Emilia was walking the streets of Matamoros.

The entire Squad was busy capturing key buildings.

"Jose, come see this" said one of her classmates.

"What's wrong Juan?" She answered.

"It's a shotgun" said Juan pointing to the gun "It seems to be a Winchester Model 1897" he said.

Emilia looked closely at the weapon, in the time she had been in the army she had discovered what type of weapon was a shotgun.

A firearm capable of firing multiple pellets in a single shot.

The poor guy who got hit by a shotgun was going to wish he were dead.

"Very well leave that there" said Emilia.

"I don't think so Jose, I think it's a good idea to take this back to the barracks" he said.

"Juan, General Mondragón is already designing his own shotgun, we don't need American weapons" replied Emilia.

"Still I think it wouldn't hurt to use it" he said.

In her time in the military, she had come to hate god weapons for just about anything, the Browning Automatic Rifle, and the Winchester Model 1897.

Those were the weapons used by the American stormtroopers.

An annoying type of soldier, who usually took a Mexican army garrison by surprise.

She sometimes wondered: "How the hell did I end up fighting for the neighboring country of the south against my homeland?"

There was no answer, just as there was no answer to the fact that she now had a male body.

And for some reason that didn't stop hurting her.

Every time she was referred to as a man, she had to endure the tears.

She sometimes forgot that she was in the body of a man, but something, anything, ended up reminding her of the new reality of her.

She liked being asleep, in her dreams she was still her, I never expected that the simple fact of feeling like a girl would be so comforting, it gave her a huge euphoria just thinking about it. But she always woke up, and she was still in that stupid body.

There was a constant problem, she was still not used to seeing herself mentally as a man, in her mind they were still in her body, she did not know how to explain any of that.

However, she had to hold back the tears.

In part, she had always defended that being a woman was a biological reality, was she going to contradict herself just by being happy?

She hated this, she was so happy before.

Even the war didn't have her as concerned as that.

The war would eventually end.

But what would happen to her?

If she survived she had to now live as a man, it was the 10s of the 20th century, she would not be received with open arms if she said she was a woman, even in 2021 she would have been attacked by conservative groups, imagine in the 20th century.

None of this didn't make her happy.

A part of her wanted to die in that war, at least so she wouldn't suffer more than necessary.

The war was a cruel scene.

Suddenly something was announced on the radios, yes, at that time there were already radios, but they were quite rare.

"Comrades, we have taken Matamoros!" said a person who seemed to be the captain of the platoon.

After almost 2 months of fighting, the Mexican army defeated the Americans in combat.

But a voice spoke to her: "The lieutenant wants to see you," Rodrigo said.

She followed Rodrigo and they came to a building where Lieutenant Alberto was.

"Sir, here he is, I'll leave you" said Rodrigo, retiring.

Emilia looked at Alberto and asked him: "What's going to happen to me?" she asked.

Alberto looked at her and said: "If you mean your particular situation, I don't know, but if you mean your life here, we are all going home for about 2 months, isn't that great?"

She looked at him and said: "I can't go with this man's family, I can't pretend to be him, I'm not even a fucking man!"

"I know Jose" Alberto replied.

"Don't call me that" Emilia said.

Alberto was still looking at her with a certain anger, as if she were a hypocrite.

Was her situation different from that of trans-women?

She was just delirious, she was no longer a woman.

At that moment she started crying.

"Don't cry pendejo, aguantese como los verdaderos machos" Alberto said.

"Do you want to shut up? I just want to go back to being a woman" she said.

"Until you accept that you are one, I will not be able to help you" Alberto replied.

"I just want to be a biological woman" she said.

"I would also like, but it is impossible" he said "The universe is not going to fulfill a whim of ours"

She then looked at him and asked: "Do you have something for me when I go with Jose's family?"

Alberto looked at her and said: "Don't go telling them things like 'I am a woman' or 'I want to be a woman', apparently Jose has a history with that, and his father might not take it well," he said.

She was terrified, having to pretend to be someone she wasn't.

"I can't keep pretending to be a man!" she said.

Alberto just looked at her and gave a loud laugh

"Welcome to my world, and to the world of people like Emma" he said.

She just wanted to be like she was before.

---

She knocked on the door.

In one of the states in the center of the country called Hidalgo in the district of Tula, there was José's house.

At that moment the door began to open:

A middle-aged lady was seen on the other side of the door.

Then the woman put on a happy face and said: "Mijo, you are back!"

She was still not shy about being addressed as a man.

"Come in mijo, you must be very tired" said the lady.

"Yes, I don't know if they notified you but, I have amnesia" she said.

The lady looked at him and said: "Don't worry, mijo, you'll get over it"

"It's a relief, I just want to say that I'm tired and I want to rest" she said.

Suddenly a male voice interrupts her:

"What do yo mean with cansada" said that man.

She had forgotten, Spanish has different ways of speaking for men and women.

"Mijo, I did not send you to the army to return more queer than you already are, behave like a man!" he yelled.

That man was scary, she was scared just listening to him.

Would this be her life from now on?