Selkie
“Well, you’re more than welcome to keep it on,” Maria said. “It’d just be a lot easier to walk on your human legs than crawling all the way up here.” She turned around to head back to the rocks. “Whatever. You do you.”
Jasmine laid there perplexed. I have human legs? Where? She did a half roll and looked down at her belly. There were no legs to speak of. Nothing but tubby seal skin. She said take “that” off, but all I have is my skin. Is that..? If Jasmine had anything to take off, whether it was her skin or something else, this body had to have had the muscle memory to do it as always. Don’t think about it. Just do it. Maybe think about taking a shirt off. What came to mind was squirming out of her seal body like coming out of a zipped-up sleeping bag. She was just about to think about how it didn’t make any sense before she started trying. Like a snake shedding its skin, she thought as an inner body began to squirm forth towards the snout, splitting its jaws and crowning it around the hairy top of a human’s head.
Just like that, Jasmine felt the control come back to her human form. She was no longer lying nude on the beach, but inside a tightly wound sack of warm, soft skin. Her vision faded from the seal’s eyes and into the blossoming image of the inner mouth and the sea shore surrounding her. The seal head, now deflated and lifeless, stretched around her head until it was free. Jasmine the human poke out with bugging eyes and long, wild brown hair. “Woah,” was all she had to say as she looked out, not entirely sure what to do next. Realizing there were people watching her, she resumed a casual exit from the seal skin from its mouth. More of her bare body and its pale skin came to light. She came out onto the sand on her belly, those extravagantly long locks of seawater-strained hair coming spilling about her skin until her buttocks were free. Finally, her bare feet came out, and Jasmine was no longer a seal.
Jasmine flipped onto her back and looked at the deflated seal skin laying flat on the beach like an empty balloon. The eye sockets were empty. Hilariously, the tounge was blepped from the lips like a tired dog, but Jasmine wasn’t laughing. “What the fuck is going on?” she said to herself. It took some effort standing up given how long they’d gone without being used. (God, I feel like the Little Mermaid.) She picked the skin up and wondered why it wasn’t like the onesie she had put on as Jared less than an hour ago. How am I supposed to get back into this? Why am I able to get out as a human? Just what the hell am I?
“That’s a lot better,” called Maria from behind her. Jasmine turned around to see Maria waving her over. “Come sit over here. We’re knitting and we could use your help.”
Written by TheGreatJaceyGee on 16 October 2024