“And now we have a unique opportunity.” Mary said and then she scrolled the tags up to the "Mythical" section without paying attention to that. The vial on her hand was still a ‘Syberian Tiger’ and when she put it back on its place, its label changed to ‘Cecaelia mermaid’. Next to it, there was several other mermaid vials, such as dolphin mermaid, shark mermaid, clam mermaid and so on. She picked back the now ‘Cecaelia mermaid’ vial and opened it.
"I am amazed! Is this thing serious? It seems quite a work for a simple prank." Jeff said, referring to the box itself.
"Well, just one way to tell." Mary said as she gulped down the content of the vial on her hand.
“Are you crazy?” Jeff shouted. “What if this thing is a poison?”
“Well, I don’t think someone would have that amount of work just to poison us. And I think that I… What’s this?” Mary asked as she felt and saw some dark spots on her legs.
“What?” Jeff was worried as he followed Mary’s gaze.
Jeff saw the dark spots growing into her legs. Just a few seconds later Mary fell to the ground as her feet seemed strange to her. She removed her shoes and found out that each of her feet were dividing into four slimy appendages.
"What happened?" Jeff shouted.
“My feet are changing! They are turning into some sort of tentacles! The vials do work!” Mary said, surprised.
Jeff approached Mary’s new appendages and took a closer look. She indeed had eight little tentacles as feet and they were the same dark brown color as the spots on her legs. They were all spread on the floor, motionless.
“Incredible!” Jeff said. “Can you move them?”
Mary concentrated and Jeff saw as her tentacles wiggled a little before going limp again.
“It is hard; I don’t know what muscles I have to move in order to move it.”
Jeff then noticed something else.
“Hey! They are still splitting and growing!” He said as he saw that her tentacles were snaking further in the ground and her ankles were enlarging and dividing too. They grew two feet in just a couple of seconds and divided her legs up to her knees.
Mary was stunned at how that changes were progressing and thought about feeling that appendages. She was startled to see that her tentacle started moving and one of them reached for her hand.
“I thought it was hard for you to move them!” Jeff said.
“I thought so too. But when I thought about feeling them with my hands, they moved almost on their own.”
Mary then tried to move her tentacles again and this time they waved and spread on the floor.
“I can move them now! It is so easy now!” Mary said, excited, while she wrapped Jeff's legs with four tentacles to prove that.
"And what kind of vial did you drink from? What are you turning into?" Jeff asked, concerned.
"It was this one, the 'Cecaelia mermaid'." She answered.
“And what in the world is a Cecaelia? Are you going to need to be in the water now?”
“I have no idea about what that is. I don’t even know if this thing is big enough to destroy our house!”
“Let’s check this on the internet!” Jeff said as he reached Mary and carried her to their computer.
Her legs were still dividing and their tentacles were almost reaching her waist. He felt her hip bones softening while carrying her. Mary used her tentacles to embrace Jeff so she wouldn’t fell to the ground.