Note: This is not the Halloween story that I had planned. That story will likely be much longer, and being sick all last week killed any time that I had to work on it. I knew I wasn't going to finish it in time for the contest and then this idea hit me this morning and I managed to finish it just in time. I've really gotta stop these last-minute one day rushes for contests.

Every rapid, labored breath puffed visibly before me in the cold October air before the tiny clouds dissolved into mist against my already damp skin as I ran as fast as I could. I was sweating, my modest chest heaved, and I could barely gather air into my already burning lungs. My legs burned too, from the unaccustomed effort of running so hard and so long through unfamiliar and uneven terrain.

Far too briefly, the only sounds were my own labored breathing in the crunch of Autumn leaves beneath my nylon-clad feet. I had already abandoned my new shoes. I had bought them and the dress I was wearing just for this date, but the heels would have been impractical while running through the woods and I valued my life far more. Getting away from the others took priority.

The hoot of a nearby owl damn near caused my already racing heart to leap out of my chest and I could hear the jeers and the hateful slurs of my pursuers once again. A chill, from terror rather than the cold, slithered down my spine as I heard Derek’s voice call out, “What’s the matter, tranny?! Afraid?!”

They were getting closer! They probably would have caught me by now if they hadn’t given me a head start, to stoke my fear. I still had a lead though, so I needed to make the most of it and hurry. The highway shouldn’t be far away, I just hoped that I was going in the right direction and that I could flag down help there, someone who might be more sympathetic than Derek and his friends.

Their shouted jeers and promises of a violent end spurred me onward, even as brush and low branches tore at my dress and my flesh, leaving sharp pain and thin trails of crimson in their wake. Fear clutched at my heart as something sailed past my head and crashed into a tree ahead of me. Fuck! That had come far too close to hitting me for comfort. I guess the school quarterback wasn’t too brain-damaged to still realize that he was really good at throwing things and the light of the full moon above gave him plenty of light to see and aim as his pals cheered him on.

How did things end up like this? Things were supposed to be better here, Mom and Dad promised that things would be better here after the bullying I had received at my last school. A new town and a new school, I could have a fresh start. That was what they said when they sent me to live with my aunt’s family. After two years on hormones, I passed well enough that I didn’t have to worry about anyone clocking me, especially since I had a medical excuse to get out of gym class. Only one year left before I graduated so I would be fine unless I did something monumentally stupid.

Guess what I did. Go on, guess. That’s right, something monumentally stupid. Derek, the high school quarterback and one of the most popular guys at school, had just broken up with his girlfriend and he asked me out. Me, of all people. I should have known something was wrong.

Why the fuck did I have to say yes?! I’m not even attracted to guys! It was just… he asked me, and it felt nice to be acknowledged as the girl I was inside, a pretty girl. I just wanted to feel… normal for once in my life. So, I said yes. My cousin, Claire, had even helped me find the perfect outfit, making me think that after two months she was finally starting to warm up to me. Fucking stupid, Amber!

After dinner, Derek told me we were going to a party. What he didn’t tell me was that it was out in the middle of the woods, and I was the guest of honor. By the time I discovered that surprise, I was out alone in the woods with him and his friends, and the only way home was finding someone sympathetic to drive me home or a very long walk.

An hour earlier…

We stepped out of Derek’s car to the sound of music playing on someone’s stereo in the distance. I took another look at my date and couldn’t help wondering whether I should rethink this. He seemed nice enough during dinner, but I couldn’t be sure if that was just an act to try to get into my pants or if he really was that nice. I didn’t know him that well, just what I had heard from Claire and some of the other girls at school, mostly that he was hot.

Derek was the stereotypical jock; tall, muscular, handsome, and if I were a normal girl, my heart would probably be fluttering just having him reach out to take my hand like he was currently doing. I felt nothing though, no attraction to him at all, not that I would be interested in doing anything if there was attraction. I didn’t want to even think about sex until I had the right plumbing, and getting turned on while I still had that thing between my legs felt gross and made me want to throw up.

There were already three other vehicles parked on the lonely access road and the music got louder as we made our way through the trees. It wasn’t long before we got to the clearing, where I could see three other members of the football team there, including Claire’s boyfriend, Brent. He was one of the team’s running backs, the smallest of the four guys present but still much bigger than me, and he had dusky skin with dark hair and eyes. He was a bit of an asshole, and I was pretty sure he was only dating Claire because she put out. I overheard her talking with him one night before going to meet up with him while Aunt Nora and Uncle Bill were out.

Claire, on the other hand, was just dating him, and putting out, to be part of the popular crowd, like being one of the prettiest girls at school wasn’t enough. She was a year younger than me, barely sixteen, but utterly gorgeous. Five foot six with large breasts and an hourglass figure, long and naturally wavy strawberry blonde hair, and bright emerald eyes set in a pretty face with a delicate nose and full, pouty lips. She was wearing a sexy, pleated black miniskirt with a white blouse, a pair of sneakers, and a pink and white zip-up hoodie to ward off the evening chill.

I was so fucking jealous of her sometimes. I hadn’t gotten on the blockers until I was almost fifteen and the hormones a year later, and by then, testosterone had done enough damage. I could manage the cute side of average with makeup and effort, but I had dull brown hair and eyes and b-cup breasts that needed a pushup bra to give me a half-decent figure. Even in this nice black minidress, I probably only managed to look nice rather than sexy, and I was a whole year older than her. It just wasn’t fair.

The other two guys here were Ramon, a tall and muscular Latino guy with a buzzcut, and John, a huge guy of African descent who didn’t talk much. The pair were called the Two Towers at school and were the bane of defensive lines for every other football team in the division, or at least, that was what people said. The three guys were drinking cans of beer around a campfire and Claire sat in Brent’s lap like he owned her. A chill crawled down my spine as I realized that Claire and I were the only girls here.

“Hey, guys, I’m here, and I brought the guest of honor,” Derek announced as we joined the others at the fire. Ramon passed him a beer, which he immediately popped open and began to chug as I sent a suspicious glance toward my cousin. Claire wouldn’t even look me in the eye. I had a bad feeling about this.

“G-guest of honor?” I stammered, not liking where this was going at all.

“Hell yeah,” Derek said as he turned a grin on me that had me stiffening in fear. “Oh, first things first, we need to tell you the story about this place, the story of The Ghost of Tremont Woods. You see, Andrew, years ago, right here in these very woods, a girl disappeared on a cold October night when the moon was full, a night just like tonight.”

I locked up in fear, wide eyes turning to my cousin as Derek wrapped one muscular arm firmly around my waist, ensuring I couldn’t run off, and began to tell his tale. It wasn’t the start of the story that froze me in fear though, it was one word. Andrew. My dead name.

My cousin just smirked at me as she picked up telling the tale. “You see, Cuz, on that night, all those years ago, there was a gathering just like this one. A bunch of friends and one of the friends was something unnatural. Her friends brought her out here to chase her through the woods, scare her, and try to teach her the error of her ways. Some people say there was an accident. Others say she was murdered. Whatever happened though, the girl was never seen or heard from again. They say that her ghost haunts these woods on nights just like tonight.”

“And now, it’s your turn, Andrew. When Claire told us about you, I knew that we needed to help you,” Derek said as he tightened his hold on my waist and smiled down at me. The look in his eyes wasn’t the look of someone who wanted to help someone, there was hate in those cold, blue eyes.

So now, here I am, scared shitless and running for my life through a dark and creepy forest in the middle of the night. Except for my heavy breathing, and Derek and his pals crashing behind me and occasionally yelling threats to spur me onward, everything was eerily quiet, like the world around us was holding its breath. With each hurried step I took, the night air seemed to get ever colder, and the frost of my breath was thicker and hanging in the air. A cold mist settled upon the ground, seeming to drift in from out of nowhere, shrouding the ground and everything below my thighs and making every step more dangerous.

I pushed harder, making myself move faster, as fast as I could, even as my lungs protested every searing breath and my legs ached from the unaccustomed effort. A shadow, parting from another shadow just ahead of me prompted a scream that tore at my burning lungs. It was Brent, he had managed to get ahead of me and cut me off.

I turned on my heel without thinking, the motion sending a sharp pain through my ankle and causing me to scream once again as I crashed to the damp and cold ground. The air was knocked out of me as I hit, ending my scream and making me need to take a painful breath. I needed air! The mist surrounded me, and it was thick and cold enough to cause a chill in my throat and burning lungs as I breathed it in, and it clung to me as if trying to drag me downward.

“Don’t just lie here, stupid,” I chastised myself as I tried to pull myself from the mist-shrouded ground. “Get up!” Shakily, I staggered to my feet, every bruise and abrasion protesting the effort as much as my aching legs and heaving lungs. Searing agony tore through my left ankle as I tried to put weight on it and my heart hammered in my chest at the thought of getting caught.

Desperate to get away and put some distance between myself and these psychopaths, I hissed at the pain and forced myself to keep moving, limping along as fast as I could manage, pain blurring my vision with every step. If I lived through this shit, I was going to have a long talk with my aunt and uncle about Claire. Shit, they were closing in on me now, I could hear their taunting getting closer with every pain-inducing step.

Another vicious stab of pain lancing through my ankle, as I stepped on an unseen obstacle, sent me to the ground once again. I got back up, even if it was only to my hands and knees this time, and crawled through the now freezing mist, numb hands clawing at the cold ground to drag myself onward as I heaved in lungfuls of freezing mist one by one until what little forward progress I was making was halted by a pair of legs blocking my retreat. Above me, Derek stood with a manic look in his eyes that sent a chill through me that was colder than this freezing mist.

I was certain that I was going to die then as the quarterback taunted, “Who do we have here? What’s your name? C’mon, tranny, tell us who you really are. Maybe if you’re convincing, we’ll let you go.”

I could see the lie in his eyes. Whatever sick fate they had in store for me, nothing would deter them from it. “My name is Amber, asshole,” I told him firmly, looking dead into those hateful eyes. “If I was going to die or be beaten to a pulp anyway, then I wasn’t going to give him the fucking satisfaction. I would be myself to the end.

“C-come on, Derek. The plan was just to scare him and leave him out here to get home on his own,” Claire protested, her voice shaky as she watched. “Let’s get out of here, guys. It’s getting cold and this fog is creepy.”

Derek wasn’t having it. “Get him up, guys. I’ll finish this quick so we can get out of this fucking freaky forest.”

Even as the Twin Towers hauled me to my feet and held me in place, Derek reached into his jacket. My attempts to break free from their iron grip were unsuccessful, as were my attempts to back away when I saw the blade of a hunting knife gleaming in the moonlight. And then I screamed as his hand thrust the weapon forward.

Claire’s scream echoed my own, but I didn’t feel any pain as the knife stopped short and I slumped in the grip of the two massive football players, who let go of me. My legs wouldn’t hold my weight, they had gone weak and my ankle was fucked so I fell to the ground. Where my scream had been one of utter terror, Claire’s was furious and tinged with fear. “What the fuck, Derek?! You asshole!”

“Now let him get home on his own,” Derek replied with a confident smirk as he and his pals laughed at me. “If I ever see you pretending to be a girl at school again, tranny, me and the guys will have to beat some sense into you.”

Fuck! I clenched my fists in impotent rage as tears streamed down my cheeks. Those assholes were really going to leave me here in the middle of the woods. And Clair was just going to let them do it. I’d be lucky if I could find my way to the highway by morning, let alone the town, and with my ankle fucked up, even that was unlikely. I couldn’t even call for help because I had stupidly left my phone and purse in Derek’s car. Maybe they were hoping I really would die out here.

Still, I tried to get up, even if it was only to spit in his fucking face before he left. I got to my knees, even though my legs and arms were shaking with fear as they started to walk away, Derek twirling the knife in his hands. Claire went with them, looking over her shoulder at me. For a brief instant, she looked concerned, but that quickly disappeared, and she glared at me as if this whole fucking thing was my fault when she had outed me to these assholes and went along with this. The bitch even took me shopping and made me think that she actually gave a shit about me.

Tears of frustration and betrayal stung my eyes as I got unsteadily to my feet, making everything fuzzy. Maybe I was just seeing things too, because it almost looked like the mist was moving, coalescing into something eerie and unnatural. It almost looked like there was a person in that mist, hints of a girl close to my age. The girl in the mist turned her head toward me, her eyes glowing with a malevolent crimson light that made my knees go weak and sent me back down to the ground, recoiling in terror.

The figure disappeared, fading into the mist as quickly as it had appeared, and an instant later, the thick carpeting of mist went from just very cold to bitterly freezing. It roiled and undulated, seeming to thicken further as it rose and clung to the retreating backs of Claire and the asshole football players. Claire screamed as Brent vanished out of sight, the asshole screaming as well as he was dragged into the mist.

The entity in the mist cut through it like a shark through water, freezing vapor churning in its wake, and the first time that I heard John’s voice was his scream, as he too was dragged downward and away, followed quickly by Ramon, leaving only my bitch of a cousin screaming in terror as Derek brandished his hunting knife and swung around as if he somehow expected me to be responsible for whatever was happening.

No, I was just as locked in abject terror as they were. Even if I wasn’t, there was no way that I could have dragged off three big guys in the span of a minute or two if I was healthy, let alone with a busted ankle. Under the moonlight, the blade of Derek’s knife glinted in the dark with every move he made. He was panicking and, even from thirty feet away, I could see his head darting around as he panicked. “Who’s out there?! Show yourself!” he called into the night, his breath frosting with every exhale.

The churning appeared again from the depths of the mists as a chilling voice rang out around us. It sounded feminine, but at the same time like frost and dry autumn leaves crunching under someone’s boots and a howling wind. “The guilty will perish!” At those words, I found myself backing away through the freezing mist, as quickly as I could while on my ass, until I backed into a tree.

The roiling entity carved a path through the mist straight toward Derek, who was still shouting and ineffectually brandishing his knife until he was dragged down into the mist and his shouts became screams of terror echoing through the woods. Claire tried to run, but she too was dragged down, though her screams ended more abruptly than those that came before. Then, the wake of the creature in the mist headed right for me and I screamed, closing my eyes against what I was sure was to come as my heart was tremoring like an earthquake in my chest.

I was about to die. Seconds passed, then minutes as my scream faded from my raw throat. I felt the mist churning around me, so cold now that my teeth were chattering and my whole body was shaking. Yet I was not dragged away. Something colder than the grave caressed my cheek, and that unnatural, feminine voice whispered in my ear like a frozen wind. “You are not guilty. The other is, but the life growing inside her is not.”

Confusion broke through the utter fright that had me firm within its grip and I opened my eyes to see the form of the young ethereal woman, standing in the mist before me, her hand reaching for my chest and then inside. The freezing hand was the coldest thing that I ever felt, putting the freezing mist around me to shame and I thought that it would stop my heart there and then. With it came a lancing agony, as if my very soul was on fire, burning away the cold as I screamed, and everything went black.

I awoke with a splitting headache, but the mist seemed to be gone, and the night was clear with the full moon high in the sky above. When I experimentally moved my injured ankle there was surprisingly no pain there. Lucky me because everything else felt downright weird. Not in a bad way. My body felt weirdly different, but at the same time more comfortable than I can ever remember. Well, except for that massive bump on the back of my head. It throbbed every time I shifted my head.

I tried to get up, but a dizzy spell made me take it slow. I had to turn onto my side, which pinched one of my breasts painfully, and then push myself up slowly. It was then that I noticed the pink and white sleeves adorning my arms. This was not what I was wearing before. My hands, as they braced against the leaf-covered ground, looked wrong too. They were smaller, more feminine, and adorned with pink nail polish that matched the color of the sleeves. My heart skipped a beat, before beginning to race in confusion and a little fear.

It was strange, every movement of my body felt different and yet familiar at the same time. What happened? I remembered that ghost, or whatever it was, coming at me through the mist, closing my eyes, and feeling it touch me. It said something too, and then there was pain, and I blacked out. Yet I also had this faint memory of being pulled into the mist and hitting my head. This was making my headache worse.

Cautiously, I got to my feet and took a look around. And that was when I noticed the bodies. Derek, Brent, John, and Ramon, were all unmoving in death, their eyes wide, and looks of horror were etched into their faces. There was another person slumped against a tree. It was only when I got there for a closer look that I recognized who I was looking at and a scream tore through my throat.

That was me. And if that was me, who the fuck was I now. The answer was obvious as I looked down at myself and the clothes I was wearing. Seeing my cousin’s purse (or was it mine?) on the ground nearby, I snatched it up and rooted around inside of it for my/her compact. As soon as I got it out and opened, and at a decent enough angle to see my reflection by just moonlight, my fears were confirmed. Somehow, I was Claire now.

The ghost’s words were fuzzy and hard to remember, I think it said something about being guilty? That I wasn’t but she was? Then there was that agony, like my soul was being ripped out of my body. Did it switch us somehow? Was that actually Claire, dead against that tree over there, instead of me? And if so, why?

I flopped back down to the ground, purse in hand, and took out the phone inside. I needed to call the police. I had no idea what the hell I was going to tell them, or even where I was, but I did hit my head and just woke up, so maybe I should start there. I wasn’t sure which finger Claire used for her fingerprint lock, but I managed to get it right the first time, almost by reflex. As soon as I had it opened, I called 911.

“911, what is your emergency?” a woman’s voice answered almost immediately.

“H-hello?” I squeaked out in reply, as I nervously looked around me, half-afraid that the freezing mist would reappear at any time. That was when the stress and fear of that night finally caught up with me and tears started to stream down my face. “I… I fell and hit my head and when I woke up the people I was with were all… They’re not moving or breathing, I think they might be dead.”

That began a long and awkward phone call as I sat there in the middle of the woods with only my hoodie for warmth. I had to remember to give her Claire’s information instead of mine, but I found that I was able to recall those things easier than I feared. I guess Claire’s memories were still stored in this body’s brain somewhere and I could recall them if I thought about it, but my own memories seemed clearer and more real to me somehow, though those seemed to be a bit scrambled as well, especially those before I started my transition.

I had plenty of time to try to dredge up memories since it was over an hour and a half before the police were able to track me down using the phone. That entire time, Hannah, the 911 lady, stayed on the line with me. I was glad to have someone to talk to, because every time I heard something, or saw a shadow shift in the moonlight, terror gripped my heart. I may have screamed a couple of times too, but each time Hannah managed to keep me calm.

The police were suspicious when they arrived, but then, I was the only survivor that night in Tremont Woods. There wasn’t a mark on anyone though, other than some minor scrapes and bruises, the nasty bump on my head, and Amber’s sprained ankle, nothing that pointed toward violent deaths. I ended up giving them the same story that I told Hannah, mostly things that had happened from Claire’s point of view, but without telling them that she had set me up.

I simply told them that my boyfriend had brought me out here for a party with some friends and my cousin, that Derek was being a jerk to Amber and she ran off into the woods and hurt her ankle, and that the last thing I remembered before falling and hitting my head was this creepy fog rolling in and the screams of my friends. I did have to end up telling them how Derek was being a jerk though. For that, I mostly used the truth as well, that he had been Amber’s date tonight, and he found out she was trans and bullied and threatened her.

In the end, it was determined that they all died from fright. If my parents noticed that I changed after that night, they probably attributed it to Amber’s death, I grieved her and myself for a while after all. With Claire’s memories available, it wasn’t too hard being convincing for her parents, though I decided that I was going to be my own version of Claire from then on. Things aren’t working out too bad on that front and I think I can be genuinely happy with this new life in time. I have a nice body, no dysphoria, and I might not even mind having periods, whenever I get one.

There are a few bad things of course. Morning sickness sucks, and my parents hit the roof when they found out that I was pregnant at sixteen. I am grounded for, like, life. Or until they cool off and get used to the idea of being grandparents. Too bad I'm serving the time without really committing the crime, but I think that’s why the ghost switched us that night and I’m kind of looking forward to being a mom. Sure, it's going to be difficult balancing everything since I still have almost two full school years until I graduate, and the thought of being a parent is terrifying at times, but I’m trying to be a better version of Claire, and the Claire I want to be is going to be a great mom.

This might be my only child after all, unless I decide to have another less traditionally. This may be Claire’s body, but it’s my mind driving it, and I’m still not attracted to boys, so I guess this version of Claire is also going to be a lesbian. Overall, I like where my life is going though.

I miss my/Amber’s parents sometimes, but they’re still my uncle and aunt, and we talk and visit often. We’ve gotten pretty close since Amber’s death, though we’re all still grieving in our own ways. While I do want to enjoy my new lease on life, I don’t want to get so lost in it that I forget where I came from.

I think that if my baby is a girl, I’m going to name her Amber. If it’s a boy, it’ll be Andrew. If they decide at some point that their birth sex and name are wrong, then I’ll do everything I can to support them. It’s still months before the baby is born though and parenthood, and all the fears and responsibility that go along with it, is a scary story for another time.