Three

Right there before her eyes are long, sharp claws, claws that look like those of a wildcat, claws that can just cut someone open.

"What the fuck?" She shouts, looking at the claws with so much shock and worry. She believes she must be hallucinating, maybe the accident has gotten to her head and she's imagining things. But when she touches the claws, they feel too real to be fake.

"What the hell is happening?" She asks herself in a shout-whisper, wiggling her fingers aggressively in hopes of not seeing the claws again. But they don't leave, they're still there like they're a part of her and they've always been a part of her, which doesn't make any sense because her nails have never been this long and animalistic looking.

A knock on the door makes her jump.

"Jessica! Are you okay?" Her dad asks, which means he must have heard her scream.

"Uh…" She turns around and another surprise hits her. She's looking at herself in the mirror, and she's standing face to face with herself, but with emerald green eyes, not honey brown eyes. She closes her eyes immediately, then she shakes her head vigorously. Then, when she opens them, she sees that they're still there.

What is happening to me?

An influx of emotions run through her, and not to mention the knocking and her father's worried voice.

"I'm fine, Dad!" she shouts, hoping to convince him.

"No, you are not fine! Jessica, please open the door." he knocks again, over and over. He's scared and confused and doesn't know what is happening to his daughter. Jessica can't open the door. All she knows is that she can't let her father see her like this.

He'll be scared of her. Whatever is happening to her, this shouldn't even be normal. Where is all this coming from?

Now she's panicking, but she doesn't do it in a loud way. It's silent. She waves her hands over and over in hopes that the claws will go away. She blinks her eyes vigorously so that the emerald green will disappear. These are not the eyes she grew up with.

What the hell did they do to her in that hospital? She can only ask herself. She was never like this before. And now, when her dad comes into this bathroom, he's going to be looking at a weird monster and not his daughter.

More knocking.

"Jessica, what the hell is going on?"

"Nothing, dad!" she says almost in tears. "I'll be out in a second."

"Jessica? I'm going to break this door down," he threatens. Her father is not usually a violent person. He's a peacemaker, a soothsayer. He doesn't believe in punches, but he does believe in speaking and talking about your feelings.

He's only just threatened to break the door down because he's worried. He almost lost his daughter, and he's not about to lose her again.

Jessica knows that if he sees her this way, he is going to just assume that he did lose his daughter and she's been replaced by a demonic creature.

She paces back and forth, not knowing what to do. She starts crying and asking the universe why she was brought back. She could ask God, but she's not religious. Her mother was, she believed in heaven and hell and all that. But unlike most Nigerian mothers, she never forced Jessica to believe in anything.

She misses her; she wishes she just died, so that she can be with her mother, that's if there's an afterlife. If an afterlife does exist, then she would love to be with her mother and not here looking like some kind of feline creature.

"Jessica, please just open up the door," her dad pleads, and it breaks her heart to hear him sound like that.

She's given up; she doesn't know what to do. She's about to sit on the edge of the tub; she's already frustrated.

"You can do this, Jessica, you can put everything back to normal." She hears a voice say, and she pauses mid-sit, and she looks around, wondering where that voice came from. It can't be her dad because he's still begging her to open the door.

She stands straight, still looking around. She wonders if she imagined that; she must have imagined that.

"Who's that?" she asks, hoping to get a reply, and if she doesn't, then she believes she has gone mad.

"I'm a friend. I'll explain this whole situation later. All you have to do is listen to me, Jessica. I can get you out of this situation if you just listen."

This is all strange and too much for her at the same time. She's hearing voices in her head and she doesn't know where they're coming from. No one is in the bathroom, so how is that possible?

She's going to figure that out later. All she has to do now is listen to the voice. If she were crazy, then the voice would not have told her to calm down; if anything, the voice would have told her to spiral more.

So for her to get this madness sorted out. She walks toward the mirror. She looks at herself almost unrecognisable. Her dark hair was in a ponytail, and her emerald green eyes glowing in the dark.

They're quite beautiful, she thinks. Then she looks at her claws. She's not afraid of claws; she just doesn't want her dad to see them. She wants to keep this to herself.

She looks at the mirror and then she closes her eyes.

"Picture all the things that make you happy, and you'll be fine," the voice says. She doesn't know what the voice is or where it's coming from. A guardian angel sent by God? Her mom?

All she knows is that his voice is deep, mixed with a little pitch, and it calms her brain. Which is one thing she's going to be using to calm herself down. But overall, she thinks of her mother, her sweet, beautiful mother before disaster struck. She thinks of the life she had with her before her mom left her forever.

Her mother was her light at the end of the tunnel and was her peace. When she died, it was like someone stole something from her.

Thinking about her brings her so much peace. It calms her.

She opens her eyes, and it worked. Her eyes aren't green anymore, and when she looks down, the claws are nowhere to be found. She smiles at the mirror and then thanks the voice that calmed her down.

"Thank you," she says, wiping the tears off her eyes.

She remembers that her dad is still begging her to open up the door. She walks toward the door and then opens it up. Her dad is standing there looking like he's about to break down.

"Jessica, are you okay?" he asks.

"Yes, Dad, I'm fine. Don't worry about it," she says. "I was just missing Mom, that's all." She sniffs.

"Oh, sweetheart." he spreads his arms for a hug, and she embraces him without hesitation. All they've had is each other. "I miss her too," he says, then releases her.

"The pizza's here. You must be starving."

Yes, she is.

She follows her dad out of the room and then she looks down at her nails to see if the claws will pop up, but they don't. Her nails are still normal, and it's all thanks to the sexy soothing voice in her head.

But she knows for a fact that she's going to be seeing the claws and the green eyes again.