26.2 Natalie’ Post Mortem Observations

Natalie woke up lying on the absurdly comfortable bed of the guest room she has become familiar with over the course of two weeks. Immediately, she knew there was something off about the situation. Her brain didn't need time to kick in so she immediately remembered the series of events that occurred before she was unceremoniously rendered unconscious…again.

"Ugh dammit Ez" she sighed, letting out a breath, then paused "what in the...?"

Once again, the feeling of there being something off pervaded her senses as she realized something. That realization caused her to take a few deep breaths, pausing between each until finally settling on holding her breath for as long as she could. It wasn't the first time she did this, but this time around, the familiar slow-building burn of her lungs did not come. While holding her breath, she reached up to brace a hand against her chest, and her eyes widened.

There was no involuntary rise and fall of her chest.

There was no rhythmic beating in her heart.

Not even the feel of blood flowing through her veins, which was something she didn't even realize she could feel.

All were absent.

All was still.

Like the grave.

"Oh my God," Natalie gasped as she looked at her hand. It was pale to the point of discoloration.

It caused the woman to finally get out of bed and head to the nearest mirror which happened to be a full-length one attached to the closet door in another design choice by Ezraphel. In truth, she didn't really appreciate the thing before. It was placed in a way that would make her notice herself the moment she got out of bed. Considering she was suffering the symptoms of leukemia as well as some lingering effects of the botched chemotherapy treatment, her body made for a poor sight that only gave her a constant reminder of her impending death.

It's the reason she decided to cover the damn thing. As she went to take off the covering, Natalie hesitated. She wondered what exactly she would see on the other side of that sheet cloth, and for the briefest moment, fear and indecision stayed in her hand.

'Come on, Nat, it's a little too late to be worried about that now.'

With a nod of affirmation to herself, Natalie pulled the sheet away, akin to ripping off a band-aid, and gasped at the sight of her reflection. A pair of stark red eyes greeted her, seeming to glow in the gloom of the room, and Natalie belatedly realized that the room was shrouded in darkness with the only true source of light coming from the window. She didn't even notice since she could see as clearly as if it were daytime.

Just like her hands, her entire body was very pale, corpse-like, yet distinctly not pasty. And as she realized upon delicately running her hands down her cheek, it was also incredibly smooth and cool to the touch. It gave a very new and almost very literal meaning to the description 'porcelain skin.' Her dark brown hair felt finer than silk as she raked her fingers through it, having regained its luster, and in truth, she looked as if she had spent an entire day in the finest hair salon.

She wore a pair of beige loose Capri pants and a t-shirt, both of which looked to have been filled out just a bit more than she remembered. Natalie always felt that she was just a bit too skinny, especially after her diagnosis, so logically, her next course of action was to take off her shirt. With a little gasp of surprise, the woman beheld the pale, smooth canvas that was her stomach, and once again she felt compelled to run her dainty hands over her abdominals.

They had just the right amount of womanly softness and taut fitness to be perfect. Above that, she took note of the swell of her breasts and how they slightly strained against her plain bra, with a note of discomfort she'd been ignoring up until that point. With a quick movement, she unhooked the restrictive bra and couldn't help but giggle in amusement. Her breasts seemed to have gone up a full cup size and a half from 32C to 40D.

"Wow~" she reached her hands up to cup "soft," lift "firm," and release "bouncy."

Next, her hands ran along her curves, which seemed to have gotten exaggerated enough to form a perfect hourglass figure. She rested her hands on her hips and struck a pose before turning around to get a better look at her ass. Even through the Capri pants she wore, Natalie could very much identify that her ass had gotten the BBL treatment au super-naturel.

"Talk about Gyatt, or whatever it is that the kids are saying nowadays," she shrugged, then gave her rump a sharp slap.

*Smack*

"God, I am one sexy corpse."

The words caused the grin on her face to lessen into something sardonic and contemplative.

"Oh, right, I'm dead now."

It was finally starting to sink in—her situation, that is.

She managed to get through the craziness that was Ezraphel's reveal with level head intact for two reasons. First, a lot of things were happening at once. New information kept being handed to her, one after the other, forcing her to adapt her priorities. Second, having Stan and Ezraphel there to explain things and act as a sort of buffer helped her take everything in without having a mental crisis.

It did work; don't get her wrong. Natalie has more or less accepted the weirdness that has been thrust upon her. Still, it's one thing to talk about, and even though she's literally seen Ezraphel's true form as well as demonstrations of her magic, there was always the tiniest bit of suspension of disbelief present within her.

Standing right there in front of the mirror as living or rather unliving proof of the supernatural is a different beast altogether. At least she can say that she wasn't panicking about the whole being dead thing. Frankly, Natalie felt too good at the moment, despite the absence of certain vital bodily functions.

Who knew that being dead would make her feel so much more alive?

No, seriously, she wasn't just comparing her current self to just a few hours ago either. Natalie felt better than even before she got diagnosed. Weeks of her body's slow deterioration forcing her into bouts of inactivity vanished overnight, and all the lost energy (and beyond) in the period where she suffered under its symptoms suddenly came back in a rush. So potent was it that Natalie could actually feel it running under her skin in lieu of blood.

There was power there; it left her feeling energetic and pent-up, and as she concentrated on the feeling, her eyes flashed in the mirror. Ultimately, it was seeing this strange phenomenon in her reflection that caused her to stop.

"Whoa, okay, let's not get ahead of ourselves here," she muttered while calming down.

She was already told that Wights were already predisposed to magic with their own supernatural abilities. She'd rather not tap into that power without supervision, lest she accidentally summon a ghost or something. Still, after spending a significant portion of her stay at her brother's house being cooped up in the house due to health concerns, Natalie felt like a caged bird. She wanted to take this newly-accumulated pent-up energy and do something with it.

She wanted to go out.

She wanted to travel.

She wanted to interact with people.

She wanted to party.

She wanted to have fun.

She wanted to meet a man.

She wanted to fuck!

Natalie blinked at the expression of her own reflection. She looked flustered, with a red blush showing more prominently on her pale cheeks. It caused her to slap them Macaulay Culkin-style before frowning.

"So that's what that is."

That being said, the subtle heat she felt within her was so negligible that she could largely ignore it in lieu of prioritizing literally everything else. Now that she was finally giving it the proper acknowledgement, a thought occurred to Natalie.

'When's the last time I had sex?'

She'd like to say it hadn't been that long, but it actually has been a while.

'Since before the chemotherapy,' a voice in her head reminded her, causing her to wince.

That was a couple months ago, and the reason it didn't bother her was because she obviously had bigger things to worry about. Not that Natalie cared much for it; she wasn't fiending for dick, nor did her lack of action bother her.

At least it doesn't bother her much.

…okay, it did bother her, but only when she's reminded of it, which is not very often.

Then she met Ezraphel, who seemed to make it her mission to give her constant reminders of her impromptu celibacy in every other conversation they had.

It all seemingly started back when they were helping to pack up her stuff at her old apartment. Unbeknownst to her brother, the cooking supplies weren't the only things Ezraphel found. Somehow, Ezraphel managed to stumble upon her 'toy collection' and the absolute look of pity she gave Natalie somehow did more damage than the fucking leukemia.

Frankly, it was a miracle Natalie didn't hold it against her which in truth is not so much a miracle. Natalie had thick skin and at some point must have willfully ignored the no doubt incidental verbal jabs. It helped that Ezraphel didn't mean anything by them. Plus Natalie threw herself into figuring out what the deal was with Ezraphel and her relationship with her brother as well as ensuring that he was in good hands upon her then inevitable demise.

Now that she wasn't in danger of dying and her brother was in a good place by all accounts anyway, the thoughts of her lack of a love life came back in full force, fuelled by her transformation. It caused Natalie to huff and cross her arms, taking a brief moment to admire how the action emphasized her breasts before voicing the culmination of her entire recent thought process in two single words.

"I'm horny."

Thankfully, unlike what her brother or that wiki described, the feeling wasn't all-encompassing enough that she would jump the first guy she laid eyes on, but she could recognize the feel of that familiar 'itch' that needed to be scratched. Natalie bit her lip as her thoughts went to the aforementioned box of 'toys' that could give her itch a nice good scratch.

"Hmm…"

It was tempting, very tempting, but ultimately she opted not to do that. There is no way she's masturbating in the same house where a literal Succubus demi-goddess and her Incubus lover, who also happened to be her brother, lived. Something told her that if she did it, then the two would know, and she would get grief for it in some way.

'Stan would definitely find some way to use that against me at some point.'

Plus the thought of pleasuring herself through such means felt inherently wrong. It was beneath her, she was better than that.

'If I'm going to get off then I'm going to do it the right way.'

Finding a man and getting a proper fuck.

So with the decision made not to engage in anything lewd within her brother's home Natalie nodded to herself 'that should be doable, not like I'm staying here for much longer anyway.'

As stated before, the urge wasn't so all-encompassing that she needed that sweet release, plus she was warned extensively that she would almost always be in a constant state of arousal, so she might as well get used to it for the time being. As for a permanent fix, that would have to be a bridge she would cross later on, preferably much later.

See, Natalie didn't really have any plans for a committed relationship even before her diagnosis, never mind settling down and having kids. Despite this, the idea undoubtedly appealed to her in a way that she was 120% certain was due to her newfound nature as a Mamono. Natalie wanted to find a man to fuck and get filled up but there was a burgeoning need to marry and have kids. The thought made her want to cringe even as she felt her cheeks burn as she envisioned, for a brief moment, a faceless man standing behind her reflection placing his hands on her belly while she nursed a visible baby bump.

"Fucking…" Natalie grumbled with a scowl as she violently yeeted the thought out the forefront of her mind.

This was the first instance of a rather blatant psychological change that was worryingly followed by a blatant delusion and she did not like that one bit. Make no mistake, the last thing on Natalie's mind pre-transformation was marriage and kids. First of all, she couldn't imagine herself as a mother, and the fallout of her last serious relationship made her sour on the concept of a committed relationship in general.

Maybe with time, her outlook would change, but she wouldn't hold her breath.

'Let's keep it casual for now.'

"Looks like I'm back on the market," Natalie muttered before picking up her bra to get dressed.

She went to fit the cups on her chest, only to pause, remembering the past discomfort of the now mismatched clothing article. After a moment, the bra was tossed with possibly more contempt than it deserved before Natalie donned her shirt. Taking a look at her reflection, she noted how, despite the lack of a bra, her larger breasts stood firm, perky, and proud while lacking any sort of sag, making the presence of a bra pointless.

"Oh, I can get used to this," she smiled while admiring herself.

Another thing she needed to get used to was the fact that her hearing picked up the sound of her brother's annoying (and oddly suave) voice from downstairs as she opened the door to her room.

"I can hear the coffin opening right now."

…also the zombie jokes.

Knowing him, he's going to be insufferable with those.

Taking a deep and unneeded breath, Natalie steeled herself for what was to come before venturing downstairs.