I woke up after my few hours of real sleep and let the previous few days of subjective time roll over me. Two things came to the forefront of my mind. First, what the hell had the crazy geometric thing been, and why on earth had I touched Karen like that? My goddess had not decided to speak to me when I fell asleep either in the game or in reality. I hoped everything was okay.

As for Karen. Phew. What a nightmare. What was I doing? It was like I couldn’t fully control my actions with her. I hoped I hadn’t jeopardised a potential friendship. She was so cute too, the way she sometimes played with her tail when she was thinking. I wanted to be her friend. I’d apologise to her later today when I logged back in.

When I got up, it was fairly late by functioning adult standards. It was a sunday morning that lived up to the “sun” part of the name. Light streamed in through the high windows that had been built to let it into the living area of our house. Breakfast had already been cooked and I grabbed mine, heading over to the dining table to eat it. My parents were in the lounge area, dad watching the news and mum drinking coffee and reading a book on her tablet. The breakfast was pancakes and banana and it was delicious. As I ate I absentmindedly listened to the news.

“I’m here in Chicago where only hours ago, early morning local time, a young couple was struck by lightning from an unknown source, the third incident of this kind since friday.”

The american lady droned on for a bit longer about the weird lightning strikes and then it cut back to the New Zealand talking heads. I winced as the Kiwi accents came on in full force. It was always really jarring to hear a “media normal” accent from somewhere in america and then bam Kiwi accent. I didn’t understand why I hated hearing our accent so much on the TV as I didn’t even notice it when I was speaking to people in person. Maybe we just got so much US media here that I expected people in the big glowing rectangle to have an accent from the US.

The story switched over to a piece about how it was the ten year anniversary of a mass disappearance in Victoria University. An entire lecture hall with around 300 students and staff had just gone missing. The claims of aliens beaming people through the ceiling had been thrown out, but no one had ever been able to explain what had happened, and the few survivors who had seen what happened had clammed up after their wild tales were ridiculed by the press. I remembered sitting with my birth mother at the age of 5 and watching the news debacle. I hadn’t understood what was happening at the time.

I went back to my room and got changed into a simple outfit, a tank top and skirt. I had no intention of doing anything interesting except chilling out with my parents for a bit and maybe reading up on how other people were doing in Pellan. My phone was strangely empty of messages, both private and group chat ones and I considered that for a moment before I shrugged and went back to the living room.

Thirty minutes of cuddling mum later and we heard a knock at the door. Dad frowned and got up to go and check it.

“I wonder who that is,” he mumbled to himself as he went.

When he opened the door I felt the bottom of my stomach drop out and accelerate hard.

“Hello Mr Walker, we were just wondering if Sam is here? We were wanting to talk to him,” Dana’s voice said from around the corner.

“I’ll just check for you,” he replied.

His head poked around the corner and he raised an eyebrow at me. I had already stood up and my eyes were wide as dinner plates as I frantically whipped my head between my parent’s faces.

My mother raised her eyebrows as if to ask whether I would spill the beans to them. I looked at them frantically for a few more moments before I remembered my racial skill. Karen had been using hers to hide from people so maybe I should too. In a panic I pictured my previous Sam self. The spell changed me, as it had before in front of my parents, and I made sure to keep my groin the way it normally was now. The feeling of being back in this body was an acutely unpleasant one, and I grimaced and shook myself.

My parents stared at me for a moment, still unused to my displays of magic, then Dad nodded in understanding. Pushing past dad, I walked down the hallway to my friends.

“Hey guys! I said enthusiastically. Only there was a problem, I’d forgotten to change my voice and out came my Syl voice instead.

Jeremy’s eyes widened from where he stood behind Dana and I hastily cleared my throat while altering my spell.

“Why are you guys here?” I asked innocently.

Tilting her head at the strange voice I had spoken in for a second, Dana replied, “We were just wondering how you were? You’ve been like almost total radio silence since Pellan came out. You okay?”

“Yeah I’m fine. Wanna go down to the park and hang out? Kinda want to get out of the house.” I said. If they came inside they would end up in my room where I had bras, panties and skirts strewn everywhere. That would be hard to explain.

“Uh, sure.” Said Dana. She realised something was up but she couldn’t figure it out.

Jeremy was staring at me with an intense expression on his face.

Greg had remained silent up til now, but piped up asking, “So how is things over in rock people land? You a badass tank yet?”

“I’m doing pretty well for myself in Pellan.” I said, replying in a way that omitted the truth while not outright lying to my friends.

We walked down to the park that I had seen Karen at yesterday and sat down in a small seating area near the adjoining playground. Greg and Dana told us of their adventures so far, and how they were currently waiting for us by completing quests in the city Dailsil.

“So how is things with the healer escort mission?” Greg asked Jeremy.

Jeremy looked at me for a moment, squinted and then shook his head before turning back to Greg, “It’s going well. We ran into this really fucked up encounter thing and Syl told us to run. Apparently her goddess thought it was going to be a bad time. I think we’re about two days out from Dailsil.”

“Oh cool, I can’t wait til we get to play with you guys too,” Greg said happily.

“About that… We still need a tank and extra DPS. Is it okay Sam if we replace you for a bit in the group? Just until you make your way to us?” Asked Dana.

I shrugged, “Yeah sure. Doesn’t bother me.”

“Okay awesome, I hope we get to play with you soon Sam. We miss gaming with you,” She told me earnestly.

I smiled, “Yeah, I miss you guys too.”

“Very touching, but it’s fucking hot already. Does anyone want an Ice block or something? I’m buying,” Jeremy groaned.

“Yeah!” We all said. Free food!

We all told him what we would like and he wandered off to get it. The conversation wandered to school and my illness after that. It was still early in the year so homework had yet to properly ramp up into its usual nightmarish self. I wondered Idly if I would have to catch up on everything I’d missed when I transferred into school as Syl. I hoped not.

When Jeremy returned, he stood behind the bench that Dana and Greg were sitting on, handing them their treats. I got up off my bench and reached over Dana to grab my own one. My foot didn’t land where I expected it to, my height being different to my Syl body. Giving an alarmed squeak I fell down onto Dana, my crotch landing square on her thigh, suddenly straddling her leg.

“Ow!” She and I exclaimed at the same time.

I quickly got up off her and apologised, “Shit I’m sorry! Are you okay?” My vag hurt, but not as much as if I had balls. Thank you Feslia for that!

“Yeah, I’m fine,” She told me, rubbing her leg. She looked up at me then and tilted her head to the side, “Sam…? Why did?”

I shook my head vigorously and widened my eyes. I held my groin as though I had hurt something different and went back to sit down.

Jeremy handed me my Ice block, “You okay?”

“Dude can you not like come on to my girlfriend like that?” joked Greg.

Thank you Greg you beautiful oblivious bastard, although the word dude grated on me.

“Yeah I’m fine,” I told them, faking a wince.

Jeremy had a look of wry amusement on his face. Dana however was boring into me with her eyes. Shit. She’d felt I had nothing down there. I ignored her stare of inquisition and forced a laugh when I looked at Jeremy.

We sat there and spoke some more, banter flowing between us all easily. I had to catch myself from acting too girly the whole time I was with them and it felt wrong. I was Syl now, I shouldn’t have to hide my true self from my friends. I needed to tell them soon, I’d already fucked up twice in like an hour. I couldn’t do it though, my irrational fear lurching out of the darkness and wrapping it’s dark sticky hands around my throat. Not yet. Maybe when my identification was settled.

Jeremy looked at his phone and jumped up, “Oh shit, I need to get back. I need to meet the others so we can keep walking to meet up with you guys.”

“Yeah, I need to catch up on my homework, I’ve been neglecting it,” nodded Dana.

Greg shrugged.

“Alright, I’m going to walk home, I’ll see you guys later,” I told them, in a rush to get away. I felt an urgent desire to change back into my girl body. I felt really weird in my old Sam body, and not just because of the dissonance. I just felt wrong and it was beginning to make my skin crawl.

“Okay, wait though Sam…” Dana trailed off, but I’d already made a break for it. I heard Greg and Jeremy talking as they walked towards the bus stop near the store, but I heard Dana trying to follow me out of the park towards my home.

As quickly as I could, I dashed around a corner and dropped my transformation spell, returning to my real self at last. Fuck it felt good to be back in this body, my hair long and flowing down my back, my dainty arms hairless and my skirt flowing in the breeze. I quickly messed my hair so it would cover my ears, and leaned against the fence of the house behind me, pretending to be interested in my phone. Dana rounded the corner a little out of breath and dashed past me. When she saw I was nowhere to be found she stopped in confusion and looked around.

Then her eyes landed on me and narrowed. My eyes widened. Ohhhh no. She was on to me. She stomped over to me.

“Hi?” I squeaked.

She stood in front of me and stared, her eyes narrowed. Then she looked down. Oh shit, I’d forgotten to put shoes on and my little feet were bare. She opened her mouth to speak.

“Hey! What are you doing here?” said a suddenly appeared Karen as she closed the gate into the house whose fence I was leaning against.

“K!” I exclaimed, jumping at her and taking her arm, “What took you so long?”

She stiffened, but allowed me to lead her away from Dana, who stood there still staring at me, but now she had an expression of confusion on her face.

“Hey um, why are you-” Karen started to complain.

“Please please play along just for a second, I’m sorry!” I whispered urgently to her.

“What is going on?” She asked with concern, “Who was that?”

I looked up at her. I thought I was making a decision but really my subconscious had already made its mind up as soon as I saw her step out of that gate.

“Is that your house?” I asked her to stall for time.

“Yeah, it’s really convenient when we have our games on that field.” She replied while nodding in the direction.

It seemed both of us had been shocked out of our silence towards each other with this encounter because neither of us were having any trouble talking to each other.

I led her down the street and around a random corner, checking to see if Dana was following, but she was gone. When we got out of sight of her house I breathed a sigh of relief and leaned my face into her shoulder for a moment. She didn’t pull away. It felt so good to have my face there. She looked kind of beanpoley, but I could feel the payoff from her athletic nature in the muscles of her shoulder. I sighed again and breathed her in. She smelled really good. I knew the body wash she used because I’d used it a few years back, it smelled like vanilla and coconut. Then I snapped out of it and threw myself off her.

“Sorry! Shit, um. I didn’t mean to like…” I trailed off.

“Uh,” she stammered, grabbing hold of something in the air and wiggling her fingers as she stared at it, “It’s fine. It’s okay. Um, what’s wrong though? Who was that?”

“Um, let’s walk while I tell you,” I said. My feet hurt from walking barefoot but right now I was way too nervous to care.

“So, when we talked about our real life bodies changing… A whole lot changed for me… My name used to be Sam,” I told her.

“As in Samantha? Why’d you change it?” she asked confused.

“No… Sam as in Samuel. I was a guy. I’ll show you,” after a quick look around, I changed into the Sam body, held it for a few moments, and then changed back. Damn, that was emotionally gruelling, I felt my mental state crumble a bit.

“Wait that’s you? I know you! We go to the same school! Holy shit you turned into a… into a girl!” she exclaimed with a shocked expression.

“Yeah I did, I um. Okay please, please don’t hate me. I just. Well I like being a girl too. I don’t want to change back,” my eyes brimmed with tears as I confessed this, and Karen’s shock turned to sympathy on her face.

“Oh. My older sister is like that… was like that. She came out when she was sixteen as well. I’m sorry. It must have been hard,” she said in a halting, gentle voice.

I walked beside her and blubbered for a bit, and at some point she put her arm awkwardly around me, trying to comfort me without more than a proper amount of contact. It felt absurdly nice to have her arm around me, protecting me.

“Hey you need to stop crying,” I heard her say, her voice heavy with emotion, “You’re gonna make me cry too you know.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my face with my hand and smearing it on my skirt, “Thank you.”

“So what was that about back there with that girl?” she asked as she got her own emotions under control.

“She’s one of my friends. Something happened when all four of us were hanging out in the park just now that kinda told her something was different with me. She chased me to try and get me to tell her but when I rounded the corner I turned back into me, into Syl and.. Yeah,” my words rushed out in one very long breath, and I sucked in air.

“Wait… do you mean they don’t know yet? Like you haven’t told them you got changed?” she asked in surprise.

“Nope, they have no idea. Well, Dana knows something is up and Jeremy might be a bit suspicious too. Greg wouldn’t recognise anything different even if it was tall blond and naked. Okay he might notice that, but you get the idea,” I paused to think a little bit and then continued, “I’m just so scared. Every time I think about it I can’t speak and I start feeling out of breath. I want to tell them, and I know they will be supportive of me… but it’s hard you know?”

“Hmmm, I feel the same about my new Darkling parts. I mean I actually kind of like the tail. The horns get in the way. So does the tail, but I can’t wear any of my cute hats right now and it sucks. How about this, we tell our friends together hey? When you’re ready. I’ll tell Liam and the rest of our group and you tell Dana and your friends? That way if one of us wimps out we’ve let the other down. A little bit of pressure to help motivate us?” she asked with a big pretty smile on her face.

“Yeah that. That sounds nice Karen. I’d like that,” I told her with an answering smile.

“Good because I’m totally terrified as well,” she laughed nervously.

“Yeah,” I said. I paused a little and then spoke again, “You know what’s even funnier? Colourless is Jeremy, and the two people we’re travelling to Dailsil to meet are Greg and Dana.”

She stared at me for a microsecond and then laughed, “Oh you’ve got to be kidding me. What a mess Syl. You’ve got yourself into the world’s most complicated mess ever.”

“I know...” I groaned, drawing out the O sound in the word.

“You’re so funny, ridiculous and funny,” she grinned at me.

I reached out and grabbed her invisible tail she was holding, giving it a little tug. She squeaked and jumped.

“Don’t do that!” she whined.

I cackled at her.

We agreed to part ways there, I’d distracted her from her errand to the store and we both had to eat lunch and get back into the game world to start the next two days of walking. Our goodbye was one of bonded friends. She was very cool... and pretty... and...