Natalie stared down at the stapled sheet of papers handed out to her. Whatever Sara was saying right now she wasn’t listening to. Considering it was the first day of this program, it was probably a bunch of boring, rudimentary, introductory crap. No, the paper she was holding was much more interesting.

“Identity death victims are overwhelmingly women, or men, depending on the perspective. The most common case of identity death is a man being transformed into a woman and then being made to forget their life as a man. This scenario makes up 96% of all identity deaths. Other cases of identity death may include a woman becoming a man and then forgetting life as a woman, or a person becoming another person and forgetting their previous life without the involvement of any gender transformation.”

Apparently every universe that had an Earth was filled with people that really wanted to turn men into women. Seriously, that many cases? Did that mean all the women in this room were originally men? Probably.

Why people were so fond of men becoming women while having a distinct lack of interest in the opposite was likely due to a ton of different factors, none of which Natalie wanted to ponder at the moment. She didn’t need to remind herself that she wasn’t a real woman.

“A person’s motivation for committing identity death is, for the most part, linked to their relationship to the victim. For instance, whenever a man commits identity death, it is usually on one of his close friends. Most of the time, it is to turn them into his girlfriend. There are also instances in which a man will brainwash a woman he doesn’t know into being his girlfriend, however as that does not involve erasing a person’s memories and creating a new life for them, it is not considered identity death.

Women do not usually commit identity death on their close friends, however they are much more likely to commit it on their romantic partners. The most common case is for a woman to transform her boyfriend into her daughter. There are also a not insignificant number of cases where a woman transforms a man into a woman in order to teach them to respect women or understand their struggles, though those cases do not involve identity death. In those instances, the transformation itself is usually intended to be a punishment.”

Even if this data was collected from a multitude of different universes, it was shocking to see just how fraught every world was with magic abuse. Also, considering being a woman to be a punishment was pretty fucked, was it not?

“Identity death can be done in one of two ways. Either it can be done with the victim transforming as the spell is being written, or the spell can be written entirely in advance and the person can be changed completely all at once. The former usually takes less time in total, but the latter is very useful for perpetrators looking for victims they don’t personally know.

The nature of most instances of identity death makes it crucial that victims are away from their perpetrators quickly. A disproportionately high number of men who transform their friends into their girlfriends end up being abusive partners, and a disproportionately high number of women who transform their partners into their daughters end up being abusive parents. It is not safe for them to be around each other.”

It was certainly comforting for Natalie to know that her fears were confirmed, and that Astian, the man she thought she loved, probably would’ve been a really bad husband. Bad enough to make her have nightmares, even. She nearly shivered. No, she didn’t want to have to think about that man again. He was gone, a part of her past.

A past she’d be forced to relive every time she slept.

She just couldn’t win, could she?

Natalie heard the doorknob turn and looked up to see the door open. Standing in the entrance to the room was a woman who looked very young. In fact, it may have been more accurate to say she was a girl, as she looked to be about eighteen. How could this program accept someone so young? Were people out there really performing identity death on literal children? That was seriously sick.

“Victoria, I’m happy you made it.” Sara said to her.

“Sorry I’m so late. Traffic was fucking crazy.” Victoria said as she took the open seat next to Natalie. “Did I miss anything?”

Sara handed her the same collection of papers everyone else got.

“Nope, we were just getting into introductions.”

‘Oh, great.’ Natalie thought with a silent groan.

***

Eventually, the actual session finally began. Introductions hadn’t taken that long and Natalie prided herself in actually being able to get through them. Of course, the people here probably wouldn’t have minded if she couldn’t do it, but still.

All of the women in the room had given female names, like her. Natalie just knew that they were all thinking the same thing. Everyone in that room had once been a man, in a past life, but no one wanted to outright state it.

Though that time may be coming up, because soon after introductions was an ‘open floor’ period where anyone was free to talk about anything they wanted involving their current problems. Inevitably, that subject was going to be brought up.

Hell, just after Natalie thought that, it did.

“Yeah, I still don’t remember all my male life, but I remember the night I transformed.” A woman who looked to be the same age as Natalie spoke to the group. She had said her name was Autumn. “Am I supposed to… tell it? Like, explain what happened to the whole room?”

“If you want to and are comfortable.” Sara answered.

“It’s a hard story to tell though… I don’t want to trigger anyone.”

The woman sitting beside her put a hand on her shoulder. “I don’t think a single person in this room has had an easy time reliving any of this. That’s what we’re here for. If it’s important that you say what happened to you, say it.”

Autumn’s eyes darted across the entire room, to see if she could find any hint of objection. Even if some of the women were staring at the ground or away from everyone else, she could find none.

“Okay, I’ll tell it.” She said. “If anyone gets uncomfortable, tell me.”

“Feel free to leave the room if you need to.” Sara added.

The room fell silent as Autumn took the time to prepare her speech.

“I still don’t remember what happened during that day, but in the night I was at a party. It was held at some frat house, I don’t know what the name of the frat was. I was a college freshman at the time, so the idea of going to some big college party was just something I couldn’t turn down. I had to go, I mean, I had thought college parties were a myth but right there was an opportunity to go to a real one. I had to take it.”

Autumn paused, turning her head as if to consider something.

“Since I’m already telling this story I might as well say what my male name was.” She said. “It was Alex.”

She continued her story. “My 18 year old male self seemed to fashion himself a sex god.” She snorted. “In reality he was a coward who never had the balls to actually go up and talk to a woman. In spite of that though, he… I, had an alright time. I was pretty drunk when I left the house, so instead of driving I had to stumble my way back to my dorm room. It wasn’t too far, thankfully. Anyway, as I walked onto the sidewalk I noticed this guy talking to some girl. He was holding this folded piece of paper in his hand. It had some writing on it, but my drunk mind couldn’t even begin to see what it was.”

She shut her eyes, seeming to tense up as the painful part of the story began.

“He was asking her if she wanted to come with him to his apartment. She said no, and then he took her hand and rubbed the paper all over her palm. He asked her the same question, and as he did I saw her eyes become unfocused, staring at him as if she was in a trance. This time, she said yes. Now, even as drunk as I was, seeing that exchange really weirded me out. The guy must’ve noticed me staring because he turned around and asked me if there was a problem. I tried to say something like ‘no I’m just trying to get back to my dorm’ but who knows what my drunk self actually said. It was probably funny whatever it was, because the guy had a smile on his face as I talked. He then came up to me and rubbed that piece of paper on my face. I guess he didn’t take my hand because he thought it was gay or something. But anyway, he asked me if I wanted to come to his apartment, and well… I said yes.”

At that point the whole room knew where her story was going. Natalie almost stood up to leave but willed herself to stay down.

“When he rubbed that paper on me I suddenly wasn’t drunk anymore, as if all the alcohol just left my system. It probably did. But despite that, I still wasn’t perceiving things quite right. It’s hard to explain what being in a trance is like. The best way to say it is that I was fully in love with this guy, and couldn’t think for myself. I just did whatever he told me to without saying a word. He led us back into his apartment, and well… he raped us.”

‘Fuck’, Natalie thought. If she didn’t have second thoughts about coming here before, she definitely did now.

“Even though my mind was clouded I can still recall it. He led that girl onto his bed and he began. Once he was finished, he looked over to me and took out another folded paper from his drawer. He rubbed it on me and that’s when the transformation happened. I didn’t feel anything, but even in my clouded state I was still confused at suddenly being a girl. He didn’t give me time to think about it though. He just led me to his bed and raped me.”

Natalie forced herself not to cringe. Now she really wanted to leave. Why did everything have to be so awful?

“I’m sorry.” The woman beside Autumn said.

“I guess you can’t really predict these things.” Autumn said with a weak grin. “If you’re curious about what happened after that, I woke up the next morning with no recollection of the past night, or my male life at all. As far as I knew I was Autumn, and had been my whole life. I had willingly gone to this guy’s apartment and had sex with him. Looking back at it now with my male memories coming in, it’s kind of trippy. To remember two things happening that one night, that is. I also noticed the other girl had left. I asked the guy where she went, and he said he didn’t know. I left after that and I… ‘thanked’ him for ‘a good night’. The piece of shit actually smiled before I left.”

Autumn’s face was starting to fill with rage, and she took a few moments to calm herself.

“Apparently that other girl died in a car crash a week later. A part of me suspects there may have been something more going on there. Something sinister, but my universe’s magic enforcement world wasn’t able to find anything. They also weren’t able to find the guy who did all this, and I just… don’t have it in me to try and find him myself. Reliving this memory has already been painful enough. I can’t do it.”

Autumn turned to look at Sara directly.

“That was six years ago, in both timelines. It took them six years to notice the double timeline. That’s what they said at least. How could it take so long? Were they lying about that and just didn’t want me to relive that memory?”

“If I am to be completely honest, they probably lied.” Sara answered. “I’ve talked to some people from the world monitoring your universe, and it shouldn’t take that long to find a merging timeline.”

“That’s what I thought.” Autumn said. “And you know what? Maybe they were right to hesitate. Maybe it would’ve been better if I never knew about all this. I just… I don’t know, I just want to move on. That’s all. Thinking about this stuff is exhausting. I just want it to be over.”

Natalie could definitely agree on that point. She wanted this to be over. She didn’t want to have to think about any of this shit anymore. It was exhausting.

Actually no, that wasn’t right. What she really wanted was someone to tell her that this was all some elaborate prank. To tell her that she really was just a normal woman, and not some man turned into one against their will. Whenever anyone in the room talked about identity death, all she heard was that she was supposed to be a man and nothing she had ever felt, seen, or done in her life was real.

Moving on was impossible. And at this point, she shouldn’t even call herself Natalie anymore.