The Night is Young

"Wow, I had no idea that you would be such a swimmer!" Charlotte said after Kathryn made her third consecutive impressive dive into the crystal clear pool below.

"My neighbor growing up had a pool, I spent entire summers there sometimes," Kathryn explained. "My parents were always gone, they were some big hotshots in the government. Didn't understand it, really."

"I get what you mean," Sara nodded with empathy. "I spent a lot of time with Phoebe—my friend, Turner's sister. She was like the sister I never had sometimes."

Sara wistfully looked back on her times with Phoebe. Would she ever get to see her again? I mean, she was related to Turner, and if she was tied to Turner forever, she'd probably get the chance. But would it be the same? Would she be able to talk to Phoebe as she had before, or would everything change?

"Alright, Sara, your turn," Charlotte announced. "Show us what you got!"

"Oh, I don't know that I should," Sara protested.

"Come on, it's just us three here!" Charlotte continued, convincing her more and more. That was probably the contagious energy that she possessed coming out. "It's not like we're gonna tell everyone if you don't do as well as you hoped!"

"Yeah, come on," Kathryn said, hopping on the bandwagon. "I'm your roommate, we're gonna have to get to know each other eventually."

"Sara! Sara! Sara!" Charlotte began chanting her name.

"Okay! Okay! Fine!" Sara climbed up the ladder. She wasn't afraid of going off the diving board, per se, it was just that the water looked so much more friendly from down on the ground than it did from up here. "Here comes my twisting arm-stand backwards somersault double flip corkscrew! It's a real show-stopper!"

Sara knew what she was saying was pure nonsense, but Kathryn and Charlotte got a kick out of it anyway, the former finally breaking through her cold demeanor to let go and have a good time. Seeing that gave her the confidence to at least give it an attempt. She took a breath, got a running start, and jumped.

Charlotte watched her jump...and it was a complete fail. It was evident that this may have been Sara's first time going off a diving board. At least she didn't do a belly flop, that may have actually killed her.

"Woo! How was it?" Sara asked jokingly as she surfaced. "Was it as epic as I built it up to be?"

"Eh...you might say that," Kathryn said.

"It wasn't bad, honestly," Charlotte added.

"Alright then, how about you give it a try?" Sara challenged, turning to Charlotte.

"Sure thing!" Charlotte accepted.

She stood up again, no longer dangling her legs in the water. She climbed up the ladder, and Sara knew immediately that Charlotte was going to be good at diving. Her form was clean, not that Sara would know, but it appeared to be very refined to her. She took a running leap and flipped not once, but twice, before hitting the surface of the water with a satisfying splash.

"Well, how was that?" Charlotte proudly asked Sara.

"Eh...it was alright," Sara joked.

"What is wrong with me?"

Becca looked in the mirror at herself. Her hazel eyes stared back at her, bags under them signifying that she was exhausted. It had been an eventful day. Going to classes, returning home to find her boyfriend missing, being ****, and then she just had to go and insinuate that Paige should be with Turner.

"Why would I say something like that?"

She was distraught. Not only that, but Paige, no matter she tried to ignore it, she still hated Paige with all of her guts. Hate was a strong word, but in this case, it was very accurate. She cared for Turner, not that Paige would know what that was like, and to see him broken down and disheveled that day was something that nobody should have to experience.

And then she had the gall to tell Paige to get back with him.

There was cold comfort in the knowledge that in an event between Paige and Turner, she would be all apologetic. It wouldn't be like before, where she could just use and **** him. She'd actually have to apologize to him. Kendra made sure of that.

"Ha, and she had the gall to call me a gold digger."

What did that make Paige then? If Becca was as bad as a gold digger, then Paige was surely scum, because Becca was no cheapskate. SHE had been the one to suggest splitting the bill often. SHE paid for dates as much as he did. SHE paid for half of the apartment that they had gotten.

"But why can't I stop myself?"

Ever since she had locked herself in the bathroom, Becca had been unable to get those thoughts out of her head. She kept thinking about setting Turner up with these various girls here. Many of them would be unwilling to do it themselves (Emma was still a little questionable), so she felt it was her job to do this. It wasn't that she derived sexual pleasure from it, per se...

"Not yet, anyways."

Was that Kendra's plan for her? Was she gonna make her into a cuckquean?

"It wouldn't be the worst thing in the world. Then I could derive pleasure from setting him up, and then I could sit in the corner of the room while they're-"

Shut up! Shut up! Becca's mind was at war with itself. She didn't want to think those things, at least until Kendra **** her to. Maybe going outside and taking a stroll would get her mind off of things for a second. It seemed to work in the past.

Becca opened the door to the bathroom quietly, and of course Paige was still in the room, sitting on the bed and reading a book. Did she have no life? Was she not willing to go out and mingle with everybody else out there?

Although, it was a bit stupid to chide Paige for doing that, because she had just been doing the exact same thing, avoiding others by sitting in the bathroom. She had her motives for doing it though!

"Oh, you're finally out," Paige mentioned, breaking the silence in the room, permeated by the soft sound of waves crashing nearby. "You were in there awhile, everything okay?"

Even though Paige tried to sound a bit worried about Becca's well-being, she couldn't pull it off. She wanted to try and be on good terms with her, but it was just so difficult to do so.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Becca shrugged it off. "I'm gonna go out for a walk, see what everyone's doing."

"Cool, see you later then," Paige got back to reading her book. A minute later, the door to the outside opened and shut again, leaving Paige in darkness.

She wanted to patch things up with Becca, she really did. It was just too difficult though...Becca found a way to get on her nerves so often, whether she was trying to or not. Was it because she had won over Turner? That couldn't be all of it, there had to be something deeper with it all.

"Oh well", Paige thought, reverting her attention back to the thriller she was reading. She wasn't able to immerse herself in the world as much now though, her mind kept wandering back to everything else under the sun.

"Shit, maybe Becca had a good idea for once, maybe I should go see what's going on with everyone else," Paige mused. She stuck a bookmark in the spot where she had left off and collected herself to go back outside.

"Anything alcoholic?" Emma asked hopefully.

"You're only twenty, get a hold of yourself," a voice behind her said.

Emma had left the room to explore the grounds. She remembered that there was a little tiki bar area that they had passed on their walk towards the living areas, and she had gone there to grab a drink. Unfortunately, it seemed that her caretaker had followed her.

"Mandy...come on," Emma whined.

"No buts, you need your wits about you tomorrow for the challenge," Mandy indignantly responded. "Do you want to wake up with a killer hangover that makes you unable to compete effectively?"

"But...this place is magic, right?" Emma pointed out. "Surely they have something to cure that."

"As a matter of fact, they do," Mandy said with pride, since she had spent a lot of time reading up on things they had in the shop. "But I'm not sure you'd want to waste your precious BP on something you need after just making a bad decision one night to drink."

"I'm in first!" Emma said. "There are people who need their BP a lot more than I do, like Paige, or heck, you."

That stung Mandy a little, but she powered through. "You can at least wait until after the challenge. Hey, your date with Turner is tomorrow, maybe you can convince him to go drinking with you or something." She knew it was a bad idea to encourage Emma to get drunk with Turner, especially with how wishy-washy she had been with sex, but it was something to help the situation in the moment.

"He would never go for that," Emma pouted. "He'd go on a spiel about how I shouldn't be drinking because it's a bad choice and yadda yadda yadda."

"Well then at least wait until tomorrow," Mandy restated. "I'm not gonna parent you, but just...make good choices, okay?"

"Fine..." Emma relented. "You've taken the fun out of it anyways."

Abigail tossed and turned in her bed. It wasn't that she was unable to get to sleep, she was actually sleeping quite deeply. Her body though, she was moving all over the place. Liam rolled his eyes as he resigned himself to a night of no sleep, at least if she kept moving around like this. The bedframe was creaking louder than if two people were having wild sex on it, and the mattress was moving left and right.

Liam looked through the little catalog that each of them had been given. Anything about sleep in there...?

Nope, no dice.

It was kinda weird that this was Liam's main concern. His body had been changed, molded to fit what Kendra and apparently 45% of the audience wanted, but here he was concerned about getting some sleep in. It made sense though, he wanted to be rested up for the challenge that Kendra had sent to the servant to announce to them. If he wanted to keep himself intact this game, then he couldn't afford to get last place.

His anger mounted, and he softly kicked Abigail's sleeping form. He had meant it to be a lot harder, but hadn't adjusted himself to be more attuned with his new girlish body. Whatever he meant, it didn't seem to have any effect on her, as she kept rolling around.

"Y'know, I might as well just sleep on the ground. Then I'd get some decent sleep, maybe", he thought to himself.

Collecting two pillows from the bed, a few blankets that he had found in his closet, and several decorative pillows that they had promptly thrown off the bed once it was time to sleep, he created a little makeshift bed on the floor nearby the bed, and then his eyes began to close.

Abigail felt herself moving around. She knew she wasn't sitting still, and begged her body to stop doing that, but she couldn't wake up or sit still. She wondered if Liam was gonna be pissed at her in the morning. It would be deserved, Liam seemed rightfully stressed recently, and then not having any good sleep on top of that would just be the cherry on top.

It wasn't like she was dreaming of anything either. Her mind was a complete blank when it came to that. Nothing signified a nightmare of any sort, and her transformations hadn't done anything to her sleep. Speaking of that, she still had yet to see anything come of her transformation. What was it, "The Grass is Always Greener"? Obviously it was trying to hint at the fact that after it happened, Turner was going to find her more attractive then her sister. Abigail didn't really want that, because, because you obviously just don't go after your sister's boyfriend, or even tempt him into going after you.

It still eluded her why she hadn't seen her transformation yet and Liam's was almost immediate. What did Kendra have in mind for her?