"Don't touch me! Let me explain!" Panic rose in Jen's voice and she stepped a few steps backwards from the cheer squad. The squad, her only friends in the world, stood there and stared at her somberly. They had all been changed, of this Jen was certain. She remembered them always being the weird shapes they are, but she suspected that was just reality shifting her memories.
Most of them had smeared makeup from the crying they had been doing when Jen arrived. A few, such as Trish, weren't wearing makeup but were still showing that the morning had been awful for them.
"Okay... Okay..." Jen paused to collect her thoughts. Amanda stepped forward with her arms open, a clear sign of wanting to give Jen a hug - her tears were still rolling down her cheeks. Much to Amanda's chagrin, Jen jumped backwards and let out a scared yelp.
"Please! Let me explain my curse! Don't... Just don't touch me!" Jen clearly saw in Amanda's face that she had broken her best friend's heart. Amanda turned around and slowly walked away.
"Amanda, no... Just let me explain, okay?" Amanda paused and Jen talked as fast she could, "This morning I got a call too. From Kyle. He cursed me. I figured it was just a prank so I ignored him."
Gwen interjected, speaking with both heads in an unreal echo, "Oh yeah? You sure don't look cursed. Maybe he has a crush on you."
Stacy brushed off the accusation, "No, he has a crush on us." She motioned with all 4 bodies. "Shit, I mean me." "Why do I keep doing that?" "Dammit this is confusing." "He must have a thing for quadruplets." "Otherwise why did he turn me into them?" "Just can't figure out why if he was gonna do that, I'm still 1 person instead of 4."
"At least you aren't arguing with yourself." "Hey, I was gonna say that." "Oh be quiet you two. I've got a raging headache." "We know, you're what caused it." Trish's 4 hydra heads interjected into the conversation. Unlike Stacy and Gwen, each of Trish's heads had a slightly different personality, and she was apparently unafraid to show it.
Jen sighed. This wasn't any different behavior for the girls, so at least they didn't see like they were different people, just differently shaped and quantified. She directed the conversation back to herself, "It wasn't an instant transformation. I'm guessing that's what he did to everyone here. No, he said that the first person I touch will become absorbed into my body and... basically die. And whatever is left over will permanently become a part of me"
"What? That sounds crazy." Natalie's voice boomed from behind the rest of the girls, amplified in volume by her much larger lungs. She rose up behind the girls, her torso supported by her enormous tail. Her torso continued to rise without a sign of slowing, and once her head reached the height of the basketball hoops, she started to clearly freak out. "Waaah! Stop! Too high! Stop! Go down! Too high! Aaah!" She flailed her arms about, tilted over to the left, lost her balance and crashed down to the floor. "Owww..."
Ignoring the mess that Natalie had gotten herself into, Amanda turned back to Jen. "Really? Honest and truthfully?"
Jen nodded. "That's why I don't want anyone to touch me. I don't want anyone to die."
"And you don't want to end up like us" Gwen's double voices echoed. She rolled both pairs of eyes and turned to go help Natalie.
"I'm sorry about earlier. I didn't know. But how can you go through life without touching anyone? You're going to have to touch someone, eventually." Amanda had a visibly hard time resisting the urge to hug her bestie. She had always been the most touchy-feely of the group, and it was playing havoc on her.
"I'm gonna have to find some way to remove my curse. Hopefully once that's done we can remove everyone's curse. So uh... anyone have any ideas?"