Not the longest update, but we finally get to see what The Body did to Shandra...
And what happens when you try to deprive The Flesh of food for too long. @_@
=======================================
Mary woke to the disorienting sensation of recieving two different sets of sensory input, the detatched sensation of impacts and yelling being picked up by her Lair. As her senses cleared, she could hear Shandra in the living room, making unintelligable yelps and snarls like some sort of raving lunatic. Mary lunged out of bed, wondering what on earth was going on. When she came into the living room, she halted in shock, not knowing how to process what she was seeing.
Shandra was thrashing around in a veritable frenzy, reaching, straining towards the kitchen like she was posessed. She was reaching, pulling, the fleshy, looped appendage coming back off her head pulling mightily against the tentacle "leash" that tied her to Mary's lair. Mary could see scratch and maybe even bite marks on the corner of the dividing wall, as Shandra tried desperately to pull herself around it and into the kitchen. Shandra snarled as she whipped back around to the wall of her lair, grabbing her tentacle-leash and pulling on it as hard as she could, yanking on it with her entire body. In the early-morning light coming through her blinds, Shandra looked like some kind of monster, any semblance of control or restraint in her movements obliterated in her feral urgency.
"Shandra!" Mary said, taking a cautious step forward.
Shandra's head whipped around to look at Mary, Shandra diving for her bodily until her leash yanked her head back. Mary jumped back as Shandra reached out to her, practically snarling out her words.
"Hungry!" She gasped, reaching out to Mary. "Please! So hungry..." Shandra lost her footing and slipped to the floor, scrambling back to her feet and lunging for the dividing wall again.
"Shandra, calm down!" Mary said, agog at her struggles.
"Please..." Shandra moaned, looking around the dividing wall. "I- I'm so hungry. Can't stand it! So hungry! You've never been this hungry..."
Mary could see tears in Shandra's eyes and drool streaking the corners of her mouth. She was desperate, wild, and worst of all frightened. Mary snapped the leash loose with a thought, and Shandra dove for the refridgerator, throwing the door open with such force a few of the condiments in the door jumped out of it, clattering to the ground as she grabbed whatever was closest to her, stuffing it in her mouth with the kind of urgency Mary would expect out of someone who had been starving in the desert. Mary watched, awestruck at Shandra's fervor.
It was a good five minutes before Shandra slowed down, and Mary's refridgerator was almost cleaned out- just about everything within arm's reach of the floor where Shandra had fallen was gone, a mess of wrappers and containers pooled around her. Shandra wiped her face on her sleeve, apparently back to her senses now that she'd been fed.
"Are... are you okay?" Mary asked.
Shandra slowly shook her head back and forth, looking like she was drunk or otherwise impaired.
"I..." She started, running her hands over her face one more time. "I've never been so hungry. It was all I could think about, all I could work towards."
Mary frowned. "That's the parasite."
"Did- did you ever-"
"See for yourself," Mary said, pointing to the chewed-away countertop. Shandra just stared, slack-jawed. "Here, lemme help you up," Mary said, reaching a pair of tentacles around Shandra's wrists and hoisting her to her feet. Shandra, apparently still too dazed to resist or complain, just stood there, rubbing her stomach, which was now so Distended it looked like she was attached to a large garbage bag that had been inflated. Mary reached a hand up to comb it through her hair, but paused when she remembered pulling Shandra up with her tentacles. She hadn't thought to make her arms into tentacles. They just did it automatically, as soon as she though "Pull Shandra up" her arms had changed of their own volition. No, that wasn't right, not their own volition- hers. Mary shivered as she realized using the tentacles had seemed the natural thing to do.
Mary's introspection was cut short when Shandra suddenly doubled over, or at least as doubled as her huge stomach allowed, groaning in pain.
"Hnnnng!" She said through gritted teeth, grabbing her stomach. She rocked back, thudding against the dividing wall and sliding down to the floor as another jolt of pain made her moan again. Mary's eyes popped as she saw ripples run across the green flesh of Shandra's belly, like something moving just underneath the surface of a lake.
"Uhhh... Uhnnngghh!" She groad, her hands snapping from the stomach down to her pants, the zipper for which had to be excavated from under her ponderous midsection. She hurriedly scooted out of her pants and underwear, the garments bunching up around her knees.
"Urrr!" She grunted again, before she began taking deep breaths through her mouth, just like she was going into-
"Labor," Mary breathed as the pieces fit in. "You're going into labor."
Either Shandra didn't hear or was too occupied with the turmoil in her abdomen. Mary could see the outline of tentacles buldging against her skin from the outside, as the food she'd eaten was being turned into tentacles at an astonishing rate.
"Ohhh God," she moaned, both hands disappearing beneath her stomach, "Somethings-nnngh- something's coming ouuuut!"
With a wet splash, a literal torrent of tentacles surged out of Shandra, the slimy, worm-like appendages flattening against the floor and pooling, twining together into a patch of lair-floor a few feet from the original. Mary looked at Shandra sympathetically as another contraction birthed more tentacles, the mat of ropey green flesh growing outwards. Shandra's face was contorted as only the emotionally overloaded could manage. Pain, fear, disgust, shame, and- if Mary's own experiences expelling tentacles was any indication- perhaps a bit of pleasure.
"Urrgh! Hrnnngh!" With every push, more and more tentacles flooded out of her, their numbers astonishing Mary.
"Ah, so the meat is well-suited to aiding reporduction. Your counsel was most helpful." Mary heard The Body say. She winced as she recalled what she'd said to The Body to keep her from eating Shandra at Katie's car and sighed. At least she was alive...
"H-h-ho-oh my God..." Shandra whimpered as she rocked back and forth, clutching her stomach, which while now less ponderous still appeared as though she were smuggling a mid-sized beachball under her skin. The torrent of tentacles had slowed, though Mary could see Shandra tensing up occasionally, heralding a lone straggling tentacle joining the growing expanse of her lair.
"Ohmygod... ohmygod..." Shandra repeated, breathing the words out as tears ran down her face. Mary took a tenative step toward Shandra, which caused her to flinch away, curling up into the fetal position as best she could given her stomach.
"Shandra...?" Mary asked, bending over her. "Shandra, are you okay?"
"Wha' didja do ta me?" Shandra whimpered, mouth still pulled tight in a sobbing grimmace.
Mary sighed. "The same thing the parasite did to me," She said, sitting down next to her. Mary reached a hand out to Shandra's head, but she recoiled away at the touch. Mary heard shandra grunt as her knees pressed up against her stomach, followed quickly by the wet slap of another tentackle escaping her body. Shandra sobbed, and Mary reached out again. This time, Shandra didn't tense up at Mary's touch, and she ran her hand along Shandra's bald head, petting her like one would a skittish dog.
""I..." Shandra started, before taking in a long, shuddering breath. "I'm sc-scared."
"I'm here," Mary whispered, petting her head.
"But it's- it's your fault," Shandra said, still hitching breaths, if a bit slower than before.
"I'm still here for you," Mary whispered, continuing her gentle minstrations.
Shandra didn't reply, but Mary saw her shoulders relax a little bit. Mary gently pushed at her lair, a lump of tentacles slowly pushing up to support Shandra's head where she lay. Mary leaned back against the dividing wall herself, closing her eyes. As she was about to go back to sleep, she moved one of her teneacles back around Shandra's braid- tight enough to keep her from fleeing, but long enough to allow her to get to the refridgerator by herself.