Ritual (Patreon)

The soft light in the room spread across the walls, casting a cozy yet slightly somber atmosphere. The dim candlelight fell onto a glass table in front of the couch, next to a book she had long wanted to read, a book she hadn’t had time to pick up amidst everything that had happened. There was a lingering scent, sweet and heavy, something like jasmine or lavender—a fragrance she would never have chosen herself. She moved slowly toward the couch, stumbling in the high heels that still felt awkward and unnatural.

She sank onto the couch with a heavy sigh, adjusting the short black dress as she tried to find a comfortable position, though it felt like nothing would ever be familiar again. Catching her reflection in the glass table, she froze, trying to accept this new reality. The deep neckline revealed an unfamiliar weight on her chest. A light breath made the long chestnut hair fall onto her shoulders, and she tried to push it back but quickly pulled her hand away in frustration. Her own body now felt like a prison.

"Was it... was it all for nothing..." the thought flickered in her mind, clouding her gaze with sadness. A month. A month of attempts, despair, sleepless nights, and humiliation. All for the realization today that there was no turning back. Her gaze fell on a photograph on the shelf. It showed a young guy in a graduation suit, confident, with an embarrassed but happy smile. That guy had been her… exactly one month ago. She pressed her lips together, feeling a lump rise in her throat.

She clenched her hands, trying to calm herself, but the cold inside her only tightened its grip. "Why me? Why did this happen to me?"—she mentally returned to that evening when fate had taken her life into its cruel hands. The curse wasn’t even meant for her—it was meant for that arrogant classmate, the one who constantly mocked everyone around him, seeing nothing in people but targets for his jokes. That day, he had gone too far, accidentally knocking over an old woman and nearly making her drop her bag.

She had been too close to just look away. She rushed to help the woman, picked up the bag, and returned it to her. In response, the woman looked at her with a long, piercing gaze and muttered something, seemingly with gratitude. But as she walked away, the woman whispered something under her breath, clearly not directed at her, and she hadn’t thought much of it. But the next morning...

The next morning, she woke up as someone else. Long hair, a round face, a slender but delicate body that immediately filled with panic as soon as she tried to get up. Her first steps were wobbly, stumbling—her legs wouldn’t obey, and she was overwhelmed by a wild sense of helplessness. From that moment, her life had turned into an endless nightmare filled with desperate attempts to lift the curse, which, she suspected, the old woman hadn’t intended for her. She had spent an entire month searching for any clue, anyone who could help her. But every ritual, every spell, every magical formula proved useless. And the old woman seemed to have vanished without a trace.

Every night, she went to sleep with the hope that maybe morning would bring some relief, but every dawn only reaffirmed her new reality. She could no longer be herself. She tried to go back to university, but her old friends just shrugged, mistaking her for some “new student.” It was as if everyone around her had forgotten her former self, her former life.

But the biggest challenge was how people now treated her. Familiar faces no longer recognized her, her voice no longer sounded like it used to. Men looked at her as an object of desire, not knowing that inside, she was still the same guy from the photograph. And her female friends now looked down on her, seeing just “another competitor.”

Today was the last day she was certain she had a chance to turn everything back. All the magical timelines she had calculated led up to tonight. She lit the candles, prepared everything, recited the spells, pouring all her hope, all her strength into them. And all she received in return was silence. Silence that shattered her heart.

She looked up at the ceiling, struggling with the bitterness and disappointment. Would she really have to stay in this body forever? Her hands instinctively smoothed the dress, as if the feel of the fabric could somehow comfort her. And as she tried to take a deeper breath to calm her heart, her chest lifted slightly, reminding her even more of the foreign weight she now carried. She couldn’t accept it. Just a week ago, she still had some hope, but now, everything seemed irrevocably lost.

—This is the end,—she whispered, barely holding back the lump in her throat as despair took hold. But at that very moment, a wave seemed to pass through her body—a warm, strange, vibrating energy. She tensed, not understanding what was happening. Her heart began to race, and her chest suddenly felt weightless, as if it were shrinking, returning to its usual male shape.

“Could it be?”—the thought sparked like a flash of hope, overpowering her fear. Familiar sensations, long forgotten yet unmistakable, returned to her like flashes of memory. She felt her shoulders broadening, the strengthening of each muscle. Her breathing quickened, and with each second, the tight dress seemed to press harder, as if resisting her transformation.

She shut her eyes, not daring to look, but the feeling of returning strength was so real it sent a tremor through her whole body. This was it, finally. Her body no longer felt so fragile and alien. She was starting to feel like... herself again.

Then she heard a light tearing sound. The tight, fitted dress began to rip at the shoulders. The fabric stretched, then with a loud pop, tore at the collar, freeing her expanding chest. She took a sharp breath, for the first time in a month feeling her lungs fill completely, as if they were back to their true size.

The dress tore louder now. She watched as the fabric split at the waist, then the hips, revealing her returning male form. The high heels, now too small for her feet, creaked as her feet grew larger, stronger. Just one more moment—and the shoes burst off her feet, freeing them from the painful confinement.

Her hands, now strong and muscular again, ripped off the remaining scraps of the dress, and it fell in tatters to the floor. The feeling of freedom was overwhelming. Now himself once more, he ran his hands over his body, sensing his regained strength and solidity. A smile appeared on his face—tentative at first, then growing more assured, turning into a fierce, triumphant laugh.

He stood in the middle of the room, feeling his familiar body again, hardly able to believe that the nightmare had finally ended. His muscles filled with strength, a familiar weight, as if the month of desperate efforts and humiliation had been nothing but a bad dream. He ran his hands across his chest, still unable to believe he’d succeeded, felt his tense shoulders, solid arms, fingers strong and nimble once more. And all of it was real.

Collecting his thoughts, he looked around the room. The dim light, the candles, the torn clothes—it all looked almost theatrical. Just a month ago, he hadn’t believed in any of this nonsense. To him, it had all seemed like childish fantasy: curses, magic, witchcraft—something fit only for movies. And now, standing amid melted candles, shreds of clothing, and shoes that had tormented him for so long, he finally understood how much his life had changed, and despite being himself once again, he knew he would never be the same.