Dreams were things I rarely though about. Most of the time dreams were simply the things you forgot about a few minutes after you woke up. Barely of any consequence. Except, right now, I must be dreaming. It was the only expnation to the sensations I was experiencing. My ears were ringing, sure, but the messages my body was reporting to my brain were very odd.

  I felt the warm floorboards of something beneath me, Ah. Yes. it was coming back to me now. The tower, the sky, the city, and that sceptre.

  I must have fainted and then fallen, because it seemed I was lying on one of the steps of the tower, eyes closed and very confused.

  Choosing to ignore the odd sensations for the time being, I tentatively opened my eyes and found them blocked by something. All I could see was red. Panicking, worried I had lost my eyesight or something, I sat up.

  The red fell away, and I realised it was hair. My hair. my hair, usually brown and short cropped to keep it out of my face when running through the streets. That hair. Was hanging in front of my face. Something was very different here.

  Other things were wrong. I felt shorter than I was before, some of my clothes hanging off me, now a few sizes to rge. That wasn’t all though, looking down I noticed some small, somethings pushing up from my chest. Two of them.

  Sitting there, looking down at myself, noticing more and more subtle changes rger hips, hairless legs, and much more, my brain was having a mini meltdown at all the changes and the feelings they brough along. Different parts of my mind screaming different emotions and opinions, looking for attention. After a few moments, I squeezed my eyes shut and shook my head, quieting my brain with brute force, focusing on my breathing, in, and out, in, and out, Making the executive decision to ignore everything about my body for the time being. Not important, I told myself, I’ll figure that out ter.

  Taking a deep breath and pulling back my hair so I could see my surroundings, I could tell that I was indeed sat on the spiral stairs of the tower, a few meters below the decking. I could see the dome from here. I could look out into the bright, cloudy, sky.

  Wait.

  That wasn’t right.

  It was midnight.

  Wasn’t it?

  I couldn’t have been out for the whole night. Nope. Nu Uh.

  Getting to my feet, I wobbled a bit, not used to the way my body moved. Nopenopenopenopenopenopenope. I wasn’t going to think about my body right now, or how weirdly calm and happy it made me. Nope.

  Determinedly ignoring that, I slowly, carefully made my way towards the up towards the decking. Peeking my head above the wooden boards, climbing back into the dome.

  Slowly again, I moved towards the edge, one foot in front of the other. It was like learning how to walk again.

  As I made it to the edge, I nervously looked down on the city below me. Despite how high up I was, I could just barely make out the small ant-like dots of people moving around, a baker opening the store for the day, a well-dressed man heading off into the city, and many others like them.

  Well, it was, 100%, morning.

  I had, indeed, bcked out until morning.

  Falling back onto the wooden boards, I steadied myself. I sat down and tried to understand what was happening. I had touched a weird purple sceptre thing, almost died, and then woken up in a very different body to what I’d had yesterday, a whole half a day ter with no idea how.

  “Yeah that totally make sens-“ I began, and then stopped. I-. My voice sounded different. Higher, a little more feminine, not exactly overtly girly, but certainly less gruff and grating than it had been. Another change. One that I didn’t know what to feel about.

  Getting to my feet, I tried to think of what to do next. I needed to get back home. Well, I say ‘home’, it was more of a spot where me and my only friend Katie felt safe. A small, secluded area of the city that people had seemed to have forgotten, it was somewhere for us to sleep, at least. Yeah, get out of this tower, somehow avoid all the noble pricks just outside it, and meet up with Katie. Oh Katie, she would know what to do. She always knew what to do. Whenever one of my hair brained schemes had gone wrong, and I was being chased by this or that coin collector or store owner, she was always there to get us out of my mess. I would have been caught and sent off to an orphanage years ago if not for her.

  As I stood there, thinking about all she had done for me, I felt a rush of gratitude, such as I had never experienced before. I mean, I had felt things strongly before, but that was usually adrenaline fueled panic or stress. Never had I felt anything like this though. It felt like I was full to the brim with gratitude. I felt like I could burst. Blinking away the sudden tears I filed that away into the ‘ter’ box. I’ll try to figure that out ter.

  Pulling myself together, I figured it would be best to just leave now before Katie gets too worried. Tightening my pants so they wouldn’t fall off, I carefully made my way towards the stair and down the centre of the tower.

  As I descended, I noticed something was off. The previous night, my legs has started to ache by the time I got halfway up the tower, it was so tall that even my body, used to sprinting through the tight streetways of Rivermoor, was struggling. Walking down, while not entirely taxing, would usually have left me needing a quick rest when I got to the bottom, but now, I felt fine. My legs weren’t aching, and everything else in my body seemed able to keep up now. This new body seemed to have its upsides, more stamina seemingly one of them.

  Moving also felt a bit different, shorter legs were one thing, but my, uhh, boobs kept bouncing uncomfortably with my movements. I would probably need to invest in something to keep them stable.

  Slowly, eventually, after over half an hour of descending, faster than the night before but still long enough to make me a bit antsy over the boredom, the stone floor came up beneath me. I was at the bottom.

  Moving quickly to where I remember the wall had opened in to allow me to enter, I instead found an outline in the stone, the same size and shape of the doorway. This must be it. Tentatively, I reached out and pushed my hand against the stone. Just like the night before, a faint click could be heard as the wall segment swung towards me, revealing the street beyond.

  Breathing a sigh of relief, I stepped through the door, hearing another faint click as the wall swung back, closing itself behind me. I wondered why it had been unlocked, and if it was even possible to lock, I didn’t see any keyholes anywhere. Maybe there was some magic way of locking the door I couldn’t see.

  Trying to act casual, I walked across the street, ducking around the houses and making my way back into the main streets of Rivermoor. There were a lot more people out and about than I had seen from atop the tower, people that had woken up or come outside as I had been climbing back down. Turning to look back at the tower, I squinted my eyes and tried to see inside the dome. It was a bit hard from this angle, still so close to the tower, most of the spire itself was still in the way, but I could just make out the purple blot in the sky, atop the tower, where I had spent the night.

  Turning back to the streets, I saw just too te, the body of a tall woman moving briskly towards me. She was obviously a noble, wearing jewel encrusted neckces and sparkly rings, looking out of pce among the few casually dressed people walking along the street. She looked mildly annoyed about something and just like me, wasn’t paying attention to where she was going.

  Bracing for impact and doing my best to move out the way, I held my breath. Bumping into someone on the street wasn’t all that rare or consequential, but she was a noble, and nobles didn’t tend to think highly of the ‘riffraff of Rivermoor’ as they put it.

  However, a second before the impact, I just managed to just move away in time. spiralling my arms to keep my bance after leaping out the way, I heard a cry of indignation from the woman.

  “Watch where you’re going, girl!”, she hissed at me, then, gring, turned and stalked away, leaving me stood in the middle of the street, dumbfounded.

  How did I manage to move out the way in time? I was a lot shorter than I used to be, so maybe I was better at evading things? It was also weird the woman hadn’t reacted as explosively as I would have expected. So many questions.

  And the fact that she called me girl. I guess it made sense given what I looked like right now, but that set off a bunch of weird emotions inside me that I didn’t know how to handle. It felt… off, but not entirely bad?

  Giving my head another small shake to clear away the weird feelings, I avoided the gaze of a few curious people who had looked over at the small commotion and continued walking down the street.

  It wasn’t that I disliked being referred to as a girl, I might have even, maybe, slightly… enjoyed it. It was just weird, and the fact that I kinda liked it gave me a lot of doubts about myself. I had often dreamed of being a girl, they always got to wear cuter clothes, and didn’t have to worry about facial hair or other annoying things about being a guy. But surely every boy must think that.

  I also felt more comfortable around girls, my only friend was one, and in the orphanage I lived in when I was young, I usually hung around with the other girls my age, rather than the boys. That was before I was told off by the caretakers and made to ‘leave the poor girls alone’, despite them not minding my company.

  Frowning, I turned the corner, entering one of the darker corridor-streets. Weaving through the piles of garbage, smashed gss and hooded people, I too, pulled up the hood of my cloak, which with my new body fell almost all the way over my head. It wasn’t exactly required to keep your face in shadow when traveling the back streets, but everyone knew that showing your face meant getting recognised. And if, like me, your safety kinda depended on the authorities not realising that you’re homeless, keeping your face hidden was the simplest way to avoid detection.

  As I passed through a bit of street that had a window to the sky, I looked through and spotted the city tower. I was almost to my destination, I could just see the cluster of purple gems in just the right shape that told me I was a couple hundred meters south of the tower, meaning I was only a few turns away from our home.

  Unfortunately, in between me and my destination, was a busy street. This meant guards. Guards that would want to make sure I wasn’t up to no good. Guards who had a habit of picking on the worst dressed and obviously poor members of the crowd. Luckily, me, Katie and a few other orphans had an agreement with one of the kinder guards, Marcus, that let us pass through without getting asked too many questions, in exchange for us not causing any trouble in the area. However, that was predicated on me looking like I usually was, so Marcus could recognise us and pull the rest of the guards away. And right now, I really didn’t look like I normally did.

  I hadn’t thought this far when I had left the tower. It was usually only at the back of my mind when passing through. But right now, I was stressing. Peeking around the corner into the rger street, I counted at least a dozen guards stationed at intervals along the street, including Marcus in his usual position at the end of the road.

  Pulling my head back, I pondered; I could go around, but that could take me hours, and the street was annoyingly central to the southern part of the city, making it very difficult to avoid.

  An idea crawled into my head, making itself known through its sheer chaotic nature, or what Katie would probably refer to as ‘stupid’ and ‘dangerous’. It was definitely those, combining my knack for causing chaos with my newfound appearance. I stood there for a moment as I decided if I was really going to do this. Yes. Yes I was.

  Grinning to myself I basked in my own genius before quickly subduing my face.

  Taking a deep breath in, I put on my most scared, most terrified expression I could muster, ran out from the back street and began screaming.

  ---

  MARCUS POV

  Marcus knew the kids around here could be a bit dramatic and quick to cause a scene. That was why he had agreed not to treat them harshly if they pulled it back a bit (well, he would have let them off anyway, he just figured he might as well get something out of it as well). However, when a young woman, maybe around the age of 16, someone he had never seen before, came carrying out of a side alley, screaming about something chasing her, he was dumbfounded.

  She was cd in clothes that looked like they belonged to her older brother, rather than her own, and looked utterly terrified. As she ran towards him, terror in her face, he saw something in her eyes, something that told him, while this girl was possibly faking her fear, she was definitely nervous. Probably an orphan that was trying to cause a scene, draw the guards away in order to pass through.

  Well, who was he to deny her request.

  Grabbing his spear from where it stood, leaning up against the wall beside him. He shouted to the guards near him, “Ange, Cav, lets go!”. He put on his serious tone and gave them a gre, so, within a few seconds, they were off, running in the direction the girl came from, while she carried on, running away.

  ---

  ONYX POV

  I sat against a stone wall, a few minutes after my spectacur run through the streets. It had worked perfectly. Well, I think Marcus might have been on to me. No idea how. My acting was superb.

  Either way, I had to catch my breath after running full tilt across to the exit, so I’d made sure to find somewhere out of sight of the guards and sat down.

  That was so much fun. Pulling myself back up, I steadied myself and quickly made it down the st few twists and turns on the way home. And finally, after almost a full day away, stepped inside.

  PayishVibes