Evan was on his third popsicle by the time the story finished, not to mention the countless s’mores he’d downed. All the sugar was making him thirsty, so he grabbed his massive water bottle from his cooler and took a long swig. It was going to be hard to beat Amanda and Flora’s stories - especially with Flora’s big transformation, but he was pretty sure he had this one in the bag - or in the bottle, rather.

“Guess it’s my turn,” he said, smacking his lips and standing to begin telling his tale, the firelight adding warmth to his already warm reddish-brown complexion.

“So, this is a story about four friends who loved the outdoors, and a hiking trip that changed everything…”

---

A Transformative Trek by PunchlinePress

Chapter 1

A mixture of dirt, loose stone, and dried autumn leaves crunched under foot as four intrepid hikers carried onwards. The orange, yellow, and red foliage littering the ground, combined with the ambient birdsong, made for an absolutely beautiful hike.

“We’re totally lost,” Ben griped as he readjusted his bandana for the thirtieth time in the last hour. Out of everyone in the group, he was the most clearly athletic. He made his living as a personal fitness instructor, and was a crossfit nut that loved anything that got him sweating. 

“I’m sure Scott knows exactly where we’re going,” Jay said, glancing back over his shoulder. Jay was a seamster with his own burgeoning brand of clothing. Though he was fairly average looking, his clothing designs were anything but. He tended to be fairly fussy over the group members and always insisted on double and triple checking itinerary and supplies for any trips they took, which had earned him the honorary position of ‘official mom friend’.

“I do,” Scott said.” There should be a river about a mile east of us from here. That should take us back north to the trailhead.” He marched ahead, as he always did. He was the de facto leader of their hiking group ‘The Trailblazers’. He owned his own tech startup and was making a ton of money. He was also an avid nature enthusiast who loved being ‘unplugged’ for a weekend on the group’s various hiking and biking trips.

I’m definitely the unlikely outcast of the group. I only joined because Jay dragged me into it. He said it would do me some good to get out of my “emo basement” and get some sun. We’d been friends since junior high, so I went along with it. I can’t say I’ve hated the experience. I make my living being mildly internet famous as a vocalist for an alternative rock band. Jay has generously referred to my style as “distressingly punk-goth”. Now that I actually get out and hike, I guess that makes me ‘an outdoorsy distressingly punk-goth’.

We’d lost the trail about an hour in, and kept going on Scott’s insistence that he knew there was a river “just ahead” that would lead us back to the trailhead. 

So far, we hadn’t seen so much as a reasonably sized puddle, much less a whole-ass river.

I was starting to lose faith in our fearless leader. 

As it turned out, ‘about a mile’ ended up being more like several miles. Roughly another hour ticked by as we trekked through the dense forest, adding an unpleasant mix of brambles to the ever-growing list of ‘things about this trip that I had had just about enough of for one godsdamned day, thank you very much!’ 

Thankfully,  the sound of running water became apparent about forty-five minutes in, and grew more pronounced the closer we got. My water bottle had been empty for a while, so I was looking forward to getting a nice cool drink to combat this absurdly warm autumn day. If an October day running near eighty-five was going to become the norm, Mother Nature needed to calm the hell down with global climate change. 

“There, I told you I knew where we were going,” Scott announced as he emerged from the treeline into the clearing around the river.

“Holy fucking shit finally!” Ben cheered as he ran to the banks of the river and immediately plunged his face into its crystal clear depths, drinking deep.

A little extreme for my tastes, but hey, ‘a little extreme’ was an apt description for most things Ben did. For Ben in general, actually.

“Remember to refill your water bottles, everyone,” Jay said, filling his bottle from the river and tossing a quick-dissolve purification tablet into it.

The river itself was likely no more than fifteen feet wide and ten feet deep, but the truly impressive thing was that it ran crystal clear, without a trace of mud or silt to cloud up the water. That was a huge plus for using it as drinking water. At least it wouldn’t taste horrible, I hoped.

Jay handed out purification tablets to each of us as we refilled, making sure that none of us would be stopping to shit our brains out for the rest of this hike back. Once a mom friend, always a mom friend. 

There was a gathering of larger rocks near the river’s edge, so we all took a seat to get off our feet for a bit.

Ben yanked off his shoes and socks and plunged his feet into the water, gasping. “Damn, that’s cold! Feels good though.”

I’d have joined him, but I wasn’t going to go through all the effort of unlacing my hiking boots just to cool my feet for a few minutes.

The sun had already passed its zenith by the time we stopped for our break, and was beginning its descent when Scott spoke up again.

“Time to head out, ladies,” he joked. 

Everyone else shared a good laugh as they started walking. I hadn’t found it particularly funny. I’d always hated when guys did the whole ‘using female terms as insults’ thing, jokingly or otherwise. It wasn’t worth arguing with them over, though, so I just grabbed my pack, slung the straps over my shoulders, and buckled the waist strap. 

“Nobody’s leaving anything behind, right?” Jay asked.

“No, Mom,” we all lovingly chorused back.

“Next time we do this, we stick to the trails. No more scenic side-trips,” I complained as the brief respite almost instantly faded, and my feet were back to aching.

I should have bought better inserts for these boots, but they were new and I didn’t think they’d felt that bad in the store. I was paying for that opinion now in spades. Each step was like shards of glass burning in my soles.

Or maybe I was just being the melodramatic emo edgelord I am in my heart of blackened hearts. 

Normally I enjoyed hikes with the guys. Getting out in nature was never my idea of fun as a kid, but I’d really taken to it as a young adult. Life was a depressing, crushing mess of hopelessness, but the wilderness had a way of making you feel like it was going to be okay - at least for right now. Right here, out in the thick of it, there was no stack of emails from potential video sponsors, lyric sheets to proof, tracks to record… it was just peaceful.

Not that I hated doing those things, I mean, I love making music. The worst part is just all the business between making said music. Even with the hassles of the business side though, it beat ever going back to slinging packages for Amazon. Worst job I ever had. Fuck that.

I tried to push my worries about the past and the modern world aside and just enjoy what remained of this hike. Once we reached the trailhead we’d be on our way back to civilization, and a return to work on Monday. 

“You know, I think I remember a story about this river,” Jay said. “Something about it being blessed by an ancient Native American spirit… Wohpe, I think?”

“Yeah, right,” Ben laughed. “You believe too much hoaky superstitious crap.”

“Hey, I just have a healthy appreciation for the supernatural.”

“Sure, sure. That’s why you had us climb all through that industrial complex looking for a ghost you swore you saw, right?” Ben teased.

“Hey, that was a legitimate sighting, I had photos and EVPs!” Jay protested.

“Suuuure you did,” Ben laughed. “What all did we find there again, Adam?”

“A bunch of trash, a garbage bag stuck to a branch in a window, and a couple drunk-out-of–their-heads homeless guys,” I listed, ticking them off on my fingers.

“Oh yeah, thanks,” Ben chuckled. “So yeah, what’s the BS clickbait story about this river then, Mr. Paranormal Expert?”

“Dick,” Jay grumbled lightheartedly. “Supposedly it was blessed so that any tribes that lived by its waters and drank from them would have tribal unity, or something. You know, the vague stuff blessings are always about in fantasy.”

“Well I guess we’re lucky we bottled some up for the walk and have plenty more where that came from, eh?” Scott called back over his shoulder. “We’ll have plenty of unity for our tribe of four.” He popped the cap on his bottle and took a swig before re-capping it and slinging it back to his waist. 

After that, the conversation fell away to scattered remarks and replies, leaving room once more for the birdsong around the river. It was louder and even more beautiful here, amplified by open space and the water. 

Despite the rough patch in the middle of the hike, now that we were on our way out of the woods, I finally started to feel like things were going to be okay again.

Chapter 2

Normally I liked to keep my focus on the trail while we walked, but with this being a straight shot pretty much, I let my mind wander. It’d been pretty wild that we ended up as a group. Jay knew all these guys from different places, but had never hung out with them together. It was pure dumb luck that we all happened to be hiking a trail the exact same day about three years back. There’d been an awkward moment where everyone greeted Jay at once, except me, who’d been there on my first ever hiking expedition at Jay’s behest. 

We all agreed to hike the trail together, a plan devised by Jay, the mediator-in-chief; thankfully there were no personality conflicts. Scott was the most senior hiker amongst us, with Ben just behind him and Jay behind him. Scott had been hiking since he was in his early teens, and was now in his late twenties. Ben was only a few years behind him, and Jay had only started hiking about two years ago at this point.

We hiked the trail, shot the shit, and generally bro-bonded. I’d never been much of a joiner in high school, so this had been an experience for me. I still didn’t feel like one of the guys, but at least I could get involved with the group and have fun most of the time.

Each of them had something I wished I had: Scott’s visionary leadership, Jay’s boundless compassion, Ben’s unwavering courage… if I’d had even one of their good traits, I might not have floundered so badly in my early life. 

Maybe it wasn’t about that, though. Might have just been my shitty home life. Mom was never around, and dad was an abusive drunk, so I didn’t have a whole lot of advantages making sure I got off to a strong start.

Instead of taking the initiative and getting out, having the courage to defend myself, or the compassion to relate to my deadbeat dad and help him with his issues, I was just… me. Just another reserved emo kid in his room who waited out his time until high school was over, and ran for the hills as soon as he could.

At least it worked out. I was pretty happy with the life I had right now. Sure, I lived in a pretty crappy basement apartment, but it had great acoustics for recording, and the rent was cheap. I had online friends, and this group of guys, a bunch of followers and patreon supporters, what wasn’t to love?

Well, other than myself at least. I’d never been a big fan of myself. Most of why I got into the body-modding I did. Piercings, tats, hair dye, weird hair cuts, tattooed on guy-liner, and I always kept my nails done in matte black. Stereotypical? Maybe. But everyone states their ‘individuality’ by conforming to one clique or another. It was better than trying to look like a prep school hopeful or some mathlete all-star. Not that I had issues with the decent examples of either specimen… but most were jerks or completely socially inept.

My thoughts had wandered so far off track from where they started that I had to snap myself back to reality. I wasn’t sure how long the trip down memory lane had lasted, but my throat was dry and burning. I unscrewed the cap on my bottle and took a long swig before re-capping it and letting it drop back to the side of my travel pack.

I wasn’t the most observant guy under the sun, but something seemed a bit off as I checked back in with my friends, hoping to get an idea how much longer we’d be walking for. That broken glass feeling in my shoes had gone away, but now I had the annoyingly alien sensation of walking in shoes that felt too damn big. They weren’t exactly flopping off my feet, but there was decidedly more wiggle room. Maybe the leather had stretched?

“Hey, Scott, how much further?” I asked.

“About two miles,” he called back to me. His voice sounded… different; deeper somehow? Maybe it was just the weird sound amplifying quality of the river basin.

“Everyone still good on water? We can stop and refill if needed,” Jay reminded everyone. He sounded different too, but in the other direction. His normally neutral tone sounded far softer, almost feminine. 

“Hold up a minute, I need a refill,” Ben piped up, veering over to the river. Unlike before, there was now a bit of an embankment down to the edge.

“Be careful,” Jay cautioned.

“Yeah, yeah,” Ben waved him off, doing a controlled slide down.

I checked my bottle and realized it was nearly empty as well. I didn’t remember drinking that much, but I guess I must have. That, or it was evaporating out of the bottle.

I sighed and slid down after him to refill mine as well.

“You need a haircut,” Ben teased as he filled his bottle beside mine.

I tucked a few errant strands behind my ear. “Yeah, yeah,” I mumbled noncommittally. Ben always gave me shit about my hair. Lots of guys had shoulder length hair, but apparently since I was an emo and had mine dyed black with purple highlights, it was fair game for mocking. “It’s no longer than Jay’s, and you don’t give him shit.”

“Well of course Jay has long hair,” Ben reasoned, capping his bottle. Whatever his conclusion to that line of logic, it went unsaid as he began scrabbling back up the embankment.

Solid argument, Ben. Oh well. I liked my hair, so he could take his opinion and stuff it. I finished refilling my bottle and hurried up the embankment after him. 

Just as I neared the top, my foot slipped, nearly coming out of my boot entirely. Scott grabbed my wrist and pulled me up to safety, and I managed to shove my foot back in my boot.

“Careful,” he said in that deep, even tone.

“Right… thanks,” I mumbled.

“You okay?” Jay asked, checking me over.

“Fine, thanks,” I nodded. “Good to go.”

“Good to go,” Scott repeated as he resumed the steady pace north. 

I rubbed the spot on my wrist where he’d caught me. It felt a bit sore, and I could see the shape of his hand where it had grabbed me. Had his hand always been that big and I’d never noticed?

What about Jay? When he’d been checking me over, I swear he was a little taller than me. I’d always been the same height. Maybe I was just slouching, or still standing a bit lower than him on the embankment? Weird.

Ben didn’t seem to think anything was up, so I let it slide, following after my friends without another thought on the subject.

I really was absolutely sick of the heat though. Every step felt like I was practically dragging myself forward, even though my muscles weren’t exactly tired. It got really bad when my shorts started slipping. I wasn’t even aware that you could get so sweaty that your pants start sliding off. I downed more of the water to try to compensate for the immense volume of sweat I was putting out to try to cool off, but it didn’t seem to be doing much.

Ben seemed to be having issues as well. His clothes were clinging to his body like a second skin, but still somehow seemed oversized. I didn’t remember baggy gear being his thing - usually he preferred sports shirts that clung to him like they were painted on. Maybe he’d stretched this one out a bit over time? 

Jay had clearly rolled up his pant legs to deal with the heat, or something, because most of his leg was bare from the knee down to the pink socks and simple hiking sneakers he wore. Took a bold guy to wear pink, but then I guess it takes a bold guy to be a seamster too.

Scott on the other hand had doffed his shirt completely, wrapping it around his waist and tying off the sleeves. It did a lot to reveal his cut physique. I didn’t remember him being quite that buff last time I saw him, but damn if he didn’t look it now. Maybe he’d been hitting the gym lately.

The ersatz death march continued, with the abysmal dragging sensation only becoming worse and worse. I nearly tripped over my own pant leg before yanking the waistband back up where it belonged. “Can we take a second?” I asked, needing to get a drink.

“Sure,” Scott agreed. The ground had fallen to be flush with the riverbank again, so we were able to get another refill much more easily.

“Can you fill mine for me too, Scott? I’m going to get the sunscreen before you burn to a crisp. You’re already starting to tan.” Jay reached into his bag and fished around for a moment.

“Sure thing. Thanks Jay.” He smiled and set to filling up the bottles as Jay began applying the lotion to his back.

Watching him apply the lotion was bizarre. It was more like Jay tending to a girlfriend who’d asked him to lotion up her back at the beach, instead of one dude slapping lotion on his buddy’s back. Maybe he was just leaning harder into the mom friend stereotype after taking care of us idiots all day. Clearly we’d all had too much sun and not nearly enough fun.

I refilled my bottle, took another drink, refilled the amount I’d just drained, and capped the bottle off, tucking it back into the side pocket of my backpack.

“Hey, can you put mine in my bag for me?” Ben asked, turning to hand me his bottle.

“Oh, sure,” I nodded, slipping it into the mesh netting on the side of his bag. Usually he had no problem reaching it, but I swear it looked bigger on him - like a turtle shell strapped to his back that threatened to tip him over backwards if he didn’t lean forwards a bit.

Stranger still was when Jay came over to see if we wanted any sunscreen, and I realized he was definitely a couple inches taller than me now.

What the fuck was going on?

“Do things seem… weird to you?” I asked, suddenly aware of how different my voice sounded. I cleared my throat a few times to try to dislodge whatever frog was stuck in there.

“Nope, why?” Jay asked, dabbing some lotion on my hand for me to apply to my face and arms to avoid burns. He did the same for Ben, who began applying it generously.

I followed suit and started applying my own coverage. “Just… I used to be taller than you, right?” I asked Jay.

Jay just laughed - though it sounded suspiciously close to a giggle. “Not quite yet,” he teased before turning back towards Scott.

“We all ready to go?” Scott asked, smiling back at us. Since when did he have that stereotypical woodsman-dad-beard? He looked like he’d stepped out of a Land’s End catalog. 

“Yep, looks like it.” Jay said.

“Alright, let’s get moving. Not far yet, and I wanna get back to the cars before dark.” Scott turned and began walking again, continuing the trek ever northwards. 

I checked the position of the sun. It felt like it had dipped much further than it should have in so little distance covered. How long had we been walking? Were Scott’s calculations off? 

I had to roll up my jeans a few times too, now wishing I’d worn shorts, despite the threat of trail hazards. Those thorn bushes earlier would have sliced me up like emo cheesecake earlier if I had been wearing shorts, though.

I tucked a few errant strands of blonde behind my ear, annoyed with the breeze for blowing them into my face, even though the breeze felt amazing. 

Wait.

Blonde?

I brushed more hair forward into my field of view, and found not black tinged with purple, but a bright strawberry blonde. It reminded me a lot of Jay’s hair, actually. I looked back at him to compare.

Yep. Almost a 1:1 match… when had Jay’s hair grown down to his mid-back though? Something was seriously wrong here, and I had barely noticed it happening unless I was consciously focusing on it. 

That wasn’t the only change about Jay either - he was walking with a definite sway to his hips. Rounded, pronounced hips. Actually, that wasn’t all that had rounded out either… from this vantage, I’d swear I was following a girl. 

“Almost there, not long now,” Scott called back.

“Fiiinally,” Ben whined. His voice sounded higher, lending him an air of petulance.

I looked away from Jay and over at Ben. His hair had changed from the usual dark brown to a light strawberry blonde, not unlike my own and Jay’s. It remained at its usual half-buzzed length though, still swept back in a style that looked a bit too mature for the rest of his face now, which had an almost boyish charm to it. The jaw that could cut glass had receded, leaving him much softer looking overall. I realized we were about the same height now, despite the fact that he’d stood a good three or so inches taller than me before. 

“What the hell is going on?” I asked as we tromped along. 

“Huh?” Ben asked, looking back at me. “Holy shit!” he exclaimed as he saw me.

“What? What’s wro–” Jay’s voice cut out as he looked back at us too. I could see now that all of him looked just as feminine as the backside view did. 

Scott stopped, looking at us as well. He hadn’t changed nearly as much, other than taking on a bit more muscle than he had at the start of the hike, and a bit more facial hair. He had a decidedly suburban dad look to him - but like, a young dad that hadn’t embraced a dad-bod yet. 

“What the hell, Adam? You look like a girl!” Ben gasped.

“Me?! You look like a kid!” I shot back.

“I do not!” he shot back, before glancing down at himself. He seemed suddenly aware of how his clothes were nearly hanging off of him. “Oh, fuck…”

“You two… what happened?” Jay asked as she - er, he(?) approached us. I could tell now we were both shorter than him, putting us head level to his neck.

Were I a less principled man, I would be looking down at his chest, pressing into his damp t-shirt without any kind of a bra. Okay, maybe I had looked a little bit. 

“Us? What happened to you?! You’ve got bigger tits than your sister!” Ben blurted out.

Jay looked down suddenly, took in a breath, then screamed high and shrill. 

Scott was with us in an instant, confusion writ plain on his face. “What he fuck? What’s happening to you guys?” 

“I don’t fucking know!” Ben shouted, panicking. 

“Look at me… I have tits, what the fuck? I know you guys called me the group mom friend but… but what the fuck is this?” He gripped his chest in disbelief, then blushed fiercely and let them go.

“Careful, I hear those are sensitive,” I teased. Somehow, I wasn’t quite as freaked out about my own changes. Certainly not as badly as Jay was.

“Let’s find out,” Ben jeered, reaching over towards me and flicking me in the chest. 

Pain lanced through my nipple. “Ow!” I shouted, instinctively covering it. I felt the small swells of modest breasts press into my arms.

Oh. Shit. I really was a girl…

“Alright, look, we’ll get back to the car, get to a hospital, and figure this out. That’s all we can do right now,” Scott, ever the leader, decreed. 

You are reading story Fire Transforms Us Track 3: A Transformative Trek at novel35.com

“Right, right, okay,” Jay took several deep breaths, trying to steady himself. The way his breasts were heaving with each breath couldn’t have made that an easy task. 

Ben was staring at them too, I noticed.

“Seriously? Jay turns into a girl and you’re checking her out?” I snapped at him.

“You’d rather have me check you out instead?” he grinned, looking me over from head to toe.

I shuddered and covered my chest with my arms again. “No, that’s creepy… you’re going to feel super gay when we get whatever this is taken care of.”

I didn’t have anything against gay people - not even a little bit. Love whoever you want! But I knew that Ben was a typical bro who would spurn any suggestion he was anything but a red blooded straight guy.

“No way! Fuck, you’re right,” he groaned, turning away. “I gotta wash my eyes out or something.”

He grabbed his water bottle and splashed some on his face for dramatic effect.

He probably shouldn’t have, though. When he opened his eyes again, they’d gone from blue to green - the same as Scott’s.

“Dude… you just… the water! The water just changed your eye color! It has to be what did this!” Jay chirped loudly.

“What?” Scott asked. 

“This river is blessed, remember! This has to be it!”

“Seriously? I doubt that supernatural mumbo-jumbo caused this.”

“Oh, what’s your superiorly educated opinion then, Scott?” Jay asked, planting his hands on his hips.

“I… I don’t know. Fuck. Let’s just get to the hospital, get this fixed, and never speak of it again, okay?” With that, he turned and quickly resumed his march.

“...I guess we’re going then,” Ben shrugged, following Scott.

“You okay, Jay?” I asked, reaching out and placing a hand on his arm. It felt like a natural thing to do.

He jumped slightly, startled by the contact. “Oh… yeah, uh, no, no not really. I hope they can fix this… I can’t be a girl, Adam. I can’t. Why aren’t you more freaked out about this?”

I shrugged. “Guess I’m just… not? I feel pretty good, actually.”

“Must be nice,” he grumbled, turning and walking away. I saw him bring his arms up to brace his chest. Apparently his new breasts didn’t come with a bra any more than mine did.

Speaking of which, now that I was aware of mine, I was really aware of them brushing against my shirt with every step I took. That was going to get really annoying really fast. 

Thankfully, it really wasn’t all that far to the trailhead from where we’d made our discovery. There we were able to follow it back to the parking lot nearby, and the sanctuary where we’d left our cars - and all logical trappings of how reality works, apparently.

Except there was only one car. Jay’s powder blue four door SUV. The back had now been adorned with bumper stickers for the local high school back in town, and an Honor Roll Student On Board sticker. Ugh. How tacky.

“Where the fuck is my car?” Ben asked, storming over to the now empty space where it had been parked.

I looked at the equally empty space beside it. Mine was gone too, obviously. Not that I’d really miss the beat up old Nissan, but paying to replace it would suck ass.

“Mine’s gone too…” Scott grumbled. Sucked for him, since he had been driving a really nice BMW.

“Guess we’re taking mine then,” Jay said with a resigned sigh.

“This is fucking insane, if I don’t get my car back after all this, I’m gonna lose my shit,” Ben was freaking out.

“We’ll figure it out, Ben. For now… just get in the car and let’s go.”

For lack of a better plan, we all piled in. Scott climbed into the drivers’ side out of instinct, and instead of complaining, Jay simply got on the passenger side and handed him the key.

The engine rumbled to life, we backed out of the space, and pulled out onto the road. I hoped the staff at the hospital could help us… because otherwise, we were in some deep shit.

Chapter 3

Scott pulled the minivan into a space in the parking garage and left the engine running to avoid killing the AC.

“So what are we going to tell them?” I asked, breaking the silence for the first time since we’d left the trail.

“I don’t know. Do any of you still have an ID to prove you are who you say you are?” Scott asked.

Probably a question we should have considered before driving here, and paying for parking. Scott might be our leader, but that didn’t make him infallible in a crisis situation, I guess.

Jay fished into his back pocket and produced his wallet, quickly flipping it open to his drivers’ license.

“Jane Robinson?” he muttered, staring at the flimsy card.

“What?” Scott asked, looking at the ID. “Why do you have my last name? This license looks like it belongs to… well, the girl-you…”

Jay nodded numbly. “Yeah. It does look like that, doesn’t it?”

I grabbed mine next, flipping to my license. I had an idea what it might say after what happened with Jay’s ID. “Anna Robinson,” I said, showing Scott and Jay. 

It wasn’t a drivers’ license though. It was a student ID for a ninth grader at the local high school.

“No, no fucking way, no way no way!” Ben was protesting beside me.

He dropped his ID on the floor and pulled his legs up away from it like it might bite him.

I reached over and grabbed it.

“Don’t!” he shouted, but made no move to stop me from looking at it.

“Bianca Robinson,” I read, “wait a second…” I looked over at him more carefully.

Then I repaid his earlier dick-move and punched him square in the chest.

He let out a pained yelp and covered his chest. “Ow fuck, you dick!” 

I couldn’t help but laugh. It came out as a giggle, which I hardly cared about given the gravity of our situation.

“Knock it off back there!” Jay snapped.

With instincts honed by years of family road trips, Ben retracted to his spot, apologizing. “Sorry, mom!” he blurted out before realizing what he had said.

Everyone remained silent for a moment.

A long moment.

“Fuck,” Scott eloquently broke the silence.

“Yeah,”  Jay agreed.

That was the reason we shared the same surname now, wasn’t it?

Scott and Jay - rather, Jane, were our parents.

Judging by our birthdays listed on our student IDs… Ben - or Bianca, if you like - and I were twin sisters. Identical twins, if the reflection in the car window was anything to go by. I looked just like Ben - but my hair was still long while his maintained his short guys’ cut from before this happened.

“So what do we do now?” Jay asked.

“I have no idea. Go home, make an appointment, take sick time off work, wait and see what happens until we get in front of a doctor?”

“Then what? What do we tell a doctor about this, Scott?” Jay folded his arms.

“I don’t know, Jay, I don’t know. This isn’t something that actually happens in the real world! We can’t just go to a doctor and say “Hi, yes, my wife and daughters were both guys a few days ago and now they’re not. Please help. They don’t make a shot for that, or a pill, patch, or anything else!”

I could tell he was losing his cool. It was bringing back uncomfortable memories of my own father. My eyes began to sting and I could feel tears forming, coming unbidden and spilling forth. 

The sounds of my small sobs silenced everyone else. 

“Hey… uh… it’s going to be okay,” Jay said, looking back from the front seat.

He was the only one I’d ever confided my secrets with; who knew about my dad. 

“Let’s just go home for now. I’m assuming since we all had apartments except for you, Scott, that your house is our house now.”

Scott took a deep breath and slowly exhaled, calming himself. “If everything about our IDs changed, I’d assume none of you have apartments anymore, so you living with me makes some sick sense.”

He put the car in reverse, and backed out of the parking space to begin the drive back to his place.

Nobody said much on the cross-town drive, nor the walk up to the front of Scott’s ridiculous three bedroom two bath townhouse. We stepped into the home of not a lonely bachelor, but a family of four. A shoe rack with numerous shoes of various sizes sat in the foyer, beneath a wall rack of coat and scarves and hats. The decor around the living room and dining room were decidedly masculine, with artistic feminine touches.

It was the kinda place I imagined would be the result of Scott and Jay actually being a couple, not that that had been an option before, as neither were into guys.

Well, I assumed they weren’t at least.

Jay was possibly bi, but he’d never confirmed nor denied that, that I knew of. 

Curious, I trudged upstairs while Scott and Jay surveyed the first floor. The second floor hallway featured new signs on two of the doors. The former guest bedroom now had a sign reading “Bianca”, while the former home office now had a sign reading “Anna”. 

I opened the door to ‘my’ room, and stepped inside.

I’d expected it to be some caricature of girlishness. Thankfully, it wasn’t anything like that. The room didn’t look that much different than my apartment bedroom had. Clearly the den of a person with a taste for goth-punk aesthetics and alternative rock. The walls and carpet were neutral colors - likely because in this reality, Anna’s parents had refused to paint the walls black or purple, or replace the cream colored carpet. The bed sheets retained my signature black and purple theme though, and there were so many posters of my favorite bands hanging up. 

I heard another door in the hallway open, and figured Ben must be checking out his room, too.

I’d check in with him in a minute. I was curious about my closet.

At first I dreaded it’d be all pink frilly dresses, but that wasn’t the case. Not a single dash of pink in sight. Blacks, greys, purples, everything fitting my typical aesthetic vibe. I appreciated girl-me a bit more.

I really wanted to get out of these massively oversized clothes and get comfy, but that wasn’t super practical at the moment. With that in mind, I left my room for the moment to see what Ben was up to.

I found him standing in the middle of a room that looked like a boy’s bedroom, if I’m honest. Sports posters everywhere, although I noticed that there were no player posters - no athletic guys hanging on his walls. There were a few girls though, soccer players mostly. I wondered if “Bianca” was a lesbian. Was it too early to know things like that?

What was Anna?

I debated testing myself to see what I might be, but that could wait. 

“This can’t be real,” Ben mumbled, sitting on the edge of his bed. I noticed his sheets were done up in Denver colors - his favorite football team as a guy.

“It sure looks real to me,” I said quietly, moving over to sit beside him on the bed.

“Yeah,” Ben sighed. “So what now? Jay and Scott are downstairs just sitting at the kitchen table not saying anything. We’ve got bedrooms here. Are we really…?”

“Their kids? I guess so in whatever twisted reality this is. So much is different now…”

“Yeah. You don’t seem too bothered though, other than crying in the car… what’s going on, Adam?”

I shrugged my slender shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess I’m just… not bothered by this. That weird discomfort I always felt before, the pain and uneasiness, that’s gone. I just feel… normal.”

Ben stared at me for a long moment. I wondered if he’d make fun of me, if he’d call me something derogatory for not being repelled by this.

“Me too,” he said after a long pause.

I hadn’t been expecting that. 

“What?” I asked.

“Yeah… I’m… I think I’m trans, Adam. Like, for a long time and I’ve just been telling myself I wasn’t?”

It was my turn to be stunned. I had no idea what to say.

“You’re… not going to call me a freak, are you? Or anything worse?” I could hear his voice trembling. 

“No,” I said, meeting his watery eyes. “I… guess I might be too? Maybe that’s why I’m cool with being a girl.”

Ben sniffled hard. “Do you… think you’d be okay being a girl forever? Like, how does this feel for you?”

I shrugged. “Feels like… me, I guess. I don’t feel great or terrible. Just like a normal person.” 

Ben sniffled again. 

“Why, how does it feel for you?” I asked.

He was quiet for a moment, and then burst into tears. “It feels great,” he admitted, hugging me.

It was awkward for a moment… but only a moment. I hugged him - no, her - back. 

“Hey, uh… it’ll be okay, Be– … Bianca.” 

She squeezed me even tighter, crying harder into my shoulder. 

That’s where Scott and Jay found us about an hour later. Bianca had fallen asleep wrapped around me, and I’d seen no reason to disrupt her. 

“Hey,” Scott said quietly.

“Hey,” I replied, smiling slightly.

“Is he…?”

“She,” I began, “asleep, yeah.” 

Scott and Jay traded a look over the correction, then looked back at me.

“She?” Jay asked.

I nodded. “She wants to be Bianca. She’s trans,” I said. “I think… I might be too? I kinda wanna be Anna.”

They exchanged another look, this one longer. I could see the unspoken conversation passing between them.

“Okay,” Scott said, eventually. “I was talking to Jay–”

“Jane,” she said. 

“Jane,” Scott corrected himself, “and she said she wants to remain like this, too. I… haven’t really been changed, other than looking a bit better, I guess, so I don’t really have anything to ‘change back’. I guess the question is what do we do now?”

I shrugged, looking down at Bianca, head in my lap, one arm still around me. “I don’t know, Dad… what do we do?”

Scott’s jaw went slack for a moment upon hearing the title… but then shifted to a smile. “I guess we give this a try. Welcome to the Robinson family.”

I smiled back at him, and saw Jane– Mom doing the same thing.

My life before had been lonely as hell without these three, and my stray internet lurker friends. Now I had a proper family. We all had a proper family.

Maybe that river really was blessed. It certainly improved our tribal unity.

---

Evan took another swig of water as he finished telling the story. His voice had been climbing higher and higher as he went, and now with the tale finished, she stood before them all, completely changed. Eve brushed a hand through her mid-back length hair, smiling at the others.

“So… anyone thirsty?” she offered the half-empty water bottle, grinning and taking a seat to let the next person take their turn. She speared another marshmallow on a stick and prepared for round two of her s’mores feast, hoping that these things were heading directly for her hips. They’d look even better in those new jeans she had waiting at home~

---

PunchlinePress a.k.a Mikaela Mann is the author of , and several other stories that can be found on , , and .

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