Chapter 7
Metamorphosis
Later on in the evening, Meredith started groaning on the pain that was focused on her hands. After a while, it was bugging Lynae and then she knew she had to speak up.
"We get it, your hands hurt, quit being such a baby!" Lynae urged her to stop whining.
"You don't understand, it's starting to burn like last night kind of burn..."
"Did you try putting lotion on it?" Lynae suggested.
"Yeah and it didn't like that..."
"Did you try putting it back in the water?"
"Are you crazy? And get burned worse than I am now?"
"Okay, okay, I don't know. It's nothing like a typical second or third-degree burn. Plus, I doubt burns have hard surfaces like that." Lynae said contemplating on what she should suggest Meredith should do next.
As they were saying this, Amelia came into the room in the middle of their conversation. Then she opened up questioning about what they were arguing about.
"Hey, what's going on?"
"Mere blistered her hands while doing boxing practice." Lynae lied to her what she agreed to go with for Meredith's "condition".
"Let me see, I might be able to help." Amelia offered help for Meredith.
"No, no, I'm fine." Meredith insisted while she pulled her hand away.
"Trust me, I dealt with my brothers' burns when they were playing with fire at times..."
"She's fine, Amelia." Lynae defended Meredith trying to let go of the situation.
"Hey, what are you doing?" Meredith tried jerking her hands back.
Amelia forcefully grabbed Meredith's hands and took off the gloves and bandages from her hands. Amelia took a long look at Meredith's hands and knew exactly that these weren't burns, and that this wasn't a normal condition.
"What on earth?" Amelia's eyes raised once she slipped that statement out of her mouth.
"Amelia, did you get into contact with any water?" Lynae asked her hesitantly.
"No, why does this have to...? Oh no..." Amelia grew worriedly after she thought of what could have happened.
"Mere was washing her hands and this showed up." Lynae said finally telling her the truth.
A little bit of silence later, Meredith grew pale and started to lose consciousness. She then fainted on the bedroom floor. Lynae and Amelia rushed to her side trying to see if they can fix this without calling their parents or an ambulance. Instinctively, Amelia placed her hand on Meredith's forehead.
"Crap, she's burning up."
"We can't exactly put a wet rag on her forehead..." Lynae said knowing what the water did to her sister's hands.
"You're right, she needs to go in the tub." Amelia suggested.
"The tub?!! Are you nuts?! You saw what happened to her hands. Imagine what would happen if we put her whole body in a tub full of water." Lynae said opposing the idea thinking it would make her sister's condition worse.
"Got any better ideas? Your sister is burning and dehydrated." Amelia said seeing that Meredith didn't have anything to drink for a long while.
"Do you think she'll feel anything while in this state?" Lynae said worrying about Meredith if she would suffer anymore.
"Doubt it, but I can't think of any other way without getting you into more trouble." Amelia stated with some certainty.
"Alright, let's get her into the tub." Lynae hesitantly agreed with Amelia's idea.
Amelia and Lynae dragged Meredith to the bathroom grabbing each end of Meredith's body. They placed her in the tub only stripping her down to her underwear and bra.
"Sorry, sis, I hope you can forgive us..." Lynae whispered to Meredith.
"You sound like we're killing her." Amelia commented after hearing Lynae.
"We might be, Amelia." Lynae said in a troubling tone.
"Alright enough, turn the water on cold before I change my mind." Amelia started dishing out commands to Lynae.
"Wouldn't that put her body in shock even more?" Lynae questioned Amelia's suggestion.
"You're right, we don't want to damage her even more, put it at least room temperature." Amelia changed her mind after hearing that from Lynae.
Lynae turned on the water at that temperature. As the water rose to Meredith's neck level, there were scales growing on parts of her legs and torso.
"Oh God...." Lynae said placing her hand over her mouth.
"Wonder how long this will take?" Amelia asked herself this.
"I hope not all night." Lynae shouted.
As time passed, the girls took shifts watching Meredith as she laid helplessly in the tub. They both went downstairs at separate times for numerous of things so that way this would not raise concern with their folks. Six hours went by and Meredith was still in the tub beginning to wake up. Amelia being tired from staying up all night saw that Meredith was coming to finally.
"Lyn, Lyn, wake up. Mere's waking up." Amelia shook Lyn to wake her up.
Lyn shook her head trying to wake up and jumped up as she saw her sister moving little by little.
"Mmmm... L-Lyn?" Meredith tried speaking.
"Hey there, feel any better?" Lyn said in a comforting tone.
"Ergh, my head hurts..."
"That's normal considering you just fainted and were dehydrated." Lyn explained what had happened.
"I was?" Meredith asked.
"Yeah, you were looking a bit rough, but don't worry, we got you taken care of." Amelia attempted to reassure her.
"What do you mean?" Meredith asked while looking around.
Amelia caught on that Meredith was trying to look at her body, but she knew that it would be a bad idea for her to find out now since she just woke up. She then turned Meredith's head away from looking down on her body.
"Now, now, don't fret; all you need to do is relax, don't worry about your surroundings just talk to us, okay?" Amelia tried persuading Meredith to listen to her.
"Mia, let go of me, what is going on?" Meredith shook her head trying to get out of her grasp.
"Just look at us and just us only will you?!" Lynae said in a controlling tone and turned her head again to them.
"Not until you tell me why you won't let me look around where I'm at!" Meredith started struggling with full force.
What next happened Meredith did not see coming. Meredith saw herself in a tub with a mermaid tail and scales on her torso and outer wrists. Her tail consisted of deep green and a bronze mixture just like her eyes. The end of her tail was shaped symmetrically with a smooth curve coming to the middle of the tail. The density of the tail looked like it was strong enough to create a huge splash without trouble.
She was about to scream when Amelia placed her hands on her mouth.
"Okay, I know it looks bad, but look at the bright side, you slept through the transformation which I could imagine being even more painful, and look at it this way, your tail is pretty." Amelia tried calming her down.
"How is this supposed to help?! I have fins! My legs are gone! I'm a fish!" Meredith shouted and started to freak out.
After she spoke those words, the house began to shake violently once Meredith started to freak out about the tail.
"What's going on?" Lynae asked while holding onto something.
"I don't know, I have a tail, and we're having an earthquake!" Meredith continued shouting.
"Alright will you calm down already?!" Amelia ordered her to calm down.
"How!? How can I calm down at a time like this?!"
Amelia placed her hand on her mouth once more to calm her down. It took a while until Meredith's breathing was at an easy pace once more, and then the shaking stopped.
"So, an angry and scared Meredith can make the earth shake. Nice..." Lyn said while catching her breath.
"Not helping, Lyn..." Amelia gritted her teeth at Lyn.
They heard heavy footsteps rushing toward their room. Both of them panicked while Meredith still had Amelia's hand over her mouth. Instinctively, Lynae barricaded the bathroom door in case they tried to barge in. Then there was a knock on the bathroom door alerting the girls. It was Hank speaking through the door after he felt the earthquake.
"Are you girls okay?"
"I'll go settle Dad down." Lyn said rushing to the door trying to calm her dad down after what happened with the earthquake.
"Okay, when Lyn comes back, we're going to take you out of the tub and try to dry you off. I need you to not freak out anymore so we won't have any more earthquakes, okay?" Amelia told Meredith her strategy and what she was planning to do.
"How do you know that will work?" Meredith questioned her plan.
"I don't know, I'm just guessing at this point."
"How do you know I am able to breathe air still?" Meredith questioned some more.
"Your head was above the water this whole time." Amelia stated the obvious while she was out.
"Good point." Meredith said not questioning her anymore.
After Lyn got back calming her dad down, she and Amelia grabbed hold of Meredith and hoisted her down on a towel.
"Okay, we just need to plug in the blow dryer and get some towels." Lynae stated.
"So does this mean you guys will be transforming whenever you touch the water next time?" Meredith asked both of the girls.
"Don't know, but we'll try to prolong that as much as we can before we stink." Amelia said with determination.
"Um, Mia, you might be changing sooner than you think." Lynae pointed out Amelia's hands.
"Why's that?" Amelia questioned her.
"Look at your hands..." Lynae said with wide eyes in concern.
Amelia looked down on her hands as soon as Lynae told her to do so. Her hands were showing the same symptoms as Meredith's but with different colors this time. Her eyes grew wide as she didn't even notice her hands were going through that transformation as well.