Not So Foolish {aHiT Snatcher TFTG PSN MC}

“Hhhghh… Why’d I even agree to this?”

A woman slammed her head repeatedly against a table, her pen rattling and the paper on her table shifting on each slam. Sheryl Samson, studier of law, had been picked from among a raffle of people, without even knowing of the existence of a raffle. She was invited to meet face-to-face with the newest queen, Vanessa, to make some amends between her particular law school and the royals. Her blond hair splayed itself across the table and she sighed, and she felt like she was going to vomit; she hated that queen, and she just seemed uncanny to her. She brushed the hair away, taking the long hair and braiding it up sloppily, before heaving herself off of the table.

“Looks like she won’t be getting the treaty.” She growled, looking at the paper and pen; it was going to be a speech script, but she didn’t even have any time to prepare, so she couldn’t figure out any ideas. She stood up, adjusting her suit, brushing it off along with her pants, clicking her boot heels together before grabbing a satchel. She rubbed her head, her brown eyes somewhat red from an irritation headache, before trotting over to the door and stepping out. Such a gloomy place was the outside world; Subcon used to be such a lively place, but something about the new queen was changing it to something murky, dark… even the kingdom was scared of her. Sheryl breathed in to calm down, before making her way to the castle.

She rushed, sprinting when she saw congregating heads, most her higher-ups. Her main teacher, Mr. Birubiru, rushed over to greet her, making quick talk the she couldn’t make out while leading her through the crowd of people. There was an opening, where there stood a spindly girl in flashy, ornate clothing, with long hair and a dainty figure, yet that same uncanny feeling; it was queen Vanessa.

“Biru, I-“ She was cut short as the teacher shoved her ahead, her almost falling over herself.

“-m not ready.”

She looked at the young queen, who looked at her with an almost lifeless stare, making Sheryl shudder. There was something off about this girl, but she couldn’t quite tell what, and that made it worse. There was a long period of awkward silence, neither of them speaking of moving, before Vanessa spoke in an odd whistle.

“Come with me, Samson.”

Samson… why was she referring to her by her last name? She quivered, her legs trembling, before Vanessa seemed to float across the ground, grabbing her harshly by the arm and physically yanking her. Sheryl stood still for a second, before obeying the action and following the queen. Vanessa kept a completely dead stare while looking ahead, seeming to float quickly while dragging Sheryl through the mansion gates, the gates slamming behind them. The place was so… cold; so, so cold.

This mansion was absolutely enormous, with many rooms and a labyrinth of long, dark halls. She was alone with the creepiest lady this side of that girl from Ju-on, in a place that felt like the arctic ice caps, and things just felt wrong all around. She tightly grasped her satchel, her breathing as hazy as her breath in the cold. Vanessa soon stopped dead in her tracks, flashing her an equally-dead stare, before turning away again. The queen seemed to fumble with her dress, as if it had pockets, holding out one hand to tell Sheryl to stop. Sheryl stopped, before stepping back slightly; every action this girl seemed to do emanated an aura of evil that shook her to her core, before the girl spoke again.

“…You know why I chose you, right?” Vanessa whispered, seeming to stop her searching.

“…The raffle?” Sheryl piped.

“…No… who told you that?” The queen growled, in a way that seemed to clash harshly with her physical appearance.

“…Mr. Hohleb.” Sheryl said quietly; the head of the law school… lied to her?

“…Of course he did. No, I called for you personally, because…” Vanessa quickly turned around, putting one hand quickly behind her back before Sheryl could see what she grabbed. Oh no, this couldn’t be good.

“…You remind me of somebody.” Vanessa growled, getting right up in the law woman’s face, one hand grabbing and yanking on her braid, untying it slightly, Sheryl’s breathing hushed. Suddenly, the dainty girl snatched Sheryl by the nape of her suit, forcing her to the ground and grabbing something shiny and metal from behind her back, eyes a bright red.

“…And I hate it so much! I hate you!” Vanessa seethed, latching the metal around Sheryl’s neck, before unrolling a chain from the metal collar and forcing it into a nearby wall and yanking Sheryl upwards. Sheryl’s throat jumped as she was chained, and as Vanessa kept on screaming about how she was horrible and how she reminder her of her “cheating prince.” After her tantrum seemed to end, the queen huffed and stomped off, leaving Sheryl alone, chained up, and seemingly abandoned if going by Vanessa’s strange hatred of her. Sheryl slumped over, shivering in the cold and letting her satchel fall to the floor, spilling its limited contents. She originally brought food, but the food seemed to be all gone, and she couldn’t quite see what had fallen out of it in the darkness.

Sheryl looked back at the wall the chain was attached to, and then forcefully pulled, stopping only when she had trouble breathing. She repeated the yanking and pulling, each time with more force and anger, before tripping forward and having to catch herself before she could strangle herself. She heaved as much as the shackle collar would allow, before lying on the wall, slowly slipping down until she was sitting with a thump. No matter how hard or long she pulled, she couldn’t break free, and she was trying with all of her might for a few hours. She was weak, left for dead, and felt hopeless. She hated that queen, that psychopath, and she… wanted to make her regret everything she did.

She was too weak, and Vanessa didn’t seem to be returning anytime soon, so within those hours her heart swelled with hopelessness in her cause. She never believed that she would have to do such a thing, but it was irresistible; she was going to write a will, and a plot of revenge. It seemed ridiculous, and she didn’t even have a pen or piece of paper, but she became bent on the idea. She brushed her frazzled braid out of her face, wiping sweat off of her now red face and looked around, before noticing that things seemed to look brighter than before. She seemed to be able to see clearly in the previously pitch-black hall, and when she looked near where she let her satchel fell, she saw two items; a piece of blank paper and a… feather quill?

She took the quill, thinking of how useless it would be, before accidentally pricking her finger on the tip and seeing a dark blueish-purple substance on her finger; ink. Or at least, she presumed that it was ink; ink was normally black, but this was better than nothing. She took the quill, before picking up the paper and shivering at feeling something wet. She looked at the hand that picked up the paper, and saw more of that “ink” all over her fingers; there was something on the paper? She took the paper again, before turning it over to see the contents of the other side. On the other side of the strange paper seemed to be some kind of contract, with a line for a signature at the bottom.

Due to her nature and her studies, she wouldn’t just jump head-first to signing, and decided to carefully read this strange contract. As she read, she failed to notice that the substance on her fingers was spreading across her skin up her arm, and the ink on her pricked finger grew in her finger veins for an odd tingling that spread through the inside of that arm under her skin.

The rest of the contract seemed to be smeared out with fingerprints, and they were her fingerprints; great, she made the other part vague. She gulped and shuddered, starting to notice the wet feeling that seemed to spread around her body, and the tingling inside her. She looked at the long red line at the bottom for the signature, and she held her breath as she placed her quill on the line to sign her name. It was after she signed that things became even stranger; a few seconds after signing, the black text of the paper changed to a different paragraph, a sort of speech or rant.

That was from her? Before she could observe longer, the paper suddenly vanished, along with the quill. She was left alone again, with more questions than answers, and looked down in a sort of shame. As she looked down, she lurched forward in a sudden pain, falling to her knees and using her hands to keep her head up. She looked at her hands and then jumped back, holding her hands up and whimpering in fear; her hands were covered in that strange ink, with an odd bluish-purple glow, and her fingers merged, making both hands three-fingered. She saw as the ink that spread up her arms soaked through her skin, and felt her organs dissolving painfully, causing her to shriek in pain while stumbling within the range of her chain.

Her arms were assimilated purely into the strange substance, becoming jointless and flexible, and her body began bending in unnatural ways as her body was assimilated. Her breasts melted into her body, and she howled and gagged in pain as her gender changed, before it was assimilated into the ethereal substance as well. The strange, glowing “ink” smeared all over his clothes, as they merged into his body and he drastically grew in size, his head knocking on the ceiling of the hall. As he grew, his shackle split apart and fell to the floor, clattering loudly, before he knocked the scraps away. His body became slim and thin, gaining new rotations from not having any joints. His legs melted and merged together, leaving him with a long, strong, and flexible tail that was indistinguishable from his torso.

His hair unbraided and became even more frazzled in his panic, and as his head became assimilated, his blond hair darkened into a dark black, before becoming the same strange substance and reshaping around his neck as a sort of “collar” or ethereal fur above his shoulders. His head became very round, losing his ears and nose, and his mouth became much large in proportion to his face with two large fangs on the top half. His eyes became much larger and longer, the sclera, pupils, and irises merging into one single color. The inside of his mouth and the color of his eyes began glowing a bright, clashing color of bright yellow, and he seemed to completely lose his normal tongue and teeth. He hissed in pain, before face planting on the ground; he wasn’t quite sure what happened, or who he even was, but whatever happened was obscenely painful.

He slowly lifted his face up, his perpetually open mouth in an irritated frown. He rubbed the side of his head, before he looked at his odd hand, his throat jumping slightly from not quite being used to it. He held out his hand, rotating it to observe it in more detail; what was he, and what caused her- him to become this. He rotated his tube-like body, slithering his body onto his back to see the rest of his form, with the long tail, collared mane, and jointless body. He clasped his hands together, locking the fingers in a way that seemed comfortable to him, before he sighed.

“Ghhhgh… what kind of foolish thing did I do-“

He paused at the sound of his new, male-sounding voice.

“-to become this strange-“

Before he could finish, a small plume of smoke puffed in front of his face, causing him to cough a bit before seeming the floating piece of paper in front of him. He took the contract and brought into closer, reading it more and repeatedly.

“-magical… brilliant being…”

He saw the rest of the original contract that had been smeared up.

As he read this part repeatedly, his head and memory started to become fuzzy, grumbling slightly. He normally doesn’t let the ink get wet enough to let it be smeared, and was incredibly unfortunate for that girl… whatever her name was. Sheryl something… Whatever, they both fulfilled their end of their bargain, and it benefitted both of them either way.

He let go of the contract and waved one hand, causing the paper to vanish in another plume of smoke. He stretched out his long, large body and yawned, before he looked down both ways of the hall. He pondered for a second, his hand to his chin, before grinning and looking down the way to the gate; he remembered her going that way after locking Sheryl up. He shifted again, before floating down the hall in an odd slither with his large size and long body.