Mary's boss was on the machine, calling to make sure she was feeling okay. He explained that she was greatly needed tomorrow and if she was fit to come in, she should.
Mary deleted the message and wondered if she'd really be in shape for work. The woman at the supermarket was fresh in her mind, and she didn't want a similar incident to happen at work. She also wondered how she was going to cover up cow hooves if they grew back...which she was sure they would. Even after the changes stopped completely, she would need two full days before being able to change back again. She could easily manage that in a weekend, but it was only Monday night.
She pondered her choice as she put the groceries away and fixed a small dinner of vegetables. The salad from before was still filling her up, so she didn't have that much of an appetite. Then she watched some television to clear her mind for a while. Her feet started to ache, and her eyes became heavy. She wanted to make her way to bed, but she was just too tired to stand...
Mary dreamed of grazing in a pasture once again. This time, she was surrounded by cows. She felt like she was among friends, happily chewing away. One cow turned to her, its large dark eyes staring deeply into hers. Then it opened its mouth to speak.
"Today's high will be around 73 degrees, with a low of 58..."
Mary snapped awake. It wasn't the cow talking, it was the weatherman on television. She remembered dozing off the night before, and peered at the tv to see the time. A small clock on the bottom right of the screen told her it was 6:04am.
She sat up on the couch. She had almost two hours to get to work, but first she needed to see if she could get away with hiding her legs as well as her tail and udder. She placed her feet on the floor and immediately felt something was wrong. She looked down at her feet and saw they had, as expected, changed to a perfect pair of cow hooves. Her hind legs had changed shape to that of a cow, and the black and white fur had fully grown in. There was no way pants or a skirt could hide this now. The pantyhose she had never taken off the night before were twisted and wrinkled, and her hooves had broken the bottom ends apart. Mary pulled the tattered fabric off her legs and threw them on the floor.
"Should I just tell my boss the truth?" Mary thought. She was still able to go to work, she just looked like something out of a circus freak show instead of a normal white-collar employee. She clomped to the kitchen and made herself some cereal and a bagel. After eating, she went to the bathroom to wash her face. She was halfway into wondering if her furry legs wouldn't mind a shower when she saw her reflection in the mirror.
Mary gasped at the sight. Two horns were poking out the sides of her head. They were yellowish gray and smooth, forming above her temples and curving upward several inches. She brought her hands up to feel the fresh bone. She even shook them to see if they weren't just glued onto her forehead. Sure enough, they were completely real. Her ears even looked slightly pointed, and her teeth had flattened somewhat. Her canines weren't nealy as sharp as they were before, instead adopting a shape suitable to a herbivore.
This was impossible. She never had these things before. Why were they growing on her now? Mary had assumed the reversion to a cow would have stopped with the original changes, but this was well beyond that. Was the instability more severe than she thought? How far was this going to go?