The City That Never Sleeps

The streets of New York had gotten eerily quiet in the hours since the Great Shift, which was particularly shocking considering how loud and chaotic things had been in the immediate aftermath.

I probably screamed at first too in a pitch that would have been impossibly high coming from my former mouth. But I had a new mouth now, a new body, and a new gender. The ID in the bag I carried was for an address in Queens, though my immediate surroundings seemed to be more of a Bronx vibe.

Amongst the chaos, I began to walk. The air was sticky; I found myself wishing this body hadn’t picked skinny jeans to wear this morning. I abandoned her heels after a few blocks, preferring to walk barefoot on the disgusting City streets while trying not to think about it. And that’s how the hours passed; how things settled down while others found there way inside while I continued to walk; how the City that Never Sleeps became silent.

Pirates!

They opened the chest and immediately the two pirate’s eyes began to glow purple and then transform from male to female in a blink of an eye. The rest of the crew tried to run, but the curse had already escaped from the chest and was now affecting them one-by-one.

There were probably curses out there that were much, much worse than being transformed into women. After all, once their gender changed, the pirates pretty much all just continued on like before -- if anything, their new bodies gave them an edge, as any ship they encountered was certainly caught off guard to be plundered by a bunch of lasses.

She Swapped Bodies with a College Student

Is it Stealing?

“Is it really stealing?” Lucas asked while sticking his head out the van’s window. “Think about it: We’re stuck in these bodies in the middle of nowhere, the only thing around is this van, the keys are in the ignition...the van has to belong to these bodies, right?”

Gwen was less sure. She hated this whole situation. She hated that she was in the wrong body, a guy’s body. She hated that Lucas was in the wrong body, a woman’s body. Technically, she didn’t even know if the person in that body was really Lucas. They just nodded when Gwen had asked. She hated the idea of just taking this van to get back to civilization. But then again, did she have a better idea to figure out what the heck was going on? No. Not in the slightest.

Oddity

Trying to think about the past few days was a lot for Malcolm to consider. It started with his body being stolen by a cab driver with a magic taxi -- which sounds insane enough -- but then he learned he’d have to steal someone else’s body in the exact same way.

And that’s how he ended up in her body. He didn’t know her name. She didn’t have a purse or any identification. She paid in cash with the typical $50 tip as he stole her body.

But now that he was her? He was at a loss! She had asked to come here, but why? Why had she paid with cash with seemingly nothing else on her? Not even a phone, which was quite the oddity these days...