Original Prompt: Taylor as an Aragami from God Eater-Burst.

XXX

"Ready?"

The little creature chittered in acknowledgement, squirming and dancing back and forth on the bathroom tile like a puppy. I tossed my handful of nail clippings at it, and it leapt for them, snatching them out of the air with its tendrils and devouring them. I watched it intently for a sign of change, but it looked like the meal was too small to give it any growth.

It chirped again, sounding disappointed at the paltry meal.

"I know, sorry. Maybe... how about this?" I rummaged under the sink, holding up a handful of items for it to examine. After a long moment of serious consideration, it bit into a shampoo bottle, tearing the plastic apart with its jaws. The leftover shampoo still in the bottle frothed up, and the creature ended its meal with a bubble beard.

I laughed and picked it up so it could see itself in the mirror. "Look at you."

The tiny creature stared at its reflection; a bundle of hairlike tendrils wrapped around a six-legged body. It had a thin layer of growth on its blackish skin, more like moss than fur, and I suspected it had been chewing up the grass when I wasn't looking. It blinked, a cluster of red eyes set into its rounded face.

As I held it, its body shook gently and then swelled, gaining a bit of size and weight as it digested the shampoo bottle. After three weeks, it had gone from a clump of my own hair, cut free after Madison stuck gum in it, to an... animal the size of a small cat.

"What are you?" I whispered.

It responded with a quiet chirp, snuggling against my chest, its answer clear. It was mine.

XXX

I was more careful at school now.

Anything that left my body, any bits of me, would become creatures. I'd learned my lesson after an unfortunate shave-session that ended up spawning a bathtub full of tiny, maggot-like worms. My first had come to the rescue, devouring the worms in a matter of seconds and gaining its first growth spurt.

Hair and nails were the biggest hurdle. I had to feed anything to the creature. I'd worried briefly about my period and the horrors that might bring, but I didn't seem to have one anymore. Nor did I have to use the bathroom. I ate and drank, but I never got full.

School was still the biggest threat. The creature had to come with me. It got anxious without me, and the one time I'd left it alone, it had eaten a hole the size of a pizza in the drywall. It huddled in my backpack, and I prayed that it would obey me enough for that.

"Alright, I'll need your essays on contemporary cape culture. Pass them forward." Gladly waved the class into motion.

I dug into my bag. The creature wiggled happily as my fingers touched it, but I pressed it gently to the side, trying to keep it quiet. I found my homework folder and withdrew it. And- and...

"Are you shitting me?" I whispered.

A ragged stub was all the remained of my folder. A few torn pages, just long enough for me to see the title to my essay, ending in a shredded, torn edge.

It had eaten my homework.

Slowly, I put the folder back into my bag. Madison, who sat in front of me, turned to get my essay. She grinned when she saw that I had nothing.

"Didn't even bother, huh?"

"Shut up."

XXX

They cornered me outside after class. Their words washed over me. The same old insults.

Dumb. Stupid. Ugly. Unwanted. Slut. Bitch. Loser.

My hand tightened around my bag strap. The bag shook slightly, the creature reacting to my distress.

"No. Stay," I hissed.

"Talking to yourself now?" Emma chided.

The bag twitched. A thought came to me. A wild, vicious thought. If I opened the bag and let the creature at them, what would happen? It could eat anything.

Anything.

The creature went still inside, tensed, just waiting for me to unleash it.

Emma said something, but I didn't hear. The wave of mocking laughter was enough.

I turned and ran, shoving through the ring of girls. The exit loomed in front of me and I kept going.

XXX

We sat in the basement. I was leaning against a box of Mom's things, her old possessions scattered around me like dead leaves. It had been her that stopped me. Thoughts of what she would think if I let the creature go on Emma and the others.

I raised you better than that, she would say.

And... that wasn't true. I wasn't any better. I was ugly, so ugly on the inside. My hate had eaten me up, burnt away everything about me that Mom would have loved.

Slowly, I raised my backpack. The creature raised its stubby head to watch me.

"Chow down."

It tore the bag from my hand and ripped it to pieces in a matter of seconds. Bits of paper and fabric flew. The creature swallowed up the bag, my homework, pencils, folders, papers, gym clothes, text books... I watched, hands on my knees as it ate my last link to Winslow.

The creature finished the bag and started sniffing out the scraps, getting each one with painstaking care. A stray pen rolled to my feet, and I tossed it back to it. The creature snapped it in two, ink spurting across its many-eyed face like blood. It chewed and swallowed, and that was that.

"We're never going back there," I said.

The creature chittered, its body twitching and growing as it absorbed my bag. It had sprouted a set of small, conical horns around its face, pointing in odd directions. I had a feeling they'd get much larger as it did. Its eyes blinked, and its face shifted, eyes moving aside as another red eye swelled out of its skin. That made seven.

How much could it eat? I wondered. Could it just go on and on, endless, devouring the world like my anger had me?

I picked up the first thing that came to hand. A polaroid, fallen out of one of the album's from Mom's box. Mom and Dad, both young and happy, their arms around as they smiled at the camera.

I held it out to the creature. Stopped. Withdrew it.

"No." It was mine. My memory of Mom. It wasn't right for the creature to eat it.

I folded the picture, the paper crinkling as I creased it. And then I put it in my mouth.

It was easier to chew than I had imagined, and even easier to swallow.

The creature made a happy noise as it saw me eat.

The change came like a heat wave. My whole body shuddered involuntarily, my skin crawling. I exhaled, gasping, my hands clenching and twisting as the change took them.

It came as suddenly as it went, leaving me shaking on the floor.

The creature nuzzled my face, sounding worried.

"I'm... fine," I murmured.

I sat up slowly.

Held up my hands.

They had changed. Not a big thing. But they had changed all the same. Blue, tough skin, had grown over my hands and wrists, spreading in thin, metallic plates like armor. My nails had gone hard and silver, becoming almost clawlike. The back of my left hand boasted a small growth, a hard, cylindrical orange bump.

If I ate more, they would grow. The change would increase.

I knew that for certain now. Something I should have known since the creature first grew from my hair. I wasn't human any longer. There was no hiding this.

No going back now.

I opened the box of Mom's things. It felt... right. It would be my way of remembering her.

I'd swallow up the person named Taylor Hebert and become something new.

"Your name... It's... I'm going to call you Ouroboros," I said to the creature. "That's what we are."

Its eyes lit up and it cocked its head at me. It liked having a name, but more than that, it liked me acknowledging what I was.

I was no different from the creature now. We would eat and eat and eat, until we became something new, something better.

I tugged the first of Mom's things from the box.

"Let's eat."

XXX

A oneshot that I banged out in about 45 minutes. Imagine the creature as a Chibi-Ouroboros, and Taylor's transformation was leading toward Tsukuyomi.