"Let's just say...you'll lose a lot more than just one turn." Terry's voice was eerily cold.
Sue gulped. Her hand quivered as she cautiously tossed the dice onto the game board. Their clacking almost seemed to echo off the walls. Everyone held their breath in anticipation...
Snake eyes.
Speaking of eyes, all of them were turned on Sue. She sat motionless, with the exception of her hair, which grew a slight two inches.
After a moment, Sue sighed relief. "So I'm okay," she said to her nervous friends. She moved her piece and landed on a blue square. "Terry, do you remember what blue squares do?"
Terry said nothing.
"Terry? Hello?"
"Do I remember? That's funny," he snarled. "A better question would be, do you remember?"
"Remember what? I never read the instructions! You and Tom were reading them as we started playing." She indignantly tossed a long, stray hair across her shoulder.
"And what were we doing before that?"
"How should I know? The first thing I remember is Dave rolling the first die."
"That's the first thing you remember," Terry's sigh was closer to an ineffectively faint sonar screech. "Why did all of us come here tonight?"
"To play the game."
"Where did the game come from?"
Sue was silent. She took a moment to ponder the question.
"Dude, what's with this interrogation?" Dave was trying to force his voice deeper in a failed attempt to copy the mature vocal octave he once had.
"Yellow spaces make you lose a turn," Terry began.
"You told us that already," Dave whined.
"Sue," Terry stressed, "Where did the game come from?"
She shrugged. "It didn't come from anywhere. It's always been sitting right there. Now drop the dramatics and just tell me what blue spaces do."
"The game came from Tom. He bought it as a present for Hannah."
"What are you talking about? Tom's been right here the whole time, he couldn't have bought it."
"SUE!" Terry's wings stretched wide and the bat-like screech sounded as ferocious as his stance now looked. "Don't you realize? YOU'VE FORGOTTEN EVERYTHING!"
"Terry," she shivered. "You're frightening me..."
Terry regained control of himself and relaxed his wings. They fluttered a bit before comfortably folding up behind him. "You can't remember coming to this house? You can't remember that I was with you when Tom invited us to this party? You can't remember the day we first met?!?"
Sue's quizzical expression suddenly contorted into unbridled fear. "I...we...we just met tonight...all of us! The game brought us...no, we were already here...sitting around it..." She leapt up to Terry, grabbing him with all four arms, hair flying wildly behind her. "OH MY GOD! WHAT DID THE GAME DO TO ME?!"
Terry could barely keep himself calm under Sue's quadruple clutch. Her fingernails were digging into his skin as her fingers quaked. "If you roll doubles twice," Terry said as calm as he could, "The game makes you forget. Everything. It only keeps the memories you need to play the game."
Hannah put a paw to her mouth. Tom grimaced. "You don't remember us becoming friends? All the times we've gotten together?" Hannah asked, hoping the mention of it would bring Sue's memories back.
"NO! I CAN'T!" Sue's head snapped to face her. "I can't..." Her grip on Terry laxed. She crumpled into a ball, head tucked between her knees and breasts, her hair acting as a cloak around her. Of all the transformations she expected to happen, of any form the game might have chosen as punishment for rolling doubles, she couldn't think of anything as frightening or as painful as having lost her entire life.