“...No, of course not. There’s no way she could know me,” Sarah sighed. “I’m sure it’s just a coincidence, some word that just sounds like-”
“No, Sarah! Me! Maa’ti, me!” the little girl exclaimed suddenly, a twinkle flashing in her eyes. “Me am… No, I… Argh, so hard say…”
Even in the damp heat of the jungle, Sarah felt goosebumps form on her arms. Whoever this girl was, she not only spoke English (albeit not particularly well), but she definitely seemed to know who Sarah was. But that was completely impossible, wasn’t it?
“How do you know me…? What is going on?” Sarah replied cautiously, studying the girl’s face intensely. Round, smooth, childish. Skin the color of dark red earth and hair like coffee. Definitely nobody that Sarah had ever met, and yet there was something familiar about the little girl that she couldn’t quite explain.
“Me, Maa’ti! You Sarah!” the girl repeated, frowning a bit at how difficult it was to express herself.
“Maa’ti? That’s your name, little girl?” Sarah said soothingly, and the twinkle in the girl’s eyes flashed again as her face twisted into a frustrated grimace.
“No! Not Maa’ti, my name Maa’ti!” she pouted. “Ahh, me mean say ‘Maa’ti’… Maaar… maaar-tii…”
Sarah sat with confusion as the girl continued to struggle with her words, and after a couple more attempts, the girl just seemed to give up with a defeated sigh.
“...Not matter. Look, me show you,” Maa’ti (or whoever she was) said quietly. In the dim light of the hut, she knelt down and traced her finger in the dirt ground, drawing the unmistakable figure of a person. Short haired, with glasses and what appeared to be modern clothing. Then, next to that person she drew a second figure, much shorter and with long hair.
“Me! And… me…” Maa’ti said, pointing from one figure to the other, then to her own body. “Was me, now me!”
Sarah’s head was spinning, trying to process what the girl was trying to tell her. The person with glasses is her, but also the smaller person with long hair? No, that makes no sense, unless-
“Maa’ti! Makabu hakal’e’we mushei’po! Chagwa hayway!”
Sarah recognized the loud, energetic tone of the boy from before, the one who had found her in the jungle. He burst back in the hut with a big grin on his face and immediately began rifling through the various pots and pouches scattered around.
“Ruut, yena o’laweme? Fio nopoka!” Maa’ti said sharply, her eyes narrowing as the boy withdrew a small, dried herb from one of the pouches triumphantly.
With nothing but a mischievous giggle in response, the boy held the herb over the small fire in the middle of the hut, igniting it and making it begin to give off a thick plume of dark smoke. Before Sarah even knew what was going on, the boy took a breath and blew the smoke into Sarah’s face, and she felt it flow up her nostrils and down her throat.
“W-what the fuck was that!?” Sarah yelped, backing away from the grinning boy and the wide-eyed girl. Whatever the smoke was, it didn’t burn or make her choke, it merely tickled the back of her throat and left a strange tingle in her chest. “L-look, I just want to… to…”
Sarah’s chest was heaving with fear, and she couldn’t help but take another deep breath to try to calm herself, unintentionally taking more of the smoke into her lungs. But rather than make her chest rise up and inflate with each breath, if anything it looked more like her chest was sucking inward, thinning out slightly while her ample breasts began to look smaller if only by a bit. Likewise, her waist slimmed down by a few inches, with the flare of her hips and butt flattening down to a less feminine appearance. Without even thinking, Sarah reached around her back and found the straps to tighten the loincloth she had found, pulling it tighter to fit her thinning body like it was second nature to her.
“You little brat, what diD you-…” Sarah started to shout, but she stopped when she heard her voice cracking. “What the fuck…? That shit you gAve me-”
Sarah was shocked to hear the voice coming out of her mouth. It was no longer the high, sultry, feminine voice that she had known since finishing puberty. Although still a bit high-pitched, it was much scratchier and rougher-sounding, like the raspy whine of a young boy just beginning to mature.
“It worked! I knew I remembered the medicine man saying that smoke was good for chasing away negative influences…” the boy exclaimed happily.
“Ruut, what were you thinking!? That’s the medicine man’s job, not yours!” Maa’ti replied angrily, lunging forward to try to snatch the burning herb from Ruut’s hand, but the boy just laughed and ducked to the side to avoid the girl’s grasp.
“Well, he was busy having council with the chief. What’s the problem, anyway? He’s already doing better, all thanks to me!”
“She didn’t need any help!”
Sarah’s head began to spin again, whether it was because of the heat, the stress, or the smoky air, but through the haze filling her head, she realized that she could now understand exactly what these two jungle children were saying, as if Sarah had been speaking their language for her entire life. While Ruut and Maa’ti continued to bicker and chase one another around the hut, Sarah’s eyes were drawn to the entrance to the hut, which was left wide-open...