Aka Amy

Tess and I were both quiet during the short drive to her place. It was only about two blocks from the coffee shop to the low-rise building where she lived.

I was still anxious as hell and my mind was racing in twenty different directions. It felt like half my brain was at war with the other half, arguing about this whole thing.

Part of me wanted to be happy. Ecstatic. Delirious even. I was a cute hot girl. I looked just like my character in the game. And I'd never admit it but the character design stuff was pure wish-fulfillment. So being turned into her was literally like a dream come true.

At the same time I was freaking out about all this being done to me without warning, without asking. And I had no idea what I was supposed to do next. I didn't know how to actually be a girl, it felt like a lie. I was still me inside, like ok I looked like a cute girl but that wasn't really me. I was the tall shy lanky guy who just wished he was a girl. Then there were my fears about what my family would think of me now, what I'd do about work, my roommate, and all that other stuff.

And I was just as confused about my feelings about this Tess person.

Like ok she was gorgeous, sexy, and she seemed really nice. She acted like she wanted to be my friend, like she wanted to help me. But I couldn't shake the thought that all this was her fault. She was playing with magic, contacting goddesses and shit. From my perspective she basically sucked me out of my apartment and into a summoning circle, and I got turned into a cute girl along the way.

And she seemed to have a better handle on the situation than me, which only made me feel more suspicious of her. But she was also my only hope of figuring any of this stuff out.

Part of me was panicking about how I'd cope with my job and family and life if I was stuck like this, but the idea of going back to normal terrified me. It was part of the stuff my brain was fighting over in the background. But I definitely needed to understand. And there was no way I could talk to anyone else about this stuff. Which meant I was stuck having to talk to Tess, and maybe having to trust her.

So I stayed quiet as we pulled into one of the visitor parking spots. I followed as she led me into the lobby, then during the brief elevator ride up to the top floor I took the opportunity to look her over again.

She was three or four inches taller than myself. Her bright red hair was wavy and hung down just past her shoulders. Her skin was fair, with some light freckles on her cheeks. She had bright blue eyes, and full wide lips. She was wearing a bit of make-up that made her look even more attractive. Her clothes weren't anything special, just tight blue jeans and a green blouse, but they showed off her figure well enough. Her legs were gorgeous, her ass perfectly sculpted. She had wide hips and a slim waist. And I had some strange feelings about the fact that my boobs looked bigger than hers.

I followed her out of the elevator when the doors opened, and she led me to her door at the end of the hall. Unit three-oh-eight. I stared at the numbers on the door as she unlocked it, then I followed her inside.

It was just like I remembered it from last night except now there was a throw-rug on the floor where the circle and candles had been, and the furniture had been moved out of the corner.

The living-room was set up with a sofa and a love seat, sort of angled together and towards a TV on the wall, which was next to a full bookcase. A small table sat in between a pair of chairs against the wall dividing the living-room from the tiny kitchenette. There was a small bathroom, and a single bedroom. It was a corner unit, so she had windows on two sides. There was no balcony though.

The place looked cosy enough, her furniture looked well-used but still in good shape. There were a couple pictures up on the walls, abstract artsy stuff.

Tess gestured towards the living-room and said, "Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you anything to drink?"

I shrugged, "Um... I don't know. I'm sorry, there's so much on my mind right now it's hard to make any decisions."

"It's ok Amy," she replied. She looked and sounded worried about me again. "Why not just have a seat and try to relax?"

"Yeah ok," I sighed. I sat down on the sofa, and I automatically picked the end spot. That gave me the greatest chance of not having to sit too close to anyone else.

I set my purse down on the coffee table in front of me while Tess disappeared into the tiny kitchen for a moment. Then she emerged with a couple bottles of spring water. She offered me one, then sat on the other end of the sofa, so we had an empty cushion between the two of us.

I mumbled a quiet thanks as I accepted the water, but I didn't open it yet. I just held on to it as I sat there staring at the patterns in the carpet on her floor.

Tess opened her water and had a sip, then set the bottle down on another little table that was next to her, in the corner between the love-seat and the sofa.

She asked hesitantly, "So uh, you had a bunch of questions about last night?"

After a deep breath I nodded, "Yeah. This goddess person, you said you summoned her? How? And why? Who is she? And why'd I get sucked into all this? And what am I supposed to do now?"

She grimaced slightly under my barrage of questions, then there was another bit of hesitation. Finally she dug something out of her purse, then revealed it to me as an old book of some kind.

"This was my grandmother's journal," she explained. "I think granny was a witch or something? She wrote about magic and rituals and all kinds of unbelievable stuff. And she wrote about summoning this Goddess. She described a tall, statuesque beauty with long silver hair and bright violet eyes..."

My eyes slowly widened as she described this goddess of hers. I was about to comment on the fact that she was the tall statuesque one, when I remembered she only looked that way to me because I was so short now. She was actually about average height, like five-foot-five or five-six.

"Um... Except I'm not tall. At least, not anymore."

The redhead looked confused at my comment, then I blushed as I realized what I'd just said.

I was still afraid to tell her I used to be a guy. It was part of the stuff my brain was fighting about, but I didn't want Tess to think of me like that. For whatever reason, I figured she'd only ever seen me as Amethyst and for now at least I wanted to keep it that way.

She was sort of staring at me as she asked nervously, "Not anymore? As in, you used to be taller?"

I sighed, "Yeah. Sorry I didn't mean to mention that. I really don't want to get into that stuff yet."

"Ok," she nodded slowly, but she still seemed anxious about it. "So uh, when you appeared in the circle last night it kind of threw me? Like I was expecting this tall Goddess clad in white robes, and instead I got a short coed in a U-of-T shirt."

I could feel my cheeks colouring as well but I frowned, "That kind of threw me too, you know? Like I said, I got sucked out of my apartment, then next thing I was standing here at your place. And you were the one in the white robes."

"I'm sorry," Tess sighed.

We were both quiet for a minute or so. She had another sip of water, but I just put my bottle down on the coffee table next to my purse.

Eventually I asked, "So why'd you summon her anyways?"

Her cheeks started going red again as she replied "Uh, mostly I just wanted to try it? I mean, after reading all this fantastic stuff in granny's book I just wanted to see it for myself. Like, real magic, Goddesses, it all sounded really wild."

I knew there had to be more to it than that. She was hiding something, and from her blush I figured it was probably something embarrassing. I decided to leave that for now, and instead I asked "About this goddess person, who is she?"

Tess shook her head, "I don't really know? Granny never mentioned her name, she only ever called her 'The Goddess'. There's runes in the journal that spell out her name, they're the seven runes that were part of the circle last night? But granny never translated them, and I don't know how."

That left me frustrated. I sighed, "Well do you know how I got sucked into all this? I mean, I had nothing to do with this stuff until I got pulled out of my place and suddenly my whole life was turned upside-down."

She blushed and looked guilty again, "I'm sorry Amy I don't know yet. I'd have suggested maybe, and big maybe, it's because you look like the Goddess I was trying to summon? But you didn't look like that before right? That just leaves the fact that your game character looks like the Goddess I was expecting."

"That has to be coincidence," I stated. "And I can't be the only person out there with a game character who looks like that."

Theresa nodded as she sighed, "Yeah. I'm sorry Amy, I don't really know what to say or do right now."

I frowned as I thought for a few moments, then got another idea. "Can I see the runes? That spell out the name?"

"Sure," she replied.

She flipped through the pages of the old book till she found them.

While she was doing that I got my phone out of my purse and punched in the password again. I was torn about whether or not I should just update the fingerprint thing, but that could wait till later.

Once she had the right page, I had her lay the book out flat on the coffee table. The runes were kind of elaborate but they were drawn clearly in dark pencil. There were seven of them, and I used my phone to take a close-up picture of each one of them separately.

"What are you doing?" Tess asked as she watched.

"Reverse image search," I replied. "Maybe someone else knows them, or maybe there's some information online? Maybe we can translate them. Or have you already tried that?"

Tess blushed and shook her head, "I never thought of that."

Once I had all seven I started doing the searches.

Nothing useful came up for the first one. The second one though was promising, and seemed to translate to the letter M. The third one came up with too many possibilities, like depending what site you looked at it could be half the alphabet.

The fourth one was a solid hit, it didn't translate to a specific letter but it represented the 'th' sound. Then rune number five was kind of iffy. Some hits translated it as the letter I, others as J, and a few suggested the letter Y, while others gave some more obscure interpretations. The sixth glyph was more conclusive, either F or S. The last one was another either-or, with the options being D or T.

Tess picked up a notepad and a pen she had on the corner table and jotted down the results as I shared them with her.

After the last one she said, "So we have question-mark, M, question-mark, TH, I or J or Y, F or S, and D or T."

"Yeah," I replied with a frown. "Does that help? I mean, it's supposed to be the name of the goddess you were summoning right? Can you use that to figure out what her name is?"

She looked up at me, she was staring at me with a funny look on her face now.

I started feeling self-conscious as I asked, "What? What's wrong?"

"Don't you ever do crossword puzzles?" she asked as she continued staring at me. "Question, M, question, T, H, Y, S, T. The Goddess's name is Amethyst."

My stomach lurched as I asked "What are you trying to say?"

Tess was still giving me that weird look, "I was trying to summon a Goddess who has silver hair and purple eyes and who's name is Amethyst. That's you."

"No it isn't!" I stated, raising my voice slightly as I felt my heart rate increasing and my stomach grew cold. "I told you, this wasn't me! Amethyst was my character's name, this is what my character looks like! That's just a game though! Your magic did this to me, you turned me into this!"

My emotions were all over the place and I was freaking out again. It felt like Tess was trying to blame all this on me, like she was trying to say it was my fault I got turned into a cute girl with a cool name. It reminded me of Mike, always going on about me being trans.

I got to my feet and took a few steps away from the sofa as I shook my head. My hands were shaking and my stomach kept doing flip-flops, as all the stress and fear and confusion bubbled over and I started freaking out again.

My emotions overflowed into panic as I half-shouted at her, "This isn't me, and it's not my fault! I'm just a tall lanky ugly-looking guy! I'm a nobody with a nothing job and no friends! I'm not trans, I'm not a cute girl, and I'm not Amethyst! And none of this is my fault!"

Tess hadn't moved, she just sat there staring at me in shock. I started having trouble seeing her, but it wasn't till I felt tears streaming down my cheeks that I realized why everything had suddenly gone blurry. I grabbed my purse and shoved my phone in it, then turned for the door. I didn't know where I was going to go or what I'd do, I just needed to escape.

It got even harder to see clearly as more tears ran down my face, then I realized the apartment seemed to be turning sideways around me. I took another step for the door but I stumbled and lost my balance. Everything went dark before I hit the floor.