Polarized

Dreamscape

Skye stood in the shower, shutting her eyes as she rubbed a blob of shampoo into her hair. Like many people who have showered at some point in their lives, she had a recurring yet relatively minor fear of not being alone while washing herself. Even if she was sometimes afraid of reopening her eyes to find a ghost or a monster or some other undesirable being staring her down, she was still able to shampoo her hair without much issue. An incident like that had never happened to her before, so her fear of shower cryptids wasn't too great.

But this time around, Skye could feel a presence. It was a strong presence, much too strong to ignore or write off as a product of her overactive imagination. No, this time it was most certainly real, so real she was almost afraid of opening her eyes to check what was behind it. But she opened her eyes anyway.

Nothing.

Maybe it's outside the shower? Skye thought. Yeah, it must be. She turned off the shower, opened the stall's blue curtains, and checked the bathroom, catching sight of a ghostly figure staring at her from the window with its wide yellow eyes. It was white and gray and appeared to be floating above the ground. A familiar shiver crawled down Skye's spine as she felt her ice aura return to her limbs, ready to shoot out again. Ugh, not the ice...

A layer of ice slid from under Skye's left foot, knocking her off balance. She screamed. Then she put her hand on the wall to stabilize herself, only to cover it with another layer of ice. Her hand slid, and she fell to the floor at what felt like a hundred miles per hour. Breathless and dizzy, she sat on the floor of her now ice-covered shower.

For a long moment, Skye struggled to get up before stepping onto the bathroom floor. She grabbed a towel from the rack, wrapped it around herself, and walked towards the window to take a closer look at the ghostly figure. She heaved a sigh of relief. Upon closer inspection, the "ghost" was revealed to actually have feathers, a beak, and a round pale face. The bird hooted, and Skye laughed. Oh, so it was a snowy owl, she thought. I'm an idiot. Wait... do snowy owls live around here?

The owl grabbed a familiar-looking spiral notebook with its beak and dropped it at Skye's feet, which she picked up. Skye gasped. Oh. My. God. She thought. Did an owl just return my notebook? I could've sworn I left it at the cafe by accident...

Skye thanked the friendly owl and placed her notebook on the sink countertop before taking a tentative step back into her ice-covered shower. She reached for the handle, and the water failed to turn on because the handle was frozen in place. "Ugh!" She shouted. "How long do I have to wait for the shower to unfreeze? I'm cold just standing in here!"

Suddenly a fluffy blanket flew through the window and landed on the bathroom floor. Skye left the shower again to pick up the blanket and examined it. The blanket was revealed to be completely clean upon closer examination, so it didn't look like something that could harm her. I wonder who this belongs to, Skye thought. Did Mom, or Dad, or perhaps Ivan buy it for me before throwing it through the window? It's a strange coincidence that as soon as I said I was cold, this thing dropped in here.

Skye touched the blanket. It was pale gray with dark spots, warm and soft and luxurious. Then she hugged it and wrapped it around herself like a caterpillar in a cocoon. "So... fluffy..." she murmured before falling asleep on the icy cold shower floor. She closed her eyes, and the world faded to black.

***

Skye woke up. She didn't know where she was, let alone how much time had passed. All she knew was that she fell asleep inside her shower stall and woke up on the shore of a beach. The waves lapped at her feet, which for some reason were stuck together. She felt heavier as well, so moving was difficult for her. Skye lifted each of her arms to inspect them, only to realize that they were missing. In place of her arms were two almost-white flippers with gray spots.