Pandemic: of Twins and Tails

by Seven Fates

Day 6: Horseplay (Isn't in the Cards)

After having a battery of fresh MRIs done on his head the previous night, Dr. Downey had an explanation for the seizure when he woke up. As if the redundant organs growing in and the second eye growing in each socket weren't enough of a dead giveaway, it was just more evidence of Jacen's body creating more of what wasn't already there. In this case, there was more brain-matter inside his head than should've been. As best as he could determine, something misfired and set off a seizure that was thankfully not too violent.

Of course, that whole explanation came after the discovery of the new ears sitting atop his head that morning. Honestly, he'd been expecting them to come in, but it was still unnerving to see. Much like his tails, he had no real control over their movements—and they were quite expressive—nor could he help but overhear things now. Even with their backs turned to him in the hall, he'd overheard the nurses voicing concerns that everyone in the hospital was gonna be infected by week's end.

It was also quite clear that this process was in part using up a lot of his body mass as fuel for the transformation. On Monday, Dr. Weintraub had estimated that he'd lost about four inches in height. It was closer to five by the time he'd gotten to the hospital. That had only increased over his last two sleeps. He'd gone from being six foot one to four foot eleven. It was just as well that he was stuck in a hospital gown, because none of he clothes would probably fit anymore.

That brought him to now. While was half past one in the afternoon where he was, it was maybe ten thirty in the morning down in Colorado. He'd arranged a video call with his friends last night before bed. Although he'd gleaned from texts over the last few days that despite Sunday night's meltdown, Gage was fine, it did concern him to be told that Peter was now locked down in the apartment with him. If Gage was infected, then surely Pete...

"Hey, Gage, Pete," he said, looking at the video feed of his two friends as the call began. He kept his phone angled just enough that his ears weren't visible. In the meantime, he observed at the two, fighting to remain in frame. To his surprise, he could see blue at the tips of Gage's blonde hair, but otherwise he was still just as he remembered. Peter, on the other hand, looked as though he was currently fighting off the flu as well. "How are you two?"

Peter just stared at him flatly as he pulled a fleece blanket tight around his shoulders and sneezed. "I hate being sick," he grumbled, before jabbing an elbow into his friend's ribs. "Did you seriously break this idiot out of his meltdown by telling him that he was gonna have a magnum horse dong?"

That got a cackle from Gage. "I wouldn't lie about that!" he exclaimed, thumping his fist against his chest. "I may be many things, but a liar isn't one of them."

Although it was amusing to Gage, Jacen wasn't really in a laughing mood; not with the massive headache he'd woken up with. "I hated hearing you like that," he murmured. He winced as he felt both pairs of ears atop his head fold back. "I don't even know where it came from, and I'm pretty sure somepony next door thinks I'm some sort of pervert... not that it matters now, I suppose."

He adjusted the angle of his phone so that the two on the other end of the call could see both pairs of ears. Following a muttered "Holy shit," the camera on the other end tumbled. Evidently, neither was expecting his unusual appearance and Gage had dropped his phone. When they were both back on screen, he could see the shock etched on their faces. That was soon followed by a whispered "I thought he was joking about the tails..."

It was about the reaction he'd expected. After the previous call, he'd not exactly kept his friends up-to-date with his transformation. Any time he'd talked to them via instant message, he tried to avoid the topic of ETS entirely. He wanted to keep his mind off what was happening—to pretend for just a little while longer that he was a normal person. This was the furthest thing from normalcy, though, and he could no longer run from that fact.

He proceeded to explain everything that he'd withheld up until now. How Jinx had resurfaced because of the stress, and how her presence had become more stable over the coming days. That got an alarmed squawk out of them both, given how he almost sounded relieved talking about making peace with her. They'd both known about her of course, as he'd confided in them the first times she appeared in his teens. It struck them as absurd as he'd end up trusting her, but Peter was quick to admit that—assuming she really wasn't malicious and could be trusted to stick around—she could probably do a better job of keeping him company than they could.

After talking about Jinx, he told them the horrifying truth about his transformation... how his body was slowly preparing itself to split. It still scared him to think that there were two hearts in his chest, alongside a second pair of lungs. Even spookier was the idea that he might sprout the extra eyes when his skull widened some more. Then he hammered it in by expressing how he'd had a seizure last night during a tarot reading... that a second brain was growing within his head.

To their credit, neither interrupted him while he spoke. Both looked ill, although with Peter it was hard to tell if that was the flu or if it was disgust at what his best friend was going through. They were too taken aback by the tears forming in Jacen's eyes; was this really the same man who wore a mask of steel to his parents' funeral?

"To be honest guys, the only things keeping me together are fleeting distractions, like this chat, books, or the tarot cards," he whimpered. "It's bad enough that I'm splitting into two different ponies, and I don't even know if either of them is going to be 'me' after all is said and done." It was an awkward movement, but his right hand darted around back to grab the edge of his hospital gown and pulled it around. Lifting it just high enough to show off the right side of his body, he angled the camera to show them what freaked him out the most: both of his nipples now clearly on the right side of his body, closer to the bottom of his rib cage than several days go. "Part of me isn't even gonna be male much longer."

As he let the gown fall back down, his friends both went pale. "Dude, what the fuck," was all Peter could manage. "How exactly did 'wandering nipples' lead you to the conclusion that half of you is gonna be a girl?"

Surprisingly, before Jacen could mention all the research he'd been doing, how he'd been keeping an eye on humans-turning-pony who had been detailing their transformations on Twitter or Tumblr blogs, Gage spoke up. "Stallions don't have nipples, Pete." It was almost funny, in a twisted sort of way, that Gage would be the one to confirm that Jacen was in part becoming female, given his own episode only nights prior. "Mares have teats, but they're hidden between the haunches. If both of his nipples are migrating down his right side, instead of just slowly disappearing like the guys in the blogs, that just confirms it."

Peter leaned away from Gage, seemingly taking a good look at his friend. "I'm scared to ask how you know that," he said in a measured voice. "Were you secretly a furry but never told us? Am I gonna find... weird things if I go poking around your room?"

Finally, Jacen managed a smile. "Wait, he was hiding it?" he joked, shooting his friend a teasing look. Oh he'd seen things the last few times he stayed over, but he was't mean enough to out his friend. "Really, though... remember what his parents were like. They wanted desperately for him to be your stereotypical girly-girl. What's something that the stereotype says girls like?"

Gage nodded. "Horses," he confirmed. "I won't lie, I did like the equestrian summer camp and weekends at my cousin's ranch, but it had nothing to do with being a girl." With a sigh, his friend looked down. It looked like Peter might've been trying to show him something on his phone. "I'm still not happy you got me infected, but I know it wasn't your fault... Regardless of what happens, you're still my friend. I... holy shit."

A message scrolled across the top of Jacen's phone. It appeared to be a link to a Twitter post, followed by a second message a moment later, linking to Tumblr. "Dude, you gotta check this out," Peter exclaimed. "The first photos of completed ETS transformations just leaked online, but what's more, look at the twitter post. Carbondale's outside the emergency area..." In a quieter voice, he whispered, "The Keter has breached containment."

---

Several hours later, Jacen was sitting in bed, staring at his phone. The dinner that the nurse brought him sat untouched. There wasn't anything particularly wrong with the food; it was just that between the near omnipresent headache that had only gotten worse since waking up this morning, the nausea inflicted by both the anti-seizure meds and the ineffectual painkillers he was being dosed with, and the shock at what he'd seen online, he didn't have much of a desire to eat. He was too engrossed with the picture someone had snapped of two fully transformed ponies with an afflicted priest at a church in Carbondale, Colorado.

"Why do you think that one's so different from the others?" Jinx asked beside him. "There were a few unicorn variants in the Tumblr thread, even a shiny one and a batty one. Never any winged unicorns though."

Ever since his call with the others, she'd been surprisingly close. Though he couldn't feel her touch for the most part, he appreciated the simulated contact. It helped with this pathologic need to be around others, if only barely. That said, it almost seemed like her closeness was as much for her benefit as it was his.

"Dunno," he responded, shutting off the screen and putting the phone aside. "I get this weird feeling when I see her and that other one. I can't explain it, but they seem... different." He couldn't be entirely certain, but from the angle of the picture, he thought he could make out some sorts of marks on their hindquarters. The others didn't seem to have those. What did it mean? "At least everypony still seems sapient, even if it's weird how they just accept it."

As he stared up at the ceiling, he tried to picture his new pony body—er, bodies. Based on the pain in his right shoulder and upper back, he imagined the half of him that was determined to come out female would likely be of that nocturnal pegasus variant. It'd match up with the slit-pupil eye... but what of her coat? The ears that had grown in hadn't yet developed any sort of fur, so there was no hint for him there.

Meanwhile, his left side was likely to be male. Since he wasn't feeling any sort of pain specifically in his forehead, not that it was easy to tell with the headache he had, he was probably gonna be one of the variants that didn't have wings or a horn. That would probably make it hard to do anything he enjoyed. The—for lack of a better term—night pony wings at least had a finger, but could he ever play cards again?

"Maybe you should try to divine something with the cards," she suggested, glancing over at the cards stacked beside his pile of books. "Even if we can't remember the question we asked last night, it felt... real."

With a sidelong glance, he felt a fleeting moment of unease. Jinx sounded almost... eager, and he couldn't understand why. What was it about the cards that called to her? "Fine," he said with a hesitant tone. As he grabbed the book and shuffled the deck of cards atop it, he bit his lip. "What are you hoping to find? Why the cards?"

She shook her head. "I don't know how to put it," she murmured. "There's a part of us that feels drawn to the cards... like some promise of knowledge that shouldn't be there. Maybe it's hope. Maybe we just want something to help make sense of this." Once he was finished shuffling, she shrugged. "What I'd like to know is what this pony represents."

Past, present, future, then, he decided, dealiling out the three cards atop his lap and then opened the book at his free side. Three of Swords... Two of Swords... XVII - The Star. All upright. It was rather convenient that two of them were so close in the same suit. No taboo feeling came about as he went about the reading this time, but all that really told him was that he likely wasn't having any sort of seizure like before. "Let's see... If we're listening to what the cards have to say about that mare's past, she's likely hurting or grieving over something in her past... She's facing a difficult decision, but her choice could become a point of hope for the future."

That got a soft chuckle out of Jinx. "You almost sound like an actual soothsayer when you talk like that," she whispered. Despite the smile, her voice sounded... sad, as if she was holding something back. "Now do me."

His eyebrow perked up in suspicion. She knew just as well as he did that this was all just introspective tools. The cards themselves couldn't actually predict anything... yet she seemed fairly sure of herself. What's she trying to lead me to?

Shuffling the cards back into the deck he thought about what the question would be. Even if he didn't need to voice anything, it still helped to have something in mind. Gimme some insight into what's on Jinx's mind, please.

Jinx gave him a sad smile as he set down the first card face up. XX - Judgement, reversed. The words associated with the reversed card were self-doubt, lack of self-awareness, and self loathing. It fit with how she had come into being, having been born of his negative emotions, a little too well. Am I somehow subconsciously picking these cards?

The next card came down. Five of cups, reversed. Acceptance, finding peace, and moving on were what the book associated with the card. This, he found, was harder to divine. It could refer to the fact that she's been able to make peace with him and earn a degree of acceptance from him. Alternatively, she made peace with something else and was ready to move on. She has been acting suspicious since his seizure yesterday.

The final card was set. XXI - The World. It spoke of completion, wholeness, harmony, and fulfilment. There was a sense of finality about the meaning. Had she really found some sort of fulfilment in her time here? Where did completion, harmony, and wholeness come from though?

He frowned as he stared down at the book. It seemed so much easier to derive answers from the cards when he had some sort of context to draw upon. Even what he'd foretold about the Carbondale anomaly felt as though it came from somewhere. Jinx, on the other hand, looked as though she had expected each and every card, almost as if she'd picked each and every one.

"I don't understand," Jacen admitted, casting a sidelong glance at her. "If I didn't know better, I'd accuse you of influencing my shuffle and picking these cards specifically. I couldn't say what you'd get out of it, though, and I can't figure out what you're trying to tell me."

It caught him off guard when Jinx rested her head on his shoulder. "You have to have noticed that—ignoring the part where you're growing an entire second brain, and probably a second head soon, too—ETS is doing something to your mind," she admonished in a tired voice. Was it his imagination, or was she actually a bit less distinct than before? "You haven't had any nicotine cravings when you should be in withdrawal... you're using strange pronouns and you barely even acknowledge it..."

Tears spilt down her cheeks as she looked up to meet his gaze. "It's fixing you, for better or for worse," she explained. She even reached up and touched the middle of his forehead. "Whatever it has planned for you, I don't think a little mental illness is part of it. Even now, I can feel it eating away at me, Jacen. It's time for me to go."

A cold feeling filled his belly. She was going to go away? He'd only just learned to accept her as a part of him, and now she was telling him she was going away... "I don't accept that," he croaked. Forgetting that she didn't have a physical form, he attempted to wrap an arm around her to hug her close. Instead, his limb just passed right through her. "I still need you..." His voice hitched, and he found his eyes growing misty. "I don't want to be alone."

She wrapped him in a hug, flickering in his vision slightly. "You won't be alone," she whispered. "You'll have your other self for company soon... and everypony else, too." She frowned at that intrusion to her own vocabulary before releasing him. "I'm happy for what little time we've had together. Whatever happens next, whatever this does to you, I'm glad we got to make peace."

She got up from the bed and started walking towards the door. "Remember, Jace; the parts of you that created me are still a part of you." Despite her whisper, it sounded as though she were still right beside him. Even as she faded from view as she reached the door, her voice had a happy tone. Before she even reached the threshold of the door, she was gone. "So long as you remember me, I live on in you. Goodbye, Jacen."

Jacen tripped over himself, trying in vain to follow after her. Even as he crumpled to the floor at the foot of the hospital bed, he could feel a dam breaking inside him. It made no sense to cry for Jinx, and yet for some reason her leaving him behind drug to the surface so many feelings he thought buried. There was the emptiness he'd felt learning about the twin that never was, and the sorrow when he found out his his parents' plane went down. Most of all, it hammered home that he was losing his humanity and so many of the things that made him what he was today. All of it was hitting at once, and he was helpless but to take it.

With an anguished cry, he slammed his left fist into the floor beside him, shaking the room with a small tremor. The flooring where his knuckles connected shattered into a spiderweb of broken tile. A small cloud of pulverised concrete and tile hung in the air. It hurt like hell, but the pain was just as cathartic as the crying itself.

The first person to come running was Dr. Weintraub, having been resting in the next room over. She was quickly followed by one of the nurses assigned to watch over him, and Dr. Downey. Although the nurse looked terrified upon seeing the ruined tiling and the dent in the floor, both doctors quickly rushed over and helped him back onto the bed. When Downey called out to the nurse, she snapped out of her stupor and fetched some medical supplies.

"Jacen, what happened?" Tara asked, as Avery and the nurse inspected his hand. He didn't respond, instead falling silent and staring up at the ceiling. Even as tile fragments were plucked from his knuckles with forceps and the wounds disinfected, he simply cried in silence. All she could do was wonder what her patient thought he'd seen in the discarded tarot cards that caused him to break down.

Author's Note:

So ends the short life of Jinx the mental aberration. May she rest in pizza in the depths of Jacen's mind, for as long as it is still his.

For those that have been reading the story so far, I've been toying around with the pony names for the two ponies created from Jacen. At first I've been toying with Prospero Dawn and Jinxi Dusk (yes, in part in honour of Jinx, and that spelling is intentional) for the earth pony and night pony respectively, but Dusk and Dawn seem to be pretty common in names. The idea is that Jinxi inherits the portion of the brain interested in tarot and fortune, whereas Prospero maintains Jacen's 'good luck'.. Thoughts on alternative second names?

Comments

[Gargon94]

I was thinking that Jacen was splitting into a Earth Pony and a Night Pony, so I was right on that. I can't wait to see how the two ponies are like after their transformation.

[singing steel]

"The Keter has breached containment."

well [EXPLATIVE REDACTED] who ever has done this i am putting on keter duty for a week