It’s Just a Game

It was a slow and boring day at Gamestop.

Jeremy Wilson had cleaned the counters twice, re-organized the Funko POP! figurine section, and was thinking about taking his meal break when he suddenly heard the electronic beeping sound of the door opening. He turned to see who had just entered the store and immediately felt his heart flip in his chest, a smile spreading over his face, and he realized he was going to be putting off his meal for as long as it took to help the woman who had just walked through the door until she was as happy as a clam.

The woman who had entered was named Melonie Merrin, and she was Jeremy’s favorite customer for… well.. a LOT of reasons. At 24 years-old (just two years older than Jeremy, who was finishing his senior year of college) Melonie was a breathtakingly beautiful young woman with a warm smile that could melt the heart of a serial killer, and eyes so blue and beautiful that it made Jeremy finally understand the saying “the eyes are the window into the soul”. But despite her striking appearance, she always managed to make Jeremy laugh his ass off whenever they had their long, drawn-out conversations about game and movie recommendations, which they always did. Melonie was tall and willowy, standing at 5’8” with a thin but incredibly well-defined body due to years of yoga, a kind, easy smile of perfectly straight, white teeth, naturally red, full lips, and an adorable, perfectly rounded button-nose that turned up ever so slightly at the end, which looked like it belonged to a fairy-tale character.

But Melonie’s most striking feature, which Jeremy had fantasized getting his hands on for hours upon hours in his own private daydreams, was her incredible hair. Thick, luscious, silky, and shiny, Melonie’s hair spilled down her back in beautiful, straight fall of rich, deep-brown tresses, which reached all the way to just above her knees, and danced and swirled around her like a living waterfall of soft, billowing silk, possessing the hue and warmth of rich, melted chocolate. Today she was wearing a sky-blue cropped athletic top that matched her eyes, with her incredible, toned midsection underneath the bottom of it, and a matching pair of skintight leggings that showed off every curve of here perfect legs and butt. She was holding a copy of “Bloodborne” in her hand, and as Jeremy looked over at her she held the game up next to her face, which was sporting a sardonic smile.

“Uh oh,” Jeremy said with a smile of his own, he had been the one to recommend the game to her last week, with the promise that she could bring it back if she didn’t care for it and he’d handle it, “didn’t like it?”

“Like it? I fucking LOVE it,” Melonie said as she made her way to the counter, her hair was long and loose today and softly swishing around her like a fluttering blanket of silk, Jeremy loved seeing it this way, “YOU just gave me a bad copy is all, and it keeps crashing at the Nightmare of Mensis. So fix it buddy boy.”

“Well you have good timing,” Jeremy said as he took the game from a smiling Melonie and opened the case, sure enough, there were visible blemishes on the back of the disc, “I was about to head out to lunch.”

“Then I guess it’s a good thing my yoga class got cancelled,” Melonie said as she gripped her elbows and leaned over the counter, giving Jeremy a perfect view of her boobs down her shirt that he had to fight tooth and nail to divert his eyes from, “otherwise I would have missed you.”

“Ahhhhhh… I was wondering why you weren’t sweaty and your hair was down,” Jeremy said as he opened the drawer of games and pulled out another disc in better condition, “besides, I already told the other workers about this, they know I guaranteed the game for you, you could have just gotten it from them.”

“I don’t come to see THEM you dork, I come to see YOU,” Melonie said, and Jeremy felt his heart flutter, “you’re the only one here I like.”

“Well thanks for that,” Jeremy said as he turned back towards her with a new disc in his hand, “to be honest you’re probably the only customer I like as well.”

“Then I’m glad the feeling is mutual,” Melonie said with a giggle, “so… while you take care of that, what movie would you recommend for me this time?”

“Oh, I’ve got quite a few,” Jeremy said as he stopped working on the exchange, “what type of movie are you in the mood for?”

 

“So then what do you think is the best film ending of all time?” Melonie asked Jeremy.

“Personally? I think it would have to be Se7en,” Jeremy said after considering for a moment, “the box at the end? Gives me goosebumps every time.”

“Really? I still have to see Se7en,” Melonie said as she twirled one of her impossibly long, silky locks of hair around her finger.

“YOU HAVEN’T SEEN SE7EN?!?” Jeremy said in disbelief, “this is shocking… absolutely shocking! Do you know the twist at the end?”

“Nope, hasn’t been spoiled yet,” Melonie said, still twirling her long lock around her finger, “but some obnoxious dude at the video game store said it was the best ending ever.”

“He sounds smart,” Jeremy said, and Melonie laughed, “OK, first thing you gotta do… buy and watch Se7en, do it tonight. That’s an order. And then, once you…”

But he didn’t finish, as suddenly a tall, beautiful young goth woman entered the store from the back door and made her way towards the counter. She was tall at 5’9”, even taller than Melonie, with pale porcelain skin, deep blue eyes that were so dark they were almost black, and sleek, platinum-blond hair that fell just past her butt with blue streaks woven in and thin, wispy bangs. She was wearing tiny black leather shorts with fishnet stockings and a black leather corset that her boobs were almost falling out of, and Melonie recognized her as Amy, the new manager of the store, and always felt a low-key hostility from her whenever they talked.

“Jeremy, weren’t you supposed to take your meal break like half an hour ago?” Amy said as she made her way to the counter without even looking at either of them.

“What? No, I’m supposed to go at…” but Jeremy was shocked to look down at his watch and realize he had been talking to Melonie for 35 minutes, “oh geez, sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Amy said, a smile appearing on her face, “just head out now and I’ll finish with your customer.”

“OK, thanks Amy,” Jeremy said, then turned to Melonie, “if you have any issues with the new disc, let me know, OK?”

“Thanks Jeremy, I really appreciate it,” Melonie said, flashing him one of her warm, kind smiles, “it was really good seeing you.”

“Off you go Jeremy,” Amy said as she took his spot at the register and began typing in the transaction. Jeremy obliged, and headed towards the back room while Amy turned and finally addressed Melonie, “so… you’re the one Jeremy let us know might be bringing this back?”

“Yes, but only because it didn’t work,” Melonie said, not at all liking the smile on Amy’s face, “I love the game, he was absolutely right about it.”

“Well that’s good to know,” Amy said with the air of a woman who couldn’t care less what she thought about the game. As Melonie watched, Amy opened the case and examined the disc with her finger.

“Oh, you don’t have to check that,” Melonie said as Amy continued to trace the disc with her finger, “Jeremy already made sure it was in good condition.”

“Well, we can’t be too careful now, can we?” Amy said with another one of those small smiles as her finger continued to circle the disc, for a split-second Melonie swore she saw something like a spark or bright light flash between her finger and the disc, but when she looked down it was gone, “wouldn’t want you to have to come aaaaaaall the way back here again, would we?”

“Um… thanks,” Melonie said as she took the game, “but it’s not that big a deal, my yoga studio is right next door.”

“Have a great day,” Amy said quickly, as if she didn’t even hear her, a strange smile spreading over her face, “and remember, there’s a recent update to the game that just came out. It deals with the new death system in the game.”

“Really?” Melonie asked curiously, “how does it work?”

“Oh, it’s um… it’s called the percentage system,” Amy said, her odd smile still there, “basically when you die now, you don’t lose ALL your blood echoes at once, you only lose a percentage of them. The first time you die, you only lose 1% of them, the second time you die you lose 5%, the next time it’s 10%, then 25%, and if you die a fifth time, you lose 100% of them, then the blood echo system resets.”

“Interesting,” Melonie said as she looked down at the game, “weird way to do it.”

“Yeah, weird,” Amy said, her voice distant and strange, “well, enjoy.”

“Thank you,” Melonie said as she left the shop, a strange, uneasy feeling flooding into her as she reached up and nervously began twirling a lock of her hair around her finger lovingly.

 

Amy watched the girl that Jeremy was head-over-heels for walk out of the store, her shiny brown hair bouncing and swishing behind her like a long cloak of living silk, swaying and dancing with each step, nearly falling to her knees, and glistening in the store lights. As soon as the door shut though the smile vanished off of her face, replaced with a sneer of disgust.

It had been over four months since this Melonie woman had been coming to her store, clearly taking advantage of Jeremy’s kindness and feelings for her, always accepting his offers of family discounts, or free trials, or in this last case, a “personal guarantee that she would love the game”. She would always thank him with a smile, or a flick of that admittedly incredible hair of hers, always making him feel like he actually had a chance with her. It made Amy sick to see girls like that, especially after she had been bullied by them most of her life growing up.

But after a moment, that scowl gave way to an evil grin as she chuckled to herself. Yeah, she had been bullied, but that had led her down the path that she now took, one of great power… and great opportunities for revenge, one of which she was about to come to fruition very VERY soon. Yes, this girl Melonie would play her new Bloodborne game… and she would love it… for a while. But with a game as difficult as a Soulsborne game such as Bloodborne it wouldn’t be long before the curse she had placed on it began to take its toll on her each time her character was killed.

There was indeed a new “update” for the game, but not one that was put out by Sony or Japan Studios. This one was a personal touch that Amy had put on the game, one that she couldn’t wait until it took effect. The curse did indeed follow the 1-5-10-25-100% outline that Amy had explained, but it wasn’t Blood Echoes that she would lose with each death. Oh no… with each death she would lose something MUCH more important than an in-game currency.

Her hair.

 

Melonie got back to her apartment, made herself dinner, then poured a glass of wine and sat on her couch to figure out what to do for the night. She sipped at her wine as she brushed her long, silky hair to relax herself, the bristles of the brush sliding smoothly and quietly through her long brown hair, the soft whisper of silk as they slid through those tresses relaxing her in a way that nothing else in the world could. She smiled as she shut her eyes, and lost herself to the brushing.

Melonie loved her hair, loved brushing it, loved playing with it, loved styling it, just flat out loved it. Ever since she decided to start growing it as long as she could at age 10 she had been in love with the idea of having long, beautiful, Lady Godiva hair for the rest of her life, spending a fortune through her lifetime to make it as healthy and silky as she could, taking any and all advice she could find, and making an assortment of custom hair oils and tonics for herself that ranged from utilitarian to downright bizarre until she found the mix that seemed to give her the most beautiful hair she could imagine. As she had started high school and her hair already fell to her hips, she had decided that “as long as she could” was maybe a task better left to people with more time on their hands, so she had decided that she would settle for keeping it somewhere between her feet and her butt, with the length determined by however she felt.

By the time had Melonie graduated high school her hair had fallen to her knees, and she continued to grow it out as she started college. She absolutely loved the long walks to classes, letting her hair blow in the breeze and fall around her like a hair model, drawing many, many, MANY stares from college guys who wanted to sink their hands in that hair, or their girlfriends who just flat out WANTED that hair. By the time she ended her sophomore year her hair had hung to the middle of her calves at 60 inches, the longest it had ever been, but she had decided enough was enough and chopped off and donated a whopping 24 inches to a cancer charity, bringing it all the way to the middle of her butt at 36 inches, the shortest it had been since before high school.

Even though her hair was still longer than the vast majority of girls on-campus, Melonie had immediately regretted this decision, and had decided to get back to work at growing out that magnificent mane to its former glory. By the time she had graduated her hair was once again hanging to the middle of her thighs, and she had kept it between that length and her knees ever since. Currently her hair was hanging at the bottom of her thighs, right above her knees and clocking in at an incredible 54 inches or rich, soft, shining silk. It was her pride and joy, her favorite possession, her security blanket… and even at her most stressed, just a few moments of running her fingers or a brush through her hair always calmed her down and made her feel blessed to have such incredible hair. It was softer than silk, a reassuring weight that surrounded her whenever she walked, and filled her with personal confidence, and she loved every strand.

Melonie brushed her hair for nearly 30 minutes as she unwound from her long day and decided on what to do tonight. It was a quiet “night-in and chill” sort of evening, and a little while later she had narrowed her choices down to watching Se7en on Jeremy’s advice, or inserting the Bloodborne disc into her console and continue playing a game she was almost 10 years late on playing. In the end she decided on playing Bloodborne some more, so she drained her glass, grabbed her controller, and started up her Playstation.

As she started the game she saw the user agreement that Amy had been talking about pop up, and barely had time to see the numbers “1-5-10-25-100” before clicking accept, but as she hit X to do so she realized that there had been something strange about the notification, some strange, misty effect surrounding it that she had never seen before, but she just shrugged and started the game, reaching up and gathering all of her long, beautiful hair behind her to spill down her back as she played. As she leaned back against the back of her chair she felt all of her long, silky brown hair pooling around her, surrounding her like a sea of melted chocolate, glistening in the dim lights as she hit “continue game”.

The game booted up in the Hunter’s Dream, the rest area she had left off in the last time she had played. She upgraded her weapons and was about to enter back into the Nightmare of Mensis and grind some XP when a sudden, unexpected feeling of dread filled her. Melonie couldn’t explain it, she felt like taking another step was a bad idea, but couldn’t say why. She reached up and began running her fingers through her long, silky hair, the softness comforting and calming her, and with her courage renewed, returned to the game and entered the Nightmare area.

Like all Soulsborne games (which Melonie had herself recently become a long overdue fan of), Bloodborne was exceedingly difficult, with brutally hard-hitting enemies and a combat system that necessitated split-second timing to succeed. Luckily, Melonie had been an avid gamer her whole life, and after several deaths early in the game, had finally perfected the timing of the parry system of her blunderbuss, which she was taking advantage of to great effect.

And take advantage she did!

She spent over 90 minutes in the level, exploring and dispatching enemies with ease, getting the hang of their patterns and defeating them for massive experience boosts. She discovered every hidden area and secret she could, finding every item she could utilize, and trying out different weapons on enemies to find out which new weapons she liked most. Melonie had been an avid gamer her whole life, and even the legendary difficulty of Soulsborne games simply made them more appealing to her as she played, but even the most seasoned gamers encounter death on a regular bases in Soulsborne games, and about an hour and half into the game she finally got ambushed by a group of giant spiders inside one of the buildings, which overwhelmed her and killed her quickly.

“Ahhhhhhh, come on,” Melonie said with a smile, pleased that she had gone so long without dying, then respawned at the last lantern she had visited before her death, she looked at her stats before setting out, but then her brow furrowed in confusion, “wait, what?”

She had no blood echoes left, the whole 1-5-10-25-100 percent thing Amy had been talking about didn’t seem to work at all, and her blood echoes were completely gone as usual.

“That’s… weird,” Melonie said with a shrug, then began making her way to where she had died to collect her lost blood echoes, “Maybe the patch just isn’t working.”

But as she headed towards where she had died, half an inch, or rather 1% of the length of her gorgeous, long, silky hair slowly faded away, like a puddle evaporating in the sun. It was such a trivial, minute amount to lose that she didn’t even notice it, but a few moments later her hair was half in inch shorter than it had been when she started. It was a minuscule amount of her lush, abundant, 54 inches of vibrant, rippling silk, so trivial that Melonie didn’t even notice it vanish, but it still marked something terrible.

The vanishing of her beloved hair had begun.

 

“Dammit!” Melonie said an hour later as she died to Margo’s Wet Nurse for the second time in a row, “damn, damn, DAMN!”

Melonie sighed as she put down her controller and rubbed her eyes. She had been playing for over two hours since that first death at the hands of the cheap spider ambush, and with the exception of that one early death she had been sailing through the game, having gotten down the mechanics. But now this boss was giving her a run for her money and had killed her twice in a row. She needed a break.

Melonie stood up, her long, silky hair spilling down her back as she did so, and stretched. She reached up and quickly fluffed up her thick hair, then began humming the boss theme to Margo’s Wet Nurse, which was firmly stuck in her head. She made her way towards the kitchen to make herself a snack, still humming as she reached up with her right hand and collected all of her hair at the nape of her neck with her hand, then slid it through the full lengths of her incredible, thick hair. She was still humming as her hand reached the ends of her hair…

And then the humming abruptly stopped… as did her footsteps.

As she had run her fingers through her hair, something had felt… different… wrong. She shook out her head, feeling it fly around her in a storm of soft silk, and sure enough, something felt off about her hair. She ran both hands through it, and as she did so, her eyes went wide as they realized what felt off, her fingers were coming out of her hair much sooner than they normally should when she ran them along the full lengths!

Melonie ran to her bedroom mirror and turned her head from side to side, letting out a cry as she realized she had been right. Her hair, which just earlier today had fallen to just a couple inches above her knees, now hung near the top of her thighs, almost eight inches shorter than it had been!

“My hair…” she cried out as she looked with shock at her massive but noticeably shorter mane, “what the FUCK just happened to my HAIR?!?”

Melonie frantically run her hands through her hair, looking to see if any was coming out, but it seemed fine. She ran to the couch, her hair flying behind her as she did, but again, there was nothing where she had been sitting.

“OK Melonie,” she told herself, trying to calm her nerves, “let’s calm down and think about this… your hair was fine when you sat down, and sometime between then and now, 10% of it seems to have…”

And she stopped, the memory of that system Amy had been talking about coming to her mind. It was impossible. IMPOSSIBLE! There was no WAY a video game could be making her hair grow shorter and shorter with every death, it wasn’t possible… was it?

She went to her sewing kit and pulled out a measuring tape, holding it to where her hair had fallen four hours ago. She held it up and saw that it had been at 54 inches long. She measures where her hair hung now, and saw that 46 inches remained.

“OK….first death was ten percent, and ten percent of 54 would be just over half an inch,” she said to herself, doing mental math, “second death was five percent, which would have been two and a half inches, taking my hair to… 51 inches. Third death, ten percent, so… about five inches, which would take my hair to…”

She let out a sigh. That would take her hair to 46 inches, exactly where it was now.

“How is this possible?” she asked herself, then remembered that spark that had jumped from Amy’s finger to her disc, “that BITCH! It HAD to be her!”

Melonie was furious, and as she looked down at her beloved hair she began lamenting her loss of 8 inches, but then realized it could have been much, MUCH worse. If she had kept playing, the next death would have taken her gorgeous hair all the way to the small of her back, and if she hadn’t noticed THAT and died again…

She shuddered at the thought of losing all of her beautiful hair, her gorgeous mane of rippling, shimmering silk fluttering around her with the movement. She had been close… VERY close… to losing all of her hair, and she wouldn’t have even realized it until it was too late. It was a good thing the game didn’t have a time limit, or else she would have…

And then her breath caught in her throat. She went back to the game, went into the system menu, and pulled up the update notes. She looked them over, seeing the 1-5-10-25-100 agreement flash by (which she noticed said “currency” instead of blood echoes) and kept reading. Then, she let out a moan and covered her mouth as she saw the final addendum in the agreement:

New currency system will reset at the stroke of midnight on the day agreement is accepted. Should the hunter fail to complete their mission by that time, all currency will be forfeit.

“Oh fuck,” Melonie whimpered, “I have to beat the game by midnight tonight?”

She looked at the clock, seeing it was already 9:30, which meant she had three and a half hours to beat the game. Luckily, she had watched videos helping her understand the mechanics of the game, and knew she was close to the end. In fact, all she had left was the Wet Nurse and then Gehrman, the first hunter, and then… then she would be done.

The question was… could she do it?

“Well… only one thing left to do now,” Melonie said as she settled into her seat and picked her controller back up, her endangered hair spilling around her beautifully, “here’s hoping.”

 

For the next hour and a half Melonie didn’t even try to progress the story. She instead headed to Cainhurst Castle and began farming the bloodsucking beasts, which gave phenomenal XP. If she only had two shots left at beating this game and saving her hair, she was going to make sure she was ready god damn it. She had farmed the beasts for about 30 minutes the night before, so she had killing them down to a science. There were a couple close calls where the spiders pounced her before she could dodge and her breath caught in her throat, thinking she was about to lose one of her two remaining lives (along with 11 more inches of her hair), but she managed to kill them and survive. An hour and half later she had hit the soft caps for her vitality, strength, and skill, so she figured she was as ready to go as she would ever be, so she took a deep breath, and entered Margo’s Wet Nurse arena again.

The battle was frantic, but she had buffed herself to the max and was prepared, and having remembered the Wet Nurse’s attack patterns, dispatched her with just 2 blood vials remaining in her inventory.

“YES!” she screamed as she dispatched the boss and jumped out of her seat, her hands over her head and her hair flying around her, the cooing and laughing of the phantom Margo playing as she celebrated, “fucking YES! YEEEEEEEES!”

She had twenty minutes left before midnight, and the game wasn’t over, but she knew all that remained was Gehrman and she would be done, and from all account, it would NOT be an easy boss battle. She reached up and lovingly took a few minutes to play with her hair for good luck, reveling the soft, silky sensation of it sliding through her fingers, then she headed to the Hunter’s Dream, and prepared for the final test.

Her heart was racing as she watched the cutscenes play out, her breathing becoming rapid as she watched Gehrman stand up from his wheelchair and pull out his scythe, and then the boss battle began.

Gehrman was as tough as they said, but Melonie was faster. She dove and weaved through his attacks, landing hits of her own as she chipped away at his health, and by the time he was halfway through she still had 14 of her original 20 blood vials left. Things were looking good. But then, as she was working away at the last inch of his health bar, one of his attacks she never saw coming stun-locked her, and she could only watch in horror as her health bar rapidly dropped to nothing, and with a cry of defeat her character was killed.

“NOOOOOOOO!” Melonie screamed as she watched her character fade to dust, reaching up and squeezing her beloved hair as tightly as she could, as if she could maybe hold onto it for dear life, but as tight as she squeezed, she could actually feel it slipping away between her fingers, like a puddle of water evaporating in the hot sun, and a few seconds later, the soft, silky strands wound between her fingers vanished, and her hair was now eleven inches shorter.

Melonie ran to the mirror, horrified at what she would see, but desperately needing to know the extent of the damage. As she looked in the mirror she let out a cry as she saw her hair now hung to just above the small of her back, and she reached up and desperately ran her hands through what was left of her beautiful hair. Over the last few hours her hair had been reduced from the bottom of her thighs to this, 35 inches long, the shortest she had ever worn her hair since middle school over 10 years ago, but as she frantically ran her hands through what remained she realized that even this severely diminished version of her hair was still thicker, softer, and more beautiful than most people could dream of, even if it would take her at least four years to regrow what she had just lost.

“OK, OK, calm down,” she told herself, despite the fact that she hated the sensation of her fingertips no longer encountering her hair once they passed her hips, or the sensation of the tips of her hair tickling the small of her back instead of the backs of her thighs, “I can live with this. As long as I have this, I can regrow it in a few years, maybe even have it back to my thighs in two and a half.”

But that was with the assumption that she would be able to beat Gehrman this next time, and she was certain some of her good luck last time had been beginner’s luck. In the end however, she had no choice, and only had 15 minutes left. She walked back to the couch, her hair no longer pooling around her as she sat down the way she loved… or rather, USED to love.

She started the fight, not doing quite as well as the first time, but still taking down Gehrman’s health rapidly. Finally, she had him down to a quarter of his health, and like clockwork, he executed the same move he had used to stun-lock and defeat her last time, but this time she was ready. She countered his with the blunderbuss, leaving him wide open to move in and use a visceral attack, and as she watched, she saw his health completely vanish, and it was over.

“FUCK YEAH!” Melonie screamed, whooping with victory as the endgame cutscene began, “FUCK… YES!”

She reached up and lovingly stroked her much shorter but still beautiful hair, knowing it would be a long few years to get it back where it was, but still grateful for even this much shorter style. Tomorrow she was going to go to Gamestop and kick the shit out of Amy for what she did but for now she was going to go to bed and get a good nights sleep, maybe look up some videos for how to style her hair at this length.

She was just thinking that maybe a ponytail tied with a ribbon would be a cute way to style her hair when suddenly on the screen her character turned to face something behind them, and a sinking feeling filled Melonie.

“No…” she said softly, it couldn’t be, not a hidden final boss, “no, no, no, noooooo…”

But she could only watch helplessly as a hideous red monster descended from the moon, tried to absorb her hunter, and then her hunter fought back, opening the game to a new boss battle. She let out a moan of sadness as she saw a new health meter with the words “MOON PRESENCE” fill the screen, and saw that she only had 4 of her vials left for this final boss.

Melonie did much better than she had any right to, taking the Moon Presence’s health down to halfway despite the fact that she only had four vials left, but it had been a losing battle from the beginning, and with a quick flourish, the monster finished off her character with quick ruthlessness.

“Oh God no,” Melone said as she hung her head in defeat, her hair hanging around her head as she laid her face in her palms. She reached up and once again desperately squeezed her soft, silky hair tightly, praying this curse would show mercy and let her keep what was left of her beloved hair.

“Please don’t take this from me,” she said softly as she desperately held tightly to her long, soft locks, “please let me keep just this. Please, please, PLEEEEEEEASE.”

For a handful of heartbeats she thought that maybe her prayers were answered, that maybe she would be allowed to keep her nearly hip-length locks after all, but as she squeezed her hair she felt it begin to dematerialize in her hands, slowly fading away like a ghost vanishing into the ether.

She felt the immense weight of her hair lightening on her scalp, felt the strands becoming less and less corporeal as she held them, and a few seconds later, they were gone… and she knew she was completely bald.

She sat there for a long time, too terrified to see her new, bald self, scared to see what she looked like without her thick, wonderful cloak of soft, silky hair surrounding her, without her warm blanket of glistening brown locks protecting her. Finally, around 12:20, she realized she had to face the facts, and stood up to look at her new self. She made her way to the mirror, looked up from the floor, and gasped.

Standing there was no longer the happy-go-lucky, smiling beauty with the most wonderful, beautiful hair surrounding her, standing there as now a sad, scared, vulnerable looking woman with a bare head, deprived of her most beloved possession. She looked pathetic and small, she looked like she had just survived a deadly disease, and she hated it. She reached up and ran her fingers over the bare skin on top of her head, hating the feeling of soft, almost rubbery skin, skin which had never been exposed to the real world, not even stubble remained. She wished more than anything that her hands were feeling the warm, soft, reassuring weight of her beloved locks, but that time was long gone, as was her beautiful hair.

Melonie fought back the tears, she fought them hard, but eventually her love for her departed hair was just too much to handle, and she felt the tears come. First a few light sobs, then the first hints of moisture, and then the tears came in a heavy flood from her eyes, spilling around her as the ran down her face.

She collapsed onto her bed, still weeping uncontrollably and for a long, long time, lamenting the loss of all her gorgeous hair. It was gone… all of it… the one thing she had loved more than anything, and in all likelihood she would be thirty before she was reunited with hair even remotely approaching her hips. And that was assuming this horrible curse didn’t leave her bald forever. She cried and cried in bed, finally weeping herself to sleep well after 1 AM. And just when she thought things couldn’t get any weirder, the dream began.

 

Melonie was standing in a dim, misty field, surrounded by fog so thick that she couldn’t even see her hand in front of her face as she held it up. She was wearing what she had worn when she had cried herself to sleep, her blue athletic top and leggings, and she wrapped her arms around herself as the chilly air permeated her. She reached up to feel for the soft, reassuring weight of her thick, silky hair, but her hands found nothing as she remembered that all of her beautiful hair was now long gone, vanished by a curse that had stolen every single silky strand of her treasured mane from her. She also began to realize her head was cold, much colder than it had ever been when it had been covered by mounds of lush, silky hair.

As she stood there, the fog gradually began to clear, and she gasped at what she saw around her. She was standing in a field of white flowers, the field absolutely covered with them, and a few wooden stakes that looked almost like crucifixes rising from the ground. As the fog finished clearing she saw the moon was full and bright, shining down and lighting up the field so brightly it may well have been day. Most people wouldn’t know where they were, but Melonie did.

She was standing in the field where she had fought Gehrman and the Moon Presence, the field where she had lost her hair.

“So… looks like you weren’t up to the challenge,” a gloating voice said from behind her, and Melonie screamed as she turned to face who was talking.

Walking across the field towards her was Amy, dark, eerie, beautiful. She was wearing a long, billowing black dress that seemed to trail behind her for miles, her long, hip-length hair softly blowing behind her as she made her way to her, and a cruel smile on her face.

“You?” Melonie asked softly.

“Me,” Amy replied, her cruel smile growing wider, “I’m not surprised really, I knew a fake gamer girl like you would get your ass handed to you in no time flat. Pity really, your hair really was quite beautiful.”

“Why?” Melonie could barely get out as she reached up to rub her bare head once again, holding back tears, “why did you do this to me?”

“WHY?!?” Amy asked, laughing, “you really don’t know? I did it because of Jeremy.”

“Jeremy?” Melonie asked, confusion on her face, “what does he have to do with this?”

“Oh don’t play dumb girl,” Amy said, now mere feet away from Melonie, “I’ve seen the way you come in and talk to him, the way he treats you, like a puppy dog trailing his master for a treat. He’s been crazy about you for four months, and it’s insulting to him how much you throw yourself at him.”

“THEN WHY WON’T HE ASK ME OUT?!?” Melonie screamed, finally snapping.

The question echoed through the field, then hung in the air for a long time. Amy stood there, a look of confusion spreading over her own face. The question had caught her off guard, not just from the volume, but the sheer sincerity she felt in it, and it was finally her turn to ask a question.

“Wait… what?” she asked Melonie.

“I’ve been coming to your store for four months and every time I come in it’s to see Jeremy,” Melonie said, anger rising in her face as she finally remembered what this woman had cost her, “I flirt, I wear everything from the tiniest shorts I own to my nicest yoga outfits, I stay for hours just to talk to him, I laugh, I bite my lower lip, I touch his arm, I’ve pulled every trick in the book to get him to ask me out, and NOTHING! Yesterday I even acted like some typical E-THOT and leaned over the counter to give him a look down my shirt, and he didn’t even bite!”

“I… I don’t…” Amy said, confusion blossoming in her mind, as well as the growing realization that maybe… maybe she had completely misread the situation with this woman, “wait, let me get this straight, you… LIKE Jeremy?”

“Like him? I’m CRAZY about him! He is exactly the kind of guy I go for!” Melonie continued, “he’s sweet, he’s nerdy, he’s funny, he’s easy to talk to, he’s handsome as fuck! The dude may as well be Henry Cavill! He has great taste in movies and I can game with him for hours, he’s everything I want in a man, and he doesn’t seem interested in me at all, but here you are telling me he’s crazy about me, so I’ll ask you again… why… hasn’t… he… asked… me… OUT?”

“His ex,” Amy said, surprised that the words had come out of her so easily, “his… his last girlfriend tore his heart in two, and he’s come up with the crazy idea that he’s never going to date again unless the girl asks HIM out. If you asked him out, he’d say yes in an instant.”

“Oh, yeah, fat chance of that now you dumb vindictive goth BITCH!” Melonie screamed, Amy was tempted to punish her for that, this WAS her creation after all, and she had all the power in the dream, but she couldn’t, and she realized with horror that it was because she 100% deserved to be called that, “Look at me, I’m a bald FREAK! I look like some dumb, rebellious, punk wannabe, all because of you! You took my hair Amy! My HAIR! I fucking LOVED my hair, it meant EVERYTHING to me, and you STOLE it from me! You STOLE IT!”

“Oh big deal,” Amy said, getting defensive despite the feelings that she might not be the protective hero of the story that she saw herself as, “so you don’t have your hair, big whoop. Hair grows back, and you’re gorgeous even without it. Ask him out bald and I’m sure he’ll still say yes.”

“I don’t WANT to ask him out bald AAAAAAAMYYYYYYY,” she said, drawing out Amy’s name like a taunt, “I WANT to look like a million bucks for him, and now I look like I’m fighting cancer!”

“Shows what you know, looks don’t matter to Jeremy, but I doubt you could ever understand that,” Amy shot back, desperately trying to find a way to paint this woman in a bad light, “I’m sure you had everything going for you when you were growing up, I bet you bullied kids like me and him on the playground all the…”

“Oh shut up!” Melonie said angrily, “you don’t know me, I did NOT look like this most of my life. I had to put a lot of work into looking like this, and my hair was the one constant I had through all of it.”

“Don’t try to play pity-party with me,” Amy said, “I control this dream, I can see your thoughts, and see your lies.”

“I don’t give a shit,” Melonie said, “I know my own truth.”

But her permission was pointless since Amy had already delved into her mind, plucking out memories and observing them like flipping through a file cabinet. Here was one when she was 14 years-old in 8th grade, the perfect time to see Little Miss Princess growing up…

And then Amy gasped.

A young chubby girl in a hand-me-down dress was walking to class, her books clenched tightly against her chest, thick coke-bottle glasses on her face, braces fixed on her noticeably large and  bucked teeth, and beautiful, long, shiny brown hair fell to her waist. She looked up briefly just in time to see a group of pretty girls pointing at her and laughing, one of them impersonating a beaver chewing on a log, and the young girl she now knew was Melonie clutched her books closer to her chest in fear and picked up her pace.

“No,” Amy said, looking for another memory, this one from high school, when most girls like that hit their ugly-duckling-turned-swan phase, “no this can’t be right.”

The chubby girl was now a sophomore, and had gone from chubby to outright fat. No, not fat, borderline obese. She wore sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and her braces were now gone, but her thick glasses remained, as well as the laughter from a group of GOTH girls as she passed them. GOTH GIRLS! The group Amy had always felt were the only ones who welcomed her when SHE had been an outcast in high school! And here they were tormenting this poor girl!

Acne covered Melonie’s face, but her hair was still gorgeous, now falling past the bottom of her butt, and with the same sheen and soft thickness that Amy remembered. As she watched, the girl reached up and quickly ran her fingers through her hair, and Amy saw confidence and determination swarm into her eyes. She saw the girl stand up straighter, come alive, almost transform in front of her eyes, and then saw her walk quickly away from the girls and into the AV Club meeting room, being greeted by a swarm of welcomes from guys who were just as rejected as she was.

“This can’t be,” Amy said, finding a new memory, this one from the end of her senior year of high school, “please no, don’t let this be.”

There was Melonie again, but the change into the beauty she would become had FINALLY begun to take take root in her. She was wearing a pair of form-fitting jeans and a torn AV Club t-shirt, most of the weight she had carried during her sophomore year having disappeared, with barely a hint of chubbiness still hanging onto her waist and her cheeks. Her acne had cleared up almost entirely, but her glasses remained (which were now thin-framed and stylish, and her gorgeous hair now hung nearly to her knees, looking like a waterfall of soft, shining, melted chocolate. She was sitting in the AV Club room with several of the guys from her earlier vision, a poster over their heads reading “CONGRATULATIONS VALEDICTORIAN!” with Melonie’s face on it, and as Amy looked she could see they were playing Smash Bros, with Melonie clearly decimating all of them without mercy.

“You can’t be!” Amy said, looking for another memory, this one from her sophomore year of college, “you… you CAN’T be like me! This isn’t right!”

There was Melonie, standing in line at some kind of college event, now 100% the incredible all-American beauty Amy recognized her for. She was wearing a cropped white Cowboy Bebop t-shirt and a pair of skin-tight faded denim jeans as she stood upright and confident, a look of strength and determination on her face as her incredible calf-length hair hung around her like a curtain. She made her way to the front of the line and sat down in a chair, and Amy saw that this was a charity event for kids with cancer.

“Not very often I get to handle a head of hair like this,” the person standing behind Melonie said as she lifted her massive bulk of hair and dropped it behind the chair, where it spilled all the way to the floor, “we need at least six inches for a donation. Are you OK with that?”

“Six inches?” Melonie said, a look of love and compassion on her face as she thought for a moment, “you know what, make it twenty-four.”

“Two feet?!?” the barber said in disbelief as he lifted her mounds of silken hair in his hands, letting it slide through his fingers like water, “but all you need is six inches to make a difference!”

“Then just think of how much good two feet will do for those children,” Melonie said happily, “now hurry, before I change my mind.”

The barber just shrugged and tied off a 2-foot length ponytail at the bottom of her incredible mane, then began scrunching through it with scissors. It took nearly a minute for the razor sharp scissors to separate it, and when he did the crowd cheered as he held up a ponytail that was still longer and thicker than most girl’s entire head of hair.

“ENOUGH!” Amy yelled, pulling herself out from the pool of Melonie’s memories, her stomach churning with the realization of just how wrong she had been about everything.

Melonie hadn’t been one of the mean girls, one of the preppy girls, one of the pretty popular girls at school who had made her life hell, she had been a fat, four-eyed, acne-ridden nerd, even more of an outcast as Amy had been. No, not like she had been, WORSE than she had been. Amy had seen the way the other goth girls like her had treated her, far worse than she ever had been, and she had still risen above it. She had been brave in junior high, strong in high school, and compassionate in college, despite everything in her life dictating she be the opposite of those things.

And through it all, acting as a source of strength and confidence through her struggles, shielding her from all the cruelty directed at her, had been her hair. Her gorgeous, amazing hair.

And Amy had just stolen it away from her.

Every last strand.

But her thoughts were interrupted as she was suddenly knocked over with a sound that reminded her of a wounded animal screaming out as Melonie tackled her to the floor. She barely had time to register what was happening as Melonie climbed on top of her, her face contorted in rage as she gripped her dress with her left hand and raised her hand into a fist next to her face to begin pummeling the snot out of Amy.

“Melonie,” Amy said softly, and Melonie’s hand froze next to her head as she waited to hear what measly excuse she could offer, “I… I’m sorry. I’m so, SO sorry, I had no idea.”

“YOU’RE JUST SAYING THAT!” Melonie screamed in her face, “YOU KNOW YOU’RE FUCKED, AND YOU’RE JUST SAYING THAT.”

“No Melanie, please,” Amy said weakly, knowing she could easily use her powers to wrap Melonie into a knot in her own dream, but wanting to be hit in the face instead because she deserved it, “I didn’t know. I didn’t know who you were, and I made an assumption I never should have. I was wrong, I was so wrong, and if you want to bash my face in, I totally get it, and you have every right to because I deserve it. But… I needed to tell you that before you did.”

Amy shut her eyes, waiting for the pain to start… but it never did, because Melonie had one more trait Amy didn’t see coming.

Forgiveness.

“Forget it,” Melonie said, rolling off of her dejectedly, her bare head glistening in the moonlight, “just… forget it. What’s done is done. There’s not changing that. My hair’s gone… and it’s never coming back.”

But then a thought occurred to Amy, there WAS a way to fix this, to make amends, to make things right.

“Wait Melonie,” Amy said, having trouble saying what she was about to say, but forcing herself to say it anyways, “I think… I think I can make things right. I think I can bring back your hair.”

“Oh really?” Melonie said, pure disbelief in her voice and a look of pure skepticism on her face as she looked at her, “you can bring back my hair?”

“Yes!” Amy said, convinced that this was the right things to do, as much as it would hurt, “well… MOST of your hair.”

“Uh huh, sure,” Melonie said, clearly not believing her, but after a moment of silence she let out a sigh and looked at her, “how much of my hair is ‘most’ of it?”

“Um… about as long as mine is,” Amy said, turning to show off her long blond hair, “bottom of the hips?”

Amy looked and saw that Amy’s hair feel to right where the tender bulge of her butt met her thighs.

“So I’d lose about ten inches?” Melonie said, then shrugged, “Well… it’s better than nothing I guess. I mean… I would have loved to donate that hair instead, but if what you’re saying is true, then I guess I can live with that.”

“OK, good,” Amy said, feeling another pang of guilt at the idea that she had just cost some poor kid fighting chemo an incredible wig of truly beautiful hair, “but you have to do me a favor.”

“I have to do YOU a favor?” Melonie asked with incredulity, “after what you did to me?!?”

“Don’t worry, you’ll like it,” Amy said with a slow smile, “just come into the store and ask out Jeremy. He’s working tomorrow starting at 9.”

She stuck out her hand to Melonie, who looked at it in surprise.

“Oh… um,” she said distractedly, then took it and shook it, “OK, sure.”

“OK, then it’s a deal,” Amy said, taking her hand back, and then she clapped her hands together loudly and began rubbing them together rapidly. She hesitated for a moment, knowing what this would cost her, but decided this was the hard right, over the easy wrong, “now… this is going to feel a little… weird.”

“What? Magic weird? I never would have guessed,” Melonie said, and as Amy looked she saw hints of a smile appear on her face.

“Was that a smile I just saw?” the beautiful goth woman asked her as she slowly pulled her hands apart and a strange light appeared between them, growing brighter and larger with each passing second, and Melonie scoffed.

“Just bring my hair back and we’ll talk, but until then…” Melonie said, but right then she began to feel a strange, tingling, prickling sensation spreading over her head, like someone had just given her head a shot of Novocain and it was wearing off. The feeling spread and became more pronounced, feeling more like pins and needles prickling her head and growing more uncomfortable by the second, but that was the least of her concerns as she noticed the world around her was growing darker and less substantial, “uhhh… Amy?”

“It’s normal,” the goth girl said as she faded more and more from Melonie’s vision, and before long all she could make out was her hip length blonde-blue hair in the darkness, “it’s you just returning to the real world.”

“This… this is starting to hurt!” Melonie said, rubbing her head.

“Don’t fight it, just ride the pain,” Amy said as the world around them turned to black, “and Melonie? There’s one more thing you should know.”

“What’s that?” she asked, her voice sounding distant as the dream began to come to an end.

“Jeremy loves it when you wear shorts,” she heard Amy’s voice say from far away.

 

Melonie opened her eyes with loud and long intake of air as she took a deep breath, not quite believing the dream she had just experienced. She reached up with a tentative hand, praying that she would feel the soft reassuring presence of her long locks once again, but her hands met nothing but her bare, smooth head. She let out a sigh… apparently the dream had been that… a dream… and her hair was still gone. It wasn’t coming back after all.

Melonie fought back the tears and depression that threatened to consume her as he stood up and made her way to the bathroom, turning on the shower and looking in the mirror as it warmed up. She looked long and hard at her new bald self, hating the image, but forcing herself to accept it. She turned her head one way, then the other, taking in the strange, bald, alien looking thing looking back at her.

It could be worse Melonie thought to herself as she looked at her bare, smooth head and being thankful that it was at least smooth and perfect, with no unsightly bulges or scars, not much, but it could be.

Melonie let out a sigh. This was her now. This was who she was, and it would be a long time before she was reunited with her beautiful long hair. For now, she just had to make the best of it. She made her way back to the shower and was preparing to undress when suddenly a strange sensation ran over the center of her head.

“What?” Melonie said, reaching up and feeling her bare head, “what the hell was that?”

But she didn’t have time to dwell on it as the sensation ran over her head again, this time a little to the side of that first sensation. A third wave ran over her head in a new location, then a fourth, and then a fifth. It felt like someone was running something hard and flat over her head, over every square inch of it. It didn’t hurt, it just felt… strange.

“What the fuck?” Melonie said, reached up to feel her head, but the phantom sensation continued, with nothing touching her head. The sensation covered her entire head, several times covering the same area twice or three times, and then as suddenly as it had begun, it was over.

“What the… oh!” Melonie said as a sudden and severe wave of dizziness overcame her a few moments later, “oh geez.”

She grabbed the counter to steady herself, but the sensation only grew worse. She didn’t know what was happening, but she knew it wasn’t going to pass, so she quickly lowered herself to her knees to lay down. She never made it, before she could get in a prone position she felt her consciousness leaving entirely, and the last thing she saw before she blacked out was the ground rushing up to meet her.

 

Melonie’s consciousness slowly returned, and at first all she saw was blackness, the sound of the shower running next to her, and it took her a few moments to realize it was because her eyes were still closed, and her head was throbbing.

“Owwwwwwwwwwww…” Melonie said softly as she opened her eyes, seeing she was still in the bathroom. She laid there unmoving for a moment, not sure what else could go wrong in her life right now. Finally, after a long moment to make sure she wouldn’t suffer from another dizzy spell, she slowly picked herself up off the floor.

And felt a very familiar sensation of something sliding all around her as she did, something which followed her up and rested softly against her back with a faint whisper of silk.

Her eyes went wide and her breathing stopped, she didn’t move, too terrified to believe that what she just felt was real, but with a shaking hand she slowly reached up to her head…

And cried out in joy as her fingers made contact with a thick mass of silky, soft locks.

She shot up, any worries of another dizzy spell long forgotten, and felt her incredible locks fly around her with the rapid movement. She looked in the mirror, and let out another loud cry of victory as she saw that her thin, athletic body that she had worked years for was now framed and surrounded by curtains of thick, smooth, soft brown hair, hair so shiny that it practically glowed in the bathroom lights, and so soft that Melonie kept grabbing masses of it in her hands and simply squeezing it. She began sobbing as she continued to stroke and grab and squeeze and cherish her hair, tears appearing in her eyes at being reunited with a dear friend she thought she had lost, running her hands through it as she realized that she had forgotten just how soft and silky it was.

“Oh my God,” she whispered to her hair, feeling foolish but not caring, “I thought I lost you!”

But then she paused, feeling her hair once again with her hands excitedly. No… no, she hadn’t forgotten how soft and shiny her hair was, as she ran her hands through it she realized that her hair was DEFINITELY softer than it had been before she had lost it, so silky that it was basically slipping through her fingers like water, and its sheen and luster was so brilliant that it seemed otherworldly. Her hair was still a gorgeous golden-brown, but it seemed to have taken on new hints of rich caramel as well, along with a sleeker, glossier shine that just screamed healthy hair. Then it hit her like the bathroom floor had when she had fainted. This WASN’T her old hair after all, this was a brand new head of the same hair, grown instantly through some strange kind of magic, hair that hadn’t been exposed to the sun and elements for years like her old head of hair, THAT was why it was so soft and healthy! She ran her fingers through the silken lengths several more times to make sure, then realized something else was different about her hair as her fingers slid out of it much sooner than they normally should.

Melonie’s eyes went wide as she remembered what Amy had said when she had asked her if she could really bring back her hair, well… MOST of your hair, she had said. So how much of it was missing? Melonie looked in the mirror and turned so that she could see herself in profile. Sure enough, her hair, which yesterday had fallen to the very bottom of her thighs, now fell right to the top of them, right where her butt met them. She grabbed her measuring tape and measured the difference, and saw that she had lost…

“Nine inches…” she said out loud as she looked at the tape, “nine inches gone…”

For a moment she felt anger at Amy starting to rise up again. Yes, she still had 45 inches of her gorgeous, silky hair back, but it should have been 54 inches like it was. But after a while she shrugged and put the tape away. She still had the overwhelming bulk of her hair, and her hair grew pretty damn fast, so she could probably regain all that lost length in about a year. Plus, nine inches of lost hair felt like a fair trade in exchange for how much more beautiful her hair now was, all in all… it was something she could deal with.

But for now, as she gazed lovingly at her hair, which was now as sleek and shiny as glass, all she wanted to do was brush it until her arm hurt.

And for the next hour and a half, she did just that.

 

Almost 2 hours later, Melonie was still running the brush delicately through her beautiful new hair, marveling at the way the brush seemed to glide through these incredible, sleek locks with almost no friction or resistance. There wasn’t even the slightest tug on her scalp as the brush slid through the locks, and if it weren’t for the barely audible whisper of soft silk that accompanied each stroke, Melonie might think the brush wasn’t even making contact with her hair at all.

11 AM rolled around, and Melonie forced herself to put down her brush and get ready to hold to her side of the bargain she had made with Amy. She turned the shower back on, this time managing to undress and get into it without passing out, and took a nice long shower. As she did so she noticed that when her hair got wet it formed into a perfect, sleek mass, not a tangle in sight, even after she lathered it up with a dollop of her favorite strawberry and honeysuckle scented shampoo, there was certainly no need for conditioner today! She stepped out and squeezed her hair dry with her towel, then blow-dried it mostly dry before running a brush through it again, not once encountering a single snag. She left it slightly damp to dry the rest of the way in the sun, which always resulted in her hair looking its best, which was how it needed to look right now.

She did her makeup as her hair continued drying, then went to her closet and pulled out her most flattering outfit, a white, fluttery silk sundress that always made her eyes pop and brought out the natural golden highlights of her hair, but then she paused. This was her favorite ensemble, but she remembered what Amy had said in the dream just as it was ending… Jeremy loves it when you wear shorts.

For a moment she thought about disregarding the advice of the woman who had cost Melonie her gorgeous, beloved hair, but then she thought twice about it and paused. Through all of this, Amy had seemed genuinely remorseful about what she had done to Melonie, why would she lie about something like this now? Melonie contemplated a moment longer, then with a sigh put away the dress and picked out a more fitting ensemble. She put on a white spaghetti-strap tank-top (pulling it up slightly to expose some of her prized midriff that she had spent years transforming from a gut into the firm, trim work of art it was now), and a tiny but very comfortable pair of faded, well-worn Daisy Dukes that left very little to the imagination. She slipped on a cropped pink silk bomber jacket and pair of heeled sandals, then looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair had dried by now and fell in a sleek, smooth mass of shiny brown silk all the way to her thighs, absolutely gorgeous, the most gorgeous it had ever looked despite the missing length, she wondered what it would look like when she had regained the missing length!

Melonie turned to look at herself from all angles, then reached deep into her hair and began fluffing it up to add some extra body and volume to her gorgeous hair.

It was something of a pointless exercise. Her hair, which has always behaved well at the slightest urging, seemed to be even more obedient than normal as she dug her fingers in to fluff it up. Just a couple minutes later and her hair looked perfect, even more perfect than normal, and Melonie smiled at herself as she felt the first pleasant hints of an adrenaline rush at the prospect of asking out her dream guy in her stomach.

“Alright Amy,” she said quietly as she trotted out to her car, her thick, heavy hair bouncing behind her obediently as she did so, “pull this off, and I might not kill you after all.”

 

It was another slow and boring day at Gamestop.

Jeremy leaned against the counter with nothing to do. It was just past noon, and he wanted to hold off taking his lunch until one o’clock so that when he came back he only had three hours left to work, but the way he was feeling he thought it might be a losing battle. He was soooooo bored, and would give anything to have something happen to help eat up some time.

Almost as if summoned by his wishes, he suddenly heard the electronic beeping sound of the door opening to the store, for a moment he hoped it was Melonie, but he dashed those hopes quickly. She had just come in yesterday, and he heavily doubted she would need to come in two days in a row unless the new game was defective as well. He cursed himself for not swapping her disc for an equally crappy copy so he could see her again, then slowly turned to face whoever had just entered the store.

But to his sheer delight he saw that it WAS Melonie who had entered the store, looking gorgeous in a satin bomber jacket and tank top over a pair of tiny denim shorts as she searched the aisles for a used game she might want to purchase, god he loved it when she wore shorts.

She walked to the counter with a confident look on her face and a strange, knowing smile, like she was in on some secret he didn’t know about, her amazing, long hair swaying around her as she did so, and he looked at it in appreciation, taking in its… wait, her hair!

“Woooooow,” Jeremy said as Melonie made her way to the counter and leaned over it, smiling up at him as she did, “you got a big chop, didn’t you?”

“Yes I did,” Melonie said somewhat proudly, reaching up and lightly fluffing up her incredible hair while Jeremy felt his heart quicken at the sight of all that hair bouncing around her head playfully, “almost ten inches.”

“That’s quite the cut, but it looks great on you,” Jeremy said, and he meant it. Something about her hair looked different, it looked healthier, shinier, softer, and he again found himself fantasizing about running his hands through it, “between you and Amy, todays a big day for chops apparently.”

“I’m glad you like it,” Melonie said as that incredible hair settled softly back into place, not seeming to hear the part about Amy, “because it’s probably gonna take me about a year to grow it back.”

“I think it looks great on you whether or not you decide to grow it back,” Jeremy said, “but to be honest I think you’d even look great bald.”

Something flashed in Melonie’s eyes at that, but she quickly shook it off and just chuckled as she shook her head back and forth, smiling sweetly at him.

“Jeremy… Jeremy, Jeremy, Jeremy,” she said with a strange smile as she continued to softly shake her head, her long, soft hair swishing around her head beautifully with the motion, “I don’t know a whole lot in this world, but I can tell you right here and now with absolute certainty that you are wrong on that count.”

“Well, that’s just my opinion,” Jeremy said chivalrously, “but my current opinion is that this new style of yours looks dynamite.”

“Well thank you,” Melonie said with that amazing smile of hers, “your opinion has been noted.”

“Noted, or appreciated?” Jeremy asked, trying to keep the chatter flowing.

“Your opinions are always appreciated Jeremy, you know that,” Melonie said with a smile, then she tilted her head back, gathered her massive mounds of thick golden-brown silk, and pulled it over her shoulder so it all spilled to one side, “so hey listen, I was wondering, when are you going to lunch?”

“Well, I was about to go now, but now that I have someone fun to talk to I’ll probably push it back to one,” he said, thinking about how much faster the time would pass with Melonie to keep him company, “so you have my company until then,”

“Actually, I was gonna ask if you wanted to have lunch with me,” Melonie said as she slowly leaned in over the counter and rested her chin in her hand, one eyebrow arched at him playfully, “my treat.”

“Oh well if it’s you treat then I’m DEFINITELY down,” Jeremy said, he tried to play off the free lunch as the root of his excitement, but right now his heart felt like it was beating out of his chest, “lemme just get Amy to cover the front and clock out, then we can head out.”

“Sounds great,” Melonie said as he walked towards the back room as quickly as he could, “I’ll be here.”

Jeremy tried to keep his breathing under control as he headed to the back room, his hands shaking as he pulled out his key and inserted it into the door to let himself into the backroom. He shut the door behind him and once he knew he was clear of Melonie’s eyes he silently jumped into the air, pumping his fist.

“Amy, you gotta go up front for. me NOW!” he said as he quickly made his way to the computer to clock out, “you’re not gonna believe what just happened!”

 

Anyone looking at Melonie from directly behind would be justified in thinking that the woman was wearing a thick silk cloak. There was simply no other explanation, no hair on Earth could look so healthy and shiny, and so thick that it completely covered her back without letting any of what was underneath it show through. But Amy had seen Melonie many times by now, and knew that what appeared to be a thick golden-brown shawl that fell to her thighs was really just Melonie’s incredible hair. The young goth woman smiled as she walked up behind Melonie, who was in the middle of studying a game cover.

“So… you decided to go for it,” Amy said.

Melonie smiled as she set the game back down on the shelf.

“Yeah, I did,” she said, turning to face her, “I figured I would…”

But she stopped mid-sentence as she turned and saw Amy. The gorgeous goth girl was standing there in a black leather romper and wearing a big smile, but there was one big thing missing.

“Whoa… oh my GOD! Your hair!” Melonie cried out, her eyes going wide, “what the fuck happened to your HAIR?!?”

Amy smiled and reached up to run a hand over her smooth, bare head, which actually looked pretty damn good on her, MUCH better than it had on Melonie.

“That’s magic baby,” Amy said as she continued to rub her bare head, “in order to cast a spell, you need some sort of balance. I wanted to give you back your hair, so it cost me mine in return. That’s why I couldn’t bring it all back, only the length my hair was at. Luckily for both of us, it was pretty damn long.”

“Oh Amy,” Melonie said, and she made her way over to her and hugged her, “oh God, your hair, it was so beautiful! I’m so sorry, I didn’t know.”

“It’s OK, that’s why I specifically didn’t tell you,” Amy told her, “I saw the person you are when I went through your memories Melonie, and I knew if I had told you how it worked you never would have let me do it, even with how mad you were at me. What I did was SO wrong, this was the least I could do to make things right. So this morning, I woke up, let my hair down and brushed it for the last time, said my goodbyes… and then shaved it all off.”

“You actually… wait a minute, was this around 8:40?” Melonie asked, something clicking in her mind.

“Yup, and before you ask, yes, that was what you felt this morning,” Amy said, “I cast a transference spell, transferring what I lost to you. You actually felt me shaving my head, strip by strip.”

“Well, thank you,” Melonie said, reaching up and running her hand flatly over her gorgeous, smooth, sleek mass of silken hair, “I don’t know what else I can say. Maybe… sorry?”

“Oh come on Melonie, you had every right to be mad at me after what I did to you,” Amy replied, “I’m just glad I was able to give MOST of your hair back you.”

“AND make it prettier,” Melonie said, still playing with her own hair, “thank you for that.”

“I THOUGHT it looked nicer!” Amy said, “I’m glad it wasn’t just me imagining things.”

Right then the office door opened and Jeremy walked out, a big, goofy smile on his face.

“Ready to go?” he asked Melonie, and she smiled and nodded excitedly, “hey Amy, did you see Melonie got a big haircut too?”

“I did!” Amy said, flashing Melonie a quick, knowing smile, “I think hers looks much better than mine.”

“Thanks again,” Melonie said softly, then turned to Jeremy, “so where do you wanna go for lunch?”

“Well I have an hour, so maybe somewhere local so we can sit down and talk?”

“Hey you know what Jeremy, just take two hours,” Amy said, turning to face Melonie and flashing a wink, “it’s slow today, I’ve got things covered.”

“Really? You sure?” he asked.

“Absolutely,” Amy said, moving behind the counter, “you two enjoy yourselves.”

“OK, we will, thanks Amy, you’re awesome!” Jeremy said, then opened the door for Melonie, who slipped through it as he followed her.

“Your boss seems really cool,” Melonie said as they walked to her car and she unlocked it, her gorgeous hair bouncing with each step, Jeremy ran to the side to open her door for her, then moved to get in on the passenger side.

“Amy? Yeah, she’s the best,” Jeremy said as he shut his door, “it’s weird, but… for the longest time I got this strange feeling that she didn’t like you for some reason.”

“Yeah, that really is weird,” Melonie said with a small smile as she started the car, then ran her fingers through her hair again lovingly, “I have no idea where you got that notion from.”

THE END

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