Wednesday

Susan groaned as her sleep was disturbed by a continuous ringing sound. Stupid alarm clock. She was having the most interesting dream. She blindly felt around for the source of the offending noise, but was forced to open her eyes when she couldn’t find it. “Yeah, yeah, I’m up, shut up alrea–” Crap. 07:44. She was late. Very late. When she jerked upright and got out of bed she noticed the scene around her. So it wasn’t a dream, then. Pieces of Cassie littered the bed, as well a number of knives, saws and other tools. Next to the bed was a host of buckets and plastic containers, containing more of Cassie’s innards. How was she going to reassemble her and still make it to school in time?

Well, first things first, she needed a shower because there was no way she would be able to put Cassie back together in her current, still half-asleep state. She jumped out of bed and got halfway to the bathroom before realizing she still had what was left of Cassie’s torso wrapped around her. Oh well, they could share a shower and save some time. She turned up the shower’s temperature because they were both quite chilly. The hot water felt great on her body, but unfortunately she didn’t have the time to enjoy it.

After a few awkward attempts at cleaning Cassie, who had all the solidity of a towel, she settled for draping her over her chest, Cassie’s head on her shoulder, and washing her that way. When they had both warmed up quite a bit, she turned off the water and dried them both off. There was no time to comb their hair, so she put both her and Cassie’s hair in a ponytail.

Returning to her bedroom, she laid Cassie down on the bed, spread out. She looked at all the parts littering the room, then at the alarm. 07:56. There was no way she’d be able to fully put Cassie back together in time. She would just have to limit herself to the bare essentials. She picked up Cassie’s spine and placed it below her neck. Nothing happened. She’d figured as much, since the heart seemed to be the essential bit that allowed them regenerate. She took the heart from the bucket she’d dropped it in last night and placed it in the center of Cassie’s chest.

When she let the heart go, it moved a few inches on its own, snapping into a levitating position a little above the spine. The nerves at the top of the spine connected with those coming from the vertebrae that were still in her neck. Good, at least that worked.

She grabbed a lung and connected it to her windpipe. Where was the other one? She looked around but couldn’t find it. Oh well, one was enough anyway. Susan looked at the other hole at the bottom of Cassie’s neck. Piecing together her entire digestive system was not an option right now, but she also couldn’t just leave it unconnected. What to do? Just then an idea hit her. Up until now she’d only ever put back body parts in their original locations. Would whatever magic rejoined two separated parts also work if the two parts didn’t belong together?

She pulled Cassie’s large intestine from a bucket and pushed one end against her esophagus. At first, nothing happened, but after a few seconds the two started mending together. Success! She connected the other end to Cassie’s anus. This setup pretty much precluded her eating anything, but it would have to do for the time being. She grabbed a bunch of the ribs she’d snapped off and started matching them up, ending up with five pairs and six unmatched ones. Close enough. She threw the unmatched ones back on the floor and started connecting the rest to Cassie’s spine. Since she had less than half the usual amount of ribs, she had to skip every second attachment point. She completed the ribcage by putting the two halves of her sternum back in their proper position.

What next? Oh right, the diaphragm. She held up the membrane. It had three small holes in it, and the one big one that she had cut. When she started fixing it to the bottom of Cassie’s ribcage, she realized that the large intestine was in the way: it, or rather the esophagus it was replacing, was supposed to go through one of the holes. Muttering to herself about the delay, she picked up a pair of scissors and cut from the edge of the diaphragm to one of the smaller holes. She pulled the two edges of the cut around the intestine and held them together, sealing the cut again. She closed the large hole in the same way. She knew from the anatomy book that the other two were for arteries, but since neither of them seemed to have any, she left them alone.

She gathered all the pieces of Cassie’s pelvis and started piecing it back together like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. When she finished, she looked at the back of Cassie’s pussy, a little below the pelvis. Since Cassie currently didn’t have a digestive system, there was no reason to connect the bladder. She wasn’t likely to need her reproductive system today either, so Susan didn’t bother.

Having finished replacing all the essential bits, it was time to close up Cassie’s torso. Susan grabbed both ends of Cassie’s skin and lined them up in the center of the chest. The two halves connected and soon Cassie’s torso looked somewhat normal again, albeit extremely skinny. The stomach was concave, and you could easily count the five pairs of ribs that now made up her ribcage. Susan walked over to the wall and picked up all four of Cassie’s limbs, which were soon back in their original positions. Almost done.

Susan looked at Cassie’s right eye, or rather the socket where her eye had been. She briefly considered putting her own eye in there, but people would probably notice and start asking questions. She quickly grabbed two spoons, dug out Cassie’s eye from her own head and placed it back in that of its owner. She took her own damaged eye and replaced it as well. It was a little weird not seeing everything in two colors anymore. She’d kind of gotten used to it. Finally, she put Cassie’s tongue back in her mouth.

“There, all done.” She looked at the clock. 8:17. Just enough time to get dressed and run to school. “Okay Cassie, time to wake up”, she said. No reaction. “Cassie? Come on, we have to get to school.” Still nothing. She shook her friend’s body, but she wouldn’t wake. Susan decided to try CPR. It was used to revive people, after all, so it might work here too. She put her hands on Cassie’s chest and started pressing like she’d seen in movies and TV shows. After pressing ten times, she knelt down and placed her lips on Cassie’s mouth. Wow, they were really soft…

‘No time for that now,’ she thought. She blew air into Cassie’s mouth and returned to pressing on Cassie’s chest. She quickly realized, however, that traditional CPR wasn’t going to do much good in their current situation, since Cassie’s heart was suspended in mid-air in her ribcage, so pressing her chest wouldn’t do anything. She needed a way to squeeze the heart directly. Unfortunately, the obvious way to heart was now blocked and would require her to cut Cassie open again and break a few ribs. She didn’t have time for that. She quickly considered her options. There was one other way to access Cassie’s heart…

She knelt down between her friend’s legs, put the fingers of her right hand together and inserted them into Cassie’s pussy. Moving her arm further in, she encountered the diaphragm. She searched for one of the two open holes she knew were there and threaded her hand through. Feeling her way along the spine, she found Cassie’s heart and put her hand around it. Her arm was in up to a little past her elbow. She squeezed, released her hand and repeated this action three more times.

After the fourth squeeze, she suddenly felt the heart thump on its own. Cassie gasped, her eyes flew open and she looked down at Susan. “What do you think you’re doing?” Susan responded as if there were nothing out of the ordinary. “Bringing you back to the land of the living. You’re welcome.” Flashes of the previous night came back to Cassie. “Oh wow, that actually happened, huh?”

“Yeah, and for a moment there I was afraid you were actually dead. But I guess whatever’s affecting us made us pretty durable.” Cassie shrugged. “Guess so. But, um… why is your arm up my pussy? And why are you naked?” Susan looked down at herself and blushed. “Sorry. I needed access to your heart to revive you and this was the quickest way”. She quickly pulled her arm out of Cassie, who gave a small gasp. “And I’m naked because I needed to get you ready to go to school first, which starts in…” Susan looked at the clock. “… eleven minutes, so get up and get dressed.”

“What? You expect me to go to school like this?” Cassie pressed down on her stomach, which made it even skinnier than it already was. “I’m all skin and bones! Literally!” Susan shrugged. “Sorry, but I didn’t exactly have time to piece you back together completely, so I had to stick to the basics.”

“Basics? What basics?” Susan stood up, walked to her wardrobe and started dressing. “Heart, lung, diaphragm, large intestine,” Susan counted on her fingers. “Enough to get you through the day. I’ll put you back together properly after school. Now quit complaining and get dressed or we’ll be late.” She grabbed a baggy sweater from her wardrobe and tossed it at Cassie. “Here, put this on. Nobody will be able to tell.” Cassie glared at Susan. “I’m going to get you for this.”

“Yeah, yeah, less talk, more hurrying.” Susan finished dressing first and started tossing all of the remaining parts and tools under her bed. She found Cassie’s other lung, tucked halfway under the bed already. “So that’s where you were hiding”, she muttered to herself. “What are you doing?” Susan looked back at her. “What if my parents come in here? I can’t very well have the place looking like a slaughterhouse, can I?”

“Okay, good point. But could you at least do it a bit more gently? I still need those. I’ve grown quite attached to my body parts… even if I’m currently not actually attached to them.”

“Oh relax, they’ll be fine. Judging from what we’ve done already I imagine I’d be able to toss them in a meat grinder and they’d still be restored just fine. Which gives me an idea…”

“Don’t you dare! I will not have my body turned into hamburger meat. I’m a steak, at least.” Susan looked at her skeptically. “You keep telling yourself that, meatball. Are you done getting dressed?” Cassie nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.” They gave the room a quick once-over to see if they hadn’t missed anything, grabbed their backpacks and ran out of the house. “Oh crap, we never did do the biology assignment”, Susan panted as they approached the school. “Don’t worry; it’s not until last period. We can do it during lunch break. We should be experts by now, right? And afterwards you’re going to tell me exactly what you did to me after I passed out.”

“Okay, see you then, meatball.” Cassie glared at Susan as they raced through the school doors. They made it to their classrooms with only seconds to spare.

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“You what?” Cassie’s whisper was quickly approaching a shout. Susan and Cassie were sitting at one of the tables in the cafeteria, discussing the events of last night, keeping their voices down to prevent anyone overhearing them. Susan was the only one with a tray of food in front of her, since eating wasn’t really an option for Cassie in her current condition. “I… uh… used you as a blanket?” Susan said hesitantly. “Oh, that’s it, I’m so getting you back for that one,” said Cassie. “Hey, it was your idea,” Susan objected. Cassie shook her head. “Don’t bring facts into this! You got to cut me up, so now I get to cut you up. It’s just basic good manners.” Susan sighed. “Okay, fine. We can do it this weekend. My parents will be going to my aunt’s birthday party and won’t be back until Saturday evening so we’ll have the place to ourselves for a whole day and we won’t have to worry about oversleeping.”

Cassie immediately brightened and stood up. “Great! See you in bio!” She turned to leave. Susan watched her walk away. “Uh, Cassie? What exactly are you planning to do to me?” Cassie turned around and gave her a smile that could only be described as evil. “Oh, you’ll see.” She turned back and walked towards the cafeteria doors, practically skipping. She left Susan sitting there, feeling decidedly more worried about the weekend.