Natalie put her hand above her head to block the sunlight coming through the apartment window.

“Ugh.” She groaned. “I feel like I’ve been asleep for weeks.”

She rolled over and noticed that Astian was not in bed with her. That was weird, she thought. It was Sunday, he should be sleeping in. Maybe he was already up making breakfast.

It was then that Natalie heard the notification bell on her phone. She reached over to her night stand to pick it up, fully expecting some stupid, irrelevant news story.

Well, she was half-right. She did get a news story.

But it was one that nearly made her drop her phone.

“24 year old man, Astian Dover, in police chase after robbing a bank. Police have lost him and now no one knows where he is.”

“No.” Natalie thought. “No, no, no, no, no, no, no.”

This… this had to be a joke. It couldn’t be real. It couldn’t possibly be real.

“You won’t have to worry about Astian. He won’t wake up in your apartment. We have some level of control over your reality and will create an explanation for his absence.”

Oh god.

Natalie quickly scrolled down the article, and saw that it had a bunch of comments. Other people had seen this. It wasn’t just something that popped up on her phone.

Natalie had to stop herself from panicking. She forced herself to take deep breaths for about a minute straight.

Everything was fine. All that stuff about magic, and a trial, and memories changing, and Astian going to jail, and her… being a man. That was all a dream. It wasn’t real. There had to be a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this.

Natalie slowly got out of bed and looked all around her apartment. It wasn’t very big, so it didn’t take her long. She found… nothing. There was nothing out of the ordinary. Aside from Astian not being there, of course.

Natalie began to panic again, but forced herself to calm down as she went to her phone to look at her Life360 app. Maybe Astian was just at the store or something.

It didn’t take long for her to realize Astian wasn’t anywhere in the town, or the country for that matter. In fact, he wasn’t on the map at all.

No matter which way she looked at it, Astian was gone.

Natalie took a seat down on one of the couches, and felt her eyes begin to water. Astian, the love of her life was missing. Gone, in a place where no one, not even the police could find him.

Would she ever see him again?

Natalie closed her eyes and imagined Astian’s arms around her, his mouth giving her neck a kiss. She could almost feel his hot breath on her skin.

She wanted to keep her eyes closed forever. To continue imagining Astian was right there with her, comforting her and telling her everything was going to be alright. To pretend that everything was just as it was before, and that they were going to be married next year.

Unfortunately, illusions can never last forever.

Natalie opened her eyes to see that she was still alone, in the room, in the apartment, and possibly in her life. She huddled her knees up to her chest.

Astian was such a good man. He was nice, charming, and loving. He would never commit a crime. That wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him.

But it was.

Why would he rob a bank? It’s not like they had any money problems. They could always afford their basic needs. And they were already gathering and distributing money for the wedding. They weren’t really struggling with the budget that much. How could he do this? Desert her and run off to get lost in the middle of wherever?

Natalie’s sadness began to turn to anger. He had left her. He didn’t even say goodbye. He just left and went on to commit a crime for no reason. That. Fucking. Asshole.

She was wrong about him. He wasn’t nice at all, he was a terrible, terrible man. And she hated him. She hated him so much. If she ever saw his face again she swore she would blow it off with a revolver.

But… maybe it was possible that he didn’t actually desert her.

When Natalie had her eyes closed, trying to imagine Astian being with her, there was another image she saw in her mind. One that she tried her hardest to ignore.

It was a very faint image of herself as a man.

“Nathan Parker.”

No, that was just ridiculous. She wasn’t about to believe all that nonsense about a magic trial and being a man. It was all a dream, right? Right?

Well, if it was a dream then she was remembering it oddly well. Hell, it sure felt like she hadn’t been in this apartment for two weeks, despite her falling asleep in bed with Astian just last night.

Oh, that’s right… Astian. The man who the trial was about. The man who got sentenced to twenty-five years in ‘magic prison’ for ‘magic abuse’.

She wasn’t really entertaining this idea, right? That magic was real and Astian really did use magic to transform her into a woman, make her his girlfriend and eventual wife. Change her memories and even reality to make this true. That was just nonsense. None of it was real. None. Of. It.

And she could prove it wasn’t real too.

Natalie went to one of the cabinets and took out an old photo album she brought once she moved out of her house. When she opened it, she was greeted with all kinds of photos from all throughout her life, from her birth to the present day.

She flipped through the pages and skimmed through all the photos. Internally she felt assured that “Nathan” never existed and she was just imagining all that stuff about a trial. If “Nathan” had been real, then these photos would be different and not feature herself as a woman.

It made sense. Nathan wasn’t real.

Of course, if a spell was powerful enough to change reality, it probably would change the past as well, and that would include things like birth certificates, driver’s licenses, IDs…

And photos…

So… this didn’t prove Nathan wasn’t real at all. Hell, there was nothing she could do to prove Nathan wasn’t real. All she had was a dream that still hadn’t faded from her mind, even this long after waking up.

In her mind, she could still easily recall what the courtroom looked like, and what the hotel room looked like.

And she could still recall Astian panicking as he was dragged out of the courtroom and into prison.

Oh god, it was all real, wasn’t it?

She didn’t know what came across her at that moment, but something told her that it was all real. Magic, the trial, the charges, Astian going to prison…

Nathan…

He was real. And if Nathan was real, then was she… not real?

If it truly was the case that Astian had changed reality to make Natalie who she is now, then could she trust that all of her life experiences and memories actually happened? Could she trust that the friends she had now, the connections she had now, the relationships she had now, weren’t just artificially created by some magic spell?

Natalie frantically returned to her photo album and looked through her pictures again. Each one put a memory in her head. A memory that for all she knew, could’ve been fake. Her mental state of panic grew until she reached the photo of Astian proposing to her.

Once she laid her eyes on that photo, it was like everything in the world came to a sudden halt.

Astian proposing to her was a very pleasant memory. It only ‘was’ a pleasant memory because it no longer ‘is’ a pleasant memory.

This man destroyed her entire fucking life.

He made her his girlfriend, and his fiance, out of nothing but selfishness, and caused her great mental anguish. Made her think she was going insane. And this guy was supposed to be Nathan’s best friend? He essentially killed him to make him his girlfriend!

Natalie’s entire being was filled with extreme hatred for this man and when she couldn’t take it anymore she tore the photo up and left pieces of it on the ground. Pretty soon, tears came to her eyes.

“I’m not real.” She said.

She held a pillow to her face, but it failed to contain her sobs.

The rest of the day was very quiet. Natalie got numerous texts from her parents and friends saying they heard about what happened with Astian and were wondering if she was okay. She didn’t answer any of them. She didn’t even make herself lunch or dinner. She just went to her room and laid in her bed all day, not wanting to think about anything.

Eventually, Natalie’s eyelids began to grow heavy, and just before she closed her eyes for the last time that day, she got déjà vu as she saw a man looking out the window.