A/N: A huge thanks to Darling Summers for beta-ing this chapter :)
Huge world getting smaller
It was a hot summer night and Connie could barely sleep under her thick, heavy duvet. Her body was shapeshifting rapidly, changing shape every five seconds. Her shapeshifting was becoming more unstable than it had been before. Connie could feel Kullervo pushing to the surface, getting stronger. He hadn't succeeded in completely controlling her again- so far. Connie dreaded the moment when he would succeed. It was a very likely possibility, it couldn't be denied. Drastic nightmares of him still formed in her head during every waking hour. And it became harder to sleep at all during the night.
But the nightmares weren't the only problem. Connie was getting weaker every single day. Lately that had been one of her biggest problems. She unconsciously knew that in few day's time she wouldn't be able to fight Kullervo anymore. It caused more pain than ever, bearing in mind that Connie had never until lately experienced such pain and effort needed to shift. Yet still, she was able to keep all this a secret. Connie was scared that people would think she was a monster, especially Col. But she was a monster! There was never a moment of doubt in her head about that.
School didn't help at all. Shirley had transferred to her school, and had created one huge gang of popular people united together. It began to be even harder to keep the anger out when they insulted her, played pranks on her and flirted with Col. And the more she saw Col, the more her heart melted under his gaze, and the more determined Kullervo got. Of course, Connie still had her old friends to support her, but since they didn't know anything about anything it was impossible to expect any help from them.
The society was a dead end too. Gard was back to mentor her, and Connie had the almost impossible job of keeping him as far away as possible from her mind, and the secrets that were held inside it. The Trustees had decided to give her volunteer work to do for two hours every weekend- the volunteer work involved riding around to visit mythical creatures, trying to help them out with their small, at least compared to Connie's, problems. If her lifestyle wasn't busy enough she still had Kullervo on her shoulders. Wouldn't it be so lovely if Kullervo just simply didn't exist?
Suddenly, Connie jolted awake as the sharpest pain she had ever felt exploded inside her ribcage. The intense pain made her want to crawl, cry and nearly scream. But her mind wasn't fast enough to reach her in time, it was still millions of miles away. Before she knew it, she was literally hopping off the walls of her bedroom. Her unnatural shifting body began to shift even wilder and faster, the pain growing to more than just unbearable. Connie felt as if something was leaving, simply exiting her body. When it left her to be, whatever she was doing, stopped - the shifting, the pain, you name it. Her weak and powerless body was growing so weak that all she could do was curl up in the corner. So that's exactly what Connie did.
She looked up slightly to see Evelyn and Mack standing at the entrance of her room, both of them rooted to the spot they were standing in. After what was probably ten minutes, but felt like an hour, Connie slowly started to realize what had just happened, and the most dreaded words came out of her mouth;
"Kullervo's free again."