“What the heck!” Nexus said. I opened my eyes blearily to see her standing in our room, trying to turn and look at her back.

“What is it?” I asked. I swung myself out of bed and stood up.

“There’s something that I can feel somewhere at the base of my spine,” Nexus said. “I can’t see what it is.”

“Let me see,” I said. Nexis turned so I could see. Right where she had said was a small, three-inch-long nub that had ice-blue scales on it. “Um, it looks like a little tail.”

“What!?” Nexus shouted. “What do you mean, a tail?”

“It looks like the tip of a snake’s tail,” I said. “It has these small ice-blue scales on it.”

“So, I have a tail,” Nexus said. She dropped into her bed and covered her face with her hands.

“Hey, it might not be as bad as you think,” I told her. “Having a tail can be cool.”

“Easy for you to say,” Nexus said. “You were born with yours.”

“Yeah, I’ve had a while to come to terms with it,” I said. “But I had a similar reaction to you when I found out about mine.”

“What do you mean?” Nexus asked.

“Well, me and several of the others, like Shun, Kanata, and Arya,” I said, “were reincarnated from another world.”

“Another world?” Nexus asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “And I didn’t have a tail in my first life. I was just as shocked as you are now.”

“Oh,” Nexus said.

“Besides,” I said, nudging her shoulder. “It’s only, like, three inches long.”

“It’ll probably get longer,” Nexus said.

“Fair point,” I said. “Can you move it though?”

Nexus concentrated for a second. “Nope. I can’t figure out where the muscles are.”

“Oh,” I said. “Would it help if I touched it so you would know where it is?”

“Maybe,” Nexus said.

“Do you want me to try?” I asked.

“Yes,” Nexus said.

“Ok,” I said. I brushed my finger along the Nexus’s tail.

“Holy fuck that feels weird,” she said. She shivered. “But I can feel it now.” Her tail wove back and forth. As it did, I noticed that there were a few more scales along the base of the tail.

“Kinda cool, I guess,” Nexus said.

“I think it’s already grown a bit,” I said

“WHAT!” Nexus shouted. “What do you mean it’s grown!?”

“I don’t think it’s like a normal tail,” I said. “It’s growing pretty fast.”

“Ok, well,” Nexus said, flustered, “how long will it take?”

“That depends on how long it will grow,” I said. “It’s taken maybe five minutes to grow maybe an inch, so around an hour to grow a foot.”

Nexus fell down onto her bed again. She covered her face with her hands and sighed. “Why me?” she asked.

“Hey,” I said. “You’ll be fine.”

“I know,” She responded. “It’s just weird.”

“Oh my gosh I just realized we only have ten minutes till our next class,” I said.

“Oh, crap!” Nexus said. “We need to get ready!” We quickly got changed out of our pajamas and into our school clothes.

Nexus burst out of the room and ran off toward our class. I followed, shutting the door with a flick of my tail. We dashed through the corridors, speeding our way to class.

We reached the door and stopped, trying to catch our breath. Once we had, we opened the door and found seats.

“Hey,” I said, waving to Shun.

“Hey,” He said.

“Where’s Kanata?” Nexus asked.

“Don’t know,” Shun said. “I think Soraya said that she’s unconscious in her bed right now, because of something that happened in her class.”

“Oh,” I said.

“Well, hopefully, she’ll make it to class on time,” I said. And then the bell rang.

“I guess not,” Shun said.