02:15 The Spiraling Heart - Psychedelic Avatars AWAKE

(Ahh... got carried away. This is longer than I thought. Sorry.)

With the panicked scampering of the once 'giant' bipeds (she didn't know what else to call them), she slowly drooped down to the floor, the weight of a new reality crushing down her back like Atlas' burden.

It was too much new information feeding into her, too much hectic screaming from infused spirits, and not enough of her own mind to compensate, even now while divided into three brains. She twitched, slumped on her shoulders, trying to get a handle on things. She gazed upon a dusty tile floor, where one of her old legs which had now become an arm, rested before her. Fingers. It was different...

-Elsewhere in the San Francisco City Hospital-

Mortuary staffers practically tripped on their feet and tails as they dashed madly for security and for the receptionist to make a hasty call to the police station.

Relating the situation with the look of god struck fear in their eyes, they soon convinced their fellow coworkers to take action. Two of them stayed behind next to the receptionist desk for that floor to catch their breath, while the others continued to run off.

Speaking over her as she relayed the odd sighting to the SFPD, the two mortuary workers looked at each other, as if to confirm what they saw was no simple illusion seen by the other.

"W-what do you suppose that was?", nervously asked one as he panted, a rabbit anthromorph in a stained blue hospital uniform.

His companion, a similarly dressed a bassett hound with a ruddy complexion, sought more to stop his pounding heart, and return only a spooked disconcerted glance.

"That... she... couldn't have been... normal. Too big.", the rabbit rasped, trying to make sense of the situation. "No one is that big. No one."
The hound nodded, sweat dripping down his brow as he listened.
"It was more like some monster... or... do you suppose she's one of those, uh... what did the news call 'em? Psy... psychic... psychadelic adamants? No no, avatars. Psychadelic avatars."

"If that 'thing' was psychadelic, she's more like a bad trip.", said the bassett hound in a mild joke mixed with real sentiment.

The rabbit slowly resumed composure and looked down the hall where he came. Several burly mastiff security guards ran down. "Am I wrong, or did she come out of nowhere? Seriously, this is messed up." His companion could only nod.
"She looked like a spider or something. Ugly as sin. All those legs. Eeegh. (shudder)"

"I think those were arms. I saw hands.", the bassett dumbly commented.

"Well, she'll get what's coming to her."

The bassett hound looked on quietly for several moments, before he uttered quietly, "You know... she didn't really do anything wrong though..." The rabbit just gave him a creeped out glance, to indicate the hound should probably just stop there. To the lagomorph, it was simple rhetoric. There was something very wrong in that room, and these psychadelic avatars, if that's what she was part of, hadn't gotten the best press in his mind. Maybe with good reason.

Then again, panic makes people do rash things.

-Meanwhile, back in the mortuary room-

Candylegs was drowning in excessive thought. The spirits inside were running rampant with hysteria, and she could hear little else. They made it difficult to assert coherence of this new form. In fact, they were starting to move it on their own. She didn't like being pirated. It felt unnatural.

Slowly, her lanky arms drug her over to the metal boxes, and with loose coordination at best, she began opening them not of her own violition.

Box after box was opened, revealing one of the new interred bodies. Her form forced itself up and gazed upon the still flesh. Slowly, the spirits inside began to quiet down.

Just then... several members of the canine security team busted in. And immediately, skidded to a stop. They were expecting something, well... something else. The rabbit had been a bit of an exaggerator in the past. This, however, was something quite beyond the comfort of their ken. Though she seemed distracted, a wayward head pivoted to glance at them. The spider wondered in all honesty what was going on.

"Everyone. Get out. Slowly. Bar the doors. Let the cops handle this.", spoke the leader, speaking through his teeth, not willing to risk an encounter with whatever he was facing. "Out, out."

And so they evacuated nearly as soon as they came in, locking the door from the outside behind them. Candylegs' attentions were soon redirected to the rest of the bodies in the boxes.

Slowly, all the spirits calmed down from hysteria to somber mourning, or so she felt inside of her flesh. The spider knew why, for she had seen this many times before from her tiny web. The ghosts were coming to terms with their state of being. Their death must have occured too suddenly for them to understand what happened.

With their emotional focus on her weakened, the spider made her move and exerted all her will to prop her body upwards from this slumped state.

She tried several times, getting orientation of her many limbs fast, soon rationalizing they were like her old ones in some ways, though the fingers were still very peculiar. Lurched in a forward position, she became still, getting a feel of equilibrium for this new body.

In minutes, outside the hospital, a squadron of three police cars of the SFPD pulled up and several men with badges, soon entered the building...

Zen Dao's psychic beacon pulsed through the city about this time, calling forth the new transcendentals to speak. But Candylegs, remained ignorant.

In the mortuary, she had begun slowly moving, finding it almost as if she had knew how to do this all along, though couldn't explain why. The beacon then passed over her, but she remained none the wiser.

Her body was that of the She-Beast of Old Hyperborea, or so it was written in obscure mythical records for that area. A monster who resisted the best attempts of the mystics who sought to control her, as their magicks and powers were droplets of water on a duck's back. The spider did not know it, but this form made inner psychic interaction impossible. She literally could not hear the detective of San Francisco, for her body nullified the beacon's direct contact on her without any conscious effort on her part. Such a thing could be regarded as a boon, but here, it would prove a curse, for he was someone who might know something more to explain this situation to her. Alas, the spiderwoman was unknowingly left in the dark by her own metaphysical armor.

Several minutes more, as police officers gathered information and made their way downstairs to the morgue, Candylegs stumbled upon a mirror during the course of exercising control of her new body. She had not seen herself since peering into a puddle when she was barely a month old.

She was quietly shocked. Her skin was now a rubbery yellow flesh, not her black chitin. She had several features reminiscent of her old form though, as well as that of a biped. But she remembered how small they were now. Curious...
She looked about, gazing back to the ceiling where her old web was... it seemed so tiny. And then it fully hit her. She had become... like they!

The spider was no longer tiny and weak. This body was enormous even by the standards of the bipeds. Surely, she need not fear them now. Everything that was positive about her old body, remained on this new one, and then some. Although, she noticed a lack of an abdomen and spinnerets, a strange foreign memory overwashed her. Silk, would now come from fingers and gullet. She spat out a small bit to see. It was black like night and just as wonderful to behold.

But why the three heads? What were these meager clothes she had on, resemblant of biped shame? Why so tall? And more importantly, what had occured from the strange flash of light?

She decided to go crawl back over to the wall where the cracks had shone the brilliance through. She felt them with long smooth fingers. So small... she remembered when she could once climb through these cracks and go outside. It was how she got into the morgue in the first place. Surely, she could not hide in the corner now, as much comfort as it would bring-

Just then, about seven officers were let into the room, with a now reinforced team of security dogs waiting in the outside hall with the key to the door. Cautiously, they moved in, one hand on their glocks.

Her heads turns collectively behind her as the officers met sight with the 'monster'. The hospital staff wasn't kidding at all, much to their shock. They didn't know what to make of her. She was too weird looking to pass as them, so only one thought came to mind, on a most basic level. A monster surely stood before them.

"A-ah... ah. TURN AROUND AND GET YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR! NOW!", shouted the lead officer, a heron anthromorph. His comrades raised their pistols at the spiderwoman in suite. They had nothing to go on against her, but she was undeniably very uncomfortable to behold. Not so much she was ugly, but simply a grotesque sight in general.

Candylegs did turn around, and stood up on her awkward human-like legs, bracing herself with one hand against the wall. She gazed down at them with confusion. They were speaking to her, she thought? That was new. But why this demand? The bird biped sounded angry. Did they still think they could squash her with a rolled up section of white newspaper?

Several of the officers paled as she stood up straight, near five times their height. Thoughts of a warm welcoming donut shop entered the mind of one, while another lost his lunch right then and there.

She didn't understand any of this, but his hostile tone was recognizable.

"You hate Us because We are spider?", she asked, literally caught off guard by her own droning voice, not to mention she could speak in the first place. The 3rd person perspective didn't immediately come across her as odd in the mess of it.

A lone officer began to shake. This was all too disturbing. His gun rattled in his hand, as sweat glistened on his fur.

The officers could only stare back. This was a very tense and awkward moment. It was surely going get worse, before it got better.

The room was silent, except for the idle background noises of the officers, hoping the spiderwoman would react in a way to put them at ease... and the eerie echo chitter coming from her throat. She was very alone in the middle of a world and scenario, not of her own making...

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(OOC: I hope it is not too late to try and weave another tale into this tapestry...)

Kasumi Murasaki had always felt a bit out of place. The human blood that mingled with that of her kitsune mother had left her with an exotic appearance, and thus, she'd never quite fit in. In school, in her neighborhood, she'd always been regarded with some distrust and skepticism. The 'half-human', they called her. Thus, she'd found sanctuary in the flights of fancy spun by fantasy writers and animators, of worlds where humans were prominent and not-so-exceptional, mingling with furs on a more equal level. Her interests lead her to drawing as an escape, and she began to fill sketchbooks with short stories and small comics about her own ideas of such worlds, with all sorts of fantastical human and furry characters.

This dreamy and escapist nature, however, meant she did poorly at school. She was a student at one of San Fransisco's universities, but did little to actually pursue a definite career, instead drifting from one major to another, doing passably well in her classes, but never really applying herself. In the end, she lacked discipline and focus. Deep down, she regretted this lack, and craved a will of steel, but never quite lived up to that goal. Instead, she kept working on her stories and characters, infusing them with the qualities she sought. The resolute samurai, the energetic ninja, the spunky soldier, even lighter and sillier characters.

Dressed in her plain and simple clothing, often a colored t-shirt and jeans, she'd carry her backpack loaded with papers and books to the nearby park, and spend hours drawing and writing in the shade of the trees, envisioning these worlds. If only I could be like this... she would think, staring at the images of her characters.

A few days ago, she'd been walking through the park, heading for her preferred spot to rest and create, when a rather crude-looking young coyote-anthro stopped her. His hair was slick, and he had what would probably be a stylish pair of glasses, if she had much comprehension of such a thing. But his leather coat and dark clothes made her nervous, as did his demeanor.

"Hey, you're pretty cute... what say we go someplace for a little drink?" he asked, fondling a strand of her shoulder-length dirty-blonde hair. She shied away from him, her ears twitching. "Just... leave me alone!" she said, stepping back, and then dashing away from him, even as he spat in her direction, swearing. Feeling disgusted with him and herself, she ran to her secluded resting spot, throwing her bag and books down in irritation. I should've just stood up to him... Why do I have to be so weak... she thought morosely, digging out her sketchbook. To take her mind off of the incident, she began to draw, detailing her latest sketch of a proud, strong, samurai warrior. She became so engrossed in her work, she didn't notice the hours passing, as the sun dipped down below the horizon and lights began to illuminate the park, until her stomach finally grabbed her attention.

I didn't realize it was getting so late... she thought to herself, packing her things. Once again... I've demonstrated my lack of discipline. Her homework and assignments were waiting for her, and she'd already fallen behind schedule. Reluctantly, she stood up, picking up her backpack.

When a bright light spilled across the park, engulfing her in its illumination. Reflexively, she looked upwards, but couldn't see what had caused the light. Only a moment after, however, she staggered, as a sudden influx of new sensations swam over her. It was like going from a dim, chill room into the bright sunshine, warmth, light, and energy all spilling across her. She staggered, falling to her knees, covering her eyes, but the flow of energy continued. After a few minutes... she managed to calm herself enough, to realize that it was not light, or heat... but something else. Somehow, she could feel the vitality of the plants and the earth around here, the differences in their strengths and natures defining them. It was as if she was looking at a picture of the same scene, but through some different film -- like an infrared picture shows grass glowing, while air is chill and dark. Dazed, she snapped the branch off of a nearby try, marvelling at how she could feel the change in its life essence. Cut off from the flow of nutrients from the tree, the branch slowly 'cooled', becoming more like the inanimate rocks and dirt around her.

"There she is... that b****," muttered a familiar voice nearby. She turned, and saw the coyote-morph with two companions, one a bulked out canine, the other a lean lizard anthro, whose tongue flickered as he looked over her body. "It seems you're out here all alone, little lamb..." the coyote said, grinning and lifting his glasses. "You seemed rather reluctant before... maybe you'll be more accomodating now?"

"Leave me be."

Kasumi blinked as the words spilled out of her mouth, a wave of confidence and determination flowing through her. Her hands gripped the branch like a sword now, its gentle arc mimicking a katana. She had no idea why she was doing it, or where she had learned the skill to hold it... but she could feel the minds and spirits of the three before her, their intent laid bare and obvious. They were planning to have their way with her, one way or another. A simple, weak, girl like her was no match for their street-wise and toughened bodies.

"Now, is that any way to talk to someone like me?" the coyote said, sauntering forwards. He grinned. "Or do you think you can actually hit me with that twig... half-breed?"

Something seemed to explode within Kasumi's self, and her vision blurred. Only a few moments passed, and she found herself standing over her backpack, panting with exertion, the branch still gripped in her hands, but broken in half. The other half lay near the prone figures of the three who had threatened her. A momentary lance of fear ran through her, but she quickly realized they were still alive... their "auras", for lack of a better word, showed no signs of the chill of death.

Terrified at what had just happened, uncertain of what she was doing, she grabbed her bag and ran, the branch still clutched in her hands until she thought to toss it aside into an alleyway, as she fled to her apartment. To sanctuary.

She didn't get any sleep that night. Instead, she sat in a daze, looking through her comics and stories, trying to make sense of what had happened. New feelings and thoughts flowed through her body. Looking in the mirror, she found even her appearance had changed. Her hair, once dirty blonde, was now long, flowing silver. Even the fur of her ears and her single tail had chagned to match. Only the black tips remained the same.

Over the next few days, she began to piece together what might have happened. The news reports were filled with stories of people gaining supernatural powers. Some had changed in drastic ways. Some were hailed as gods, other as devils. The city seemed to be on the verge of chaos, in trying to deal with these sudden changes.

Kasumi looked at herself in the mirror, tying the long, silvery hair back with one of her favorite ribbons. At least her few friends and classmates thought she'd just tried dying her hair, perhaps to go along with all of these new changes. Certainly there were enough posers going around, pretending to be one of these "avatars". But she could feel in herself, the changes that had happened. It frightened her. And excited her at the same time.

She had to learn more about what was going on.

But she had no way to do so. She wasn't a private investigator or a cop. And she didn't trust the mechanized police force enough to turn to them for any help, much less the government. She'd already gotten enough hassles for being half-human. And her new senses didn't offer much help either. She'd learn to muffle them, so that the presence of crowds would not overwhelm her, but she could not wield them nearly precisely enough to find those who might also be avatars.

Until a signal penetrated through her simple efforts, a voice that resonated through her head as if it were in the same room. It sought one known as Val, the Dancing Yin. She'd heard the name mentioned a few times, which was likely why the voice tried to distinguish itself. It had trained her, it claimed.

He knows of the avatars... and he has the powers of one, to be able to use telepathy... Kasumi thought, stroking the hilt of the wooden bokken she held. She'd had it for years, hoping to in some measure imitate the style of the samurai she admired. Now, in her hands, she could feel the skill to wield it with deadly efficiency. It made her shudder, inwardly, and yet seemed entirely natural. Perhaps he, or this Dancing Yin, will know something that can help me. At least... perhaps they can tell me why this happened.

With a renewed sense of purpose and a definite goal now in her mind, Kasumi sets out to find those who might be able to tell her more about what exactly had happened those few nights ago.

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My eternal thanks to the magnificent Seby...

Though she channels ki,
Kasumi needs no great force
To comfort a friend.
-- haiku by Sophi Naya