Chapter Three

Chapter Three

I Find Myself Altered


I closed my eyes as tight as they would go. I could feel myself sweating, beads forming on my forehead, cheeks flushed. Skin shrank and tightened and tingled, rippling over my frame. My insides felt like they were bubbling. My spine stretched slightly, as did my legs, even my arms. With a thrill of terror, I noticed an uncomfortable ache develop in my nether regions.

Beside me, Alice sucked in a sharp breath. That’s when I knew. This couldn’t be my imagination. This couldn’t be a dream. What was happening to me was happening for real, and there was nothing I could do about it.

The ache down there blossomed into a sharp pain, stabbing into my abdomen and I doubled over, which only made it worse. I thought I might be sick. I could feel that my underwear had been pulled down in the front, stretching uncomfortably around my waist. Eyes still shut tight; I quickly pulled at my jeans, forcing them lower. The pain eased, giving me some relief, but something was horribly, horribly wrong. Trembling, drenched in sweat, I collapsed onto my side, nearly every muscle in my body giving out.

I tiny moan escaped without my consent. It didn’t sound like my voice.

“Fiona?” Alice’s voice, shaken and weak, echoed oddly in the hall. A hand, delightfully cool, rested itself on my hot shoulder. My skin felt too-tight there, and I flinched away from her touch.

Knowing I couldn’t forever shut out what had just happened, I slowly opened my eyes. What met them nearly broke my mind in half.

Shaking slightly, and resting on the cool floor, was a hand that seemed to be attached to me. I recognized the fingernails, the pink part that was slightly too long with crescents of white at their bases, the rounded joints of the fingers. But there was a slight patch of barely-visible hair just above that familiar bump on the wrist, and the fingers were wider and slightly longer, the hand itself thicker, as if I were looking at a magnified version of my own hand. There was also more hair just above the bottom joint of each finger.

I stared uncomprehendingly.

In a daze, my eyes traveled up the forearm that was attached to the hand. More hair and slightly thicker muscles combined in a sickening way with a few familiar freckles and the vein placements I knew so well. My eyes reached the edge of a white sleeve, frayed in the same place I knew it would be. But this sleeve was stretched tightly around a bicep I didn’t recognize.

A whimper escaped my lips when I saw that this foreign arm was indeed, attached to my own shoulder—a shoulder that now strained beneath the white polo—my white polo—with unfamiliar muscles.

Then, unable to stop my wandering eyes, I shuddered deeply, my stomach filling with nausea, when I saw that my breasts were gone, just—gone, as if they had never even existed. My shirt sat strangely now over rumpled material, and I realized it was my bra that was making it look like that. As soon as that realization struck, I noticed a slight burning that was wrapping itself around my suddenly wider chest, in conjunction with my bra strap. I sat up and reached behind me and under my shirt with shaking fingers. This made the burning worse for a moment, until, struggling clumsily with my slightly larger fingers; I was able to unhook my bra. It snapped open beneath my shirt. My left hand found the front of it, and with a vicious yank, I was surprised to find that I had actually ripped it off my own body. I threw the lacy remains of it across the wooden floor. It slid to a stop in the shadows beyond the edge of a chair.

I could feel Alice beside me, quiet. But emanating from her like she was screaming into a bullhorn was terror. It gripped my own heart with an icy fist. She trembled next to me, but I dare not look at her.

I suppose my suddenly empty bra, now torn and abandoned, had tipped her off.

“Alice—“I stopped. Gone was my beautiful alto voice. Gone was the familiar vibration in my own throat. I now sounded like a baritone. The unfamiliar voice rattled against the skin of my neck. And yet, horribly, the tembre of it seemed to match my old voice—my real voice.

Alice flinched beside me, clearly as surprised by this new voice as I. “Fiona, or—who are you? How do you know my name? Where’s Fiona?” Her voice was a near whisper that rose at the end, traveling and echoing around the hall like an angry lost wasp.

I released a shaky breath. Her response triggered a thought: was I still—still me? Quickly, I did a mental check. I still had my own memories. My mind seemed to work the same way it always had. I even thought of certain foods that I had always hated and they still sounded gross. Then I saw my own dark hair, hanging in my peripheral vision. I was still me. But was I?

My eyes refused to follow the trail of my hair down. I still couldn’t quite bare to see what I knew had changed down there. I could feel it, but I wouldn’t look. Not yet anyway. My mind already felt like it might explode, flinging shards of insanity into my skull.

After a slow breath, I turned my head slightly and my eyes found Alice’s. She was pale; her mouth slightly parted like it was in a permanent state of surprise. Her brown eyes were tight, fear and sadness mingling in them like wounds. One hand was raised slightly; poised to comfort or prepared to fend off, I didn’t know which.

I brushed my hair from my face, and Alice’s eyes widened at my familiar gesture. We stared at each other for a moment more. “You—“ she whispered, “—are you Fiona’s…brother?”

A part of me inside shriveled up and died.

“You look,” she continued hesitantly, her face leaning slightly forward as she peered at me, “so much like her.”

“That’s because I am her.” I almost choked at the strange voice coming out again. “Alice, it’s me, I swear to you. Something—I don’t know what—but something happened.” I grabbed a fistful of my white polo. “Look, I’m wearing the same clothes—I have the same hair!” I sounded like I was trying to convince myself as well.

Alice’s eyebrows drew together, her eyes flitting around my face, my body. They rested for a moment on my jeans, and then darted away.

I shifted my legs uncomfortably, still averting my eyes while trying to focus on Alice’s face. The rough material felt way too tight around my thighs, but impossibly loose against my hip bones. As I moved one of my legs again, a sharp pain wedged itself into the arches of both feet. Trying not to cry out at the sudden pain, I quickly leaned forward and fumbled with the laces of my tennis shoes. As I did so, my jeans once again made me aware of something I was desperately trying to ignore.

Once I had untied and loosened the laces of both shoes, my enlarged feet felt slightly better.

As soon as my eyes made contact with Alice’s, she looked away as if the sight sickened her. “Alice, please,” I pleaded. “You have to believe me.” Alice didn’t react.

If Alice wouldn’t believe me, my mind really would lose itself. Knowing that, a little shiver ran up my spine.

In that moment of desperation, inspiration struck. “Alice, not ten minutes ago we were eating together in the dining hall, talking about Logan. You said that—that you knew I liked him.” A thin cold sliver of ice mercilessly pierced my heart. I could almost feel bloody pain welling up around it. What would happen with Logan now? I clenched my teeth, trying to focus on the situation at hand. I needed Alice. She had to believe me. It was like she was my only connection to who I really was. “You ate couscous but got me a hamburger. You even found the bottle of Dijon for me because you know I hate ketchup—“

“Stop, just stop!” Alice had taken a step back. She was breathing hard, looking shaken.

At that moment, the double doors at the back of the hall burst open. “What’s going on in here?” asked a man’s voice.

My heart sped up and I broke out in a cold sweat.

Oh, shit.

It was Mr. Rellik.

“Miss Warren, what are you doing in here?” Alice froze beside me.

Before I could do anything, Mr. Rellik had moved into view, his navy blue suit hanging slightly rumpled on his large frame. When he saw me, his blue eyes locked onto my own and I couldn’t look away. As he stared, a light seemed to spring up in his irises and his mouth stretched into a polite smile. “You must be our new student.” Stupidly, my eyes darted around for a moment, looking for the new student Mr. Rellik was talking about. “Ms. Perry told me you would be visiting campus today. You’re late for your meeting.” Mr. Rellik was still looking right at me.

Fuck. He was talking to me.

Mr. Rellik glanced at my shirt, my hair. He clucked his tongue. “Mr. Lane, is it?” I startled at the mismatch of the name he was using to address me. “Your hair is past regulation. I would’ve thought your cousin might have informed you of our dress code here at St. Xavier’s.” He briskly walked toward me and I couldn’t help but cower slightly. As he approached, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the pair of scissors that all St. Xavier students knew he carried with him at all times.

I scrambled to my feet, which still throbbed in my too-small shoes, and my jeans, though I had tugged them lower, were still slightly too short. I resisted the urge to adjust myself. There was definitely…more of me down there. A lot more. Briefly, I looked down. Holy Shit.

“I’m afraid we’ll have to cut that before you go into your meeting with Headmaster Slater.” My eyes shot back up. Mr. Rellik’s expression was contemplative. “I don’t want you to earn a detention your first day at St. Xavier’s. The student handbook you received in the mail clearly states that male students cannot have hair past their jaw line.”

Male students. I couldn’t ignore it any longer. This was real. I wasn’t imagining it. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“I’ll try and make it as clean a cut as possible,” Mr. Rellik promised as he stood in front of me, scissors in hand, reminding me strongly of a ringmaster, whip in hand. “You can trim it after dinner and you are free to leave the campus. Perhaps this will be a good lesson for you, young man.” Panic welled up inside of me, but before I could react, Mr. Rellik had stepped behind me, swept my beautiful dark hair into a high bunch and I felt the small tugs and pulls as his sharp scissors cut through my only remaining connection to who I was—to who I had been.


Entire Novel
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six