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Okay, definitely time for a subject change. Avery cleared his throat, "so anyway... how about this whole thing with Aubrey, huh? I can't believe someone would attack one of the scientists here... do you have any ideas who might have done it?" he asked.

Okay, so, maybe that wasn't a good thing to bring up... Avery thought, but he couldn't help but wonder why Billy seemed uncomfortable talking about that. Unless... he was the one?

"Ah. Yeah, I don't know, either... hopefully whoever did it will just turn themselves in, so the rest of us don't have to get punished for it."

Avery watched him try to pick up the fish, thinking it might be easier to use a fork, but he decided not to suggest it, not wanting to upset the other man any further. "Well, no... I guess I wouldn't... but I wouldn't do something like that in the first place. I just don't get how they expect any of us to solve it..."

Avery jumped in his seat, startled at Billy's sudden outburst. Maybe he should have just stayed where he had been sitting. It seemed all Avery was doing was making the other man upset. "Um... maybe... we should talk about something else," he murmured, even though he agreed with Billy - but he was kind of frightening when he was angry.

"Oh, uh, did you? I'm... sorry to hear that," Avery said, relaxing a little. "How long has it been, is this your first change?" he asked, curious as to how long of a wait there was in between changes. He wanted to at least get an idea of when the next time he might change would be... although he wasn't sure he'd feel better or worse if he knew when to expect it.

"Second!?" Avery looked surprised. "I've only changed once... I guess that means I should expect one sometime soon," he sighed, and wondered if Rex had changed already too. Rex did change before him, after all...

"I'm sure it does suck... it's hard to stop thinking about extra things on your body, I guess." My tail is a pain in the a** sometimes - literally at times too - but having tentacles must be worse, he thought. Better not to say that out loud. "But after time, I guess we'll get used to them. Oh," he suddenly remembered the incident with Awen trying to escape off the island.

"You should probably stay away from salt water. I'm guessing you're turning into a... squid, or octopus, right... someone else on the island - Awen - she's turning into an aquatic animal too. But when she tried to swim off the island, it was really bad. Apparently the scientists can make it so salt water animals can only swim in fresh water here. Just to warn you, so you don't get hurt..."

"Oh, good - I didn't know you met her yet," Avery nodded. "I wouldn't want a repeat of that to happen to anyone else."

Why an octopus? That was a good question... of course, Avery didn't know the answer, and he shrugged. "I don't know why an octopus... I don't know why any of the people here are changing into the animals that they are. Maybe there isn't a reason... maybe it's just randomly picked."