Chapter Text
Storm clouds. Lightning. That was all she remembered when she woke up on a beach. She remembered nothing else, not even a name. She got up, brushing sand off of her face and looked around. Jungle in one direction, ocean in the other, and nothing but sand and rocks in between them. No other people, not even a wrecked ship. Was that what had happened, a ship wreck? She thought that’s what it was called. Wow, she really couldn’t remember anything. Not her age, not her name, not even what she looked like. She looked around and saw tide pools nearby. Carefully picking her way across the rocks, as she was barefoot, she looked down into the small pool of water.
And a brown-haired little girl looked back. Her hair only went a little past her shoulders and was caked with sand on one side. Her eyes were green and confused. She had on what could have once been referred to as a dress but looked more like a long shirt that had been torn at the bottom. But at least she had clothes, so that was a plus, right?
A sudden growl snapped her out of her thoughts and she whipped her head around, terrified at what could have made that noise. It wasn’t until she heard it again that she realized that the noise was coming from her.
“Hungry,” she muttered to herself. Turning to look at the jungle that dominated the shoreline she thought about her options. She would probably find something to eat in the jungle, some fruit at least. She didn’t know how to fish, so the ocean was out, and she was pretty sure she couldn’t eat sand. So that meant she would have to go into the jungle. The dark, foreboding, probably deadly jungle.
She gulped as she stared into the trees before her stomach growled again. Taking a deep breath, she began to make her way into the brush. She heard more noises as she wandered deeper in: birds, trees and bushes rustling, animals she couldn’t identify. All the while keeping her eyes on the tree tops to try and spot some fruit. The trees just kept getting taller as she moved deeper in, so much so that she didn’t think she could climb up to get any fruit even if she did see some.
Plus, the canopy was making it hard to see, like the sun was setting.
Wait, is it setting? How long have I been out here? When did I wake up, morning or afternoon? Crud, I’m going to be stuck in the middle of a creepy jungle at night, aren’t I? Distracted as she was with her panicked thoughts, she didn’t notice something sticking out of the path in front of her. So, when her foot struck into it, she was understandably surprised, and fell flat on her face.
“Owwww,” she groaned, wincing, frustrated tears forming in her eyes. She turned towards whatever had tripped her. It looked like a dark green tree root, her eyes following to the side to see which tree it came from.
What she found was not a tree but the biggest lizard she had ever seen, which isn’t saying much considering she couldn’t remember past when she woke up but still, it looked like its head was bigger than her whole body. And it was looking directly at her, its tongue darting out like it was licking its lips.
“Uh oh,” she said out loud as all of her frustration and confusion was overwhelmed by shear terror. She turned and sprinted away from it has fast as she could, the reptile giving chase. Its thunderous running drowned out the wind in her ears and the sound of her heart beating out of her chest. She couldn’t even see where she was going, all she knew was she had to get away. She ducked and weaved through branches and bushes to try and lose her pursuer, but he simply plowed straight through. The ground suddenly sloped downwards, and she screamed as she tripped once again, this time tumbling down a hill, hitting bushes and rocks as she fell. Finally rolling to a stop in a clearing she groaned in pain before stopping and listening while still on the ground. She strained her ears trying to hear the lizard’s movement, but she only heard it getting further away. Apparently, it had given up on her.
All at once everything that had happened to her in the last few hours came crashing down on her. Sobs began to pour out of her as she curled in on herself. She couldn’t remember who she was, where she came from, how she ended up on this stupid island, or why any of this had happened. She was tired, hungry, bruised and battered, and had nearly been eaten by a lizard as big as a ship. She lay there for a good few minutes, quietly crying. When she had finally cried herself out shifted so she was sitting up. Her stomach rumbled again as she cast her eyes around the clearing, before something oddly colorful in the fading daylight caught her attention. Just across from her, sitting at the base of a fallen tree was an enormous fruit.
Climbing to her feet, she moved as fast as her tired injured body would allow her and sat on her knees before the fruit. It looked like a big red peach with swirly designs all over it, and two little horn shaped growths on either side of it. She picked it up gingerly, looking around to make sure no more giant or dangerous animals were sneaking up on her. Looking back at the fruit in her hands she took as big a bite as her small jaw would allow.
And it tasted awful.
It honestly tasted like the vilest thing imaginable plus moldy socks. She wanted to spit it out but somehow forced herself to swallow the chunk she had bitten off. She stared at the fruit, trying to figure out how something that looked so appealing could be so disgusting. Throwing the rest of the fruit into the jungle, she nestled in as best she could next to the fallen log as the stars started to appear in the sky, thinking she’d try and get more food in the morning. She tried to fall asleep, to forget the terrible ending to her terrible day.
She woke up the next day sore, hungry and thirsty. Getting up and looking around the, significantly brighter and less frightening, clearing, she tried to remember what it looked like so she could get back. She could hear running water somewhere nearby, so she decided to deal with her thirst before hunger. Moving through the brush a little way from the clearing she found a stream. She made to dip her hands in to drink when she noticed something. The skin on her arms was red.
“What?!” she exclaimed before looking down at her reflection. Sure enough, her tan skin had turned a bright cherry red. Her hair had turned jet black as it hung slightly in her face, a pair of small horns pushing through the strands, her teeth had gotten longer and sharper with fangs poking out of her lips from both her upper and lower jaw. She scrambled away from the water, her breathing getting faster as she stared at her hands. As her panic began to increase, she could only look on in shock as her nails, now black, began to grow, along with the rest of her hand. In fact, her whole body was growing!
“What?!” she screamed again, not really able to think of anything else. Her body didn’t stop growing until she was almost double her original size, which meant she was only a little more than 6 feet tall. She looked back towards the water, seeing that she wasn’t just bigger, but she looked stronger, with bulging muscles and taut skin. Her dress looked more like a shirt on her much larger frame, part of her that wasn’t freaking out was thankful that her underwear hadn’t ripped. Finally, the horns that had previously been peeking out of her hair were now jutting skyward from her forehead.
While she was simultaneously frightened and fascinated by her new appearance, she heard a rumble to her right. A very familiar rumble.
“Please no,” she whimpered, if she could whimper with such a deep voice, as the same lizard from the day before charged through the brush and stared at the newly grown girl. “No no no no no!” she said as she scrambled backwards and the giant lizard advanced. Desperately, she kicked her leg out in an attempt to scare him off. The kick caught the lizard in the chin… and sent him flying backwards. He crashed through several trees before getting back on his feet and skittering off into the jungle.
She stared at the destruction she had caused and then looked back at her foot, barely registering the also clawed nails.
“What happened to me?” she asked quietly.