The morning light cut through the blinds in thin, pale slats. Jennifer blinked against it, her throat dry and her body… wrong.
She groaned softly as she shifted beneath the covers, a dull ache blooming in her chest. Her arms felt heavy, her legs sluggish, like she’d run a marathon in her sleep. She sat up slowly—and stopped with a sharp breath.
Her tank top was stretched tight across her chest. Too tight. Her breasts were swollen, tender to the touch. Even the soft brush of fabric made her wince.
“What the hell…” she murmured, peeling back the sheets. Her stomach felt bloated, distended, like she’d eaten too much or not at all. A heavy pressure coiled deep in her belly, not painful exactly, but unsettling. Like something wasn’t right inside her.
She shuffled to the bathroom and turned on the light. The mirror didn’t lie.
Her face looked slightly puffy, her skin pale and a little clammy. She placed her hands on the sink to steady herself, staring at her reflection. She looked… off. Not sick, exactly. Just different. Like someone else was wearing her skin.
She pressed her palm gently against her stomach. The sensation that pulsed back wasn’t hunger. It wasn’t cramping. It was alive—not literally, no, that was impossible—but somehow not entirely her own anymore.
She thought of the bar. The strange drink. That woman in the corner, the one who hadn’t spoken, hadn’t moved—but had watched her, she was sure of it now. Jennifer had caught the woman’s eyes just once, and in them, there had been something—dark, knowing. Icy.
A whisper scraped the back of her mind. Not words, just the shape of them. Wrong. Ancient.
Jennifer stepped back from the mirror.
Whatever was happening to her hadn’t come from a virus or something she ate.
This felt deliberate.
And it was just beginning.