"Yo dad, me and Bo are going for ice cream," I yelled out as I tried to get out of the house as smoothly as possible.
"We have ice cream in the freezer, why do you have to go out?" Dad responded, he tends to not be a fan of when we get up to teenage hijinx later at night, and it was already just a little past six, so we were pushing it.
"I'm feeling like cookie dough tonight, we only got vanilla bean and chocolate in the freezer," I responded. I wasn't totally lying, some cookie dough did sound good right now, but my main motivation was to get to the ice cream shop downtown, a place me, Tina and Bo had kind of established as our default meeting place, if not at any of our homes.
"Alright then, just try and get home soon, alright?" Dad begrudgingly agreed to let us go.
"Of course dad, see ya," I promised, leaving the house with Bo and starting my car.
I arrived fairly quickly, being that I rushed out of stress. There wasn't too much traffic, but I was worried as shit about my arm transforming mid-drive into blood again and causing something bad to happen. Tina's car was already there. If I'm being honest, I think I've only ever gotten somewhere before her once, don't remember the occasion, but I know it was for something a bit more laid back. Since then, we've regularly done study sessions together. Not once have I ever arrived before her though. Hell, now that I think about it, she's always been at rehearsal for the Sister Act production before me. She does tend to take punctuality pretty seriously, but it's just now occurred to me how perennially early she always ends up being.
I entered the shop, greeted by the typical shitty air conditioning that my body had basically become adjusted to. Before my arm had a chemical formula jump into it, which, thinking about it even more, was a bit weird. It did bound at my arm, like it was jumping, I don't know how a chemical formula could jump in my arm if it was, in fact, just a formula.
No time to think about that shit though, whatever it is, the only part that's important is that it's a part of me now, and now I gotta learn to deal with it.
Bo and I walked towards the front counter. Not only do we have a defined meeting place, but we also have a specific table that, at this point, may as well be reserved for us to take at any given time, so no worries trying to find Tina. Knowing her, she probably already ordered her shit and got situated.
"Yo man, what's good?" Bo made a beeline straight for Dan, the dude at the front counter. Dan's actually Bo's little sophomore brother, one of the reasons we come to this place even more often now. Bo likes to harass him at work, and from what I've seen, I'm pretty sure Dan gets enjoyment out of the semi-regular ritual of getting Bo to piss off. He's definitely the more responsible brother, since he has a job and more favorable grades, a B+ to each of Bo's C's, but he's usually still a decently fun time.
"Man, I get enough of your bullshit at home, just put in an order or leave," Dan fired back. It was late, so I couldn't tell you if it was just classic deadpan Dan, or just him being tired as all hell.
"Alright, alright man. I'll just get the usual, a-"
"A chocolate dish with Oreos and hot fudge. For someone who prides himself on being a country mile out of pocket I can still read you like a book," Dan interrupted, I guess I can see how being siblings would make Bo easier to read, but he does order one of two ice cream orders religiously, so I don't get how guessing which one is particularly special. Maybe he is just too tired for any sibling interaction tonight at all. I could not imagine myself doing a job this late without just snoozing through it, and getting fired very quickly. Dude's a soldier, I respect it.
"I'll get a vanilla dish, extra cookie dough, and whipped cream," I quickly fired out my order. I could enjoy watching sibling feuding for a longer time usually, especially since the store was pretty much dead, but I have important shit to talk about tonight.
"Alright, total will be-"
"Dude can't you discount us?"
"Bo I know for a fact you aren't that broke."
"Ok but you can discount us right?"
"It's $6.50 you can afford it."
"Yeah but-"
Nope, not doing this tonight.
"I'll cover it," I stopped this argument, pulling out my wallet and grabbing a five dollar bill, and two one dollar bills.
"No change, what am I going to do with 50 cents today, anyway?"
"Thanks, your order'll be out shortly," he simply responded. Weird, normally he'd have some more to say after we get something.
Eh, I'm sure he's fine.
We walked to the back, finding Tina comfortably sat next to our usual window seat, leaning into the table and looking over her phone. We took our seats as she slowly looked up, noticing us.
"Hey, you totally came!" I exclaimed.
"Yes, I totally did come," Cristina confirmed, her voice defined, but soft as usual.
I never really know if I prefer calling her Cristina or just Tina. I kinda dig both for different reasons, just kind of a mood thing I guess.
She continued. "So, what was that thing you wanted to show me?" Cristina asked, putting her phone in her pocket as she looked up at me curiously.
It occurred to me how awkward and potentially freaky this was about to be, it's not everyday you show a girl a magic trick that involves turning one's arm into a literal bloody mess. So I addressed this problem the only way I knew how.
"Before I show you this, I need you to promise me you won't tell anyone about it," I firmly told Cristina.
"Dude, calm down. You sound like you're about to show me something that would crumble the very foundations of the United States," she sarcastically responded. Now that I think about it, waving this thing around in public might not be a good idea. Showing off a mutated arm in an area where anyone could potentially walk in could go wrong.
Eh, it's a tiny local ice cream place. What's the harm here?
"Alright," I responded, putting my arm on the table, as I stopped thinking about my arm, expecting it to bleed out again... only for it to not bleed.
Cristina watched on, confused for the moment. I was too, isn't this the part where my arm turns into a contained stream of blood? I looked up at her. I guess this isn't a bad thing, but it is a little confusing, and now I've summoned Cristina for effectively no reason.
She took notice fairly fast, and was about to say something, probably a traditional sarcastic quip, but thankfully the ice cream cavalry came in to save the day.
"I know you ordered first, but once these two came in I knew that you wouldn't be the only one to be eating at this table, so I took the liberty of making all three of your orders before serving you, sorry for the wait," he said, putting our respective orders on the table in front of us. "Enjoy." He said flatly, slowly beginning to walk away. I was about to thank him when he stopped all of a sudden, his eyes bolted at a spot on the table, as if he wanted to say something but couldn't remember learning english.
I looked back, getting ready to make some sort of crude joke, only to find Cristina in virtually the same appearance of shock, and a dead-eyed focus on the table. It was at that point that I looked down, to find what they were looking at. My arm wasn't a bloody stream, but it wasn't an arm. It was this weird purple blobby shit, like that stuff the chemical compound started off as in the bottle it was in before it ended up in my arm. It was decently stable around where the chemical started and my body ended, but the end of my arm was bubbling, waving, basically doing anything except being a regular arm.
I was trying to figure out what to say, looking up at Dan, quickly distancing himself to the bathroom, before Cristina threw up a little in her mouth. She quickly followed up however, "Wes, what the hell is that?! Are you pranking me with one of your weird gadgets from your dad's lab again or something? It's not funny, this is disgusting!" She exclaimed at me, in horror of what she was looking at. I mean, in all fairness, it was quite odd to look at an arm in the form and color mine was in right now. This was a surprising development to myself as well, but, I tried my best to cover that for her.
"Well, I-, uh, hmm... how do I explain this best," I began, trying to think of how I could try and ease her into the news that a compound that, from the perspective of someone like her or me, shouldn't exist, is now inhabiting my arm.
Unfortunately, Bo was with me.
"Ok so basically this weird ass shapeshifting chemical thing jumped in his arm, and now he's up shit creek and needs emotional support."
Damn you Bo.
"I mean, that's the short and sweet of it I guess." I began, trying to save this. "Dad got this weird chemical from work home today and this guy-" I said looking at Bo, "had me take it out of the bottle it came in, then next thing you know it decides to make my arm the bottle, and now instead of having a remote to control how it changes, it just seems to change at random ass points I can't control," I explained. Though the sentence went without any stopping or stuttering on my end, I did realize about halfway through that second part that we never actually tried doing anything with the remote when the thing entered my arm. Maybe that was a mistake on our end, but we also don't know how the remote works with it, so it also could have been for the better. Oh well, might try and experiment with that later, or not, depends how this goes.
Tina eased her breath, starting to gather herself somehow, before speaking again. "Ok, ok, so you're telling me that a chemical compound entered your arm, and is now transforming in a way you cannot control… because your dumbass went along with Bo?" Tina questioned.
I stopped for a second, before talking again. "Look, we can play the blame game later," I started, not ready to have the typical 'you are responsible for your own actions' shit thrust on me. Like yeah, responsibility and whatever, great. Not right now though because I gotta deal with my arm having no idea whether it's an arm or, at this point, whatever new development might be coming next. "I just want to figure out how in the hell this thing works now, and hell to me if I can figure that fact out on my own."
"Did you ask your dad about it?" She asked.
"No, of course not, why would I?" I replied.
She sighed, looking down and putting her palm on her head in a combination of disappointment and exhaustion. "Nevermind, I just thought... yeah, nevermind. Here, can you just tell me how things happened in order, in detail?" She asked me.
And so I started talking.