1.

I sat on the couch, changing channels. There wasn’t much of anything on, but that wasn’t uncommon for a Saturday. After a little bit, I just put it on something and left it there, then laid down. I was tired, for some reason, something I couldn’t figure out.

My eyelids felt heavy, causing me to close them. I felt myself curl into the fetal position, and then the warm embrace of sleep took hold of me.

2.

Why was I standing in front of a mirror? What was I doing there? I looked at my reflection and, for some reason, wondered why I was dressed the same in this dream as I was in real life. I turned away from the mirror and looked at the room I was in.

Although, room was stretching it.

Where I was had no walls, no ceiling, no floor. Everything melded with everything else. The place was dizzying, to say the least. In fact, the mirror was the only landmark. I took a step away from it and, to my surprise, I was actually a step away from it. I continued my trip away from the mirror, always making sure to check back for it every now and again, but I stopped about sixty steps away from it.

The mirror was right behind me again.

What the hell? How did that happen? I looked around the room again and nothing looked any different, except that I was now right beside the mirror again. What was going on?

The door opened. Wait, door? Where was a door? I looked around and saw a glowing rectangle with a human silhouette standing in it. “Good, you’re home,” the silhouette said. The voice sounded familiar, but I couldn’t quite peg it. “What happened to you?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, but the voice wasn’t mine. I looked in the mirror again and saw my reflection, but I didn’t see any differences. I was still wearing the same boxer shorts and solid black tee shirt I’d been wearing before. What was the silhouette talking about?

That was when I saw it.

The reflection in the mirror was mine, yes, but it wasn’t me. It was a girl, wearing my clothes. She looked ridiculously cute, like a younger version of Melanie. Why did I look like that? What was happening to me?!

“Adam?” the silhouette asked. I looked at him - I realized it was a him after a few seconds - and discovered that it was Steve. He had a look of concern on his face, and for some reason, I started to tear up. I fell to my knees and he reached down and scooped me up and held me. “It’s okay, man, it’s okay…”

I was worried now. I felt comfortable in his arms, comfortable and warm. Part of me hated this feeling, but another part of me loved it. He patted the back of my head, his fingers getting a little tangled in my hair.

“Amanda?” he asked now, and…

3.

I woke up to Steve standing over by the TV, hooking up my PS3. He had a relieved look on his face. “Damn, man, I’ve been here two hours, and you’ve been asleep the whole time.”

I rubbed at my eyes and sat up. “What are you doing here? I coulda sworn I yelled at you last night.”

“Well, you did, but, c’mon, you can’t still be angry at me, can you?”

“I got cursed because of you.”

He blew a raspberry. “Ah, bullshit, that lady was just crazy. We were both tired and scared last night, we probably just dreamed everything we think she did.”

I stood up. “Oh yeah? Did you dream about her turning a table into a bowl of fruit?”

“Yeah.”

“Her turning from an old lady into a hot babe sixty years younger?”

“Yeah.”

“Her telling me I’d be turned into a girl named Amanda?”

“Yeeeeaaaah?”

“How did we have the same dreams, dumbass?!”

“Magic?”

“So she has magic dream powers, but she can’t turn me into a girl, that right?”

He shrugged. “If she could turn you into a girl, why didn’t she do it there, last night? Why are you still Adam now? She was bullshitting us, pure and simple.”

I ran my hand through my hair. It seemed a little longer than it had been before. I looked at my reflection in the glass of the coffee table, but nothing looked different. Great, just like with my ass before, I’m starting to think things. That sorceress probably was bullshitting us.

But that wouldn’t explain that dream I just had.

4.

“What are you doin’ here, anyway?” I asked.

He shrugged. “It’s Saturday, and I’m bored. Where’s your sister? I wanna try it again.”

I sighed. Steve had been trying to get Melanie to say Yes to him for awhile now. I guess being two years younger than her didn’t mean anything to him, because he still wanted to date her and thought she’d want to date him. It didn’t take a genius to realize that they weren’t compatible.

It didn’t help that Steve always looked like a damn slob. Maybe if he cleaned himself up a bit, combed his hair a little, wore better clothes… Maybe then a girl would want to date him. As he was now, his only options for love were cybersex or prostitutes. I’d told him that before, even pretended to be a girl on a chatroom once just to fuck around with him.

“She’s not here,” I answered. “She said she’d be back later.”

“Dammit! This time she’s gonna say yes, man, I can feel it.”

Hell, I wouldn’t even date him. If I were a girl, that is. He was just too hopeless. I was just as hopeless, but I didn’t even try to date girls. I’d gone out on one date with Stephanie, and she’d told me I was more like a girlfriend than a boyfriend, because all I wanted to do was talk. I didn’t want to do couple stuff. I kinda thought “couple stuff” included talking.

“I’ll believe that when I see it. Whadda you wanna play?” I asked, pointing to the PS3.

He shrugged. “I dunno. Skyrim?”

I shook my head. “You know that shit bores me now.”

“Okay, Resident Evil?”

“Fine, but we do co-op.”

“Of course.”

“Which one?”

“I vote for Six.”

I sighed. He always wanted to play Resident Evil 6. It was his favorite game in the series, for some reason. I preferred Revelations 2, but he never wanted to play it. “Fine. Go get it.”

I sat there, waiting for him to go upstairs and get the game, and something just seemed wrong to me. I couldn’t figure out what it was, but… something. I rubbed at my forehead, but that didn’t seem to help. I didn’t have a headache, anymore. Did it have something to do with Steve? I may get pissed off at the guy, but he was still my best friend.

Four minutes later, one PlayStation Network sign-in, and a quick campaign selection later, and Steve and I were slogging through the sewers of the fictional city of Tall Oaks as Leon Kennedy and Helena Harper. Steve was Leon, and that stuck me with Helena.

Except that wasn’t really true. I was player one, so I got to pick my character, and I picked Helena. I could have easily picked Leon, but I didn’t, even though I usually do.

“You okay, dude?” Steve asked.

“Yeah,” I said, but I wasn’t even sure if I was telling the truth.

5.

Steve and I were still playing Resident Evil 6 when Melanie came home, about a dozen grocery bags hanging off each hand. “Are you guys gonna help me, or what?” she asked. I pretty much dumped my controller on the couch and jumped up to help her. Steve struggled for a second to kill a zombie before he helped.

Ten minutes later, all the groceries were put away, and Melanie and I were seated across from one another at the kitchen table. I felt nervous, she looked nervous, Steve wasn’t doing shit.

“So…” Steve, hilariously enough, was the first one to speak. “Why isn’t anyone talking?”

Melanie cleared her throat. “Okay, Adam, it’s time to talk about that lady you guys met last night.”

“What about her? She’s a sorceress, and she said she cursed me.”

“Okay, but why?”

“I don’t know, but I don’t care. She had to be lying, otherwise I’d be a girl now, right?”

“She said it would be in a week, so that’s Friday. Let’s say you’re going to be a girl on Friday, why that specific date?”

“I dunno. Just because it’s a week later?” I sighed. “I really don’t know, sis. I just… She should have been able to do it right away, but she didn’t, so I don’t believe she can do it all.”

“Let’s say she can, though… What do we do about it?”

“If she can do it, what can we do? Who’s gonna believe that a sorceress cursed me into a girl?”

“You’ve got a birth certificate stating your gender,” Steve said, probably the smartest thing he’d said all day.

I had to voice the one concern I had: “But, what if this supposed curse changes everything, like, nobody remembers Adam and everybody remembers Amanda?”

No one said anything to that. I think Steve and Melanie were just as afraid of that possiblity as I was.

6.

I laid on my bed and stared up at the ceiling. Steve had gone home hours before, and Melanie was on the phone, ordering pizza. I didn’t really have anything to do except lay there and think about what might happen. Everything seemed so crazy.

Would I start turning into a girl? Or would I just suddenly be one on Friday? Would I start to like guys? Would I fall in love with Steve? The idea of that made me want to puke. Dammit. And what about my parents? They wouldn’t get home until Thursday. It was either, “Hi, Mom and Dad… Yeah… I know I look a little like Melanie when she was younger, but I’m really Adam,” or “Mom, Dad, don’t freak out, but I might wake up a girl tomorrow.” Neither option was, in any way, a good option.

And then there was school. Sure, this was finals week, but if I was changing over the course of the week, then people would see me. They’d all watch me turn into a girl. If I just changed on Friday, then I’d show up as a completely different person for the last day of school. None of this seemed to work out in my favor at all.

My chest was starting to itch. I reached under my shirt and scratched at the irritating sensation.