The Stupendous Springer

Episode 0: Foundation, Chapter 2

The rest of the evening went by without incident. Sophie and Holly were shaken from their experience, even hours later, but their respective mothers remained none the wiser. Holly's mother, Rita, had asked why they were home so soon, but Sophie had answered that Holly was ahead of schedule anyway, and she wanted to take a bit of a break. Rita had seemed a bit dubious, but had ultimately shrugged and moved on, continuing to make plans with Nicole for their trip to the farmer's market the next morning.

Finishing her song was now far from the front of Sophie's mind, and she and Holly contented themselves to a few duels in their favorite competitive fighting video game. Holly was genuinely more knowledgeable about the game, but Sophie was no slouch in that department, and was often able to read and predict Holly's strategies anyway. They were roughly evenly matched, which led to fierce and enthusiastic competition, at least, for a time. As the night wore on, Sophie began to become lethargic and lose her edge. At the end of one particularly gruesome defeat, this issue was addressed.

"Okay, Soph," Holly began, "I know I'm better at the game, but I'm not that much better. You getting tired?"

Sophie yawned. "I guess so. Maybe that's why you're winning when I'm obviously better than you otherwise."

"You've had a busy day," Holly said pointedly. "Maybe you should turn in early."

Sophie got the hint. Holly was adorable when she worried over her, but Sophie could take care of herself. Still, sleep sounded like a truly fantastic idea. "Maybe I--" Sophie yawned again, "--should. Good night, then."

Some brief good-night wishes later, one from Rita, one to Nicole, and Sophie shed her clothes and slipped into a tank top and a loose pair of shorts. Heaving her tired body across the room, Sophie finally reached her bed, and immediately collapsed onto it, barely even awake to feel the impact before she began softly snoring her way to blissful slumber.

Said slumber was only interrupted when the light entering between the bedroom blinds and the window frame reached a critical point where it was suddenly allowed to pierce through the space between the window and Sophie's eyes. Immediately, Sophie groaned as she was thrust into consciousness from what had apparently been the most comfortable night of sleep she had ever had. Her eyes drifted open, and glancing to the right, she saw her bed, and glancing to the left, she saw her desk. Wait, she thought. I'm on the floor? Was it always this comfortable? Maybe I should try this more often. She could have gone right back to sleep, then and there, but with the sun that high in the sky, it was probably best she got on with her day.

Sophie yawned, shifting in place as she felt her muscles gently protest. As with every morning, her strings had fallen out of tune, and it was time to tune them. Sophie sucked in a deep breath and stretched out, letting oxygen rush to bring her back into sinuous harmony. She felt the carpet slide past her limbs as she tensed, felt her back leave the carpet as she bowed it as far back as it would go. She heard a soft, strange noise, not unlike wet slithering mixed with wood creaking, seemingly emitted from all around her. She felt her right fingers touch the wall behind her bed, felt her left hand touch the wall opposite, and felt her head bump into the wall against which her headboard rested.

None of that made any sense. Confused, Sophie opened her eyes, and gasped. Glancing to her right, she saw her right arm spanning the entire distance under her bed to touch the wall on the other side, and glancing to the left, she saw her left arm performing a similar impossibility to contact the wall behind her desk. Glancing down, she started at the sight of her midsection bowing far beyond the reach of her tank top, and noted that the neckline of said garment was much further away from her face than she remembered. Letting out a small grunt of shock, Sophie pulled her arms in and tried to sit up. The same strange noise returned as she did so. Her midsection pulled taut and yanked her upper body off the floor under the leverage of her legs, and her head shot back toward her shoulders, pressing into them briefly before shooting back out to normal distance as if her neck was a spring, while her arms briefly wriggled like scaleless, Caucasian pythons as they retracted, snapping back to normal length a moment later, with her joints making their reappearance just before her arms finished their restoration. As a cherry on top of this whole experience, cartoonishly vibrant red hair had fallen into her face from the bouncy reseating, as opposed to the rich dark brown she would have expected.