More Shades of Being[A FtM and MtF Race Change Story] - Part 1 (Patreon)

Soraya woke the next morning feeling wrong. It wasn’t the sharp alarm of pain or sickness—quite the opposite. Her body felt too light. As she'd gotten older, she had carried a small catalogue of familiar aches: the dull stiffness in her knees, the tug in her shoulder, the faint throb in her back that always greeted her with the sunrise. They were old companions by now, things she hardly noticed anymore. But waking without them felt wrong, like realising a sound you’d grown used to had suddenly gone silent.

She shifted onto her side. Her hips clicked faintly—a familiar noise, yet it didn’t hurt the way it should have. Frowning, she reached out for Manuel and was greeted with cold sheets. The absence was stark. Her hand lingered there, tracing the shallow hollow where his warmth had been, her skin catching roughly. Her arm felt rougher, too; it was all wrong. She forced her eyes open and rubbed at them to clear the sleep. 

She blinked in surprise; this wasn’t her bed. She didn’t know this room at all. It looked like a mix between a laboratory and a hospital room, and there was a white man who looked vaguely familiar lying in a bed across from her. 

“Hello?”

The voice that escaped her felt as wrong as her body; deep, husky and…male. Her hand flew to her throat and felt stubble and a lump that shouldn't have been there. A second later, she was wide awake, blankets thrown aside as she looked down at her bare chest. She was dressed in nothing but a pair of boxers that did little to hide her modesty. 

She couldn’t worry about that shape outlined in her boxers, though, because the fact that she had an unimpeded view of her crotch was concerning enough. Her breasts were gone, as were her wrinkles and dark olive skin. She was pale as snow, with a smattering of blondeish brown hair across her entirely flat chest. She couldn’t help it, she screamed. Such a high, terrified scream coming out of a man’s mouth would have been funny had the situation not been so terrifying. The man in the bed next to her jerked awake with the sound and looked around in a panic. 

“What the-huh?” He looked down at himself and yelped, hands pressing against his chest. “Oh, what the fuck, what is happening? Why is my voice so weird?!”

Soraya was suddenly overwhelmed by a wave of emotion that was a mix of nostalgia and horror.

“...Henry?” 

The man blinked in shock. “No, m-my name is Saanvi and…wait…mom? Kayden?”

This felt wrong on so many levels. Kayden, no Soraya, felt sick. Her body was missing all its familiar curves; she smelled of chemicals, and there was none of the spice and natural floral sweetness she was accustomed to. And where was her husband? Her son? 

The door opened, and a man in thick glasses and a coat walked in. There was a symbol on his breast pocket, an embroidered infinity symbol that looked oddly familiar. Flashes of memory from a literal lifetime ago, the Reality Warping machine, the same symbol painted across the headbands she’d placed over her brow. An icy cold stone formed in her now flat stomach, the pouch she’d grown so used to having from carrying two children now gone.

“No…”

“Wait,” Henry whispered, sounding just as horrified, “If I’m…if you’re Kayden, then are we…”

“Back in your original reality?” The doctor finished pleasantly, “Yes.”

A sound escaped Soraya’s mouth that was somewhere between a scream and a gasp. The doctor may as well have told her she was in Hell. 

“I know it’s a lot to take in, but don’t worry. We’ll help you adjust back into your old lives.”

“We?” Saanvi said roughly. There were tears in her eyes, and Soraya moved out of habit, wanting nothing more than to comfort her daughter, wrong bodies or not. But then there was a voice and a scuffle behind the door.

“I don’t care! I am going in there!”

There was a thud, and the door swung open, and a woman stepped inside. She was beautiful, with wavy red hair and wide hips, but there was something cold about her green eyes that Soraya didn’t trust.  Those eyes filled with tears, and she rushed across the room, throwing her arms around Saanvi, who stared at her, mouth agape, before stammering.

“Alice?”

“Oh, Henry! You’re back! It took so much work to get that Reality Warper to find you, but it did, and you’re back! Oh, these last three years have been just awful. Waiting and never knowing.”

She sobbed dramatically against Saanvi’s chest for a moment before those cold eyes fixed on Soaraya and hardened.

“You!” She said dramatically, walking over and slapping her across the face. “How dare you take my Henry from me!”

Soraya felt her head spin, and it wasn't just because she’d been slapped. “Wha-?”

“It was you who tricked him, wasn't it? You trapped my poor lover in some twisted sexual fantasy land. Like a sicko!”

Memories of her old life became fresh in her mind, and Soraya felt her guts twist painfully; sicko was a strong word, but it wasn’t entirely inaccurate. She remembered how excited her old self had been to spend time as a ‘big titted Indian woman’ and shuddered. She had been such an ass, and now, she was back in that old body! 

“That isn’t…what happened. Why am I so young?” Soraya croaked.

“Time dilation between dimensions.” The doctor fiddled with his glasses, “As you know, the reality warper leverages the inherent uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics, accessing the vast multiverse of potential realities, creating a harmonised quantum field that resonates with specific vibrational frequencies that match the user’s mental signals to a parallel reality and transports them there, temporarily. Emphasis on temporary.”

Soraya was hit with the strangest sense of deja vu with those words; it seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d said something similar to Henry, probably because it was a lifetime, at least for her. She’d understood it once, or at least pretended to, but now it was all word soup in her ears. And the doctor was so calm, talking like it was just another day in the office and not like he’d just ripped Soraya away from the life she’d spent two decades building. 

“Some temporal displacement is to be expected. How long has it been for you?”

“Two decades…” Soraya replied numbly.

“Wonderful news for you then, only three have passed here! Not everybody gets an extra twenty years of experience in their life!” He beamed, “You’re quite the lucky man.”

Lucky? Man? Neither of those words felt remotely right. Soraya could hear blood rushing in her ears; she’d been torn away from Manuel, and Arjun, all her friends, the students waiting on their papers back home. She was torn between numb shock and blind panic. The only comfort was Saanvi, who didn't even look like Saanvi, who was currently trying to extricate herself from the cloying arms of Alice. 

“What is going on?” She demanded, “What have you done to me and Mom?”

“Mom?” Alice screwed up her face in disgust. “You mean Kayden? Oh, that is so fucked. You made him into your son? Ugh!”

“Daughter…” She blinked numbly. 

Because she was her daughter, she was stuck in the body of a man in her late twenties, but Soraya knew her Saanvi when she saw her. She looked panicked, and her instincts finally kicked in, overwhelming her nerves and panic. She got to her feet and wobbled; her centre of gravity felt too high without her motherly curves to keep it in check, and her ankles didn't creak. It took a moment, but she wobbled over to Saanvi, who immediately fell into her arms. Their bodies didn’t fit together the way they would; too many bony shoulders and gangly arms, but it was good enough to bring some comfort. 

“Why did you bring us here?” Saanvi cried. “Send us back, now!”

Alice gave a dramatic gasp, and tears welled in her eyes like something off a soap opera. The doctor put a hand on her shoulder. 

“Dont worry, I did warn you they might be a bit confused at first.” He said gently, “Why don’t you go and wait with Mrs Clayton, and I will talk with Henry and Kayden.”

“Those are not our names!” Saanvi snapped. 

Soroya recognised Clayton, though that had been her name once upon a time, she hadn’t been married in this world, though, so Mrs Clayton had to be…

“My mother is here?” 

Calling that woman mother felt so wrong, but it made the doctor smile. 

“Yes! See, it’s all coming back. She’s been very worried about you these last few years.”

“That would be a first,” Soraya muttered. The way she remembered it Kayden’s mother was a cool woman who he’d never been close to. They hadn't even spoken in a year before he decided to leave. The memories felt wrong inside her head; thinking of Kayden as a separate entity helped. He certainly didn’t feel like part of her. More like a role she’d once played on stage, or a character from a film she’d watched a million times. Familiar, but not her. 

“How did you even get us back?” Saanvi asked, finally pulling out of Soraya’s arms. “I thought your machine removed us from this reality or something.”

“It did.” The doctor explained, “But these switches between reality were never meant to be permanent. You see, if a person is missing from their reality long enough, people begin to forget, the world erases you, like you never existed.”

“So why didn't that happen to us?” Saroya asked, “That’s what we wanted, this life…it had nothing for us. We made a new one where we were happy! And now you’ve taken that from us!”

Her fury began to build, and she curled her hands into fists. 

“My son! My husband! You have stolen them from me!”

“I understand that you are upset, that this is traumatic.” He said with the same gentle tone a parent used with a child throwing a tantrum. “If there had been any way for us to prep you for the switch, we would have done so. As it stands, we’ve got some of the best psychiatrists and counsellors waiting to help you acclimate back into your real lives.” “This isn't our ‘real life’!” Soraya screamed as her rage built. “You stole us from our real lives, and now I demand you send. Us. Back!”

“I can see we have gotten off to a rough start.” The doctor continued, “I’m going to give you both a little time to come to grips with things, and then we can discuss this calmly.”

“You want us to talk about our entire existence being turned upside down…calmly?” Saanvi spat.

The doctor just kept smiling that placid smile and stepped back through the door. Soraya flinched when she heard the click of a lock. Saanvi sat back on her bed and sobbed, shoulders heaving.

“Oh, Mom, what are we going to do?” She cried, “This feels so…wrong. Seeing you like that, feeling this body! I have a…ugh it feels so gross!”

Soraya did her best to ignore the odd feeling between her own legs. It had been so long she’d forgotten what their weight had felt like. Instead, she focused on the one thing that hadn't changed: who she was, a mother. She sat next to her daughter and wrapped an arm around her shoulder. 

“It’s all going to be alright.” She hushed, “We’ll figure it out. We always do.”

She wasn't sure if she was lying or not. This entire situation was unlike any challenge they had faced in either life. Soraya looked at the door and down at herself. They were prisoners, in more ways than one.