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Puppet

You don't know why you were so calm. Maybe it was because your, this body's, whoever's brain was dead? Or maybe it was because you were kind of a zombie now?

But either way, despite being one of two members of a extremely fantastical situation, a "zombie" killing a vampire kind of situation, you didn't trust the gut instinct to just reject everything as a dream. After all, you Died. That was something you knew to be as true with all of your being. It was traumatizing.

So when confronted with an extremely confusing situation, you made another decision. Another action. Manifestation consisted of Thought, Will, and Action. Currently you had the Will and Thought, you wanted, needed, to get somewhere safe to regroup yourself, now you needed Action.

You began to "tug" on your own "strings". Tug after tug, you realized it would take too much effort to stand yourself up as your body couldn't support any action you tried to enact with its spine broken, so balance and any other naturally automatic function was a no-go.

You focused inward with your Mental Interface, and tried to begin shaping the fractures lining your spine, bits and pieces of bone digging into nerves. Sadly, you realized there was apparently a limitation to your power. It couldn't heal injuries or even shape them, for whatever reason, as while you could sense your spine with your Shape-Shifting, you couldn't change it. It was like it wasn't there to begin with when you tried to do anything to it other than look.

Mentally you sighed, now having to fall back on a simpler solution. At the least you were able to watch, amused, whilst you began to pull strings resulting in your limp body getting dragged off the messy bed. Your body looked like a rag doll in a game, pulled by an invisible ****.

It was a bit strange, the way your Shape-Shifting, "Omni-Vision", and your movement ability worked, as all three utilized 360 degrees of vision like you were seeing on a XYZ plane in some 3D Modelling program or something. Though your movement ability utilized it more, as you pushed and pulled your body like you really were generating invisible forces, while Shape-Shifting focused more on letting you see every single layer of your body and then mold it like clay, except with an **** amount more of control and ease.

Huh, "Omni-Vision" is starting to sound a bit... redundant. Well whatever, I'll sort it out later.

Your body landed crumpled on the carpeted floor before unfolding as it was dragged, leaving a trail of turned carpet somewhat lit up by the light from the monitor face down on the floor, leaving the rest of the room dark besides the slight reflection on the window.

It was night-time, and you wondered how much "knowledge" you had of Vampires actually applied as already some of it was disproven. After all you didn't turn your hand into a wooden stake or any sort of sharpened holy object, you just acted with split-decisions and made a pretty sharp blade and you cut through the thing like butter.

But then again, the thing did turn into ash when you probably split open its heart. You thought as you dragged your body through the ashes of your first kill, only to immediately throw your body back when the ashes lit up like wooden shavings lit on fire. Sparks flying at your body like thousands of fireflies.

Curiously, it seemed though there was a limit to the amount of control you had over your body, a limit to an amount of "energy" you could use to exert control that it is. Unfortunately you only found this out when you actually exhausted said "energy", stamina, whatever it was and couldn't throw your body back again. Fortunately, whatever the lit up ashes were trying to do wasn't immediately harming.

Fortunately, whatever the ashes did was actually healing you, returning your vitality and more as your body began to fill out once again with blood, rejuvenated skin, and generally returning your body to peak condition.

Hell, past peak condition as you watched muscle begin to get packed under the fat, bones lengthened, and the sheer amount of energy that filled you left you bloated and twitching to sprint a marathon or something.

When the pile of ashes was finally gone and your body stopped growing, you were left with a body you'd actually say was a 7/10. While your face hadn't changed much, your body had filled out with muscle under the layer of fat, belaying the sheer strength you felt now, became taller, along with your bones becoming thicker, denser, and now with stronger tendons and joints. It reminded you of that statue of Hercules you once saw.

With some tugs of your strings you rose like a classical vampire coming out of its coffin, and you felt satisfied by the lack of effort you had to exert. You opened your eyes and blinked them in surprise when you realized that now that you had working eyes, your 360 degree vision had upgraded to have night-vision, although monochromatic.

Curiously enough, you now had 2 perspectives to look through. The first one being from your new 2 eyes, which left you completely in darkness besides the dim lighting from the face down monitor, while the second one was your 360 degrees of vision which left you with monochromatic night vision. Nifty. You liked nifty things.

Experimentally you took a step forward feeling the effects of your now higher quality body as you felt like you were gliding whilst you walked out the open door to the bedroom into a hallway. To your right there was a bathroom and to your left led the living room and another bedroom.

You walked into the doorway of the other bedroom, creaking of the wooden floor following every step, and looked in to see a shriveled up body.

You paused for a moment in contemplation, then you walked up to the body and raised your right hand again which you had yet to revert to its normal hand form. A swish of your arm and like it glided through nothing but air, the blade led a gash in the chest large enough to stand a pizza box in.

How sharp did I make this thing? You absentmindedly questioned while looking at the blade.

You didn't feel like facing another vampire in the chance that draining a body led to the birth of one. You walked backwards, backtracking while keeping your eyes on the body. Absentmindedly you wondered if you would be looking back on this moment thinking you were either being paranoid or maybe even not cautious enough.

Closing the door and reaching down to rip through one of the hinges so it would make noise when opened, you backed out closing the door with a wretched screeching of metal and walked into the living room.

Wooden floor with a carpet, a leather couch, a coffee table, a coat rack beside a door with a neck-height window, and a wide-screen TV placed on a stand between two hutches filled with books and movie-cases. It was certainly a cozy living room. A nice one at that, at the least nicer than your parent's house's living room.

The house you lived in your whole life.

Well now, this is just another reason to add to why I shouldn't have been such a deadbeat of a son. This whole place looks high quality. I probably could've gotten this if I wasn't so lazy

You walked through it to where it transitioned into a kitchen with tiled flooring. With a question and a method to answer it, you walked up to the fridge. You felt like you should've been feeling apprehension as you decided to find out if you still had a sense of taste because while you could hear, with nothing to hear but the hum of electronics and creaking, and smell the must of drained bodies, you weren't sure if the saliva you tasted was really being tasted.

But you guess being a "zombie" came with the perk of mostly just thinking reasonably. After all, if you couldn't taste, then thats that. You'd have to live with it unless you found something to fix it. Nothing to actually feel bad about.

"Zombie" isn't accurate. Undead fits more, or is at the least vague enough. I'm more of a lich, though I don't have magic, per se. My body is also alive with a beating heart and living tissue so it just might be that my brain had irreversible damage.

After reverting your right hand, you grabbed the handle to the fridge and then pulled the door open. Then you let go to observe the slight warping you left on the metal or plastic handle. Huh, you were definitely stronger.

With light pouring out and your vision becoming going from monochromatic to colored where there was light, you looked into the fridge and saw 3 drawers. Opening one of them you saw bags of sandwich meat and cheese. Grabbing one of meat and cheese you ripped open the thin plastic bags and grabbed a slice from each.

Placing a square of white swiss cheese on top of a slice of what might've been ham and then rolling it all up, you had your moment of truth.

You smiled as you finally experienced a familiar thing. The taste of a cheese and ham wrap. Though not really a wrap since there was no tortilla.

Hmm... as you took bites of the wrap that looked small in your now larger hands, you realized there was now a choice to make. Your parents could no longer take care of you, as loving as they were you were in a completely new body. So, you couldn't just search for them in a completely different body claiming you were the son they were probably grieving over to continue being a deadbeat.

Now, you had a choice to make. Either to continue being a deadbeat, but in this case that would result in you becoming a homeless supernatural being, or you could try to become responsible and get a job to pay for living a whole life.

Wait... shit you were apparently still an idiot. You couldn't just get a job. You don't know who you were, or even what this body looked like before you got drained because you didn't have your 360 degree vision until then, and if you had a bank account or any money you didn't know how to access it.

Shit, well now the decision was taken out of your hands. Hell, you couldn't really squat in this house either because there was a dead body and if people decided to check up on the place there was a dead body and a stranger.

An idea struck. A useless idea that was really unrelated, but you still liked it. You subtly Shape-Shifted and sharpened your jaw line, converting some of your fat to thicken your bones even more while toning out your body a bit, increasing the height of your cheeks, changing the shapes and positioning of your eyes along with the color of your irises, and more cosmetic changes.

Now there was a dead body and a stranger that had a rugged charm to him with jet black curly shoulder-length hair, emerald green eyes, a chiseled jawline and chin with thin lips, a nice thin nose, and high cheekbones.

A house with a dead body and a top-model worthy stranger standing in front of the fridge in nothing but boxer-briefs.

Looking at yourself with your newly titled Omnidirectional Vision, Omni-Vision for short, you looked damn handsome.

Damn handsome, goddamn past-me would--oh shit I look like one of those dudes who hit the damn genetic lottery. Wait...

You smirked as you tweaked your face a bit more to reflect the idea of hitting the genetic lottery. Converting a bit more fat to smooth out your skin, narrow your eyes that you tested out and found your attempts successful as you now had a "smoldering" gaze, square your jaw, and more subtle tweaks.

Then for the grand finale, you smiled widely showing off your perfectly straight white teeth as the front of your boxer-briefs which had already been tight due to your body increasing in size became even tighter as your package became the final puzzle piece to complete the idea of hitting the genetic lottery.

Your body was now 10/10, basically your ideal body, and now you were going to become homeless...

Well it sucked but at the least you look amazing. You chuckled, now a deep smooth rumble from your tweaking, as you realized you had a BBC now. Hell, you were a Black Bull.

In your past life your biological dad died, and he was the one who was black, leaving you pretty mixed with your mother's Hispanic heritage, but while you were light-skinned you hadn't hit the genetic lottery. But now that you were a 10/10 light-skinned with all your tweaking instead of the generous 4.7/10 you were in your past life, you were what you always wanted to be. Supremely Lucky. Somewhat.

That... that realization left you satisfied. It wasn't even interrupted by the beeping of the fridge signalling you had kept it open for too long to which you closed it. Nor by the immediate thoughts of the situation you were in.

Standing in monochromatic darkness in nothing but boxer-briefs that were ripping a bit and a completely new body all alone, you were somehow satisfied

Well, time to prepare for your permanent outing into the world. Hopefully you didn't need to feed on people or something because you didn't want to leave a trail of disappearing people.

First, you opened the fridge again and began eating the bags of lunch meat and cheese along with the vegetables in the lower drawer. You weren't going to be using the fridge so you wanted to eat what you could before you were left with scavenging through garbage cans.

Or stealing from stores. Or mugging people. Huh, you realized you needed to solidify your moral compass. You never had to because you were such a recluse before and didn't have to make decisions unless they were in game. But now, well you were basically at the forefront of 1st world Humanity, a homeless dude thats probably going to be living on the streets.

Hmm, whatever you'll set things straight with yourself after you get set up somewhere.

...Was this body originally white? Wow, that's something I never thought I would ever think. "Thought I would ever think"? Bah, I'm gonna be homeless, there won't be a need for my need for correct grammar... Shit I did it again.

Thick bare footed soles padded against cold concrete along with the sound of constantly rubbing fabric as a particularly large frame barreled down an alleyway. A deep rumbling voice steadily became more and more easily heard as the sound of sirens slowly faded.

"Fucking fuck motherfucker--" A long chain of curses continuing to fall out of his mouth as he struggled to push his arm into the sleeve of a some-what small jacket. Well, small compared to his frame.

It seemed that your mind could still process emotions just as well as they did before, it just had less of a quick-to-anger temper. You found this out when you were interrupted in your preparations by strong knocks on the door with a stern voice stating it was the police that wanted the door open.

At the least you were able to put on pants, a shirt, and grab a hooded canvas jacket before opening and then jumping out a window onto the fire-escape of what you realized was the apartment building. Then you apparently made too much noise as you heard the stern voice yell out about a "runner" before you heard the door get slammed open.

You promptly jumped possibly 4 stories and saved yourself some serious injury by pulling extremely hard on your strings before you landed. Granted, you still felt the pain in your knees, wrists, and the top of your skill from when you attempted to lessen the impact by rolling, but at the least you lost the police.

And hey, you also found another use for your... you were stuck between kinda stealing "3D Maneuvering" and the title, "Puppeteering".

When you conjured up some more energy for a strong pull, you decided on "Puppeteering" as you broke out in a grin whilst trying to keep yourself from eating cement from the sheer amount of **** threatening to destroy your balance. It was to the point you had to shove the ground and tug on your "strings" to regain your upright position.

Thank goodness you might've been somewhat lobotomized by suffocation because otherwise you probably would've been freaking out, dreading, and brooding about your situation.

Now though?

Now you were just enjoying being in the moment. Then with a step you came flying out of the alleyway onto the side-walk where you kept a grip on your hood whilst pulling your strings back.

Stopping in place you looked left and right for anyone that might've seen you defy physics only to break out into a smile when your eyes landed on the overhead bridge with a train beginning to pick up traction with an electronic voice practically whispering instructions at this distance.

Then you checked the pockets of the jacket.

Then your hands came out with nothing.

Then your right hand lost shape as it turned into a formless tendril that waved in the air before curling up out of sight into the sleeve. At a glance and a normal look it would just look like you had lost a hand so it'd be nothing too suspicious.

"Agh fine I'll commit a couple crimes." You muttered, sighing whilst scratching under the hood at your luscious curly locks.

You began walking up to the station's entrance, across the street to the side-walk, past benches and to the glass sliding doors that opened with the soft whir of technology. You simply ignored the looks of interest that slid over you from probably bored citizens that sat on the benches waiting for their bus.

Though you did take care to avoid any concerning splotches or shiny puddles on the tiled floor, unwilling to get your feet wet at public transport.

You walked in front of the little store, your eyes absentmindedly looking over the contents as you ruffled through the pockets of your jacket, the store clerk looking at you with a confusing stare. If you had to say, you might've guessed he looked a bit intimidated, and you weren't sure if it was because your frame was that built with the jacket and pants only helping accentuate that, or it was because you were a presumably, possibly suspicious homeless dude in a city that possibly had a high crime-rate.

Actually, now that you thought about it, you needed to find out where you were.

After all, sure, you lived in Chicago all your life, but did that mean anything when you were an anti-social shut-in? Nope. Hell, you could've been in Detroit or something.

Then you stopped ruffling through your pant pockets when you saw, at an angle your human head wouldn't have been able to see from, a haggard looking suited man walking up to the goat, a blue card in hand. With your hood on. Huh, you were gonna have to figure out the distance before you stopped being able to see through stuff.

Experimentally you whipped at the air in front of your face with your tentacle as fast as you could, ready to bolt if it caught attention. You heard the whistle, but you realized it was too fast for someone to see when the store clerk's eyes didn't change focus in relation to the tendril.

You put on a frown, shaking your head as you began walking away from the store towards the suited man.

Subtly you saw the worker in the office shift his attention to you as you got closer to the suited man. Were you really that suspicious?

In a moment as you walked by after the suited man had swiped his card and opened his gate, your tendril speared through the air, a soft whistle, and curled around the card and pulled it out of the man's grip when he went to put it back in his pocket.

Score.

Your lips curled a smidgen as you walked a couple gates closer to the worker in the office who seemed to relax a bit at the sight of you "doing nothing" but walking past. Though he fully relaxed once you pulled out a similar blue card and swiped your gate open, walking though it legally instead of possibly jumping or climbing over.

He went back to scrolling through his phone and you began walking up the stairs up to the train station's platform, cold polished stone cooling your feet with every step and then you heard the awfully loud racket of speeding tons of metal slowing to a halt. A grey blur with bright windows begins to slow into visibility until a side of the platform is filled with the sounds of shoes clacking and tapping against cement.

A thin mob of people leave the train and quite a number of new people enter it, including you who had to duck your head while walking into the train.

You looked around to see that the car you picked wasn't very filled, in fact only holding about 8 people that were scattered across the seats.

A younger girl with dyed hair, baggy clothing, and glasses scooted into a corner seat that kept stealthily catching glances at you, and inwardly you preened at the attention.

Jeez, am I that starved for positive attention?

An old man with a grey mane hair that grew into a quite immaculately groomed beard reading a rather thick old looking book who you gave off a weird pressure when looked at.

And a pair of mature women seated together talking and laughing like jolly good friends that stood out with how energetic they were in comparison to the rest of the train car. Beautiful scantily clad women who looked like they were coming back from a good night at the club and acting equally ****.

So you would have eye-candy whilst riding off into the metaphorical sunset. Nice.

You decided to just pick an empty seat next to the doors and sit down, leaning against the metal plating that sectioned off the seating from the doors.

You wondered when you should get off as the automated voice finished speaking and the train began to pick up speed.

Author's Note: I don't know if I'm ever going to continue this. It seems that I've gained bad habits when it comes to continuing stories.