Me, Myself, and I

(Originally written by: Damaged)

I looked down at my diary—our diary—and tried to get my thoughts in order. Life had definitely not gone how I'd planned, but I had adapted and learned to not just live, but thrive. Holding a quill in my feathers, I charged the tip with ink and then began writing.

[Body]
My wings still itch sometimes, but I'm used to that. Head spends plenty of time preening them, but in molting season it's never enough. I'm trying to remember back to when this all started, but it's a bit confusing. It's not like I was particularly coherent then.

"Hey, when'll you be done?" I asked myself.

I tapped my hoof and rolled it around twice, then tapped it twice again.

"No problems. You'll handle writing for me again?"

I tapped my hoof once, then thought back to what'd happened to make me how I am now. I stretched my wing and pulled over a scrap of parchment.

Actually, I can do it now. It will give me time to focus on what I want to write.

"Cool! Okay, so——" I ignored myself, kinda. I wrote down what I said, but most of my attention was on how this had started.
~~~~


Earth.

It was a normal day for me. I walked to work every day, and walked home at night. I was halfway there today when my routine got broken. Something rustled in the grass of the empty lot I walked past on my way to work.

Cat, I thought. Stopping (my boss didn't mind me being a few minutes late), I crouched down. "Hey kitty-kitty? Who's—?"

The thing came at me faster than a cat. To understand my terror fully, you'd have to imagine what it was like for Kane when he watched the alien egg open and the thing come at him. This was totally a thing like that thing. In the moment it was airborne and coming at me, I saw four long legs reaching toward me, and the rest of it lined with little tentacles.

For a heartbeat it hung motionless in the air as every horror movie I'd seen in my life worked to paralyze me with fear. Not that I could have done anything as it neared my face and the long fingers grabbed at the side and back of my head—did I say it was fast?

I did what everyone would do when some parasite-thing has latched onto their head like a facehugger, I calmly clamped my mouth shut and reached for my belt-knife. Actually, I freaked the fuck out and screamed into the dark confines of its body.

Screaming resulted in something pushing into my mouth. The freakout increased. I grabbed at the edges of the thing on my face and tried to pull it free while biting down, but my fingers slipped on the furry edges of it, and worse was the feeling of my teeth breaking like brittle chalk on whatever it was invading me.

I couldn't breathe, and fell forward onto my hands and knees as the thick thing pushing into my mouth shoved to my throat—then a little further—and stopped. My mouth was going numb now, but then so was my mind. It was harder and harder to think—in the dark—until two somethings shoved into each nostril.

One breath.

Another breath.

It wasn't going to kill me, whatever it was, and with the air I wasn't feeling I was going to pass out. Reaching to my head, I felt around the legs it had clamped to my head and tried to pull one free. Unable to even get a finger under it, I moved to the next.

The second finger, the one under my jaw, was squeezing down into the soft flesh of my neck and cheek. Pressing so firmly I scratched my skin and felt warm wetness, I used my own blood as lubricant to work one of my digits under the monster's finger.

Breathing fast, I tried to ignore the clammy sensation of its flesh pressed to my face, or the continuing numbness in my mouth as I pulled on the finger—it didn't budge.

Sobbing silently—whatever it had done with my breathing, I couldn't make a noise—I took a few moments to try to collect myself. Surely someone had seen me by now. Hopefully they were standing back, their phone to the side of their head as they called the police, but I couldn't hear any movement.

Then something teased at my eyelid.

The memory of the tendrils inside the thing came back to me as tiny digits of flesh squirmed and wriggled between my eyelids, curled, and then pulled my eyes open.

Muted red light didn't let me see details, but told me the thing on my face was thin enough that sunlight could filter through it. I turned my eyes to look left, right, and then the tendrils grabbed my right eyeball and—

I screamed silently into the thing on my face, expecting the most horrific of pains to have hit my eye, but it—it didn't actually hurt. I'd felt the finger-like tentacles squeeze and poke, and I'd felt my eyeball burst, but it not hurting was the terrifying bit.

Begging silently in my head, offering the creature destroying my face whatever I could think of, I felt it start squeezing at my left eyeball and then—darkness.

It couldn't get any worse—it shouldn't get any worse—but I felt those little tendrils start poking into each of my eye sockets and squirming around like they were pulling what was left of my eyeballs out. Something else pushed and prodded, then I felt the first real searing pain of the whole thing.

Sunlight.

Eyelids blinked, and my eyes looked left and then right, then blinked again.

What terrified me was a litany of problems with this situation: I knew my eyes were destroyed, it wasn't me controlling the blinking, it wasn't me controlling the eye movements, the world looked wrong in so many ways.

I'll start with the last bit. The grass was a green carpet that was brighter and more vibrant than anything I'd seen—even in movies. There was a tree that flickered in and out of my vision, but it looked perfect, but twisted at the same time. It was all so wrong! The edges seemed to curl and distort, and I couldn't stop myself from seeing.

Begging and pleading silently didn't help me, so I reached up with my hands to feel at what the thing on my face was like on the other side of it—the side that wasn't doing unspeakable things to me.

It was soft. My hands brushed soft fur and felt what reminded me of a dog muzzle. A tingle in my almost-numb mouth made me breath in, and when I breathed out I heard a voice, "That tickles!"

The muzzle had moved, articulated, and spoken. Somehow it couldn't have been possible, but my panic kicked up another notch.

Another tingle. Another breath.

"Look, this is all super exciting." Another tingle. Another breath. "I can't believe I'm finally getting a body!"

The voice sounded—well—cute. Feminine. I shook my head and used my left hand to clamp the mouth shut. I wanted to scream and tell them to get off me and leave me alone.

Another tingle. Another breath. Muffled sounds came from the thing on my face, and I felt the fingers behind my head pull a little tighter. The thing in my mouth was forced a little deeper, and the tendrils working at my eye sockets seemed to be pressed firmly against the flesh they were tickling.

Another tingle. Another breath.

"I hope it wasn't too scary for you." Tingle. Breath. "Mom said you might need to be taught how to behave—" tingle, breath, "—and that it'd be easier while you were still reshaping." Tingle. Breath. "But I really don't want to hurt you."

That was as reassuring as a psychopath telling you they totally don't want to push the knife deeper in your gut. I shook my head again, trying in vain to dislodge the thing from my face. Everywhere it touched me tingle now, and I couldn't feel my tongue or mouth properly anymore at all.

Tingle. Breath. "Just relax." Tingle. Breath. "I'm not trying to hurt you." Tingle. Breath. "It might be easier if you lay down in the grass."

I tilted my head down. I was kneeling on the soft green grass, and the voice did sound like it was sincere—even if the constant things it was doing to me weren't. My eyes rolled down and I blinked, though I didn't intend to do either.

Tingle. Breath. "There you go. Relax." Tingle. Breath. "Just lay down and I'll help you relax more."

What else could I do? Maybe if I lay down and did what it told me, I'd die and this would all be over with? What would it do, eat me inch by inch? Putting out my left arm, I braced myself and lowered down to my side.

As soon as my shoulder touched the grass, I felt more relaxed and calm—just like she'd said.

Tingle. Breath. "See? Not so bad now." Tingle. Breath. The process almost felt normal, if this situation ever felt normal. "You'll see, we'll both be so much better once this is all done."

My eyes closed, and the relaxing feeling increased. I wanted to fight it on some instinctual level, but it was impossible.

~~~~
"It was really that bad?" I asked.

It was strange to hear my voice, given I'd been writing and hadn't been talking, like I'd said. I tapped a hoof carefully just once.

"What about now?" My voice sounded a little worried until I tapped my hoof twice. "I'm glad. I get along so well, it sometimes surprises me how everything started."

I tapped my hoof once.

"Keep writing. It's interesting to read this from my other point of view."
~~~~

The nightmare was over, or so I thought. I sat up, shivering, and turned my head to look around, but my eyes weren't working. They didn't open.

Tingle. Breath. "Sorry, I was trying to get more sleep. Did you sleep well?" I barely noticed the tingle or the way my lungs worked to breathe in and then slowly back out. "Oh! Tap once for yes, twice for now. Guess we better get that out of the way quickly. So, did you sleep well?"

I'd slept—Okay, I'd slept pretty well despite the nightmare I thought I was having. I tapped my hand on the ground once.

"Great! I was so worried you were having a bad time. Mom said I need to be careful to manage your needs—well, they're my needs too now—but I wanted to help you relax, so I helped you relax." She sounded genuinely caring, which was at odds with the way she attacked me.

I reached a hand up to feel at her again. Her. She was further back on my face now. I felt along her muzzle and cheeks, and could feel when the fur of her stopped and my own flesh started. Her fingers were sunk into the flesh of my face, and I couldn't imagine anything holding any tighter than what she was doing.

Was this my life now?

"You're really gentle. I've heard bad stories about what happens to some, but I don't want to use any of the harsh controls on you. You'll be a nice pony, won't you?" More concern laced the words, and despite the horror-show happening, I wanted to hug her. She even sounded scared.

"I was, you know. There's a lot of us who just—who don't make it."

I reached a hoof up and brushed my cheek, then used my free wing to ruffle my ear. After a little stroking, I got back to writing.

So we were probably both scared. I was scared and the monster was scared. If I knew who said, "There's nothing to fear but fear itself," I'd kick them in the ass about now. There was plenty to fear. I was pretty sure whatever she was doing, the thing on my face had drugged me to sleep.

Controls she'd mentioned, which meant that she could and would control me if I was—if I was a nice pony. It almost sounded like she intended to train me. A new shudder of fear ran through me at the idea, and I wanted nothing to do with this.

This time, when I got the tickle, I fought against taking the breath. I struggled not to breathe even as more tickles came, but it was getting harder to fight with every passing second, and eventually I couldn't hold back anymore.

"Why are you doing that? Do you want me to punish you?"

Another tickle, and this time I didn't fight it.

"What about if I do the opposite? You're being good now, so maybe I reward you every time you're good."

I slapped the ground twice with my hand. This was the most fucked up shit ever, but at least she wasn't being nice to me anymore.

Tingle. Breath.

"So, from now on, whenever you do a good thing like not fighting me, I'll do this."

I'd had drugs before, more than a few, and all I could describe the mellow delight she dipped my brain in was weed+. It was like I'd taken two hits in a row from freshly packed cone in the mellowest pipe on the planet. If I could feel my lips I'd be smiling.

The feeling was pure bliss for nearly thirty seconds, then it slowly faded.

Tingle. Breath.

"That's for big things, for normal speaking it will be smaller rewards like this."

Another hit of bliss, but this one lasted for barely a second. Tingle. Breath.

"So, if you're done misbehaving, I'll teach you to be good."

As her words ended, I got another shot of pure happiness. It was wonderful and terrible. Part of me wanted to feel the tingle again—wanted it so much. Tingle. Breath. I'd never breathed so fast.

"Hold on. It's time to integrate us more, and this might feel a little odd."

The wash of warm happiness into my head was almost completely wiped out by the feeling of the fingers that gripped my head squeezing and pulling. More of her tendrils squirmed at my face and deeper as she pulled herself tighter against me.

An odd sense of pushing inside my head felt frighteningly like she was doing something inside my brain. I'd be able to feel that, right? I couldn't feel it, but there was an odd pressure of something happening.

A tingle started at where her body met my face and rolled backwards. I felt it flow over the sides of my head and further. Reaching up with my hands, I couldn't find where she ended and my face began. Then it hit me what had happened—she'd become my face.

I traced with my hands the spread of her fur. It tickled across the sides of my head and down to my neck, but as I felt that, the strangest sensation prickled over the top of my head. Reaching up, I felt masses of hair growing from not just my head, but my neck as well.

Tingle. Breath.

"Are you okay? It's not too freaky is it? I don't want to scare you too much, but it's not right to go into town until we're at least covered with hair properly. Mom said so."

The tickle of bliss only made me want to hear her speak more, but no sooner had the feeling come than it passed. I had questions, a million of them, but she was literally my mouth now. Tingle. Breath.

"You'll like being a pony, I'm sure. I guess I'm kinda sorry I had to surprise you how I did, but it was that or not have a body. I—"

I gasped and cut her breath short, then thumped my hand six times really quick. I hated everything about this situation, but most of all I hated that she sounded nice. I could have accepted being face-raped by a monster that told me how it eats babies and kicks puppies, but this was terrible. I wanted to tell her to shut up, but when the tingle came again, I breathed.

"I won't talk about that again. I keep forgetting you don't really have a say in this. I promise I'll at least make life fun for you. You'll see. Being a mare will be great!"

The tickle of delight that came with her words hit me all kinds of the wrong way. My brain was struggling to process the words she'd used. It all focused down to one word—one concept. I was turning into her body. She is female.

No no no no no no no! I banged my hand on the grass again and again. Please, no!

I couldn't even cry.

Collapsing into a heap on the ground, I hugged myself and hoped I could wake up from this nightmare. Tingle. Breath.

"It's okay. You'll be okay. I'll take care of you, I promise."

The trickle of warm honey through my head lasted a little longer than normal. There was a million things I wanted right now, but head of the list was being back home—having slept in. Not far below that was her closing her eyes so I could just huddle into a ball and stop letting the world into my head.

Tingle. Breath.

"Do you want me to make you sleep again?"

More warmth, and again it felt too good to have it be so brief. I shook my head a little, the muscles feeling slow to respond to my commands. Was she already drugging me, or was something new happening. I stretched my hand out to just before my—her nose, and patted twice. Tingle. Breath.

"Okay. I'll try to make this go a little faster then."

The glow of warmth that blossomed in my head seemed to radiate out to my neck. There was no more change in the mask—this was all me. My shoulders seemed to pull up and just beside each shoulder joint a new sensation started. Tingle. Breath.

"Oh my goodness. I'm going to be a pegasus!"

The warmth became a rush as she rewarded me again for letting her talk. Something seemed to tease at my arms and make me lift my elbows higher and higher behind me. I screamed into my head at the messed up shit that was happening to me, and just wanted it to stop.

~~~~
"I know I've talked about this bit before, but was it really that bad?"

I didn't need those rushes of chemicals to want to behave anymore. I was a pony—or at least the body of a pony. I angled my hoof and tapped the heel of it against the floor just once.

On a scrap piece of paper I wrote:

It was bad at the time. I'm glad it happened now.

I didn't need the jolt of joy I shot into my brain, but it was the best way I could show me that what I'd done greatly pleased me. Taking a deep breath—without any Tingle—I returned to writing.
~~~~

When the joints in my shoulders reversed so my arms were stuck pointing almost backwards, I really started to freak out. My shirt seams were popping every time I moved, and I heard the rip as one of them gave way completely.

Dropping to my chest, I heard more ripping sounds from my shirt and knew it was done for, but it was the feeling of things poking painlessly through the skin of my arms that got my full attention. I turned my head as far as I could to the side, but without the mask's help, I wouldn't be able to see what was going on.

Tingle. Breath.

"Oh! My wings are growing!"

She turned her eyes and I was able to watch—my brain swimming in the reward from having helped her speak, as feathers were sprouting from my twisted arms.

Tingle. Breath.

"I'm so excited! They look beautiful!"

I wasn't sure what she saw beauty in. My arms were a mess of feathers, and I couldn't even tell if I had fingers anymore. Even if I got the mask off my face and somehow got reconstruction surgery, my arms would forever be freakishly deformed.

Tingle. Breath.

"I can't wait until I'm complete. I'll be the prettiest pegasus!"

The sensation of the changes she was making spread. It focused on my wings and my torso, both feeling like they were twisting and shrinking. I squirmed and writhed on the rich green grass as it felt like my insides were being twisted and wrenched around.

Another of those pushing sensations spread through my head, and I didn't know what it was that'd happened until I tried to turn my head and look at my body—and I couldn't. I could still feel my neck, but the muscles didn't respond to me anymore.

Was this what would happen? Would she crowd out my control inch by inch until I was just a screaming mind trapped in a body that didn't do anything anymore? I trembled in fear and panic, unable to express what was wrong, when a wash of calm flooded me.

This wasn't the instant-joy that her rewards gave, but a soothing thickness in my head that left no room for worry or panic. I slumped and stretched out on the grass as tingling changes spread all over me, and when I felt that specific tingle, I breathed.

"Sorry. You seemed to be in a panic, and I thought it would be the best thing. Are you okay?"

What I was, was stoned. I tried to nod, but the re-realization that I couldn't control anything from my shoulders forward barely even caused me worry. I tried to thump the ground with my hand, but each of my arms was stuck on my back now.

Tingle. Breath.

"My forelegs are growing nicely. It's odd how your limbs turned into wings and not legs."

She dipped her head down and let us both look at what were undeniably forelegs growing from my body. Growing, of course, didn't mean grown. They were short and stumpy, and I wouldn't be standing up for a while.

I'm not sure how long I lay there, feeling more of those changes spreading down my body. Everything seemed to be getting tighter and smaller, while my hips pulled my legs—my back legs—forward in an arc so that I was forced to stand quadrupedal.

The drugs she pumped me with ended before the changes did, and I felt the last of my humanity slip away from me with a clear head. I was still trying to get used to having so many new bits when I felt the telltale tingle. Breath.

"I think I'm mostly done. Want to try standing up for me?"

Struggling with having been left with six limbs to control, I barely managed to lift my foreleg twice and tap the grass. Tingle. Breath.

"Silly. I have to stand up sometime. Come on!"

The part of me that wanted to tell her to get fucked was shrinking. Her voice was perky, happy, and practically thrummed with excitement. The main reason that part was shrinking, of course, was the reward. That I got to move again was a bonus.

Pushing down with one wobbly foreleg, I was thankful she turned her head to watch so I could see how I fared. My other foreleg braced and set, I shoved with it and pushed myself into the oddest equine sitting position ever—more like how a dog sits.

A tingling thrill of reward encouraged me further, but the moment I tried to get a back leg under me, I tipped sideways and landed in the grass.

Tingle. Breath.

"Good try! Come on, I can do it!"

It struck me that she referred to me as part of her, but then I kinda was. There wasn't much difference between her and me now, we were in the same body, and we only had one voice.