Eden's Reality

A small 14 year old boy plans on escaping his abusive father and the house where he grew up in by moving to a boarding school with his two best friends, but on the night before he leaves something unexpected happens, and he wakes up the next day a different person.

All feedback is very much appreciated :)

Chapter Seven

(So, I moved the end of the last chapter, where Eden wakes as a girl, into here because it flowed better. I altered it slightly but if you read the last chapter then you can skip the first few paragraphs if you want!)

The morning light slowly dragged me back up from the darkness and I opened my eyes, feeling far better than I expected to. In fact, I felt better than I had in a long time, as if I’d had a decent night’s sleep instead of the painful, fractured mess that had actually happened. My chest was a bit sore for some reason but beyond that everything was fine!

I guess it had just been some kind of weird pizza…thing. Indigestion? Whatever! I wasn’t sick anymore, thank god! That had been terrifying, worse than anything I’d ever experience before. What the hell kind of horrible pizza could do that to someone?

I turned over on the bed to see what time it was and came face to face with a seal. I stared at it stupidly for a moment before realising that it was Alexis’s baby seal plushy, for some reason now in my bed. I giggled at its cute, round face and large black eyes, and couldn’t resist reaching out to hug it. For some reason though my arms weren’t…right somehow…and they missed it and thumped against the wooden backing of the bed, then fell onto the beds fluffy pillows.

Something was very wrong. And as my tired mind began to wake itself up I started to realise what.

First off, I was naked. Which made sense because I remembered taking off my clothes in the night when I’d felt like I was burning. And that’d be fine if not for the fact that I was in Alexis’s bed!

The baby seal wasn’t in my bed, I was in hers! The sofa bed didn’t have a wooden backing and its pillows were large and thick, not soft and fluffy.

But worst of all…there was something wrong with my hands.

I stared intently at them and a cold feeling trickled down my spine. They was smaller than they had been, the fingers thinner and more delicate, and callouses that’d built up from my years of forest exploration were gone. My nails were longer than they had been too, were slightly curved at the top and far cleaner than I’d ever seen them.

My arms were thinner as well and not as long as they had been, but the scars were still there. I swallowed uncomfortably and pushed myself up into a sitting position, letting the blankets slide off of me to reveal my torso. I looked down and blinked in confusion.

My...my body wasn’t my body anymore. My waist was smaller, my hips wider and…there were small lumps on my chest, almost like…

‘W-what…’ I stammered and gingerly poked one of the lumps. It wasn’t too large, kind of like a flattish tennis ball. It was as if my chest had started growing for some reason, right where my nipples were. The lump I’d poked hurt slightly even though I’d barely touched it and for one horrible minute I thought that it might be a tumor, that the pain from last night was me getting cancer but…

Another thought occurred to me and I slowly pushed the rest of the sheets off of my lower half, took a deep breath and then stared down at it.
Then gasped and looked right back up. What the fuck!

It was gone. The thing between my legs, the disgusting thing Jon had kept touching, the…the thing men had…that Jon had…a p-p-p-

Wow, it’s finally starting to get hard huh?

I started shaking and crawled over to the mirror, hoping that I was just seeing things and my refection would show my body the way it normally was. I had to be hallucinating, there was no way this was real. I took a shaky breath to stabilize myself and looked into the mirror, hoping against hope that I was going to see myself staring back at me.

I barely recognized the face in the mirror. My cheekbones were higher, making my face heart-shaped like mums was, and my lips were thick and curved like hers were too. The bump in my nose was gone and it was smaller than it had been, making it far less prominent. My eyes were the opposite, having become slightly larger than they had been and ringed by the same thick, long lashes that made mum look so pretty. I also had similar eyebrows to her too, as they were now thinner and longer instead of just small and bushy. For the first time in my life I actually kind of looked like I was older than ten, but…

It seemed like all the features I’d inherited from dad had been replaced by mums, except for my hair. It was thicker and silkier than before but still a dark blonde and incredibly messy. An uncountable number of loose strands were poking out all over the place and thick chunk of them fell over my right side like normal.

The brown mark was still there, although it was thinner and longer than before and seemed to stand out more. For the first time in my life I found myself overjoyed to see it still there, as even though it was slightly different it was a definite marker than I was still…me.

I noticed other changes too, like my neck being slightly longer and the hints of an Adams apple that had been growing lately were completely gone. My shoulders had lost all of the muscle I’d developed over the past couple of years and were now slim and petite like my arms. In fact, my whole body was smaller than it had been. Not by much but I felt off-balance even kneeling down as my brain tried to adjust to my new eye height. I guess I really had been shrinking yesterday…and I’d shrunk even more now…

I avoided looking at my groin and inspected my legs, seeing that they too had thinned down, but were curvier than before, rounding off the sides and into my wider hips. They weren’t all that wide, but compared to before they were. Definitely enough to be feminine, but not as wide as mum or Alexis’s were. My feet were tiny too, but they’d always been small so that change was probably the least significant.

‘I’m…I’m not….’ I said stupidly and noticed that my voice was softer and slightly more high-pitched than before. I let out a shaky sigh and closed my eyes, took a couple of slow, deep breaths, then opened them again in the hopes that I’d see my normal, male self staring back at me.

A pale, tiny little girl stared fearfully back at me through a mass of silky blonde hair.

Oh god…this couldn’t be real…there was no way…no way…

I checked Alexis’s alarm clock and saw that it was ten in the morning, meaning that her parents had probably left hours ago. Had they seen me like this? Were they the ones that’d moved me into Alexis’s bed? Had they called my parents? I flinched as I imagined dad seeing me like this. Last night he’d slammed me against a wall just for having a picture of me dressed as a girl! He’d probably kill me if he saw me now! There was no way he-

‘You’re awake!’

I yelped in shock and looked up at the doorway, where Alexis had just entered. I’d been so lost in my thoughts that I hadn’t even noticed her standing there. She was wearing a white tank-top and a loose knee-length denim skirt over black leggings, and had put on some pink lip gloss and mascara.

I gasped, slammed my legs together and covered my chest with my hands, feeling horribly vulnerable. Alexis slowly walked over and knelt down in front of her, her eyes huge.

‘Eden?’ she asked, her eyes flashing over my body. ‘Is…is that you?’

‘Yes!’ My throat tightened and I fought off a sob. ‘Of course it’s me!’

Relief broke on her face and she let out a breath. ‘Ohh, thank god! I...I found you like that an hour ago and I didn’t know what to do so I put you in my bed in case….I don’t know! Fuck! Fuck! This is so weird! Eden! You’re a girl!’

‘I know!’

‘Did you…did you do something to yourself last night?’

‘I didn’t do anything!’ I cried and tried to stop my body from shaking so much. ‘I just woke up like this, like two minutes ago!’

‘W-well, have you been taking female hormones or something?’

‘What? No!’ I snapped angrily. ‘Why would you even ask me that? Hormones can’t do this in one night! And they don’t make…they don’t turn genitals into other genitals.’ I finished awkwardly and avoided looking her in the eye.

‘I know, but…’ she ran her hands through her hair. ‘I just-just don’t know what else could have happened! Boys don’t just turn into girls overnight! It’s impossible!’

My throat tightened again. ‘…is this real?’

She swallowed before answering. ‘I’m pretty sure it is. Mum and dad woke me up to say goodbye and then left with Nyoko like two hours ago, and I know that was all real. I haven’t fallen asleep since then and I don’t hallucinate like you do so…so this is real. It doesn’t make any sense but it’s real!’

I forced myself not to whimper and took a steadying breath to try and calm myself down. ‘Did your parents see me like this? Or Nyoko?’
‘No.’

‘Good. O-okay so…’ I rubbed my eyes, which were wet and sore. ‘I t-’

‘Uh! You need to put some clothes on!’ Alexis gasped and I realised with a jolt that I’d left my chest exposed.

‘Oh god! Sorry!’ I cried and covered myself back up as my face burned. ‘I threw off Nyoko’s clothes last night cos I got really hot and I don’t know where they ended up!’

‘I-It’s fine.’ She went over to her wardrobe and looked through it. ‘None of my pants will fit you but a shirt should be fine. You’re small enough that it’ll cover your…everything. Here. This doesn’t fit me too well anymore so it should be good for you.’

She threw me a white shirt with a cute black lamb on the front and I quickly slipped it over my head and stood up. To my relief it fell down to my knees and wasn’t as comically oversized as I’d expected, although it was still far too big for my body. It was infinitely better than nothing though.

The fabric seemed to be irritating my chest thought, as every time it brushed against my breasts it itched horribly, and I refused to scratch them. I didn’t want to deal with the reality of those things any time soon. I just needed to ignore my body and try to figure out how this happened, so I could find a way to fix it somehow.

I knelt down so the shirt didn’t feel like a dress as much and ran my hands though my hair, trying to figure out how this could have happened. I remembered all of the pain last night, but how would that have turned me into a girl? Hadn’t it just been from the pizza? If not, then it was from t-

Oh god!

The spider!

‘Alexis!’ I cried and she looked around at me from the wardrobe. ‘I think I know what happened!’

‘You do?’ she came over and knelt down in front of me again, her eyes narrowed intently.

‘That spider that chased me and Reece, it attacked me just before I saw you outside my house last night!’ I said and clutched my chest, the memory making me shudder.

‘What? Really?’ her eyes widened in concern. ‘Did it bite you?

‘Yeah! But I didn’t think it was real so I didn’t mention it but…it had to have happened!’ I said and then proceeded to tell her everything about the incident with the spider, from hearing the woman’s voice to it biting my chest to me absorbing its heart.

It…sounded insane out loud, and as I kept talking Alexis’s expression gradually changed from confusion to disbelief, and when I finished she just stared at me in silence.

‘Uhm! I know it sounds super weird but, it has to be real right? I was a boy yesterday and after I absorbed the spider I turned into a girl!’
‘I…uh…’ she rubbed her forehead and frowned at me. ‘It kind of makes sense, I guess? But why would absorbing a spider turn you into a girl?’

‘I don’t know! I don’t think it was a real spider though because it had a human heart and red blood.’ I frowned and thought back to the things the woman had said. ‘I think maybe it was a part of her somehow! When I first absorbed it she said something like “that’s part of me!” and
when I saw her in here she said something like, “what have I done to you?” and…and yeah!’

‘You saw her here?’

‘Mm! But it wasn’t real. Or! I mean, I don’t think she was really here…but…I…it was strange!’ I turned bright red. ‘But it happened! Like…ugh! Don’t worry about that! It’s not important, the absorbing the spider stuff is!’

‘O-okay…’ Alexis said slowly. ‘So…you think you absorbed her blood? And it changed you into a girl?’

‘Does that make sense?’ I asked hopefully. ‘Like, her blood has to be special if she could make a spider with it!’

‘No!’ she scowled and angrily rubbed her forehead again. ‘It doesn’t make any sense! People can’t make blood spiders! That’s insane and impossible! And why would your body absorb it, and how would that make you a girl? It doesn’t make any sense Eden!’

I put my hands on her leg and looked up at her. ‘You don’t believe me? I’m not crazy!’

Her expression softened and she put a hand on mine, but she shook her head. ‘I know you’re not crazy, but…there has to be a more rational explanation that you absorbing a spider! That’s insane!’

‘But it has to be true! Look at me!’ I cried, grabbing her hands and squishing them against my face. ‘This is real! You even said it was real before.’

‘You being a girl is real.’ she said, slowly moving her hands along my face with wide eyes. Her fingers gently caressed my cheeks and lips, then moved up into my hair. ‘Way too real. Jesus…you look like a younger version of your mum. And your skin is so soft and…amazing. I can only get my skin like that if I moisturize it every day.’

My face burned. ‘I don’t want to look like mum! And I don’t care what my skins like! We have to fix this! I can’t stay like this!’

She ran her hands through my hair and put them on my shoulders, a strange expression on her face. Kind of like the one she got when she was around mum and the one she’d gotten in the bathroom before, some weird kind of embarrassment. Or disappointment? What was g-
A loud ringing sound coming from the front of the house and we both cried out in shock.

‘Shit! That was the doorbell!’ Alexis jumped up and ran to the doorway.

‘Wait! Who is it?’

‘I don’t know! You should stay here though, just in case. It’s probably someone delivering something dad ordered online.’

‘Won’t they just leave it at the door if nobody answers? Do you have to go?’ I really didn’t want to be alone right now.

‘Yeah, but it could be important! I have to check! Sorry!’ she said and disappeared down the hallway.

I scowled at the empty doorway. This was just like the night before, when she’d gotten weird and ran off! What the hell was wrong with her!
No! No, that wasn’t fair. I couldn’t blame her for running off now, not with me like this. If I’d woken up to find Alexis as a guy for no reason I’d probably want to get out of here and…I don’t know…escape from the strangeness for a moment. I envied her.

I got to my feet and walked over to the doorway, hoping I’d be able to hear who was at the door. There was no way it was mum or dad, but maybe it was Alexis’s parents. What was I going to do if they saw me like this? Would they believe I hadn’t done this on purpose? If Alexis didn’t believe the story about the spider then there was no way an adult would!

Fear rose up in me and I instead ran back to Alexis’s bed and crawled into it, hugging the plushy seal to my chest. Maybe I could just hide under here if they came in and pretend I was sick or something.

What the hell was I going to do? I couldn’t go to Sanders like this! Could I? Maybe I could cut my hair and hide the breasts somehow? Even though they were small they still poked out enough to be noticeable through the shirt, but if I wore two shirts they’d probably be hidden. The school’s uniform came with a jumper so I could wear that! It could be enough to make me look at the very least gender ambiguous, like I used to be when I was younger. I could probably trick the other boys in the dorm if I was careful, and the heads and teachers too.

But what about people who knew me? Reece would see the change right away! And mum too! How was I going to explain what had happened? I couldn’t! And no one would believe I hadn’t done this to myself! I had to find a way to change back!

I hugged the seal tighter against me. Today was Monday and mum was coming on Friday. That should be enough time for me to find a way to fix this. That spider had turned me into a girl in under a day, so if I could find that woman then she should be able to turn me back that quickly! Right? She had to be able to! I couldn’t stay like this. I was a boy! I didn’t want to be a girl! I…

I…didn’t…

I poked my head out of the covers and looked at my reflection again. I really did look like a young mum, and she was beautiful. And that wasn’t just me being biased, everyone who saw her commented on it, and dad constantly bragged about it every chance he got. Jon used to joke that dad was lucky he got mum pregnant so young or she’d have never stayed with him.

I’d never understood why that was funny.

I crawled out of the bed and went back to the mirror to see myself better. If I grew up like this would I look like mum when I was her age? Would it undo all of the weird development problems I’d been having? I stood up and gently pushed the shirt harder against me so that it’d emphasized my body more. My waist was really small compared to my hips, just like mums, and my legs were long as well. There was a nice balance between my shoulder width and hips, and my breasts would probably get larger like a normal girls ones.

I…probably would look like mum if I grew up like this…

Was that…good?

A painfully empty feeling clutched at my stomach and I dropped to my knees, my eyes starting to tear. Fuck! This feeling was so familiar…I used to feel it all the time when I was younger, when I…

When I wanted to be a girl. I’d wanted to be a girl so badly that it’d hurt. I remembered telling mum that I wanted to grow up and be just like her…that’s all I’d ever wanted, to be just like her. I’d never understood why I couldn’t be, especially after the day at the zoo. All that had done was make the desire even stronger. She’d said I was like the daughter she’d never had and…and…

Then Jon had raped me.

And I never wanted to be a girl again.

A sob tore out of my throat and I turned away from the mirror, my vision blurring from tears. This had to be some kind of sick joke. There was no way that…that…

I dropped to my knees and rested my head on the ground, all of my energy disappearing. I couldn’t deal with this. It was too fucked up…too complicated…too…terrifying…

My body was so light and weak now…if someone wanted to do what Jon had done it’d be so easy for them. I couldn’t fight them off. I probably couldn’t have before, to be honest, but I’d looked like a boy then, and a kind of weird, ugly one at that. Now though…
I whimpered and clutched at my head. No no no no no no no no-

‘Eden?’ I looked up to see Alexis in the doorway, her face a mixture of confusion and worry. ‘Are you okay?’

‘No.’ I wiped my eyes and sobbed again.

‘Well…I think…I think that…’ Alexis came into the room and then looked back at the doorway. ‘I think that woman you saw is here.’

‘Huh?’ I blinked and looked at her, and then at the doorway just as a woman entered the room.

My heart leapt and I wiped my eyes again to see her clearly. It was woman I’d seen before!

I stared at her as she approached, for the first time seeing her in the flesh. She was tall, much taller than even mum, and had messy black hair that fell unevenly around her handsome face. Her pale brown complexion was flawless and enhanced her sharp features, making her look almost unearthly beautiful. There was a silver stud in her right nostril and two more in each ear, and even though I couldn’t see them I could hear some bracelets on her arms jingling as she moved. She was wearing a fitted black coat over a white tank top and I could see brown boots peeking out from under the cuffs of her black jeans.

‘Hi.’ she said, kneeling down in front of me. ‘My name’s Yani. We need to talk.’