I was dead. That was the first thing I remembered when I woke up in bed. Remaining where I was, I slowly let everything come back to me, knowing from the strange feel of my body that it hadn’t just been some sick nightmare.

When I was finally ready to face reality, I sat up and looked around my small studio apartment. Last night, when I’d gotten home, I’d been locked out of the place. Fortunately, I’d remembered that I’d been leaving my window cracked open to provide some air-flow during the summer. Leaving my window unlocked might have been pretty stupid from a security perspective, but this time, it happened to work out in my favor.

“This is crazy,” I said, staring down at my hands, which I held in front of me.

These were not my hands. They were smaller and more delicate looking. Girl hands. And while I stared at them, I was aware of some other differences that were even more noticeable.

As I stood up, I looked down at myself, getting a good look at my naked body since I’d undressed before bed. I’d looked myself over last night, at least a little bit, but I’d still been too much in shock to do more than give myself a brief examination.

“Don’t freak out,” I told myself. “You’re alive. Remember that. This is a lot better than being dead.”

With that in mind, I made my way to the bathroom where I sat down on the toilet to do my business. I’d already experienced the novelty of relieving myself with my new equipment last night. It was different, but not worth making a big deal over. At least, that was what I told myself, since it wasn’t like I had much choice about it.

While I emptied my bladder, I tried not to think about how strange my entire body felt, which was nearly impossible. Instead, I ended up thinking about all the differences, even creating a mental list that kept growing longer and longer.

“This is so freaking weird,” I muttered, gently poking my soft and fleshy chest. I was no expert, but I guessed I was probably a C cup, maybe even a D.

Once I was finished on the can, I stood up and looked myself over again. If I was being honest, I had to admit that my new body was very nice. It was slender and curvy in all the right ways. However, it still wasn’t MY body, not the one I was used to, so it felt totally wrong to me.

“You’d better get used to it, Jerry,” I reminded myself. “There’s no going back…”

I suddenly remembered my old body, or what was left of it, and shuddered. No, there was definitely no going back. This was my body now, and I was lucky to have it. Maybe, if I told myself this enough times, I’d actually believe it.

Then with a sigh, I flexed my muscles, not that there was anything there to flex. My old muscles were gone, along with my old body. That was frustrating, because I’d put a lot of time and effort into building those muscles, and I’d been pretty damn proud of them. This new body was in decent shape and had a little visible muscle tone, but nothing more. This wasn’t a body that engaged in frequent athletics or daily trips to the gym. I missed my muscles every bit as much as my manhood, and stood there for a minute, silently mourning them both.

My eyes went to the mirror above the sink and stared into a pair of green eyes. My old ones had been a sort of bluish grey. These green eyes were set into a face that was pretty, maybe even beautiful. There were a frcouple freckles and even a small scar on the chin, but these just helped add a little more character. Red hair framed the face, and cascaded down behind me, to the middle of my back.

“The redhead,” I said, recognizing the girl from last night. I’d known that I was in her body, but seeing in with my own eyes made that just a little more real. “Who are you?” I asked, before correcting myself. “Who WERE you?”

I didn’t know anything about Maelyne’s former champion, about the girl whose body I wore. Not even her name. There hadn’t been any money or identification on this body when I’d woken up in it. She might have had a purse, but if she did, I hadn’t seen it at the lot, nor had I even thought to look for something like that. Now, I regretted that, since it would have been nice to know who I was supposed to be.

After a minute, I turned away from the mirror and left my bathroom. However, my thoughts remained on the question of who I was now. I didn’t know anything about this body, the person who had it before me, or even about the gifts that Maelyne had given her. Since I was supposed to be taking over as Maelyne’s champion, that kind of information would have been useful.

“It would be nice to know if I was diabetic, or something,” I grumbled aloud, thinking about all the problems I could have if I didn’t know my own medical issues. “Hell, I could be deathly allergic to peanuts, for all I know.”

Suddenly, I felt something strange…a presence. It took me a moment to realize that it was Maelyne, and that she was somehow communicating with me, almost like she was whispering into my ear. There were no actual worse, but a moment later, I just KNEW what she was telling me. As soon as I’d received the message, her presence withdrew and vanished, leaving me alone again, and admittedly…a little shaken.

“Okay, coach,” I said, looking up, simply because that seemed appropriate when talking to a goddess I couldn’t see. “I’ll try it…”

I took a deep breath, then mentally focused on the word ‘status’, just like Maelyne ‘told’ me to. Suddenly, an image appeared in the air in front of me, almost like a computer screen, but without any actual computer or monitor being attached. And of course, there was writing on this screen.

NAME: HEATHER MARIE SIEVERS
GENDER: FEMALE
AGE: 18
PATRON: MAELYNE, GODDESS OF LOYALTY AND PROTECTION
HEALTH: 100%
MANA: 100%
STATUS: NO INJURIES, ILLNESSES, OR NEGATIVE STATUS EFFECTS.

“Well,” I commented, after reading through the message several times. “I guess this answers some of my questions.”

According to this, I was now Heather Marie Sievers, or at least, that was the name of the person this body had previously belonged to. The idea of actually taking over her name and identity, along with her body, was kind of creepy and disturbing. I knew that the real Heather was no longer around to care, but this was like the ultimate identity theft.

“I’m sorry for this, Heather,” I apologized. “I’m not the one who killed you, and I’d give just about anything for last night to have never happened.”

Then, I looked over the ‘patron’ section again. It said that Maelyne was the goddess of loyalty and protection, which was actually a bit of a relief. If she’d been the goddess of something like sex, humiliation, or evil, I would have begun worrying about our deal.

As I looked over the screen in front of me, trying to determine if there was anything else I could learn from this, I noticed several tabs on the side. I cautiously touched the next one, and like a touch screen monitor, it changed windows. Now, the page was different, though surprisingly, very familiar.

STRENGTH: 7
STAMINA: 8
ENDURANCE: 10
-
AGILITY: 11
REFLEXES: 8
DEXTERITY: 9
-
INTELLIGENCE: 11
CHARISMA: 13
AWARENESS: 10
-
MANA POOL: 330
MANA RECOVERY: 167
HEALTH: 120
REGENERATION: 120

Maelyne said that the gods had been inspired by some of our games, and the proof of that seemed to be right in front of me. This looked like a stats page from some online game, or like the character sheet from a pen and paper role playing game.

I looked over the screen, noting that these traits had been separated into four groups, with related traits being grouped together. The last group, which dealt with mana and health, seemed to be using an entirely different scale to measure those traits. At least, that was my assumption, considering just how much higher those numbers were than all the other ones.

This page was definitely interesting, but it didn’t tell me as much as it seemed to. For one thing, I didn’t know the range of numbers available. My strength was listed as being seven, but was this a seven out of ten, or was it a seven out of a hundred? That was an important detail. At the moment, I simply didn’t have a good point of reference.

“I don’t feel very strong,” I said, flexing my muscles again and wincing. I felt light and full of energy, but not especially strong.

A moment later, I suddenly wondered how strong Nadine was. Yesterday, she’d picked me up off the ground with one hand, and she’d made it look easy. How high was the stat on her strength? Higher than mine? Lower? Somehow, I doubted that it was lower, which made me wonder, just how much higher than mine it was.

I was still considering these stats when my phone started to ring. My cell phone had been in my pocket, which meant that it had probably been melted beyond recognition. However, I still had my landline phone, which was convenient for whenever I forgot to recharge my cell. That was the phone that was ringing now, but I made no move to answer it. After a couple rings, it went over to voice mail.

“Jerry,” my manager’s voice came from the machine. “Are you there? If so, pick up.” He waited a few seconds, then continued, “You didn’t show up this morning, and you didn’t call in sick. I just want to know if you’re all right…”

The call ended without any response. I wasn’t sure what I sounded like now, but I was pretty confident that I no longer sounded like myself. If I’d answered the phone, that probably would have created some wrong ideas, and possibly a lot more problems for me.

“Sorry, Paul,” I said to the empty air. “I’m not coming in today…or ever again.”

I looked down at myself and shuddered, suddenly realizing that I couldn’t go back to work like this. I couldn’t go back to college in the fall. Hell, I couldn’t even go home. What would I tell my parents? There was no way that they’d believe me.

For a minute, I just stood there, frozen in dread as I considered what I’d just lost. It hadn’t just been my manhood and muscles, but EVERYTHING and EVERYONE in my life. It felt like a fist was crushing my heart and soul in a way that was every bit as painful as being on fire.

“No,” I said, trying to shake myself out of this growing depression. “Cut the crap. You died and now you’re getting another chance to be alive. There’s nothing to cry about.” Of course, I wasn’t sure how much I really believed it, but that did help for the moment.

After shaking myself out of this, I tried to focus on what I needed to do. First was getting dressed, and then, it was getting something to eat. When I was done with that, I could figure out my next step.

Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly have a lot of clothes around that would fit my new body. One of my former girlfriends had left a light jacket behind when we broke up, but other than that, the only thing I really had to wear were the clothes I’d woken up in. They weren’t exactly clean, but it wasn’t like I had much choice.

Next was breakfast, though that was going to be a bit of a problem. I didn’t have anything in the fridge, and all the snacks I’d bought last night had probably been burned up along with my car. My only choice was to grab something from the vending machines in the laundry room.

Once the decision was made, I grabbed my coin jar and made my way to the laundry room. To my relief, the machine had been refilled recently, so there was still a good selection to pick from.

A few minutes later, I started back towards my apartment with my arms full of food. My eyes were probably bigger than my stomach, especially now, but most of this could wait until later. For all I knew, this was my lunch as well as my breakfast.

I was almost back to my apartment when I saw the building manager standing beside my door, along with a cop. I froze where I was, far enough away that they didn’t notice me, and close enough that I could hear a few words of what they were saying.

Though I missed most of what was said, I heard the cop say, “…car was found burned…”

With those words, a weight sank in my stomach like a lump of lead. I didn’t bother to remain and listen to the rest, because I’d heard enough. If they found my car, then they would have found the bodies as well. As of now, Jerry Tanner was officially dead.