And it started again. Nikolosandwhichev looked on in alarm as I spasm’d about. Sarah jumped up, looking alarmed. Alarm, I thought. That’s a word. Like Clock. And Peanut. Peanut clock. Peanut butter jelly time.

My brain had gone kinda insane trying to deal with the pain. While contemplating on whether Hitler’s moustache was actually the barcode for a brand of chinese razor, my bones ground against each other. I was insanely hungry too - it felt like my stomach was boiling. A couple of bits of stomach acid went up my throat. My balls felt like they’d been kicked in. My penis felt like it was being used for a slingshot. And my chest just plain felt weird. The spasm kept going, even as Nikefootwearmanchev went and got another… nurse… or doctor…

GTA was actually pretty fun. It wasn’t the kind of game I usually played, but… it was better than I expected. Geek/nerd/social reject that I was, I didn’t usually have anyone to talk to about this kind of thing, and I relied on reviews on the internet (Me and Sarah were both huge fans of Zero Punctuation).
Zero Punctuation’s unflattering review of Netherworlds was a little hurtful to us players, but his description of us was unfortunately accurate. Up to a point.
Me and Sarah were a bit odd. I was a little less odd than Sarah, I suppose. We’d both chosen to play characters that weren’t very normal for our demographic (smart sounding word for the win). Most teenage boys, like me, played big, sword/axe swinging, hand to hand damage dealers, while teenage girls were generally split between melee damage dealers and spell casters. The fact we’d chosen to play as tank and healer was odd by itself - what was more surprising was that I chose to be a healer, while Sarah was a tank. Then there’s the gender bonuses, so I was playing female, she was playing male. When we were still newbies (or noobs, n00bs, or something like that) we met a few people who were creeped out by the fact that I was spending 4-8 hours a day pretending to be a girl. A few of them downright shunned us, spread nasty rumours, and were generally bastards. So we both got some voice modifier software, so that when we talked through the mike, we actually sounded like the characters we were playing, or at least the same gender as them. I had to do a kind of messed up “gay”-sounding voice, otherwise it came out weirdly, but Sarah could talk how she wanted.
So those morons had to take the stuff they said back. The server we played on gradually accepted us, or at least, because of the immense size of the game, stopped taunting us.
One of my guild mates, Feaura, was quite a talented artist. She drew up a few pictures of Liara, and I had to admit, I was impressed, and she drew up this one picture of Liara that… was somewhat more… erotic, than the others. And what really surprised me was later on, when she drew what she thought I really looked like.
It was perfect. It looked so real - oh, granted, there were some slight differences, like her drawing me with a Mac instead of a PC, and the desk she drew was a little messier than I remembered it, but it was obviously me, in my room.
She had got me down perfectly. Except for one thing.
She’d drawn me as a girl. It’s not surprising, I know. She didn’t know. But it was me.
I don’t know how she’d captured it so well, considering we’d never met. It was kind of unsettling, seeing what was ME, but… it wasn’t. Except it was.
Afterwards, I thanked her for her picture of me, and said she had it down perfectly, except for the computer. I couldn’t bring myself to tell her the truth. The girl in the picture - the ME in the picture - had her back to the viewer, but it was so obviously me. It just exuded me-ness.
I’m ranting again. This was 2 years after BS first happened.
The weird thing was that when she emailed me the pic, it just had two words on it. “For later”.
Yawn for foreshadowing.
I mailed her back, asking what she meant, and she said that it was just in case the guild disbanded, or something.
What was creepy was that she got my hair the right colour. I hope it was a guess.
Most people I knew in real life were assholes to me and Sarah. Our guild was an escape for both of us. Maybe for the other people, too.
I have a nickname, at school. Everyone calls me it, except Sarah, and that’s because she’s not a bastard.
It’s hardly original, but depressing as hell. I’d really rather not write about it. Half the school thinks I’m gay. The other half just think I’m a pervert. This whole thing has already happened, so I guess a flashback won’t hurt.

Year 7. First day of high school. Primary school had been easy - it hadn’t seemed it at the time, but it was. I got my first piece of homework 6 years in. And I get to high school, and it all changed.
Someone splashed something blue and chemical in my eyes in the first science class, and it stung like hell. I cried. I shouldn’t have, but I did. The science teacher told me to go to the sick bay, who told me to go to the science teacher. I eventually just ran out of class and ran to the bathroom, where I washed it as good as I could.

A few months later, I was in a woodwork class, with a power sander. It’s just a very, very rough belt. You hold wood against it to smooth it. If you hold the wood too loose, it goes flying off and smashes you in the head. Too tight, and you sand your knuckles right down to the bone.
I managed to do both, and went through another round of sickbay ping-pong. I got in trouble for doing it wrong, and even more for doing it the next two lessons as well.

About a month after that, I’d gotten a reputation for being incredibly clumsy, antisocial, and a complete geek that thought schoolwork was below him. I ate my lunch huddled in a corner near my locker, so no-one could sneak up on me. I became sleep deprived, so I started falling asleep in class - other students stole my stuff. I lost so much. And I couldn’t tell the teachers, because they thought I’d misplaced whatever it was.
That was when I met Sarah. She had been on extended holiday until then. She saw the not-really-all-that-keen-emo kid sitting by himself in the corner.
And he opened up to her. She was nicer to me than anyone else had been. She was the one who showed me Netherworlds, the huge canvas that is the internet, where I was free to be whoever I wanted to be, without the menaces of copper sulphate and power sanders. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be writing this. If it wasn’t for her, then I’d probably have been expelled months ago.
And then she tries to commit suicide twice?
If it wasn’t for her, I would’ve beaten her to it.

Later on in the day, Sarah came to visit. She had one of those masks - you know, like the ones doctors wear to stop contamination. So I couldn’t see if anything had changed, face wise. Her voice had dropped in pitch a little bit, though.
“Hey, Aaron,” she said.
“Hey. Uh, you aren’t here for-”
“Nah. I was completely out of it that day… I’m not hyped anymore.”
She slumped on to my bed, barely missing my injured thigh.
“You’re not going to commit suicide or something, are you?”
“Why would I?”
“Oh, the nurse said you tried twice.”
“Yeah. Tried. I’ve given up on it for now. I mean, I should be feeling like shit. But I don’t. I don’t feel anything right now,” she explained.
“That’s… weird. Do you know why it’s happening?”
Sarah shrugged. “Hormone imbalance, or something. That’s apparently what happened in class the other day - I got a huge testosterone and adrenalin rush. So I went nuts. So… uh. Do you have it too?”
“What? No! I don’t have it and I never want to!”
Sarah gave me a reproachful look.
“Being a girl isn’t that bad.”
“Sure, if you’re born to it. But let’s face it - I have 15 years of experience being a guy. Let’s say I DID catch BS-”
“GDD,” corrected Sarah.
“Whatever. Off you. What am I meant to do? Just suddenly throw it all away and start a whole new life? Or should I just go on and pretend I don’t have boobs? Or should I just end it all, like the first kid did, and you tried to do.”
“Sheesh. No need to get worked up,” said Sarah.
I sighed. “Sorry for getting annoyed at you like that. I’m just kinda pissed about my hammy. I’m gonna be out of here with a cast in a few days, though… at least I think it’s a cast. They say I’ll be discharged in a few days.”
“Aaron. My mum brought my laptop in, and I had a look around. You wouldn’t be here for so long if you’d just torn a hammy. It would’ve been some painkillers, maybe one short operation.”
“I haven’t had ANY operations. They’re probably just busy.”
“Look, Aaron… I hope you’re right. I hope you don’t have GDD. Then again, I hope I don’t have GDD, and yet I do.”
The two friends were interrupted by a loud knocking at the door.
“Excuse me, are you decent?” asked a gruff man’s voice, with a hint of a Russian accent.
Aaron raised an eyebrow at Sarah, who shrugged.
“Um… I’m pretty good?” said Aaron.
“No, I mean are you dressed. It’s a kind of stereotypical way for landladies to ask that, and it would’ve been better than making a corny “knock knock” joke.”
Once again, I sighed. “Just… come in. Please.”
Turned out the voice belonged to a big, Slovakian man, who introduced himself as Dr. Nikolokolofoloefvetch or something. I lost track around the third syllable.
“Sarah, it’s good to see you’re out and about. We were quite worried about you,” said Dr. Niko-etc.
She shrugged, non-commitally.
“Anyway, Aaron,” said the doctor, turning to me, “You are aware you have a torn hamstring?”
“Yeah,” I groaned. This didn’t look like being a promising conversation.
“Well, what was happening at the time?”
I went over my dizzy spells, and the grinding and the…
… oh, greaaat…
… no… not here…
… please…
And it started again. Nikolosandwhichev looked on in alarm as I spasm’d about. Sarah jumped up, looking alarmed. Alarm, I thought. That’s a word. Like Clock. And Peanut. Peanut clock. Peanut butter jelly time.
My brain had gone kinda insane trying to deal with the pain. While contemplating on whether Hitler’s moustache was actually the barcode for a brand of chinese razor, my bones ground against each other. I was insanely hungry too - it felt like my stomach was boiling. A couple of bits of stomach acid went up my throat. My balls felt like they’d been kicked in. My penis felt like it was being used for a slingshot. And my chest just plain felt weird. The spasm kept going, even as Nikefootwearmanchev went and got another… nurse… or doctor…
This spasm was lasting longer than the others. That, or I was staying conscious for longer. I realised I was clenching my teeth down on my tongue. But I didn’t care, because that hardly hurt in comparison to the other things.
The strange part was my leg - the one with the dead hamstring in it. I was so fucking hungry then… and so my body turned on itself - at least, that’s what the Russian guy said afterwards. My body…. Uh, “actually started consuming preserved body fats”. Got the medical report right here - helps a lot with the bits I can’t remember.
So my body started eating me. My stomach went down. The back of my thighs went down. I wasn’t too keen on checking, but I think my butt went down. And then it… uh… “started eating muscle tissue”. So my biceps shrunk, my other -ceps shrunk, my (for want of a better word) biceps shrunk even more. But what was really weird?
It fixed my leg. I could feel it reattaching muscle to itself. It was… strange. They scanned me later. It turned out it was completely fixed - like I’d never hurt it in the first place with the other spasms. But it ate my muscle. So I got weakened like hell. I collapsed face down onto the bed, and I could hardly breathe.
Nikoleskimotch started laughing. I’d say I glared daggers, but that’s not enough, and you can’t say you glared, say, AK-47s.
“Well, my friend, I must admit a practical demonstration was very helpful,” he chuckled, “after what happened last time, though, we’re going to need to check your entire body for muscle tears and possible bone breakage. We’ll also need some blood samples, and… I’m sorry, did I say something wrong?”
I continued to glare. “Look, why do you need all this stuff?”
“We need to make certain this is what we think it is.”
“Y… you think this is GDD?” I stammered.
“Are you from Krypton?”
“Um. What?”
“Krypton. Superman’s home planet.”
“Er… no?”
“Then yes, I think this is GCD. I’m sorry.”
Aaaaaand shit.
“If it’s any consolation, though,” he said, “there’s a chance we just discovered a miracle cure, or possibly a new weight loss method.”
“A… a chance?”
“Yes.”
“What’re my odds?”
Niko-etc gave me a long, sad, look.
“Almost impossible, my boy. I’m sorry. On the off chance that this is a miracle cure and not some crappy plot device for some kind of bizarre story, we‘ll test you for it. ”
I sighed. “Thanks, I suppose. But… um… how does the whole thing work?”
Nikolocomotion gave me a blank look.
“I’m not an idiot. You’re specialized in this microscopic piece of shit that’s about to ruin my life. Tell me how it works. I’m going to stop it.”
Dr. Nick gave me a warning look.
“When it’s confirmed you do have it, I’ll be pleased to show you the ‘microscopic piece of shit,’” he said, obviously annoyed at me, “doing its job. Don’t bother trying to stop it - it’s not the bacteria that’s the problem. It’s the nanobots that attach to them.”
“What nanobots?”
Nikolopolis sighed. “The disease doesn’t work on its own. What actually happens is the disease - whatever it is - hijack any bacteria or viruses nearby, and change how they work. We think it’s a nanobot - we’re not certain, though. The bacteria then goes insane trying to make oestrogen, while speeding up your metabolism, so it takes effect much faster. The body sees the bacteria as normal, so it doesn’t attack them. The one thing we’re not certain about-”
“Other than what the fuck this IS…” I interjected (is that a word?)
“-is how it changes your genetalia. I’m yet to tell your parents, but I assume they’d need to know. Oh, and while you’re in the transition stage, you’re not contagious. We’ll be checking your leg daily. As soon as that’s healed, we’ll be discharging you, provided you haven’t finished the transformation,” he said.
It sank in. I was going to be a girl.
I looked at my chest, and since the last spasm, two tiny breasts had formed. Sarah tried to comfort me, but it didn’t work. It was horrible. Everything I’d learned for the last 15 years, is useless. I already knew about school, but… my life was going to change, completely.

Pros: Sarah was going through the same thing, so she’d know what I was feeling, I’m one Wii and one PSP up in profit, I’m out of school, possibly permanently.
Cons: I was going to turn into a chick.

Fuck.