Right in the middle of playing a game, Nathan heard his phone vibrate. Annoyed, he paused and picked it up, going straight to his texts.

He saw a message from Kate.

“Hi, just wanted to check in.” It said.

He put his phone up to his chest, closing his eyes and breathing in deeply. He forgot the last time he received a message from her. From what he remembered, she hadn’t tried to talk to him since…

He shook his head. No, he didn’t want to think about that.

He brought his phone back out, opening his eyes and staring down at the message as if entranced.

“Hey.” He typed back.

The next message came almost instantly.

“Is everything alright over there?” Kate asked.

“Not at all”, Nathan wanted to say, but Kate didn’t need to know about that. Talking about all his bizarre bodily changes made him sound insane even to himself.

“Everything is fine.” Nathan said.

“What’s it like living with Astian?”

“Good question”, Nathan thought. What was it like living with Astian? He could hardly sum it up himself. A lot of the time, it was just like living alone, except there was someone else to talk to for a couple hours. Other times, it was like he was in high school again, hanging out with his best friend and winding down after a hard day of classes.

But sometimes, it was weird.

The occasional comments Astian gave him made him feel uncomfortable. To make matters worse, even after he told him they made him uncomfortable, Astian still kept making them. Oh, he stopped for a while, but the moment he thought he could get away with it, he started them up again.

And that wasn’t even what made Nathan feel most uncomfortable. That honor had to go to how he was now almost encouraging Astian to make these comments. That night when he caught himself resting on Astian’s shoulder was bad enough on its own. But as of late, those kinds of accidents were still happening.

There was this one time when Nathan was walking up to Astian to demand he put his sister’s clothes away like he said he would. But right before Nathan said anything, Astian smiled and told him “you know, your pout is really cute.”

And Nathan blushed. Not only did he blush, but he turned his head away and, just for a second, he smiled. He actually smiled at the idea of being called cute, by Astian.

“Were you going to say something?” Astian asked.

In a daze, Nathan shook his head and mumbled some incoherent nonsense not even he could understand. He then went back to his bedroom and put away all of the clothes himself, not once questioning why he was doing that so willingly. Whenever his daze ended, he wasn’t even frustrated. He couldn’t process how he reacted.

Another time, Nathan was sitting at the dining room table, eating breakfast and staring at Astian. He didn’t know why he was staring, but for some reason he could not take his eyes off him. The second Nathan caught his eyes sliding down to Astian’s body, he forced them away.

What the fuck was he doing?

If it weren’t for all this Nathan would’ve marched straight to Astian and told him to cut the comments. But with that kind of egging on, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Even just thinking about telling Astian to knock it off made him feel bad, like he was being cruel. He didn’t want to hurt Astian, he was just teasing. At least Nathan hoped he was.

The weirdest thing about Astian’s comments is that they all felt completely earnest. They were nothing like the common teasing guys often give each other. No, it felt like Astian was genuinely complimenting him. And whenever he did, Nathan responded like some lovestruck teenager talking to a crush, which he knew because he talked to his crushes like that back then.

So why was he talking to Astian like that? Did he see Astian as his…

No, he was not going there.

Did Kate need to know all of this? It’d probably be better if she didn’t, so Nathan simply typed “it’s been alright, it’s nice to be around another person”, and hit send.

Nathan had to wait a bit longer for Kate’s second message, but it came quick enough. It read “okay, please visit us if anything is wrong, we’d really like to see you”.

Nathan smiled and put his phone down. He turned back to his game and was about to unpause it but decided to get up and stretch his legs instead. He’d been sitting in that chair for hours, he needed a break.

He walked in front of his mirror and inspected himself. Thankfully, not much had changed. His face still looked weird, his hair was still down to the bottom of his neck, and his nipples were still sore and swollen, but nothing more had changed. He still looked like the same old Nathan, and hopefully he’d stay like that.

He frowned, why did he have to hope things wouldn’t change? That should just be a given. Also, “he still looked like the same old Nathan”? Could he even say that?

He put his hand to his face and rubbed through it. He was going mad. He smelled like he was going mad. When was the last time he showered?

He lifted his arm and sniffed his armpit. Yeah, he could use a shower.

He made his way over to the bathroom and sat down on the toilet to pee. He sat down because peeing standing up hadn’t been feeling right recently, probably because of the drops of pee that could get on the floor. This was just cleaner.

Nathan stepped into the shower, the water hitting him feeling like it was burning away the stink on his skin. As he was slathering himself with soap, he noticed something odd.

Well, he noticed another thing odd. His skin was very soft.

Nathan had never been someone who gave any attention to skincare, and he knew damn well he hadn’t been using any skin products since he moved in here. But in spite of all of that, his skin remained smooth, like silk.

The constant changes had made Nathan hypersensitive to everything. If this had happened a month ago, he probably wouldn’t have even noticed. He sorely missed the days when he could be that oblivious.

He looked down at his body, taking in his swelling chest, his soft skin, and his growing hair. Being in the shower like this, he could finally confirm that yes, he had definitely gotten shorter. Not by much, but he was sure this shower head was closer to his head a few weeks ago. Was that what the colored feces was about? Was he literally shitting out his body mass?

He rinsed off the soap from his body, and as he did he noticed something else concerning. Each time he rinsed off a part of his body, the hair just… came off.

Shocked, he immediately grabbed his head to make sure no hair came off. Thankfully, none did, but the same was not true for the rest of his body. His pits, his arms, his legs, his chest, even his genitals, they all yielded the same result. They were scrubbed clean of hair. If they weren’t smooth before, they certainly were now. From head to toe, his skin was flawless, in both texture and appearance.

What the hell was going on now? His body hair becoming lighter and harder to see was weird enough, but body hair isn’t supposed to just… come off like that. That’s not how hair works. It doesn’t come off, not all at once. Unless something is seriously wrong with you, which is clearly the case here.

Nathan looked behind him and was able to confirm he was hairless from his backside too. It was funny, looking at himself like this, without his penis visible, he kind of looked like one of those girls at the beach who wore those really short bikinis, without the bikini that is.

Nathan froze in place at that thought, his mind feeling like it was simultaneously running a thousand miles a minute and standing still.

…Hold on…

He went through every single change that had been happening to him the past two and a half weeks, trying to see if there was some pattern to decipher. It started with him losing his facial hair, which never ended up growing back. Then it was his body hair, which became lighter and thinner. As the days passed, his arms grew thinner, his hands and feet grew smaller, his hair began creeping down the back of his neck, his nipples and chest swelled, his body shrank, and his skin softened.

And now, his body hair had completely come off.

His mind went back to his face. For days he had known something was different about it, but he was never able to define what exactly it was. It had long caused him deep frustration. To know something had changed about his face, but not having any clue what it was or if it was even there. It can drive a man insane.

Nathan stepped out of the shower and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. He leaned in, analyzing every last detail on his face. It didn’t take long before, finally, he was able to tell what about it had changed.

The skin on his face had become softer, but it was more than just that. His nose was smaller, and his eyes were bigger. The rough edges of his face appeared rounded out, creating a more gentle look overall.

That’s when it hit him.

Was he… turning into a woman?

His immediate instinct was to say “no, of course not, that’s absurd!” And it was absurd. People don’t just change sex like that on a dime. That was something that happened in movies, not real life.

But to deny what he was seeing right in front of him felt even more absurd than the idea itself.

Oh god, was he really turning into a woman? Why? How does a man suddenly find himself changing sexes? Has this ever happened before? It had to have, right? It didn’t make sense for this to be the only time in history a man turned into a woman. Could he talk to someone about this? What was he supposed to do?

He found his breath growing heavy and his legs getting weak. To try and relieve himself, he laid face down on the shower mat. He felt like he was about to have a panic attack.

“No no, calm down. Please calm down.” He said to himself. “Please… I don’t want Astian to see me like this.”

He saw the corners of his vision fade to black, and soon after the rest of his vision began to follow. He shut his eyes and tried to ward off his growing discomfort, praying that Astian wouldn’t find his soaked naked body passed out on the ground. He didn’t want anyone else to know about this.

“Please… please calm down.”

Nathan let his head fall to the mat and turned his body over. Staring up at the ceiling light, he tried once more to calm himself down.

And he failed.

***

The sound of water hitting the shower floor rang incessantly in Nathan’s ears. It was annoying, so annoying. Whatever was causing this noise he so badly wanted to hit, just so it would shut up and leave him alone. He reached out with his right arm, and…

…Oh right, the shower water.

He withdrew his arm and rubbed his face, tired and confused. God, what was he thinking about before he passed out? Something about turning into a woman? What an insane thing to think. Men don’t just turn into women, that’s-

He looked down at his body.

“Oh…” He said aloud to himself.

***

Nathan anxiously paced around his bedroom, making the same exact trek several times a minute: up, down, up, down, up, down.

So, he was turning into a woman. He’d be stupid to deny that at this point.

But why? How?

Did he have some kind of hormonal imbalance? Did his testosterone and estrogen levels get out of whack? That was a thing that could happen, right? Men get a little too many female hormones in their system and their bodies get all girly. That would certainly explain his skin and chest, probably his face and arms too.

But what was the source of the imbalance? There needed to be a source right? This wasn’t something that just happened. Well, maybe it could… but even if it did, that wouldn’t explain his hair, or his height. No hormonal imbalance could make his body mass come out his ass.

So what was causing this? Magic? Yeah, sure, that made sense. Except… it kind of did, didn’t it?

Nathan went in front of his bedroom mirror, grabbing its sides and staring into the eyes of his reflection. He thought he saw a tear form in his left eye, but it was gone after he blinked.

Nothing was happening to him, he was being paranoid. He just needed some sleep, to do anything to calm down before he went mad. It wasn’t too late to save his sanity.

The room went dark. A wave of fear swept across Nathan’s body.

Just go to sleep and everything will be better come morning, that’s what his mind told him. Nathan sighed and smiled in relief. There, now he felt better.

He slapped his face. “No, get a hold of yourself!” He thought. He wasn’t about to lose. He was a fighter! He needed to fight this!

Putting his focus in front of him again, Nathan stared into the mirror, confused and horrified.

There was something very wrong going on, he was sure of it. His reflection was not what it was supposed to be. He needed to call for help or get away from whatever was causing this, fast.

“You’re just imagining things.” Something in his head told him. “Nothing is wrong, you’ve always been like this.”

Had he? It was hard to tell with how conflicted and confused his mind was right now. It felt as if foreign thoughts he would never usually have kept forcing their way inside, and he was powerless to stop it.

“Everything is fine.” He was told once more. “Nothing is happening to you.”

Nathan took a relaxed breath as he immediately calmed down. Yeah, that sounded right, he thought. He was getting all worked up over nothing. What was he even upset about in the first place? He couldn’t remember.

No, no, NO! Something was definitely wrong! Was he blind to what was going on right before his eyes? He needed to do something, right now!

Every time he realized that something was wrong, his mind kept pulling him back. Always telling him that he was mistaken, and that there was nothing to be afraid of. Always making him forget what it was he finally realized. It needed to stop. This couldn’t keep happening.

Nathan stood in the darkness, unable to make sense of any of the confusion plaguing his mind. Suddenly, he heard the sound of a door opening. He turned his head toward the noise and saw a dark figure making slow, ominous footsteps toward him.

When the figure came into view, Nathan saw it smile.

“You should be proud. You’ve turned out so well…”

Nathan woke with a gasp, in an all too familiar cold sweat. Sitting up, he clutched his chest with his right hand as he looked around in the darkness.

He reached up with his left hand, gripping his hair, pulling it.

“Please no more memories.” He begged. “Please, I can’t take anymore.”

He let go of his hair and turned over in his bed, seeing his phone on the floor. It must have dropped during the night. He picked it up and turned it on, his mind immediately going to his messages app. He pressed on the icon and the first thing he was greeted with was the conversation he had with Kate a few days ago.

He needed to see her again.