I accepted magic to fight evil and it turned me into a girl, but I don’t think I really mind?

Jennifer Shannon

Chapter 1

I was planning to go to class, but it didn’t look like it was going to happen. The attendance for this one wasn’t exactly stellar generally, and I was no exception, but for once, I didn’t have a pile of other work to do, so I thought I should go today. Or I did, until I approached the engineering building. That was when I discovered that it was surrounded by emergency workers and the whole building was taped off. There was also a large amount of a disturbing red around the building. My friend, and classmate, Daniel was one of the many people crowding the tape to try to find out something about what had happened.

“No class today, Matt,” was his greeting for me.

“I did gather that. What’s going on?”

“Nobody knows. They already took some people off to the hospital, but I guess there’s a lot of bodies in there. The cops are trying to talk to the one person they pulled out who’s not dying or dead, but I don’t think they’re getting much out of her.”

I looked over to see who he was talking about, and saw a girl I recognized as one of the students from overseas babbling incoherently. Or at least the person talking to her was acting like she was incoherent; I didn’t really know, since I didn’t understand Arabic. I assumed that the cops didn’t either because they had someone from the faculty translating for them. He seemed to be struggling to get anything out of her, and as I was watching, he seemed to give up and walk away from her. Since he was passing closer to me now, I just barely overheard him talking to the officer following.

“... That she is not a useful witness for you. She speaks only of a ‘ghul’, a calamity. But, a ‘ghul’ can also be a demon or ogre...”

So, they didn’t know what had happened either. A “calamity” could be just about anything, but it was probably safe to assume that it wasn’t a demon. I turned to Daniel, who was still trying to hear anything that might explain what had happened.

“Dan, why don’t we take off? I don’t think they’re going to tell us anything, and this scene is rather gruesome.”

“Yeah, you’re probably right. The pub?”

“Sure. I could use a drink after seeing this.”

We had gone through several drinks in short order. I think we both wanted to blot this memory out. Daniel was trying to pick up some girl. He wasn’t usually as forward as he was now, but he also wasn’t usually this drunk. I was trying not to be noticed since I was very uncomfortable in situations like this. I was not the type to try to pick up girls in a bar. I had only ever had crushes on girls I had been close to, so trying to pick up a stranger was not something I really understood the appeal of.

Since coming to this school, I had learned a new word, “demisexual”, meaning “experiencing attraction only if having an emotional bond”, and it seemed to fit me rather well. Not that I was going to tell people that. Throughout high school I had been regularly beaten up by homophobes for not showing the appropriate level of lust for the female population, and I didn’t want to admit to something that might encourage that mentality. The university population in this city was much more accepting than the high school community back home, but there were still assholes. Since I couldn’t tell which people were going to be assholes about something like that, I wasn’t going to risk sharing this with anyone.

Daniel had apparently been rejected since he was unhappily returning to our table. He was also bringing more drinks, so I guessed that we weren’t done trying to erase memories.

“Thanks. Sorry that that didn’t work out.”

“Ah, whatever. Can’t succeed unless you try.”

This was something I’d heard from him many times before, most often when he was trying to convince me to try picking someone up. I hadn’t told him about the “demisexual” thing either. I really didn’t think he’d be an asshole about it, since we’ve been good friends since I’d moved here, but I was not prone to taking risks involving other people doing what I expected. I was about to reply when he started staring off in another direction. I turned to see what he was looking at, and there was, unsurprisingly, a girl. She had dressed in a very punk way I had always liked the look of on girls. I must have been distracted for some time by my appreciation of a fashion I’d have considered wearing if I thought it suited men, because Daniel shared his opinion on what he assumed I was looking at.

“Dude, she’s hot! You got to go talk to her,” he prodded me.

“I don’t think I feel up to that right now.”

“Come on, you’re a good guy, but if you never go up to anybody, they’re not going to know that.”

“I’m just not in the mood tonight. You go ahead if you want.”

“You sure? Thanks, man!”

Apparently, he had drank enough to drop the effort of “reforming” me, because he didn’t waste any more time before approaching her himself. I went back to trying not to be noticed.

We had finally decided that we’d had enough and started to go home. I later decided on my way to my apartment that I had maybe overdone it, when it seemed like a bird was talking to me, in English. Since I was obviously out of it enough to be hallucinating, I felt confident that the memory of that horror scene would be deadened in the morning.

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