When I came to, I was laying on Theresa's sofa.
As soon as my eyes opened they filled with tears again, my emotions were still all over the place. I pulled myself up to a sitting position but I felt light-headed. I blinked away the tears as I looked around.
My purse was back on the coffee table, and there was a box of tissues next to it. And Tess was sitting on the love seat. She looked anxious, but more than that she looked worried.
She watched me for a few moments, like maybe she was waiting to see if I'd say something.
After a few seconds of silence she took a deep breath then asked in a gentle, compassionate voice "Is it ok if I keep calling you Amy? Or would you prefer that I use another name for you?"
Fresh tears ran down my cheeks and I reached out and grabbed a tissue to wipe them away. Then I nodded slightly and replied in a half-whisper, "Amy's fine. I don't want to tell you my... I don't want to say the other name."
"Ok Amy," Tess said with a gentle smile. Her expression shifted back to worry though as she asked, "When was the last time you ate anything? Or drank anything?"
I dabbed up some more tears and shrugged, "I met you for coffee this morning."
"You bought a coffee but you didn't touch it once," she said in a gentle voice. "And I gave you a bottle of water when we got here, which you haven't opened."
"Oh," I blushed slightly. "Um... I think I had breakfast yesterday. Maybe lunch? I don't remember."
Tess still had that worried look on her face as she said "I'm going to make you something to eat ok? And please drink some water?"
My stomach was churning. Not from hunger but from my emotions, which were still going wild. I was scared, embarrassed, ashamed, and confused. More tears filled up my eyes then ran down my cheeks as I finally nodded, "Ok... Thank you Tess."
She gave me another warm smile, then got to her feet and went into the kitchen.
After wiping my eyes yet again I picked up the water bottle she'd given me earlier and opened it up and had a few sips. That quickly turned into me gulping down more than half the bottle as my body suddenly told me just how thirsty I was.
After a pause for air I drank the rest of the bottle, then put it down next to my purse.
Tess was still busy in the kitchen, I could hear the microwave going and the sound of plastic packaging being handled. I didn't know what else to do with myself so I pulled my phone back out and went into Discord to check the notifications. Sure enough I had a couple DMs and a bunch of pings from all three of my teammates.
I knew from experience when someone's computer crashed or their internet cut out, their character just sort of stood there for a few seconds to a minute until the servers noticed you'd disconnected and logged you out. Apparently I took some nasty hits but Leah said I got logged out before dying, which was a lucky break. After my solo quests I saved at the village where I met the others when we started the dungeon-dive, so I'd only lose the experience and loot I picked up in the dungeon.
My friends weren't so lucky. They were overrun in the confusion after I crashed.
The messages from Leah and Kreff weren't too bad. They both asked if I was ok, they were worried since I didn't come back online at all last night. Dorn's messages were just angry. He accused me of disconnecting on purpose, to save myself and let the rest of them get killed.
The game wasn't too harsh if you died, character death wasn't permanent. On the other hand, there were still penalties. You tended to lose some random inventory and gold, plus there was a 'resurrection cost' that took a chunk of your experience points. So when you popped back up in the village or wherever your last save-point was, you'd be down a few levels, and you'd be missing some random gear and money.
From Dorn's angry and accusatory posts I figured he probably lost some rare or valuable gear. Or maybe he was just being an asshole.
I went into the private server the four of us shared and tapped up a brief apology. I explained my power cut out and I couldn't get back online last night. Then I added that I was having some personal problems today, so I probably wouldn't be available tonight either.
After posting that, I closed Discord and put my phone down. At the same time, Tess emerged from the kitchen carrying two plates. She set one down in front of me on the coffee table and put the other one on the side table by the love seat. Then she picked up my empty water bottle and disappeared into the kitchen again for a second. She emerged with a full bottle and placed that before me as well, then finally settled down on the love seat again.
"Thank you," I said with a weak smile.
Tess smiled back, "You're welcome."
The sight and smell of the bacon sandwich in front of me set my mouth watering. Apparently I was hungry after all.
The two of us ate quietly, and despite my hunger I forced myself to take it slowly. Ontop of everything else, I didn't need to make myself sick too. After eating half my lunch I paused and drank a few gulps of water. Then I went back to the sandwich, but I only got about two bites into the second half before I was full.
It didn't take long to realize, my small body meant small appetite.
Tess didn't finish her lunch either, she left a few bites behind and I wondered if she was full or if she was just being polite. Either way, we both sat there quietly sipping our water for another few minutes before she finally broke the silence.
Her voice was still calm and compassionate as she said, "We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to, but there were some things you said before you fainted? It sort of explained why you're so uptight about everything that happened to you last night."
I felt my cheeks turn red and I took a few deep breaths to try and get control of my emotions. It was hard though, my eyes were already starting to well up a little just thinking about it.
After a few moments I sighed and my shoulders slumped. I felt defeated and hollow, as I said in a dull voice "What's to talk about? I'm a guy. I'm a dull boring ugly guy. I have a boring pointless job. I'm nobody. And I'm definitely not a cute girl named Amethyst. This isn't me."
Tess gave me another one of those compassionate looks. She asked again, "Are you sure you're ok with me calling you Amy? I promise I won't mind using another name if it makes you feel more comfortable. And I could use he/him pronouns for you."
I continued blushing, but my expression shifted to a frown. I thought about telling her my real name, but it turned my stomach to imagine her calling me that. And the pronoun thing felt just as bad. I dreaded the thought of anyone calling me a guy or using he/him pronouns. I didn't like that stuff even before last night happened.
The tears that had been threatening finally sprung forth and started rolling down my cheeks. I shook my head, "Amy's fine... Please keep calling me Amy. And um, don't use guy pronouns either. Please."
"Ok Amy," she replied. Her voice was still calm and gentle and she seemed so worried for me.
I took another tissue to dry my eyes and tried to get myself under control again.
After another pause, Tess asked "There's one more thing I'm curious about? I know we want to figure out what's going on, what happened to you, and I promise I'm going to do everything I can to help solve this. But I'm wondering, are you just looking for answers? Or are we trying to change you back to your normal self? Do you even want to go back to your normal self?"
My eyes widened slightly and I felt a wave of fear go through me. Internally I was screaming the answer loudly in my head, but out loud I barely whispered the word.
"No."
Saying it was like a dam just burst. Emotions, tears, the works. The war that had been raging in my mind all day suddenly became that much more intense, and I couldn't talk anymore. All I could do was shake my head as I sat there crying my eyes out.
I was only vaguely aware Tess as she moved to the sofa beside me and wrapped her arms around me. I kept on sobbing as she held me and tried to comfort me.
• • • • •
I stood in front of the bathroom sink and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My fair skin was mottled with red splotches now, especially around my eyes. My pretty purple bloodshot eyes.
My stomach churned again and I felt another flurry of mixed emotions stampede through me.
An hour ago I completely fell apart. Everything that happened since last night caught up with me all at once, and I couldn't keep it bottled up. I burst into tears, I wound up sobbing my eyes out in Theresa's arms.
I must have cried for fifteen or twenty minutes straight. It wasn't even just the last twelve hours, it was the last year or more. Maybe the last several years. I used to be able to bottle stuff up, keep it buried deep. That's how I dealt with the dysphoria. That's how I kept myself in denial. That's how I kept functional, how I kept going.
And in the last twelve hours or so, all that was torn away.
My mind was still at war with itself, but at least I understood it better. Part of me was definitely overjoyed. I was free of the dysphoria, I absolutely loved how I looked now. That's one of the reasons it was so easy to lose myself in the video games. In there I could be a person I liked, I could be someone I wanted to be. And now I had that for real and I never wanted to give it up. I could never go back to what I was before, I'd die first.
But another part of my mind was rebelling over the fact that this was done without my permission or understanding. It was done to me, and I had no idea how or why. Then there were all the practical considerations. My family, my job, my roommate. My clothes had been on that list too at first, until they got changed somehow. Just like me.
That was the other thing. The way all this stuff was happening to me and around me and I didn't understand any of it. It left me feeling scared and helpless and out of control. Like I didn't know what was going to happen next, I had no control over it. And even though it was mostly positive stuff, the fact that it was happening without explanation or consent made it all too much.
And finally there was Tess. I needed her help. She was the only person in the world I could talk to about any of this, the only one who had some clue about what happened and what to do about it. But at the same time I didn't entirely trust her. Ultimately this was her fault.
She was playing with magic, she tried to summon a goddess, and somehow the spell picked me instead. And I knew she was holding something back. When I asked why she tried that magic last night, she didn't tell me everything.
After a few more minutes I rinsed my face with cold water, then dried off. I decided I had to confront her about that. If I couldn't trust her, this whole thing was going to be almost impossible.
As soon as I emerged from the bathroom she looked up and asked, "How are you doing? Feeling better now?"
There was genuine concern and compassion in her tone. She really did seem worried about me, which helped. A bit.
"A little," I replied.
Then I tried to sound firm and confident as I stated, "Tess I need your help. But first I need to trust you. And I don't feel like I can trust you if you're holding stuff back from me about all this. Why'd you really try to summon a goddess last night? What were you really trying to do?"
Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed, then she looked down at her feet. She had that guilty look on her face again, along with embarrassment.
"I'm sorry Amy," she said in a half-whisper. "I'm afraid if I tell you, you'll... It'll make all this seem even worse. Like it'll make it seem like I did this to you on purpose or something."
I was still watching her as I said "I know this wasn't intentional. I know things didn't turn out like you expected. I just want to know what you were actually trying to accomplish."
Tess continued looking down at the floor but she nodded. Her voice remained quiet as she replied, "I was sad and lonely and I guess I was a bit desperate. I went through a really bad break-up recently and... It feels so stupid to say this out loud, but I wanted to ask the Goddess to help me find a girlfriend."
For a few moments I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It sounded like the sort of thing a desperate high-school kid might try. And it was obvious why she didn't want to admit it.
I finally sat back and ran my hand through my hair as I sighed, "Ok. I get why you didn't want to tell me that. It's a bit messed up, but I know you didn't mean for this to happen to me."
After a pause I looked at her again and asked, "So how do we figure this out?"
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When I came to, I was laying on Theresa's sofa.
As soon as my eyes opened they filled with tears again, my emotions were still all over the place. I pulled myself up to a sitting position but I felt light-headed. I blinked away the tears as I looked around.
My purse was back on the coffee table, and there was a box of tissues next to it. And Tess was sitting on the love seat. She looked anxious, but more than that she looked worried.
She watched me for a few moments, like maybe she was waiting to see if I'd say something.
After a few seconds of silence she took a deep breath then asked in a gentle, compassionate voice "Is it ok if I keep calling you Amy? Or would you prefer that I use another name for you?"
Fresh tears ran down my cheeks and I reached out and grabbed a tissue to wipe them away. Then I nodded slightly and replied in a half-whisper, "Amy's fine. I don't want to tell you my... I don't want to say the other name."
"Ok Amy," Tess said with a gentle smile. Her expression shifted back to worry though as she asked, "When was the last time you ate anything? Or drank anything?"
I dabbed up some more tears and shrugged, "I met you for coffee this morning."
"You bought a coffee but you didn't touch it once," she said in a gentle voice. "And I gave you a bottle of water when we got here, which you haven't opened."
"Oh," I blushed slightly. "Um... I think I had breakfast yesterday. Maybe lunch? I don't remember."
Tess still had that worried look on her face as she said "I'm going to make you something to eat ok? And please drink some water?"
My stomach was churning. Not from hunger but from my emotions, which were still going wild. I was scared, embarrassed, ashamed, and confused. More tears filled up my eyes then ran down my cheeks as I finally nodded, "Ok... Thank you Tess."
She gave me another warm smile, then got to her feet and went into the kitchen.
After wiping my eyes yet again I picked up the water bottle she'd given me earlier and opened it up and had a few sips. That quickly turned into me gulping down more than half the bottle as my body suddenly told me just how thirsty I was.
After a pause for air I drank the rest of the bottle, then put it down next to my purse.
Tess was still busy in the kitchen, I could hear the microwave going and the sound of plastic packaging being handled. I didn't know what else to do with myself so I pulled my phone back out and went into Discord to check the notifications. Sure enough I had a couple DMs and a bunch of pings from all three of my teammates.
I knew from experience when someone's computer crashed or their internet cut out, their character just sort of stood there for a few seconds to a minute until the servers noticed you'd disconnected and logged you out. Apparently I took some nasty hits but Leah said I got logged out before dying, which was a lucky break. After my solo quests I saved at the village where I met the others when we started the dungeon-dive, so I'd only lose the experience and loot I picked up in the dungeon.
My friends weren't so lucky. They were overrun in the confusion after I crashed.
The messages from Leah and Kreff weren't too bad. They both asked if I was ok, they were worried since I didn't come back online at all last night. Dorn's messages were just angry. He accused me of disconnecting on purpose, to save myself and let the rest of them get killed.
The game wasn't too harsh if you died, character death wasn't permanent. On the other hand, there were still penalties. You tended to lose some random inventory and gold, plus there was a 'resurrection cost' that took a chunk of your experience points. So when you popped back up in the village or wherever your last save-point was, you'd be down a few levels, and you'd be missing some random gear and money.
From Dorn's angry and accusatory posts I figured he probably lost some rare or valuable gear. Or maybe he was just being an asshole.
I went into the private server the four of us shared and tapped up a brief apology. I explained my power cut out and I couldn't get back online last night. Then I added that I was having some personal problems today, so I probably wouldn't be available tonight either.
After posting that, I closed Discord and put my phone down. At the same time, Tess emerged from the kitchen carrying two plates. She set one down in front of me on the coffee table and put the other one on the side table by the love seat. Then she picked up my empty water bottle and disappeared into the kitchen again for a second. She emerged with a full bottle and placed that before me as well, then finally settled down on the love seat again.
"Thank you," I said with a weak smile.
Tess smiled back, "You're welcome."
The sight and smell of the bacon sandwich in front of me set my mouth watering. Apparently I was hungry after all.
The two of us ate quietly, and despite my hunger I forced myself to take it slowly. Ontop of everything else, I didn't need to make myself sick too. After eating half my lunch I paused and drank a few gulps of water. Then I went back to the sandwich, but I only got about two bites into the second half before I was full.
It didn't take long to realize, my small body meant small appetite.
Tess didn't finish her lunch either, she left a few bites behind and I wondered if she was full or if she was just being polite. Either way, we both sat there quietly sipping our water for another few minutes before she finally broke the silence.
Her voice was still calm and compassionate as she said, "We don't have to talk about this if you don't want to, but there were some things you said before you fainted? It sort of explained why you're so uptight about everything that happened to you last night."
I felt my cheeks turn red and I took a few deep breaths to try and get control of my emotions. It was hard though, my eyes were already starting to well up a little just thinking about it.
After a few moments I sighed and my shoulders slumped. I felt defeated and hollow, as I said in a dull voice "What's to talk about? I'm a guy. I'm a dull boring ugly guy. I have a boring pointless job. I'm nobody. And I'm definitely not a cute girl named Amethyst. This isn't me."
Tess gave me another one of those compassionate looks. She asked again, "Are you sure you're ok with me calling you Amy? I promise I won't mind using another name if it makes you feel more comfortable. And I could use he/him pronouns for you."
I continued blushing, but my expression shifted to a frown. I thought about telling her my real name, but it turned my stomach to imagine her calling me that. And the pronoun thing felt just as bad. I dreaded the thought of anyone calling me a guy or using he/him pronouns. I didn't like that stuff even before last night happened.
The tears that had been threatening finally sprung forth and started rolling down my cheeks. I shook my head, "Amy's fine... Please keep calling me Amy. And um, don't use guy pronouns either. Please."
"Ok Amy," she replied. Her voice was still calm and gentle and she seemed so worried for me.
I took another tissue to dry my eyes and tried to get myself under control again.
After another pause, Tess asked "There's one more thing I'm curious about? I know we want to figure out what's going on, what happened to you, and I promise I'm going to do everything I can to help solve this. But I'm wondering, are you just looking for answers? Or are we trying to change you back to your normal self? Do you even want to go back to your normal self?"
My eyes widened slightly and I felt a wave of fear go through me. Internally I was screaming the answer loudly in my head, but out loud I barely whispered the word.
"No."
Saying it was like a dam just burst. Emotions, tears, the works. The war that had been raging in my mind all day suddenly became that much more intense, and I couldn't talk anymore. All I could do was shake my head as I sat there crying my eyes out.
I was only vaguely aware Tess as she moved to the sofa beside me and wrapped her arms around me. I kept on sobbing as she held me and tried to comfort me.
• • • • •
I stood in front of the bathroom sink and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My fair skin was mottled with red splotches now, especially around my eyes. My pretty purple bloodshot eyes.
My stomach churned again and I felt another flurry of mixed emotions stampede through me.
An hour ago I completely fell apart. Everything that happened since last night caught up with me all at once, and I couldn't keep it bottled up. I burst into tears, I wound up sobbing my eyes out in Theresa's arms.
I must have cried for fifteen or twenty minutes straight. It wasn't even just the last twelve hours, it was the last year or more. Maybe the last several years. I used to be able to bottle stuff up, keep it buried deep. That's how I dealt with the dysphoria. That's how I kept myself in denial. That's how I kept functional, how I kept going.
And in the last twelve hours or so, all that was torn away.
My mind was still at war with itself, but at least I understood it better. Part of me was definitely overjoyed. I was free of the dysphoria, I absolutely loved how I looked now. That's one of the reasons it was so easy to lose myself in the video games. In there I could be a person I liked, I could be someone I wanted to be. And now I had that for real and I never wanted to give it up. I could never go back to what I was before, I'd die first.
But another part of my mind was rebelling over the fact that this was done without my permission or understanding. It was done to me, and I had no idea how or why. Then there were all the practical considerations. My family, my job, my roommate. My clothes had been on that list too at first, until they got changed somehow. Just like me.
That was the other thing. The way all this stuff was happening to me and around me and I didn't understand any of it. It left me feeling scared and helpless and out of control. Like I didn't know what was going to happen next, I had no control over it. And even though it was mostly positive stuff, the fact that it was happening without explanation or consent made it all too much.
And finally there was Tess. I needed her help. She was the only person in the world I could talk to about any of this, the only one who had some clue about what happened and what to do about it. But at the same time I didn't entirely trust her. Ultimately this was her fault.
She was playing with magic, she tried to summon a goddess, and somehow the spell picked me instead. And I knew she was holding something back. When I asked why she tried that magic last night, she didn't tell me everything.
After a few more minutes I rinsed my face with cold water, then dried off. I decided I had to confront her about that. If I couldn't trust her, this whole thing was going to be almost impossible.
As soon as I emerged from the bathroom she looked up and asked, "How are you doing? Feeling better now?"
There was genuine concern and compassion in her tone. She really did seem worried about me, which helped. A bit.
"A little," I replied.
Then I tried to sound firm and confident as I stated, "Tess I need your help. But first I need to trust you. And I don't feel like I can trust you if you're holding stuff back from me about all this. Why'd you really try to summon a goddess last night? What were you really trying to do?"
Her eyes widened and her cheeks flushed, then she looked down at her feet. She had that guilty look on her face again, along with embarrassment.
"I'm sorry Amy," she said in a half-whisper. "I'm afraid if I tell you, you'll... It'll make all this seem even worse. Like it'll make it seem like I did this to you on purpose or something."
I was still watching her as I said "I know this wasn't intentional. I know things didn't turn out like you expected. I just want to know what you were actually trying to accomplish."
Tess continued looking down at the floor but she nodded. Her voice remained quiet as she replied, "I was sad and lonely and I guess I was a bit desperate. I went through a really bad break-up recently and... It feels so stupid to say this out loud, but I wanted to ask the Goddess to help me find a girlfriend."
For a few moments I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. It sounded like the sort of thing a desperate high-school kid might try. And it was obvious why she didn't want to admit it.
I finally sat back and ran my hand through my hair as I sighed, "Ok. I get why you didn't want to tell me that. It's a bit messed up, but I know you didn't mean for this to happen to me."
After a pause I looked at her again and asked, "So how do we figure this out?"
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