Maris trembled at the center of the porch, encircled by fifty-seven people—friends, coworkers, neighbors, former lovers, classmates, drinking buddies—everyone who had tried and failed to keep her grounded this past year.
Tears streaked down her cheeks, chest heaving with each broken breath. "You don’t understand!" she wailed, words wrung out from her throat like rain from a rag. "None of you understand how it feels to wake up and know—absolutely know—that you’re supposed to be a part of someone else. That you’re missing! That someone needs you and you’ll never make them whole—because they don’t even know they’re broken!"
She clutched her head, nails digging into her scalp, breath ragged as the walls closed in.
One by one, they stepped forward. Hands reached out—warm, tentative, familiar. Someone knelt beside her. Another draped their coat around her shoulders. Arms wound around her back, easing the tremble from her spine. Her friend Lilah, who’d never cried once in Maris’s presence, sniffled as she hugged her tightly. “You’re not alone. You never were.”
A palm cupped her cheek. A kiss landed softly on her brow. A calloused hand squeezed hers. Maris blinked, eyes swimming through the haze, and suddenly—
It clicked.
Her breath caught in her throat. The ache in her chest, the gaping wound in her soul—it all softened, filled. The grief evaporated like morning dew under sunlight. Her tears slowed, but her lips parted in wonder, a tremulous smile blooming like the first flower in spring.
“Thank you…” she whispered, almost reverently. “Thank you all… for everything.”
And then—
She was gone.
Not exploded. Not ripped from the fabric of space. She simply... vanished. Disappeared into a ripple of warmth and shimmering light.
A stunned silence seized the room. Then came a chorus of gasps, stammers, cries of disbelief.
“What the hell?!”
“Where did she—?”
“Oh my God! My stomach! It’s—!”
Someone screamed—not in pain, but surprise. Then laughter. Then another voice yelping in confused delight.
And then the tingling began.
Each of the fifty-seven—every last one of them—felt a shimmer pass through their body. A softness blossoming under skin. A warmth that wasn't theirs.
And Maris began to reappear.
Lilah was the first to look down. Her blouse had tightened. Not from swelling or growth—no. Her breasts had vanished. In their place, two delicate faces with wide, dark eyes and a gentle smile blinked up at her. Maris' heads had taken up their functions - their lips and tongues ultrasensitive, and capable of salivating breastmilk.
“Hi,” the left one said, Maris’s voice gentle and musical.
“Is this okay?” asked the right.
Lilah screamed, then hiccuped in disbelief. “You’re… my tits?!”
Across the room, Markus stumbled into a chair, no longer armless. His hands that topped his new arms were replaced Maris’s heads. Each wrist had become an elegant neck topped with her pretty head and face, lips pursed in concentration as she tried to make sense of her strange perspectives.
Ms. Ellie was surprised to find two extra bodymates - her head was flanked by two of Maris' - who complimented her on her eight-legged figure.
Others weren’t so lucky—or perhaps they were luckier.
Kenji, who had lost his genitals in an industrial accident years prior, now had Maris’s mouth both in place of his navel, puckered and soft - as well as a suspiciously feminine new penis.
Emily found that her nipples were now Maris-mouths - she liked the feeling she got when they spoke.
Viola now had two extra, smooth, familiar, toned limbs extending from her shoulders.
One of the former gymnasts, Amanda, looked over his shoulder and gasped. A long tail, flexible and muscular, coiled behind him. At the tip—Maris’s smiling, curious head, taking in the air.
And someone, no one would admit who for weeks, found Maris’s lips had replaced their genitals entirely. The Maris-mouth there giggled when asked about it. “It’s not as weird as it looks!” she said.
Others found extra eyes sprouting softly on their foreheads—her dark, expressive gaze quietly watching the world with them.
A few developed new pairs of breasts—full and warm, unmistakably Maris-like in form, complete with faint freckles matching hers.
Some had an extra head or two that shared the space between their shoulders, while others had some peeking from their hips and groins. Yet in every case, no one lost their original function or form—only gaining a piece of Maris.
There were screams. Of course. There was panic and confusion and a long emergency call to the WTEA. Doctors came, scanned, measured. Scientists debated what it meant for someone’s consciousness to be split but unified. A hazmat crew briefly quarantined the town before realizing Maris herself was not contagious. Conspiracy theorists wept as the news made headlines.
And yet, as days turned to weeks… something softened in all of them.
Maris was still Maris. She was with them—laughing in their ears, humming when they lay down, speaking across minds like ripples through a pond. Being a welcome friend and helping hand, she provided advice and words of comfort. Her consciousness spanned the fifty-seven bodies—seamlessly connecting them all. Her presence felt like a soft hand on the shoulder at all times.
And for all their fear, she brought peace.
It was a breezy, lilac-scented evening in the town square. Barbecue smoke curled into the air. Children ran between food stalls. A makeshift stage had been erected for music and speeches. And among them were Maris' friends—still called that with reverence and affection.
Maris spoke through several of them—her face on shoulders, stomachs, chests, groins, even foreheads. Some laughed as she traded jokes with herself through different people. Some blushed, unused to the strange eyes peering from under their shirts.
But by nightfall, she’d grown quiet. Her voice rippled gently across their minds, a thought without words.
And then she said aloud, through five mouths at once, all with the same quiet smile:
“I understand now.”
Forks paused. Conversations hushed. Every eye turned toward the scattered Maris-faces—some tucked modestly under scarves, some peeking over beltlines, some worn proudly like jewelry.
She continued. “I spent a year searching… thinking I had to find a person—one single person—to make whole. But… it wasn’t one. It was all of you. I was already whole. I just hadn’t found all my pieces yet.”
The silence held.
Then someone—probably Lilah—clapped. Then another. Then the whole square erupted in cheers and laughter and hugs. Maris smiled in fifty-seven places.
At last, she smiled, truly complete.