I stood in an empty room, it wasn't remarkable in any way, tan carpet floor, white walls, a single door in front of me.

I wasn't sure what I was doing there. I tried to open the door but it was locked, so I sat down on the soft carpeted floor, waiting.

I didn't know what I was waiting for, but I could feel it deep in my stomach.

Eventually, I heard a loud click from the door. The silver handle jiggled slightly and I jumped to my feet. The door creaked open revealing a hallway. I walked in, unsure of how the door had opened. The hallway was very long and I could barely make out a door at the far end. I hesitantly approached the door. As I reached out for the doorknob I heard a voice in the back of my mind, "come in".

I grabbed the knob and twisted, before pushing my way through the door. In front of me was a desk and a chair in yet another unremarkable room. Sitting on the opposite side of the desk was a figure dressed completely in white. I couldn't tell their gender, but that wasn't worrying, I knew that enbies existed, I just hadn't expected them in my dreams. The more worrying part was their face. They had a strange smile that reached just a bit too wide, and blue eyes that shone just a bit too brightly.

"Hello, Izzy." That caught me off guard. My dreams never use my actual name, why was this one different? Actually, how did I know that this was a dream? I've never had a lucid dream before despite having tried a lot. And if this was a dream shouldn't I be able to control it? If so, why am I still in this stupid body?

The voice spoke again, "Sit down, we have some talking to do" The figure in front of me raised an arm and pointed it to the chair across from themself. I took a seat.

"Who are you?" I asked them.

"Well... you're quite the eager one aren't you?" Their mouth didn't move as they spoke, it just twisted into an even wider smile, "We're sorry that we couldn't get to you earlier. these things take time, and we don't usually take requests, but you're a special case."

This... it can't be-

"When most people beg for our 'gifts'," they put finger quotes around that word, "they want whatever special ability that comes with it, but you don't care about that, do you?"

I shook my head.

"No, you're special, you just want to look different. And we're sorry, we don't get to choose what our gifts are, and in most cases, who to give them to. But we want to grant you our gift. we hope it will bring all the joy you hoped for."

They smiled and the world faded to black around me.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I slowly drifted back into consciousness. My bed was so soft and warm. I didn't want to move. My dream floated through my head, reminding me of the strange person and the "conversation" we had.

My mind kept prodding at one question, but I didn't dare look for an answer. I couldn't get my hopes up, if I did it would be even more crushing when reality came crashing down on me.

I didn't move, fearful that if I did the answer would become clear, and I'd have to accept whatever truth was revealed, good or bad.

Eventually, reality called in the form of my mother calling me down for breakfast.

Moment of truth.

Deep breath. Eyes closed.

I threw the blanket off of me and onto the floor. I held my breath for a moment longer, just to prolong the inevitable.

Finally releasing my breath, I opened my eyes.

Nothing... Nothing had changed.

Of course, nothing would change. I just had a dream about what I wanted, it meant nothing.

I had built up so much hope for this moment. And it was all instantly shattered. There wasn't any hope left. Just crippling resignation and one simple yet crushing fact: I was stuck like this. Nothing was going to change that, ever. I know there are ways to transition or whatever, but how could that even work.

I was too far gone.

I hated everything about myself. I wasn't even tall and my mind screamed that I was too tall. I had fucking facial hair, I used to shave, but now it grows too fast for that to even make a difference. When I shave in the morning I can feel the prickly hair by the end of the school day. I trained my voice, but it isn't perfect, and it took me nearly a year of daily training to get it to this point. That's not even mentioning the abomination between my legs.

What would transitioning do? It isn't magic. It can't turn me into a perfect little cis girl. There would always be scars. Even if I managed to pass perfectly and get all kinds of surgery it wouldn't matter. Because I would know. I know everything that was wrong with me, everything that is wrong with me.

Getting a gift was my only hope, but that's so incredibly unlikely. That dream was just my mind putting together some false hope for the one thing that could actually save me, but it would never happen.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

School was meh.

Yeah, Emma was there today, but it didn't do much for my mood, we only had one class together, English, which was at the very end of the day.

I tried to enjoy Physics, but it just wasn't doing it today. Maybe I'll feel better Monday... probably not.

Ms. Fogg went on and on about gravity and whatnot. Giving us a few equations to write down, and telling us all about what exactly gravity was and how we thought it worked.

At the end of class, Ms. Fogg called me up to her desk. She must have noticed how bad I looked and decided to check up on me. I told her that I was just tired.

Lunch rolled around and Emma and I sat down in our usual spot; underneath a shady tree on a patch of grass outside the back of the school.

Emma was wearing one of her cute outfits like always. She had such an amazing sense of style and could pull off any look without even trying. She had recently experimented with some goth styles, and she looked great.

Today was one of those goth days, except also super nature-y somehow? Emma had dyed her hair light green a few months earlier so she couldn't go full-black goth, but she still managed to make it work. She had a black tee with cute little green vines winding around her torso. She also had some black fingerless gloves that wrapped all the way around her forearms. She somehow managed to find green denim shorts and wore them over fishnet leggings. On top of that were some clunky black boots and bright green makeup. She looked like some sort of nature witch, and I was half-convinced that she was. The outfit went together flawlessly, but they were such weirdly specific articles of clothing that I wouldn't have been surprised if she had just conjured them out of some vines and other magical ingredients.

Emma and I chatted about life and stuff, but I made sure not to mention the dream or just how shitty I felt. But I think she caught on because she kept tiptoeing around me, feeling out what might be wrong. Once I noticed her prodding at me, I put extra effort into looking fine, despite how not fine I felt.

Gym sucked as always. But more so today. For some reason, Mr. Harris decided that we should play dodgeball again.

I got changed and trudged back into the gym, resigning to the boys' side of the court once again. Today really felt like hammering in the fact that I was not a girl like I was supposed to be.

As the game unfolded Mr. Harris kept yelling at my side of the court, and how much manlier it would be if we could beat these girls.

Normally I just idly dodge, not caring about the game. But today I was determined not to get hit. Getting hit would just make my day even worse, and dodging balls was one of the few things I could control at this point.

Once again, I was alone on my side of the court, this time it was just Julie and Leah. They had been trying to hit me for a while, and I was starting to get tired, but as long as I stayed near the back of the court I would be fine, I just had to wait until they had run out of balls, and then it would be over.

Julie lined up a throw, lifting her ball behind her head, ready to throw. She launched the ball towards me and I twisted out of the way. To my surprise, just behind the first one was another ball soaring directly towards my face.

Leah had thrown a ball while I was focused on dodging Julie's, and it caught me completely off guard.

I was in no position to dodge. Only one foot was on the ground and my torso was already rotated in a weird direction. The only hope I had was to shield my face from its impending rubber doom. Because there was no way I was going to catch it.

My arms shot up in front of my face, palms out, in a weak attempt to block the projectile, but the strangest thing happened instead.

The ball stopped, right in front of my hands. It just paused in the air, surrounded by a dim magenta glow. I plucked the ball out of the air. As I did, I felt a jolt of energy, almost like a static shock and the magenta hue faded. The energy buzzed faintly in my chest as I regained my balance on the court.

I heard Mr. Harris's whistle blow, followed by a gruff shout, "Leah, you're out, get on the bleachers."

Had he not seen what just happened? I don't even know what happened. Yeah, I caught the ball, but I hardly think that it counts. It stopped midair!

Leah's gaze flicked from me to Mr. Harris, and then back to me, before sighing and walking to the bleachers.

Once Leah was off the floor, Mr. Harris blew his whistle once again, indicating that the match could resume.

I shook off the absurdity of the event. Maybe it was just one of those adrenaline-fueled moments where time seems to slow down and I somehow managed to catch the ball.

Regardless, I decided to continue like normal. Julie was there and I still didn't want to get hit by a ball. I gently tossed the ball towards Julie.

As soon as the ball left my hand, the buzz disappeared from my chest, and the ball rocketed towards Juile faster than I knew I was capable of throwing.

Clearly, Julie hadn't been expecting that either. The ball impacted her stomach with an audibly painful smack. Julie nearly toppled over as she recovered from the impact. Mr. Harris blew his whistle, Announcing the victory for my team.

I rushed over to Julie, who was still hunched over and gasping for breath. I had apparently knocked the wind out of her.

"Oh my god! Are you okay?" I reached out to help her regain her balance.

Julie coughed a little bit, "Yeah- I'm fine." She gasped a little and straightened up, "You've got a surprisingly powerful throw dude"

"Uhh... yeah apparently. Sorry about that, I didn't mean to throw it that hard. I guess I went a little overboard." let out a bit of a nervous laugh and put my hand on the back of my neck.

"Seriously," She laughed too, "I nearly thought Leah threw that ball."

"Crazy right?" The conversation kind of died after that. But a part of it stuck with me.

What if Leah did throw that ball?

Not literally, I'm the one who threw it, but there was no way I could have thrown it that hard. But Leah could. What if I caught it and somehow redirected it towards Julie. Maybe that's what I felt when I caught it.

Maybe I had been gifted after all, I just got stuck with the powers and not the transformation that I wanted.

It didn't turn my day around, but that possibility put a positive spin on things. I still wasn't over the fact that I hadn't woken up as a girl, but coping might be easier if I had some cool powers as a consolation prize.

After gym was English, and I had a lot to discuss with Emma.