NOTE: Not a positive or feel-good story. Read at your own risk.

“Unf,” I grunt as I’m woken from a dreamless slumber by my phone, though it isn’t my alarm that wakes me, but rather an incoming call. I try to smile as I click the ‘answer’ button- normally I'd be happy to see the identity of the caller on my phone's screen, but it's much too early- and much too cold- for that right now.

“Good morning, Ian!” Grandma says with a cheerful tone. “Or rather, happy birth-eve!”

“Thanks, grandma,” I say quietly as I prop myself up in bed and huddle my sheets around my shivering form. “Is everything okay in Cardiff?”

Brandon Butler finds himself struggling with life. In a world where everyone has been genetically modified or cybernetically enhanced, being ‘normal’ has become detrimental to his future. He needed to find a way to make himself unique so that he could get a job. To do so, he turned to the unlicensed and illegal mod market only to find he might have got more than he bargained for.

It wasn’t just the infernals that sent a contingent. It appeared the entire town sent entities to the Council chambers.

I stood with April as people gathered around the immense crystal. Everyone spoke in excited hushed tones and several had winked at me, or touched me on the arm, or leaned in to give me a kind whisper.

I was definitely the, uh, Were of the hour.

“I love you when you’re tired and grumpy from working a bad craft fair, or when you can’t get the truck to start, or forget we’re supposed to have dinner with the ’rents. You are my always and my forever, Keziah Brown.”

He's let his girlfriend bring another man into the relationship in order to save it. But the new man has some very unorthodox, very girly changes in mind for him...

Justin and Bridget's relationship is in trouble. They just aren't clicking romantically like they once did. So to spice things up, Bridget recommends bringing in a third: a suave, mysterious man named Anthony. Justin unenthusiastically accepts, and at first, the shake-up seems to be helping. But Anthony starts recommending increasingly feminine things for Justin to try -- inside and outside of the bedroom. How far will Justin let things go in order to save his relationship?

When Robert’s wife’s body is stolen, Robert must discover where and who she is and get her body back. But can he succeed when Exmuritious Forrester, the CEO and owner of Transmigration Studios, decides to stop him? Who can Robert trust, when anyone could be anyone?

“Holy hand grenade of Antioch!” Janet gasped. “How did we not see that coming?”

The Other Side of Me – Part 29
by Lily Rasputin

“Charlie? Are you okay?”

Sight and sound popped back into existence around me, revealing that I was in the living room of my apartment, sitting on the sofa with Samantha’s head resting in my lap. I glanced down to find her looking up at me with a concerned expression.

“Huh?” I asked, still trying to reacclimate to the dimensional jump. Unlike the previous swaps, this one was jarring. The difference between stepping across a threshold and stumbling across one.

The Other Side of Me – Part 28
by Lily Rasputin

As much as I might have preferred to sit on a bench and tongue wrestle with Mike all morning, both of us had classes and responsibilities that we couldn’t completely ignore. So, after another ten minutes of really wonderful public displays of affection, I peeled my face away from his and sighed.

“Guess we should take a break for now, huh?” He asked, sounding about as disappointed as I felt.

I nodded. “Probably. I have to meet with Shelly and talk about some stuff. But I could meet you for lunch if you wanted.”

The Other Side of Me – Part 26
by Lily Rasputin

As the heavy haze of my intense, dream-filled slumber slowly parted, I found that Samantha was no longer curled up next to me.

Some part of my brain, probably still soaked with serotonin, hoped the sexy redhead would rejoin me soon. However, as I continued to lay there with my eyes closed, it occurred to me that the bed didn’t seem as soft as I remembered from the previous evening. In fact, it felt as if I were lying on something a bit stiffer and less comfortable.

The Other Side of Me – Part 25
by Lily Rasputin

“No,” I said, trying to inject nonchalance into my voice. “I didn’t forget. Uh, the time just sort of got away from me.”

There was a pause from Sam’s end, just long enough for me to wonder if she was mad that “I” had apparently forgotten we were supposed to get together today. If she was, I’d just have to find some way to put out that fire as well. After all, it wasn’t as if I could tell her that it wasn’t really me she’d made plans with.

After the superhero Curador and his more experienced partner are captured by the evil Dr. Quasi, the demented genius subjects them to bizarre and horrifying experiments to satisfy his thirst for knowledge—as well as his own lascivious desires. Helpless to defend themselves from his depravity, the humiliated heroes soon discover that there are some fates far more outlandish than the merely life-and-limb dangers to which they had become accustomed. (A tale of Faraday City.)

“As a matter of fact, they aren’t staring at you because they are impressed by your academic credentials.”

Previously: It has been seven years since Zhou Yu was first transformed into a woman and brought to An. In order to solidify the peace between Thamud and Talos, her four year old son has been betrothed to the daughter of Princess Sabine of Talos [see Chapter 11].

Chapter 13 - Succession

[An entry from the Journal of Queen Zhou Yu]

Dear Reader,

Gregory learns more about his situation, and gets some tiny hints about his possible future.

[Scribe's Note: It is unclear if any other entries were written by Lady Zhou between Chapters 10 and 11 of this transcription. But if there were, they have either been lost or excised. The following section occurs in the third year of the reign of King Idis II of Thamud. It has been four years since the last entry transcribed.]

Chapter 11 Three Years Later . Absent Friends

Dear Reader,