“Are you serious?” Skylar covered their mouth and nose with a hand, staring at the plastic blue cubicles lining the edge of the grass.
“Yep.” John’s face had been scrunched up for the last fifty paces in line, and now that they were the next two, his face was full of wrinkles.
“But… why?”
“Because this is cheaper for a temporary gathering place.” John coughed. Skylar’s eyes started to water. The stench was thick, hanging in the air.
“I don’t know if I can do this John.” A door slammed open and a broad shouldered woman lumbered out.
“You said if you hold it too long, you risk transforming in order to deal with the waist issue.” John hissed into Skylar’s ear before giving them a push forward. “This is what you get for holding it for nearly a whole day!”
Skylar stumbled forward, glancing back at the unsympathetic John before they walked into the empty port-a-potty.
John had described how to properly lock the door earlier. It was a good thing because Skylar wouldn’t have had the patience to figure it out on their own. The pungent smell was a million times worse in the small space.
Nope. Skylar wanted out. Her torso tightened, a twisting stabbing pain emanating from inside. If they didn’t take care of the waste human style, they’d transform. It was tempting, but they wouldn’t be able to do another full transformation for several hours.
Skylar’s body shuddered, gagging as they had to stop plugging their nose long enough to push down their pants. Maybe the dim light was a good thing, Skylar didn’t see anything worse than dark shadows in the hole. Maybe it was a bad thing because once they sat, the plastic seat wasn’t just oddly warm from body heat, it was wet. And sticky.
They quickly did what they had to do, letting out a string of swears from their database upon realizing there wasn’t any toilet paper. When they threw the door open they gulped down the better air, enjoying the fresher smells mixed it: cut grass, cooking oil, even the sweat and body odor was more pleasant than the smells inside that disgusting port-a-potty.
Skylar stumbled to the hand washing station, scrubbing for nearly a whole minute. Yet they felt the smell still linger on their skin, in the strand of hair that kept falling in front of their face, on their clothes.
“Congratulations.” John joined Skylar and started washing his hands. “You didn’t pass out.”
“I almost barfed.” Skylar shook the water off their hands, as they were out of paper towels too.
“But you didn’t.” John grinned. “And you didn’t accidentally reveal yourself. We should hurry back to the mosh pit.”
“Missing Hannah?” Skylar grinned. “Oh, and worried about Emily.”
“You know me so well.” John twisted through groups of people on the edge of the field. Skylar giggled as they made their way back to their friends.
Word count: 491
