Melancholia

Remnants 4 - Giraffe Girl

She really is a funny girl, that Belle.

She has the head of a human, a length of black human hair behind her head, ears and ossicones of a giraffe, eyes, nose and mouth of a human.

For skin, spotted, dark brown and yellow on her neck and legs, normal on her body and arms. Her neck, long like a giraffe's, though not that long. Her hands and arms, human, legs and feet, or hooves, that of a giraffe, requiring her to wear prosthetic feet to wear shoes properly.

She wasn't always this way though. Before this, she was just an ordinary girl. A normal human girl, as the shortest in her class, she was not satisfied with her height. She always wished to become taller.

One day, she went into her father's lab. Her father had just found a shiny purple stone, and told her that it was magical. He also told her to not touch it, as various side effects could occur.

However, she snuck into her father's lab when he was not around and wanted to take the stone, thinking that it could probably grant her wish to become taller. However, she couldn't find the stone, so she asked her father's colleague.

"Why do you want to see the stone? It's dangerous, you know."

"It's for a report, I've got a show and tell thing."

"Show and tell?" He lowered his glasses. "You? You still have that? No, it's too dangerous."

"Please, can I see it?" she pleaded.

"Alright, fine," he said, "but within this lab only."

"Alright."

So he brought her to it. It was contained in a brass coloured gun, shiny.

"This is it. We have contained it in a gun, a temporal container, very portable."

"Alright then, thanks."

"I'll be off to my meeting now, if anything happens, just find your dad or me in the meeting room."

"Okay!"

Now all alone, she looked at the gun from all angles, picked it up, and examined it carefully. It seemed that there was a button on it labelled, "Activate". Beside it was a knob, twelve segments, each showing a different animal. There were the choices of Human, Fish, Dog, Cat, Bunny, Fox, Giraffe, Lion, Fly, Ladybug, Lizard and Snake.

She thought for a second, "Perhaps, the device could give me the tall characteristic of a giraffe, the dominant tall allele. Finally that boring old Mrs. Constal gives me some useful information." Unfortunately, she didn't really understand the topic, so she blindly tried shooting herself with the ray gun, knob turned to Giraffe, and activated.

A purple beam was ejected from the gun, shooting her as planned. Suddenly, she grew taller, her legs longer and slightly thinner, brown and cream appearing on her legs, her body a bit longer, and her neck, oh, long. With all that extra height, her head quickly ascended to new heights.

Belle was frightened by the sudden change and looked for a mirror. Halfway, she stopped growing taller. In the mirror she found, her neck was covered with fur, brown spots on cream. She touched it with her hands, feeling weird to have the fur. She also found that her head was of a human, but with ossicones and ears of a giraffe.

Suddenly, she felt she was changing more. Her toes turned black and merged together, thumb with index, and the rest together. Hooves they became, she losing balance. Her shoes she couldn't wear, and it took some time for her to get used to walking on hooves. Now her height, 1.8 m, way taller than the other girls, and way different too.

Freaked out by the changes, she went to the meeting room and called her father. Her father immediately rushed out to see her. He was horrified, yet amazed by the results.

"Umm... Father..."

"Yes, darling?"

"Is there any reverse button?"

"Yes, let me set the gun to Human, and shoot it at you."

A purple beam flashed out of the gun, directly aimed at Belle. However, she felt no changes.

"What's wrong?" asked Belle, seeing her father distressed.

"It's not working..."

"You have it on Human, right?"

"Yeah. Everything should be working fine."

He shot her another beam. It still didn't work.

"You know what, I'll work on this thing first, analyse first, and try to fix you. In the meantime, you have to get used to be an anthropomorphic giraffe."

"Okay, dad."

So that day, her father created prosthetic human feet that could be interlinked with her hooves, allowing her to wear shoes. Her head, was not coverable, however. At school, she was admired by her peers, for her height, and her uniqueness.

And they all said, "She really is a funny girl, that Belle."