized that any further work on the piece would be overdoing it. The idea was to do a study of the wildlife, not the way the sand sparkled in the sun or the clouds in the sky. Even if they were particurly interesting and fluffy clouds. Though he idly wondered where Ghata could have gone off to, the first priority would be to get his newly-completed homework scanned and safe. That, in turn, meant he needed to run back to his dorm room.

  It wasn’t hard, not really, but he found the pce to be stuffy and overly warm. Physically, anyway, despite the temperature the spiritual warmth of it was gone. It just wasn’t home anymore. His computer whirred more loudly than he remembered, the tap had a certain screeching sound he only vaguely remembered from seemingly a lifetime ago, and the bckout curtain didn’t seem to be bcking out as much light as before. It took until the scanner finished its work for him to realize why. More than just comparing it to his magical manor, more than being by the seaside, this was what the room was like before… all of this. Before his love had come into his life, by means of devastatingly powerful if accidental magic.

  The scan of the art piece completed, some brief touching up to make the file presentable. A little bit of rotation, a little bit of smoothing off-white paper marks or stray sketch lines. It was done, and in two hours rather than twelve, from the time Ghata started modeling as the seagull to the time he scanned it in. That left him time enough before Abbey got back. Time to get ahead of things.

  It was the work of only a few moments for him to grab his pnning notebook. In a few more moments he was back out on the beach, gncing at his Status screen and feeling one of the two Mana Potions in his pocket.

  Forty-six percent on Mana. Gotta make sure I stay safe in case of the house suddenly draining something from me. Call it twenty percent as a minimum? Okay, if I get close or hit that, I’ll stop, chug the potion, and see where I’m at.

  Justin’s footsteps carried him to a patch of somewhat lighter sand on the beach. Probably a bit purer than the stuff around it, though it took him a few moments to remove some extra bits of pnt life, shells, and pebbles from the area. Granted, the first time he did this he didn’t take anywhere near this many precautions… but then again, he’d been facing down a dragon, so he didn’t have many choices. And it shattered, too, so there were obviously imperfections in the process. This time, he could do better.

  It started like a lot of sand art does, by lightly tracing outlines as a guide. The bde would be about 30 inches of gradual taper, the st inch or two much sharper to a point. A handle sized for his hand, small fre at the end to hold it. The guard was retively small, a figure-eight. Three shallow divots up the ft, the middle one longer than the other two. Fullers, that’s what the website called them, meant to lighten the weapon and reduce the needed materials. Katzbalger, a short sword. One known to be used by the Landsknecht of Germany to good effect, both in combat and in dispy. Which made it perfect for his project.

  His graders at school wanted something that would look good. His mentor didn’t want him making a katana. It worked.

  He started by calling a whisper of his power. Enough to turn the outline into something more solid than powder. More, and he had a ft pane of gss in roughly the right shape. It wasn’t more than a couple of millimeters thick, but it was THERE. Justin checked his Status, still at a solid 33 percent for mana. Enough to give this a couple more yers before drinking the potion. This time, he buried the pane of gss in the sand, making sure everything was in proper contact with the right pces. He focused once more, this time adding more substance onto both sides.

  It didn’t take long until he pulled his hand up out of the sand, and in it was… well, it wasn’t a sword. Not yet. Call it the gss equivalent of wooden sword-shaped toys handed to kids. What it was supposed to be was recognizable, sure, but that was about it. Blunt edge, cloudy and rough material, there were even visible pnes of inclusions shot through it lengthwise where the yers met. And yet, his heart soared. He has something. He had progress.

  And his headache reminded him to check his mana, which told him he had about ten percent left. Oops. He shook his head, wondering briefly both where the time went and where Ghata went. What was more obvious was the gnawing hunger in his belly and dryness in his throat, as though he had been chewing on the sand instead of transmuting it.

  The kitchen was empty of people, which was also a bit of a different feeling from the st couple of days as well. A quick sandwich, some water, a painkiller, and he suddenly found himself looking at the tiny bottle of blue liquid. He’d heard stories before, of what they tasted and felt like. Not something he’d ever had occasion to do himself. No time like the present, though.

  Before he could talk himself out of it, Justin unscrewed the cap and tossed back the shot gss sized potion like he was at a bar. It most certainly did not go down smooth, both bitter and burning on the way down. The taste was as if a kimchi sandwich had been buried in a compost heap for a few days before being dug up for his dubious enjoyment. When it hit the back of his throat, it did so with the force of a punch from a martial artist. An angry one.

  Justin had thankfully swallowed before his taste buds, pain receptors, and good sense caught up to the action. He got to wait in dread anticipation as he felt the concoction descend his esophagus, feeling thicker than cold mosses yet somehow as fiery as the time he’d used menthol pain relief cream and then went to the bathroom without having washed his hands as thoroughly as he’d thought. When it finally struck his stomach it felt like every lost bet of his college career.

  Standing in the shower and wallowing in misery was very high on his list of things to do from there. Were he a superstitious man, Justin might have taken it as a hint that he probably should cool his jets and keep his hard-won MP to himself. It was a bit of a superstitious age, after all. Yet, in the end, Justin felt that more than five or six minutes of the aforementioned wallowing in misery would merely mean he’d wasted the suffering he’d gone through.

  The Status screen read 73%. Enough for this next bit with the agreed-upon 50% to spare, but only if he hurried.

  I can refine things ter. What I need right now is to add all the mass and gss, in roughly the right shape to be able to do the finer work afterwards.

  The sun was beating down on him, glittering off of the sand and gss and water. Once again he sifted out a section of beach sand, and once again he buried his work in progress in it. He visualized his goal, and with the sun riding high overhead Justin sharply focused his will once more.

  With a fsh and a boom, there was suddenly darkness.

  Miles away and to the East, a certain blue woman in a sharp business suit had been feeling uneasy for a while. Even besides realizing that her boast to An might not have been the best of ideas, even besides gathering literature to possibly pass a test she’d thought she had no business ever taking, something was wrong. It felt for a moment like she was… unbanced. Tired. Things were just taking more effort, like she suddenly had less in the tank. Or like the house’s pull was getting harder. Then, almost as suddenly, she was hit by a brief wave of nausea as her energy picked back up.

  If the doc hadn’t JUST told her she wasn’t pregnant, she’d have had some suspicions.

  Tired, this time in a more emotional way, Abbey sat down for lunch at the food court. By any measure, she’d gotten a lot done in the past few hours. Documents, light questions, getting to know the pce, watching duels and crafts alike. Plus a funnel cake, that helped. The open-air tables were nearly packed with people. Mostly tourists, to be fair, but not entirely. That same gray man from earlier (didn’t he come to the bank on occasion?) was sitting at one of the tables awkwardly posing for a selfie with friends. At least six other people were snapping pictures of him with their own phones, though it looked like he didn’t notice. Nor did he seem to notice a couple of others at the fringes scowling at him…

  A sudden, sharp shift in her perception almost knocked her out of her seat. A tugging at her soul, a sudden demand on her stores she couldn’t stop. Her heart pounded in her ears, the words of the suddenly-present Todd and Song nearly inaudible over the roar of rushing blood. She shook her head, barely able to bring her awareness back to her surroundings. “Something’s wrong! We have to get back to the house, now!”

  Todd’s eyebrows furrowed. “I’ll get a turkey leg ter, then. Way’s clear while that Guild Leader is soaking up the attention.”

  The three of them left their leftovers on the table, sprinting for the hidden doorway home. Abbey reached for the door knob to let them through, but it felt tenuous. Like it didn’t want to exist, like it was effort that needed to not be spent. A couple of seconds ter, it solidified a bit. Enough for her to open it up, for the three of them to rush through. Through the second-floor hallways of the Seaside Manor, down the stairs, stopping at a sudden and unexpected pair of shocks.

  The first was the wail of a baby. Little Alexander was not at all happy. Under the screams were other sounds, movement and cnging, coming from the same pce. The second? Near the back door a new room had opened, and the slightly-ajar door now held a sign that read “clinic.” To Abbey’s eyes, this was an unbelievably bad sign.

  Inside, one remarkably attractive woman was rushing around, trying to multitask between two people on medical tables and one crying baby in a bassinet. May was moving quickly and doing all she could, but was obviously outcssed.

  Song practically shouted as she got into the room. “May! What happened?” Her own backpack was practically thrown off of her back, the first aid kit in her hands so quickly Abbey thought there might be actual magic involved.

  “I don’t know! I was changing a diaper when I heard an explosion coming from the beach. Got out there and found these two. Justin’s unconscious, Ghata only wishes she was.”

  On the table to the left, Justin was id out. May had removed his shirt and gotten started cleaning what she could. He was obviously alive and breathing, but the rest was not encouraging. That shirt looked like he’d gotten into a knife fight with half a dozen mafia goons. It was more hole than cloth, and the skin under it wasn’t all that much better. Across his chest, neck, face, and forearms he alternated between cerations and sandbsted skin. Song rapidly pulled on gloves and got to removing shrapnel and sand from the wounds, a grim and determined look on her face as she worked around his eyes. “Do you know what happened to Ghata?”

  The petite Indian woman on the table to the right shifted slightly, moaning in pain. “I… ugh, I fell asleep in the sun and got myself roasted. This sunburn is severe and hurts like crazy but I’ll live. The boom woke me up.”

  Todd gred at her. “If you can help, we need it. If not, we’ll talk ter about this. Come on, how often have you told ME to take care of myself?” He shook his head a bit. “Abbey, do you have gauze and aloe around here… oh. Useful.”

  The blue woman had cupped her hands together and focused hard. A glow came forth, fading as he watched. “Hearth and Home often means minor things like this. They’ll st about a day, but that’s plenty for what we need, right?”

  Song looked up from her work on Justin’s face and chest, sweating in concentration. “As long as you have a couple of rolls to give me, too. He will live, but I don’t know any more than that. We have to get him to the hospital or a magical healer as soon as possible.”

  Abbey found her hands shaking as she looked at the ruins of her boyfriend’s still-living body. “How bad is it, Song?”

  The Korean woman sighed and got back to work. “I’m not going to sugarcoat it, he’s lucky to be alive. See those cuts on his arms? More than one came way too close to arteries for comfort. I have no idea what his range of motion is going to be once he wakes up. But…”

  Abbey felt her heart freeze. “But what?”

  “His eyes, Abbey. They got bsted by sand and gss, I had to dig shards of it out of him.” She was pcing shallow metal shields over them, wrapping his head to keep the shields in pce. “It’s not good. If Justin is ever going to see again, he needs to get to the hospital as soon as possible.”

  “Then call 911 and tell them to get an ambunce to the University Main Dormitory.” Blue mists were swirling around her, and between blinks she was suddenly nine feet tall. Leaning down, she picked Justin up like a child. “We’ll be waiting for them.”

  ***

  Some time ter, Justin opened his eyes. Realizing that he had done so was much more a matter of the gritty pain in them than anything else, since for all they were reporting they might as well still be closed. His skin felt like it had been scraped off yer by yer until only the most painful parts remained, but he couldn’t move his arms to investigate. He heard beeps coming from his right, a rustling from his left.

  A pressure across his chest. Sobs, the feel of a drop of water on his exposed skin. He coughed, his throat not feeling all that much better than his eyes. “A… Abbey?”

  “Justin! Oh, it’s good that you’re awake. Don’t try to move! You’re in the hospital, and whatever made that explosion really did a number on you.” Her voice was worried, and he wished he could see her. “Do you know what the heck that was?”

  Nearly fyed by gss shards and flying sand, wrapped up in bandages, and on a hospital bed with IVs in. It was difficult in this situation to look sheepish, abashed, or regretful, but Justin figured he had some kind of mix of that on what was left of his visible face given how she responded.

  “No. You didn’t. Don’t say it, Justin, don’t talk. You decided to ignore both Quiverbow and me. You pushed that sword too hard, too fast, and it all literally blew up in your face. That’s why we found gss shards buried in you. I should be really angry. Angry at you, angry at your decision, angry at being ignored, angry at the fact that this could cost you your ability to make art forever.”

  He tried to reply, but the sound came out more than half croak. Most of the rest came out as a cough.

  “I said not to talk. You know, I think I know why I’m not that angry. It’s not the worry. You’ve been… let’s call it sufficiently punished for this one. I think you’re getting the lesson a bit more directly than I could possibly give it. Kind of teaches itself, doesn’t it?” He nodded… ish. His head wasn’t exactly set up to do so easily, and it was easy to forget that it wasn’t. “So next time around, and I know there’s going to be a next time, you are going to take it slow and steady like we told you to, right?” He nodded again. “Good. We will talk more about this ter, Justin. We’re not done, but I need to make some calls. Like your school. You are not going to be ready to go back to the cssroom by tomorrow, and I doubt you will be by the day after, either.”

  He couldn’t see her leave, but he certainly heard the door.

  He cried. Alone in that room, he cried. That was stupid. What was I thinking? His eyes were not occupied by anything else, so his brain was free to run wild in memory. The cloudy gss and unset panes told him that he’d missed even the most basic things he should have been paying attention to. No wonder it had all blown up in his face… both figuratively and literally. Even if he’d finished the project like that, it wouldn’t have impressed anyone. Not enough for the grade, not enough for the apprenticeship.

  Next time would have to be better. Slower, more thorough. Abbey was right, there would absolutely be a next time. Justin was too close to the finish line to give up now.

  There was a knock at the door. Without waiting for a response, someone opened it up to come in. There was a deep, fairly smooth voice and a whiff of musk. “Mr. Majors? I’m Doctor Gulo, and I’m gd to see that you’re awake. Can you talk?”

  Justin coughed experimentally. It was not pleasant, but he at least could. When he spoke, the rasp was so unlike him that he could hardly believe it was his own voice. “I think so, doc.”

  “Good, that will make this easier. I know you cannot see them at the moment, but I have two students with me. This is a teaching hospital, with your permission I will be showing them how to care for patients like yourself.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Thank you.” There was a pause, then a rustle of papers. “Students, the patient is a twenty-two year old Human male, brought here unconscious two hours ago with moderate to severe cerations and abrasions across much of his upper body and both arms, including his face. There is damage to both eyes, which is why he presently has those wraps on. He regained consciousness approximately fifteen minutes ago. The wounds have been given a preliminary cleaning by a pre-medical student on site, which is more than we could normally hope for. It should be noted that she did a good job, and preserved some of the debris for us to examine. Lacerations were caused by gss shards propelled by an explosion at short range. Abrasions were presumably caused by sand in the same way. You can see from his vitals that he is hemodynamically stable. In yman’s terms for our patient: you have enough blood in the right pce and it isn’t going anywhere it shouldn’t at the moment. Think like doctors, what should be your first steps?”

  The voice that immediately responded was a woman’s, a fairly high soprano. “Check for head trauma? Any loss of consciousness, especially for that long, could indicate traumatic brain injury.”

  “Good question! We have done so, and it seems that his head was harder than whatever hit him. CT Head looks grossly normal, and negative for internal bleeds. Obviously, this will be rechecked frequently while he is here. Joseph, how about you?”

  “There are a lot of infection vectors, Doctor.” This voice was male, but nasally almost to the point that it sounded like quacking. “I know you said they were cleaned on site, but we have more control here and better tools to do a more thorough job.”

  “Another good suggestion, but in your case you need to think beyond cleaning. Prophyctic antibiotics may be indicated. Both of you did miss a couple of important things. First and foremost, the patient’s eyes. As soon as stability is ensured, that is the most potentially severe item on the list. The cerations on his arms could also indicate damage to muscles and tendons in those areas. As soon as we leave here, schedule Ophthalmology and Pstics, respectively, to give more specialized examinations. In both cases, we have magical healing to augment the process that could not be recovered five years ago, but in order to perform appropriate interventions an accurate assessment must be completed.” There were sounds of assent for the others. “Justin, I am going to remove the gauze and eye shields so that we can look at what we are dealing with. This may hurt, tell us if it is too much and we can try again ter with appropriate painkillers. Try not to move your eyes around unless told, if you can see well enough then pick a point on the ceiling to focus on. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” The hands that gently touched his head felt rge and powerful, and for the first time since waking up light was permitted to get to his eyes as the gauze was carefully pulled back. His eyes felt… gritty. Almost like they were entirely too dry, like he’d been staring at a screen and forgot to blink for much too long. What Justin couldn’t do, even as the slotted shields were removed from his face, was make out anything. It was a blur, the world looking like he’d tried to take a picture of something on the horizon with a camera focused five feet from himself. There was a white ceiling, but he could not see anything on it. There were shaped, dark blobs, but all detail eluded him. They were speaking, but the dry and technical words didn’t reach him as the shock of his situation hit.

  “Students, at this time we need to repce the eye shields and gauze. As you can see from the vitals on the monitors, Justin is in physical distress. We will do more harm than good staying here to perform more thorough checks; we have the information that we need and the people we are calling in will have things they need to examine anyway. Next stop is to record what we found and make those calls. And speaking of distress, the blue dy at the door seems to be waiting impatiently to get in. She came with the patient, and is probably a friend or retive, possibly his significant other, and so will help with that.”

  The darkness descended again, the door opened and closed, and a familiar arm was touching his once more. “How bad is it, Justin?” Abbey’s voice was thick with worry.

  “It’s… not good. They were talking about magical interventions for my eyes, and there’s no way that means anything normal.”

  He heard her sob. “How… okay. At least they have that avaible. But Justin… we’re hanging on by a thread to pay for the house. Maybe not even that. How are we going to afford all of this?”

  He sighed. “Really didn’t want to do this. Is my phone here?”

  “Uh… yeah. It’s on the bedside table.”

  “Alright. I need you to hit speed dial 6 and put it on speaker.”

  “Okay.”

  He heard her fumble with a bit, a couple of beeps, and the ringing as it connected. On the third ring, someone answered. “Public Affairs, how can I help you?”

  Justin coughed. “Hello. I need to speak to Lieutenant Colonel Majors.”

  “He is busy right now, can I take a message?”

  “It’s urgent. Tell him it’s Justin. I know it’s been a little while, but he said he’d always make time for his son when he was needed.”