“Usada, waake up~” A man says in a singsong voice. I wake from the darkness by my alarm; not the mechanical one I had, but my other one, my roommate and best friend Lucas. He’s tall at about six foot three, and built like a Greek god. He has porcelain skin, brown hair, and hazel eyes. He’s also ripped as hell. Seriously, how did he get that many muscles and a six pack? I could never get anything like that, my body just wasn’t meant to get like his.

I was like his opposite, five feet six inches with light tan skin. Brown hair, and dark brown eyes. I was skin and bones as my mama would say and I had about as much physical strength as a middleschool girl. I had a few girls I went on a date with but it never worked out and always ended up in disaster. They weren’t kind to me, but at least my best bud Lucas was always there for me, even if he was annoying.

Living in a dorm with my best friend was incredibly lucky. We weren’t just best friends, we were childhood friends. We’d been together since we were in kindergarten. People think only girls can have close friendships but I can say that’s absolutely not true. Me and Lucas have a really deep friendship, and plenty of other guys do too I’m sure.

“Are you going to call me that forever? You lost the bet too. Should I call you Dejiko?” I ask with annoyance.

“Sure if you want. I looked damn adorable in that dress and you know it.” He winked and shook his hips with a chuckle.

I grumble and acquiesce because I know there was nothing I could say that could make him feel shame. “Whatever, why are you waking me up so early?”

As I rub my eyes and wake up fully, he places a tray of eggs, bacon, sausages, and waffles with whipped cream and a cherry on top. “Well I made you breakfast. Also, I thought we could go somewhere nice today. You’ve been really down, so I thought I’d invite you to something I think you’d like.”

“Dude, I’m not your girlfriend, you don’t have to do this stuff for me.” Though it does look really tasty…

He laughs and shakes his head. “My bro, you don’t have to be dating me for me to care about you. I know you felt betrayed when I joined the football team. I’m still myself though, and I still like playing video games with you. Those guys that hurt you? They were jerks and if it’s any consolation I got in trouble a few times for sending them a knuckle sandwich. I love football and sports and stuff, but I also love making others happy, especially my bestie. It’s just who I am.” He smiles warmly and even I can admit I was grateful. Any stereotype of Jock you could think of, he was the opposite. It was a bit embarrassing to always have to be protected by him. It felt so emasculating, but well, it’s my own fault I’m sure. Maybe if I worked out I could be ripped like him? Yeah right, that’d never happen.

“Fine, I accept. Jeez.” I take a bite and oh wow it's delicious. He was a perfect cook too? Was there anything this man couldn’t do? I shake my head of jealous thoughts, he was being nice and I should accept it. “This is really good. Thanks, dude.”

“Anytime, man, anytime. Now get your butt up after you’re done. Get ready, and then I got the perfect place for you to go to. You’ll love it, I promise.”

I decide to hold him to that as I finish my breakfast. I get up out of bed, and put the tray in the sink. I’ll wash it later, it’s my turn to do dishes anyway. Then I get in the shower. A warm shower is truly the best thing in the world. It’s like it opens up your mind and allows you to fully process anything you need. I sometimes find myself using a warm shower to help me with my homework when I can’t focus. After a while though, I hear a knock.

“Hey Usada, are you coming? Are you okay? Did you fall asleep in there? Do I need to come in?”

I grumble. Can’t a man enjoy a nice warm shower? “Just a minute, and my name is Manuel, you know!”

“Yeah I know, and I’m Lucas, but nicknames are fun. Besides, only you and I know the reference, it’s like a sacred pact between bros.”

I could hear his grin. I turned off the water, and dried myself off. Next, on with a pair of jeans, a game over t-shirt, a red hoodie, socks, and a pair of sneakers. “I’m ready. Now where is this mysterious place you think I’ll want to go to.”

“You’ll see. It’ll be a surprise. You might already know it, but you might not, you kinda never leave your room after classes.” 

I feel like he is scolding me as if I was some elementary school kid who didn’t want to play outside.

“Fine fine, let’s go.” I stick my wallet in my hoodie pocket and walk out.

The campus grass looked freshly mowed, but the pathway didn’t look quite as nice. Parts of it cracked and crumbled, and some of it pushed up to make an easy catch to cause you to fall face first. I’ve done that a few times so I always look where I’m going now. The dorm buildings were a bit decrepit themselves, with some moss on the side of some of them, and a little mold too. That’s just how the guys' dorms were though. I wonder if the girls dorm is the same, but I’d never been there. Nor would I want to, I heard the dorm mother was a real hard ass about no boys allowed unless you got her approval or filled out a form or something. Either way, it sounded like too much of a pain to deal with. Our dorm dad, though, was awesome. He didn’t give a shit what we did as long as we didn’t do anything too illegal. We could even bring our girlfriends over without signing any fancy forms.

He leads me down past the dorms to a building I’d never been to. It was some kind of computer room. “This is it.” I looked through the window and saw numerous other college students on computers and playing some kind of computer game.

“What is this place?” I ask.

“It’s a gaming center for the college. Anyone can join, you just gotta sign in when you get in, and sign out when you leave. It’s not super enforced or anything but it’s a nice courtesy.”

“You sure it’s safe in there? That’s a lot of people…” I look inside the window again apprehensively. Large groups of people always means bad news in my experience.

“It’s just a gaming center, dude. What’s the worst that could happen? You’ll be fine.” He pats my back and ushers me in, then suddenly stops as his phone beeps. “Wait, damn it. Sorry Manuel, Coach just called an emergency. I gotta go. You go have fun though, okay? As soon as this meeting is over I’ll be right back!” 

I scoff at that. Wasn’t I supposed to go with him? With a grumble I let him push me in, but maybe he’s right. I’ve had it really tough lately and a bit of gaming could be fun. Maybe I could find some like-minded people?

He leaves and I walk to the sign in sheet, and fill it out. Manuel Carpenter. I walk around looking for an empty seat. As I’m looking around I see this Japanese guy and Japanese girl on the screen and they’re fighting on the computer screens. They’re saying weird things, then the guy just turns to me, right at me, and looks at me. Like actually looks at me and says something about making me his servant or follower or something. I’ve never seen a game that realistic before, is this normal for MMOs?

As black smoke seeps out of the computer screens all hell breaks loose. I’m not sure what’s going on, but it isn’t like normal smoke. It’s almost like it’s alive, like it’s reaching for us or searching for someone. I watch as people who are in the fog start to change. This guy’s body started to crack, and creak as it sounded like every bone in his body was breaking. Then it slowly pulled itself downward, making him shorter somehow. The worse part is it sounds so disgusting and visceral as if his entire body was being remodeled into something new. Not like clay, more as if someone took a chisel to his body and started hacking off pieces of him. The screams of agony didn’t help reassure me that he’d be all right either. Also did I hear his voice get higher? That doesn’t make sense though, right? With even more screams, people panic as the fog twists and morphs the people around me. But they aren’t just normal people, they have animal ears, and horns, and some even had gills or started to turn transparent? What the fuck was going on?

As it forms a giant black smoky hand and turns towards me. I realize its intended target. Me. I try to get away, I back up and look for the door, there is no salvation to be had there though. It’s covered in that same black smoke. If I hadn’t bothered to stare at these people transforming, maybe I could have made it. Now, all I could do is watch, as like a spider catching its prey, the smoky claw pounces on me. It grabs onto my leg with surprising force, then forces me to the ground, hard. I reach the back of my head and feel a trickle of blood, and wonder if I’m going to get a concussion, not that matters, this smoke is going to do something horrible to me, just like it did those other people.

The black smoke slowly crawls up my pant leg, seeping into my clothes. Despite it being smoke it feels almost solid, harsh, like sandpaper rubbing against my skin. It almost feels like it’s trying to flay the skin off my body. 

“Please! Stop, I don’t know what I did to offend you but please, don’t do this!” I beg, but it doesn’t care. It grabs harder onto me, and I watch as it crawls into my shirt, and then it’s at my neck. I feel something wet on my cheek and realize it’s tears as it starts to swallow my head whole. After I’m completely covered I can’t hear or see anything, as I feel it force itself into my mouth. I cough and gag as it crawls down my throat, like a million tiny bugs performing some macabre parade down my esophagus, making bites and cuts all the way down with its sandpapery texture. I can feel my bones creaking and breaking, my insides churning, twisting into something new. My entire body feels like it’s on fire, and I feel a sharp pain in my crotch. I want to cry, to scream but I can’t. That smoke has made it so I can’t do anything but stay there.

I feel an agonizing headache as something or someone feels as if they are drilling into my brain. Like they are trying to get inside my head. I almost feel like I can hear a voice but I’m too focused on what’s going on with me as the cruel smog leaves my body. I fall to my knees as everything feels wrong. My entire body feels wrong. “What happ…” That voice wasn’t mine. It couldn’t be mine. It was too sweet, saccharine, high pitched. I sounded like a girl. Did I get kicked in the balls? It didn’t sound like a falsetto though. That’s impossible though, right? Guys don’t just randomly get a girl’s voice.

Not to mention though, did this room get bigger? And my center of gravity feels different too. Also my clothes, what in the world am I wearing. I look down and see I’m wearing some kind of lacey frilly violet dress. It has a ribbon tied in the back and I feel my hair falling to my face. Which is impossible because I have extremely short hair. I reach up and feel silky soft hair, and put it into view, it’s the same shade of purple as my dress. Also what is on my legs, it feels silky and I’m wearing girls shoes, and everything feels weird. Also why are my hands so small? I look down and internally freak out. WHY THE HECK DO I HAVE BREASTS?! I feel an unrecognizable feeling under my dress and underwear and realize it might be even worse than I feared. I didn’t have to touch to realize I definitely didn’t feel what I normally feel down there… I’m a girl. How the fudge am I a girl!?

Then my ears, it feels even stranger and I feel something fall to the sides of my head. I reach up and I feel a pair of brown floppy fuzzy bunny ears. And then reach behind me to feel a fluffy bunny tail coming out of the back of my skirt. I’m not just a girl, I’m some kind of rabbit person?! What happened to me? How did this happen? This is impossible!

“Hey, you all right?” I immediately look at the owner of the voice, no longer stuck in my own head. She had butterfly-like wings, forest green hair styled in a wild fashion, wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Next to her was a short catgirl with pink ears and tail, wearing jeans and a hoodie covering her hair.

“I’m fine I think, what about you both?” Why did I say I was fine? I’m not fine, I got turned into some kind of bunny girl in a girly dress. How could that be fine?

“Yeah, we’re fine, oh this is Shay and I’m Morgan. What’s your name?”

My name? That was easy its: “Lunabella, Luna for short.” Wait, no it wasn’t. Why did I say that was my name? I hold onto my head as I feel a sharp ache, then I try to search my memories and figure out what’s going on. My name, wasn’t it something else? Wasn’t I a boy? What kind of boy has the name Lunabella? No no I’m definitely a boy, I think? What is my name… Lunabella, duh. Wait no, aaaaa this sucks I can’t think!

“Hey, are you sure? You seem a little out of it, did you hit your head, are you hurt?” Shay asks. Of course I was out of it, everything is wrong. Isn’t it? Is my name even Lunabella? I feel like it was something else…

“My servant, your name is Lunabella as I have named you. It is nothing else. This is who you will be for the rest of your life, so get used to it. Because there is no turning back. This is who you are now, forever.” 

I hear the voice of that man from the computer screen inside my head. He’s commanding, confident, strong, manly. I feel as if I have to listen to him, like he’s my master; wait, he is my master. My name is Lunabella, I’m his servant. What was I thinking? Of course I’m his servant, duh. Jeez, Luna, you really need to get your head on straight.

“I-I’m fine, do either of you know what’s going on?”

“We were just about to ask you that.” Morgan replies. “You’re coming up empty too? We’ll figure it out later.  Anyway we’re trying to get everyone to safety, do you feel up to helping us?”

“Tell them nothing, let them wallow in their confusion. Soon we’ll find more followers to join you, these are merely collateral damage. You are the one that matters most, my servant.” 

Of course, master. “Y-Yeah I don’t really know, sorry. I can help though, I think, what should we start with?”

“You’re helping with the evacuation? Sorry, couldn’t help but overhear. Don’t worry I called an ambulance for anyone that needs help.” I turn to see a girl with beautiful dark hair, fuchsia colored eyes. She wore a skull and flower print hoodie, with black leggings, and flats. Also she had pointy ears, like some kind of video game character. Huh…

“Yeah, we’re already organizing that.” Morgan says.

I chime in with: “Yeah, I’m gonna help some too.”

“I called an ambulance, they’ll be here soon. Don’t worry, I didn’t talk about…” She waves around at everyone. “This. They’d never have believed it. Anyway, do any you know what happened?”

“Remember, say nothing.” 

We all shook our heads. I guess explaining it would be pointless anyway. I’m not even sure I know what happened.

“You okay, you seemed to space out there?” The elf girl’s voice jolted me upright with a hop.

“Y-Yeah I’m fine! Sorry to worry you.” Am I really spacing out that much? I guess I should be careful of that.

“Anyway, my name is Holly, they/them/theirs. And yours?” The elf … girl? says. Though, they/them, is that a girl? How does that work? Do girls use they/them sometimes?

“Morgan, he/him.” The faerie says awkwardly.

“Shay… He/him.” the catgirl says even more awkwardly, flicking their tail and flattening their ears. How can she be a guy? Is she a guy? Or was she like me? Though master made me a girl so I’m supposed to be a girl, clearly, but why would a girl use guy pronouns? These people are weird.

Then she? They? Looked at me expectantly. “I’m Lunabella, you can call me Luna, though.” I felt pride at how easily I said that. I was certain master would be happy that I called myself my name without any hesitation.

“Any preferred pronouns, Luna?” The elf asked.

I blink twice. “Uhh…” I wave myself up and down. “Is it really that difficult?”

They don’t seem to like my answer but don’t press further, so that’s fine with me. “All right, since that is settled, let’s set up some roles. I’ll take the back. Shay, Morgan, take the sides. Luna…” They look at me with concern and I look at them expectantly. “You help people outside, it looks the safest there.”

Shay, Morgan, and Holly all go their separate ways. I obediently follow their instructions, and try to help people. I find myself having trouble doing so, though. How can I help these people when I can’t even help myself? I went here at my friend’s behest and now, what’s going on with me? Everything feels wrong. Off, somehow. I know master said it’s fine, but… is it? I need Lucas… I need him now. I pick up my phone and text him: [I need you, where r u?]

I felt a vibration from my phone and check for his response: [I’m still with coach, but I can meet you in the lunch room, r u okay, Usada?]

My hands shake as I type out: [No, I need u.]

He answers: [brt, coach can deal]

I look at the unfinished work in front of me. I don’t have time for this, I can’t deal with this. It’s too much. My head starts to hurt, and I grip it tightly as the thoughts and wrong feelings invade me. I feel a hand land on my shoulder, then I cry out and run away towards the lunch room. I don’t  even care if the others notice.

I pass by so many people, some of them say hi, some wave at me but I can’t focus on that. I need Lucas, I need him now. I make it to the lunch room, then sit down, catching my breath.

“Luna?! What happened?” I hear him say as he rushes over to me and holds me in his arms.

It feels so warm in his embrace, so strong, yet soft. So kind, so loving… wait… loving? Where did that thought come from? I shake my head and look into his eyes. “Lucas, I…” The words won’t leave my mouth. Instead I feel my eyes become watery, and start to cry. He continues to hold me, not asking anymore questions. I just rest my head in his arms and cry. I cry over my lost name, my lost gender, my everything. I know master said I have to accept it but everything feels wrong. Maybe I’ll feel better later but right now… I just need Lucas.

“It’s okay, Lunabella, it’s okay.” He gently strokes my hair, and kisses my forehead. I’ve never seen him get this intimate with anyone except for his girlfriend before, but I don’t worry about that because I’m just so… lost.

I stay in his arms for what feels like an eternity, as my tears start to dry up. I smile at him and look in his eyes and sniffle. “I’m sorry… I must look so pathetic to you…”

“Never, you don’t look pathetic at all. In fact, all I see is the bravest girl I know. Also the cutest little bunny ever.” He booped my nose, and I felt my cheeks flush.

I was… cute? That made me happy for some reason. I look at him with a warm smile. “Thanks, Lucas. I really appreciate you.”

“Any time, Luna. I’ll always be here for you, no matter what. You ask for me, and I’ll come running. I’ll drop whatever I’m doing and get to you as fast as I can.” He kissed the top of my head again. Why did that feel so good, so comforting? “Want to go watch a movie or something? I think my roommate is gone.”

His roommate was gone? I’m his roommate… aren’t I? Wait, no I’m a girl, I can’t live in the boy’s dorm. “Y-Yeah, I could definitely use that.”

“Great! Then let’s go, yeah?” He held out his hand, and I took it to help me stand up.

Even after helping me up, he kept his hand in mine. It was a little strange, but I didn’t mind. It felt kind of… nice. I felt a fluttering in my chest too, a good kind. I smiled and let him lead me to his dorm. He was such a kind boy. I was glad we were friends.

Playing with him till night time was really relaxing and helped me wind down and calm down. He normally won on fighting games pretty convincingly, but this time was different. It was really close and finally, I got a win off of him. I don’t think I’ve ever beaten him before! It felt really good.

Afterwards we play some two-player games, like this one where you play as two chefs and you help each other cook lots of meals. It was really fun. Then he played this really hard game that can kill you super easily, really dark and dreary,, but I got tired of playing so I just sat in his lap and watched him. He was really good at the game; it wasn’t my cup of tea, never was, not even… before. Still, it was fun watching him play and it felt good sitting in his lap. I’m so small now, and I fit perfectly on him, almost like two puzzle pieces being put together. It was kinda sweet in a way, I’m so glad we’re such good friends that he’d let me do this.

After it starts to get dark, he turns off the machine. “You look better, but I really should get you to your dorm. I know how your dorm mother is”

“Yeah, Mrs. Birch can be really tough on us.”

“Do you feel better now? Still resentful of my gifts, Lunabella? Well, it’s fine, a nice rest will help you feel better. Sleep well, my follower, remember who your master is.” 

After master spoke, I fell backwards into blackness.