Projectors extended down from the ceiling and activated, projecting digital media onto the inner walls of the chamber. Each wall displayed 50 media streams - professional news, sitcoms, hobby streamers, documentaries, movies, instructional video, advertisements, reality shows and more.
Ashley looked all around her, surprised and confused by the videos playing on the walls. She could no longer see the people outside the Chamber - its walls had darkened so that she could only see the videos.
A few seconds later, Ashley heard a muffled command from a female voice. The Chamber instantly filled with incoherent noise.
Her head throbbed, and her entire body ached. She closed her eyes, but the throbbing rapidly became more intense and suddenly she felt a horrible spike of pain in her head, as though someone had just shoved a spear through her forehead.
Her eyes flew open. Everything seemed sharper, more distinct. The many videos playing on the wall in front of her seemed less overwhelming. So did the videos to her left and to her right. Something was off - her peripheral vision was nowhere near this good. And neither was her frontal vision.
Ashley raised her left hand up in front of her face and was startled to see her hand come into view multiple times, yet look like a single hand. Carefully closing her eyes, she touched her forehead, trying to find out how many eyes she had now. 2... 4... 6... 8 eyes in pairs stacked vertically, now occupying the entirety of her forehead.
But even though she had her eyes closed, she was still seeing the videos on the walls to her left and right. Ashley reopened her eyes and moved her hand to touch the side of her head. And promptly poked herself in an eye on the side of her head she didn't have 60 seconds ago. A quick shake of her hand moved it past 4 separate viewpoints.
Watching her hand move, Ashley quickly realized that she must have eyes on the sides of her head in essentially the same shape as on the front - 4 rows of 2 eyes each. As she was exploring her new eyesight, she was also watching the videos being projected on the chamber. She was having a much easier time of picking out and watching specific videos than she had before.
A few had caught her attention, including one to her right in black and white featuring a cowboy chasing after some bandits in the old west. The sound was mixed in with hundreds of videos worth of sound, but she was able to hear each badly done footstep of the horse. She could even tell that they weren't real horsesteps, and were done through crude audio editing after the scene was shot. Her musings was interrupted by the lead scientist over the intercom, even louder than the mass of media audio, "Turn around"
Ashley complied, taking 2 steps to turn to face the opposite direction. As she did, she continued to watch the antique cowboy film as its passed by her frontal vision and finally came to rest on her left vision. A cooking show on her right vision caught her interest, and a couple of news programs on her front vision. More and more video streams became interesting to Ashley, and she found she was paying attention to multiple video streams simultaneously - watching all of them at once, and understanding what was being done and said on all of them.
"Turn around again" Ashley complied, watching as video streams went off the edges of her vision, only to reappear when she had finished turning.
"Again" Once again Ashley turned. "Again, slower" She slowly rotated in the center of the chamber. A familiar throbbing built up in her head as she did. "Ooooh, that's giving me a headache" Ashley muttered. Her entire upper body throbbed in tune with her head.
"Again" the voice over the loudspeaker demanded. Ashley rotated slowly in the center of the chamber. About halfway through her rotation, the same spearing pain from before hit Ashley's head and entire upper body. At the instant that it hit her body, she lost all strength and collapsed, catching herself on her hands and knees. She saw the floor of the chamber, and the walls to her left and right. Then it was like someone had flipped a switch - all her senses were suddenly gone. Then... nothing.
____
Ashley opened her eyes. In an instant she saw many changes that had happened to her. She must have grown a second head, because she was looking herself in her eyes. To be specific, 16 side eyes were looking directly at each other. Her peripheral vision from those eyes could see the videos on 2 separate walls. With her other 16 side eyes she was looking directly at the videos on those same walls.
She also saw the floor with 16 eyes. And with those eyes she saw 4 arms holding her up. That left only... 16 more eyes. She could see the projectors hung from the ceiling, and the top of the chamber.
Slowly Ashley pushed herself up from the floor, once again standing on her feet. As the weight of her body shifted, she came to understand what had happened: She now had 2 heads side by side on top of her torso. Each head had grown a second face on the back - something she confirmed by opening her mouths and sticking out her tongues - When she had stuck out every tongue, she counted 4! Despite having 4 tongues sticking out, she couldn't taste anything. Nor could she smell anything.
Experimentally, Ashley turned to look left and right simultaneously. She succeeded in turning her heads so that 2 of her faces were looking directly at herself. She couldn't congratulate herself though, as she had mis-guessed which head was her left and which was her right, and had turned her heads the opposite direction she had intended.
"Oops" "Oops" "Oops" "Oops" Ashley paused. Then giggled 4 times simultaneously. As she did, she looked over her faces for changes - But other than the extra eyes, she didn't notice any changes. Satisfied by what she saw, Ashley turned each head back to look forward, then looked down her front with her left head, and with her right head looked down her... second front?
In addition to growing a second face on the back of each head, she had also grown a second front on the back of her torso. She could see a pair... no, two pairs of breasts hanging on both sides of her torso, and 4 arms on each side. On one of her sides could see her butt protruding but not on the other side. It was clear her spine was still inside her somewhere, but it must have moved to the center of her body.
The whole time she was exploring her new form, Ashley was simultaneously watching several videos on the wall. Which made the walls turning off all the more jarring for her. The sound lingered a moment later then cut out.
The lead scientist's voice carried over the intercom. "Ashley, can you hear me?"
"Yes" "Yes" "Yes" "Yes" Ashley cringed at the sound of her voice 4 times. "Sorry" "Sorry" "Sorry" "Sorry"
"We were scheduled to go to a magnitude of 5 events on a ramping curve. But we didn't expect anything so... significant in the first 2 events. We had also planned to increase the intensity of the stimuli after every event, but that's probably not a good idea at this point. Do you think you can keep going?"