The Revelation

Stepping in you let the door swing closed behind you and look around to the faces of your family and the manor’s loyal servant. The room is alive with tingling anticipation with all eyes on you. Even your little sister had set her phone down to attend to the moment at hand.

You clear your throat in a vain attempt to break the tension. “Erm…where’s Grace?”

Grace Minamoto was a member of the Devlin Estate’s only neighboring home. Half Japanese-half English Grace was the only child of the wealthy neighbor couple and your very best friend growing up. Outside of the Devlins she had been the only other kid your age for miles around here in this remote heavily forested area. Smart, funny, loyal, and understanding with your family’s eccentric ways the pair of you had formed quite a bond over the years. You knew she was a busy woman now with school and all, but you had assumed your family would find a way to have here on your birthday.

Your mother raises a finger. “Shhhh. Tonight is for the family. Two more minutes my love. Just wait two more minutes.” Her large green eyes are glued to ticking clock, she couldn’t wait.

“Uhhh, yeah, okay.” You look to your father, a tall slender man of imposing yet dashing features. He stares back at you with hard gray eyes. You could see he wants to say something, to give you a warning perhaps, but is holding back. He strokes his well trimmed salt and pepper beard and waits. “It’s only a couple of minutes, we might as well…”

“Shhhh.” Your mom shushes you and you fall quiet. Man, they were serious about this exact time thing.

The seconds tick by as your heart beats faster in your chest and your anticipation builds to new heights.

You let out a loud gasp as suddenly you are seized by the feeling of the floor dropping out from under you. Your vision dims and a dizzying sense of vertigo overwhelms you nearly causing you to swoon to the floor. You stagger but are able to keep your feet. You grab your head and look up at your father in confusion just as the feeling is waning.

Your dad nods and announces. “It is done. The spell is broken. We may, at last, speak freely with him.” He turns to look at the rest of them. “You may reveal yourselves now.” He looks back to you and says in a low voice. “Remember, an open mind.”

Your grandma steps up beside her son with a kindly smile. “We’re still your family Jacob.”

You tilt your head at them with a befuddled look. What was happening? Still your family? Spell? You felt fine now but what was that feeling that just washed over you?

Just then you hear a voice. Your mother’s voice, but in tone richer and smoother than any human voice. “Jacob.” She croons. “Look at me my child.”

You turn your eyes upon your mom and watch in horror as red headed green eyed woman that had given birth to you transform before your eyes. Starting at the roots her long orange red hair changes into a shade of crimson. You let out a shriek as two thick curled horns sprout from upper edges of her forehead to curve down to either side of her head. Her creamy skin darkens before your eyes into a luscious rose color. Her long nails become sharp claws. Her teeth become more pointed. Her lovely emerald eyes shift to a warm amber that flickered like glowing coals. And from beneath her gown a long sinuous tail slithers forth. Her body is lean and lithe, her large breasts fuller and perfectly shaped. Her beauty is nearly painful to look upon. The creature before you still looked like your mom, but a sultry demonic version of her.

“Wha…!” You stumble back. “Get back!” You look to your father to do something but he remains calm.

“Shhh.” She purrs in a way that tickles the back of your brain. “It’s okay my love. It’s me Jacob, it’s your mom. The real me.”

“Mo-Mom?”

“Yesss. Oh my dear boy, you have no idea how good it is to have you see me at last.”

“Jacob.” The eldest of your siblings, your sister Devany, says in voice as crisp and cool as a midwinter breeze.

You turn your eyes her way and watch another transformation take place. Not nearly as dramatic as your mother’s but equally disturbing. She keeps her long blond hair, she keeps her clear blue eyes, and her elegant statuesque body slims just a little. Her skin pales to that of lustrous moonlight and her canine teeth lengthen and sharpen to fine points. This was no cheesy special effect, your sister Devany is a vampire!

With a very subtle lick of her teeth she whispers so softly you shouldn’t have even heard her. “Hello little brother.”

Seeing your stunned reaction your bully of a big brother Bronwyn lets out a huff of a chortle. “Me next!” He barks as she springs to his feet. Your wide frightened eyes dart his way.

Barely giving you time to focus on him his already hulking form begins to swell and grow taller. Sicking sounds of popping joints and stretching flesh fills the room. His button up shirt fills and starts to rip at the seams. Gray and white fur grows over his body. He tears the shirt open and watch his rippling muscles get bigger before being covered by a layer of the thick fur. Most grotesque is his head transforms into that of a great wolf, snarling fangs and all. His gray eyes, a match your father’s, turn almost white. He throws his head back and lets out a long deafening howl that causes the short hairs at the back of your neck to stand. “RRRROOOOOOOOO-ooooo!”

“Oh be quiet you big oaf!” Devany gripes as she covers her ears.

You had never seen a wolf smile until now. With a growling chuckle he bares his big white teeth and takes a snap in your direction. “What do ya think of me now runt?” He says in bestial grumble.

“Don’t worry.” Your little sister Beatrix peeps. “His bark is worse than his bite.”

Needing to look anywhere else you turn to your chipper, bubbly, goofy little sister hoping for some normalcy, you don’t get it. When your gaze settles on her she gets a great big smile and…POP! All at once, where your cute as a button 19 year old purple haired sister once sat now sits…an entirely purple version of her! Her whole form now the same shade as her short pixie cut hairdo. The shape is familiar but everything else is weird. She looked like a human shaped jello mold. Her whole body was now a nearly transparent wobbly type of jelly or slime or…something. You could actually look through her to the leather chair back behind her. Her once hazel eyes, now a bright candy red, was the only thing not that same shade of purple.

She giggles and hold her right hand out proudly. “Check it out.” Before your eyes her hand turns into a fly swatter then a hammer then a teapot and finally…a dildo? A smattering of laughs goes through the room which she eats up. Whatever this thing is it had the same sense of humor as Trixie. She then points at her gelatinous face. “Check it out.” It was a bit hard to make out but you see her features change to your mother’s then your father’s and then yours! The purple version of your face winks back at you before you hear Trixie giggle once more and her features return to her own. “Pretty cool, eh Jake?”

“C-cool? What is happening?” You lean back into the door to give you support.

“Jacob.” Your 18 year old little brother Lucian, the baby of the family, coos in a strangely soft and feminine sing-song voice. “Ohhhh Jacob.”

You don’t want to, you really don’t want to, but your eyes turn his way regardless.

He hadn’t waited for you to look at him before he made his switch. There, not 6 feet away from you, sits an alternate version of your baby brother Lucian. A bit smaller, a bit softer, a bit more slender, his face certainly more effete, and with a bit more curves on his petite frame. Beneath his fine shirt you could now see small breasts, his stiff dark nipples pressing out against the light fabric. On his head two adorable horns poked out from his hair, his ears were pointed like an elf, he had two short fangs and a tail maybe two feet long came out from around his back to waver back and forth at his side. His red hair had turned a soft pink and his already lovely green eyes had intensified in their shade. And behind those eyes burned a hunger that you could feel right down to your loins. His skin remained the same tone as before. His resemblance to what your mother had become was unmistakable, a lesser femboy version of what she was perhaps.

His plump soft pink lips turn into a flirtatious grin as his hand slowly glides toward the little bulge in his pants. “Mmmm, hiya big bro. When do you want your birthday present?”

“Luci.” Your father’s voice warns.

He titters and bats his eyes innocently, though they remain locked on you with anything but innocence in them.

You had to look away. Focusing on what you thought was an empty spot you realize that the maid Ciara had been standing there just a second ago. A moment later you realize she still is. Floating in mid-air you see a pixie, perhaps five or six inches tall, still wearing a wee little French maid outfit. Besides her sharp pixie features and wings she still looked like the household’s loyal servant…just a lot smaller. Hovering in spot she give you a polite little curtsy. “Master Jacob.” She peeps in a high voice.

You look back to your father and grandmother, never more happy to see their still normal and very human faces looking back at you.

Your father holds his hand out. “I will answer any question you have…but…”

Your mother interrupts him. “There is one more.”

“Wha? Huh? How? What?” You stammer as you look around at the things posing as your family

Your mother’s velvet smooth voice continues despite your confusion. “You have another sibling my love. You have…a twin.”

“Twin?” Your mind couldn’t even deal with what happened to your mother, never mind the rest of it, and now you’re told you have another sibling? You just stare unable to grasp everything that was happening.

“Would you like to meet her?”

This causes a ripple of excitement through the room. “Is she here?” Bron growls in a gruff canine voice.

Your mother smiles knowingly. “She’s here.”

Even your normally stoic father straightens up with anticipation. “Ves?”

All attention turns to the shadows at the back of the room. “Vespera.” Your mother says oh so softly. “Vespera my pet, come out. Come say hello to your twin brother.” She looks back to you and smiles. “She is very shy.”

You just catch your dad wipe a tear from his eye as he reaches out toward a seemingly empty corner of the room and says under his breath. “Let us see you my sweet girl. Please.” His quavering voice begs. “Please.”

The lights flicker and darken and the shadows in the corner dim to the deepest blackness. So dark, impossibly dark, it nearly broke your already struggling mind just to look at it. You then sense more than see movement within the shadows. Black moving within black. Something crawls forth and slithers over the back of the couch your mother sat at. A tentacle. Inky black and seeming to swallow any light that hit it. Another comes up along the arm. And another pokes out the bottom and wraps gently around your mom’s ankle. More spill out at the edges of the shadow sliding up the walls and along the shelves. Your mom pets the appendage at the arm of the sofa. “There’s my girl.”

“She came!” Your big sister Devany whispers, awestruck. “That’s it Ves. Come meet your brother.”

Then, at the very center of the shadows, you see an alabaster pale face appear, as if surfacing through dark oily water. It is a face unlike any you had seen. Perfectly oval, with six glimmering obsidian black eyes in two vertical rows on either side of a narrow nose. A small slit for a mouth seemed to…smile at you. What humanity you can recognize in the creature you see as a girl’s face, a woman’s face to be more precise, a hauntingly beautiful woman of about 21 years old. Time seems to stand still as you look into the alien visage of your twin sister.

Your father moves very slowly with his hands at the ready, seeming to be ready to defend you if need be. “It’s your brother.” He whispers softly. “It’s your brother Jacob.”

Though it had no obvious pupils you could sense the thing they called Vespera kept her attention fixed firmly on you, peering at you and into you.

Trixie chirps loudly, shattering the agonizingly intense moment. “Happy Birthday Ves!”

In the blink of an eye the tentacles withdraw back into the shadows, the face disappears, and the illumination of the room rises back to normal. Everybody turns to your little sister. “Trixie!”

“Sorry!” She says as her purple head sinks all the way down into her shoulders. Her lips moves to the surface between her breasts and she says in her defense. “I was just sayin Happy Birthday.”

The room groans as gripes and banter are lobbed Trixie’s way. These creatures might be monstrous freaks yet the familial chemistry between them was so very familiar.