Don't Trust Shady Venders, They'll Switch Your Gender
Some days it seemed like the universe was against me, today was one of those days. First I missed the first bus to the convention center because my friend couldn’t find their bald cap, so my group of friends arrived to the convention center a hour late. And to top it off, we had to wait in line for a hour.
My friends and I, being the nerds that we are decided to go to the convention dressed as some of the achievement hunter crew. My two friends went as Ryan and Gavin, they were actually guys and had a easier time pulling off their costumes. I was a girl and had to use a shit ton of makeup to look even remotely like a guy. I was personally cosplaying Michael. My friends made me do it.
“Your time living embodiment of rage! It’s a perfect fit!” My friend who dressed as Gavin said.
That morning we had some time to kill before the first panel so we decided to go walk around artists ally to look around and spend a lot of unnecessary money. We bought a few posters and other con shit. Then we found the raddest looking booth to ever exist.
When we walked up to it the con floor seemed to become quieter, and darker. The booth itself was a large table with a large assortment of items, ranging from prop weapons that looked almost real, to amulets that looked like actual gold. That's when I saw it, it wasn't a bad ass gun, and it wasn't a item I was missing from my costume, it was a simple necklace with the Achievement Hunter logo on it.
“Are you interested in my wares?” A voice whispered.
The man who was running the booth was dressed in a full cloak and hood, it was impossible to make out a face. To sum up his appearance, he was a creepy motherfucker.
“Yeah, how much for the necklace?” I inquired.
My friend who was looking at some sort of prop gun turned and said “Dude you do not need that.” He said pointing at my necklace.
“You didn’t need those four prints you bought either” I replied.
“Fine but you're paying for it!” He semi-yelled.
The creepy dude was still standing there, he seemingly just listened to the conversation, it was impossible to tell what emotion he was portraying. “I can tell you all are very passionate about this type of thing, I will give you each one of these for free…” He said holding up three of the necklaces. The word ‘free’ summoned all of us around him, because who would turn down free shit?
Being the moron I was at the time I didn’t hear the second part of what he was trying to tell us. Instead I just grabbed the necklaces and said “Shit thanks man!”.
The next thing I knew I heard one of my friends starting to scream.The scream was very justified because we all started to fall. Slowly everything started bleeding into black. I was starting to slow down. Everything around me was shrouded in darkness, it felt like I was floating. In the darkness I saw a shape. I started floating towards it, or it started floating towards me it was impossible to tell. As I got closer to it I realized it was a person.
“Hello?! Who’s there? Where are we?!” I yelled.
Suddenly before I could blink the person was right in front of me. I screamed. After all shit jumping at you was pretty terrifying. I recognized this person it was, Michael?
Before I could even really begin to fully comprehend what was happening around me. My body lurched forwards right into Michael's body, but instead of bumping into him, I went through him.
I descend once again into darkness. This time it wasn't a strange floating feeling, this time it was sleep.
As soon as I had some semblance of consciousness I forced myself awake. I bolted up from the sleeping position I was in. I started looking around in shock.
I wasn’t in the convention center anymore. In fact I was in the opposite of inside. It was my worst nightmare I was outside, in the woods. Thankfully it wasn’t night, so I didn’t need to worry about shit attacking me from the shadows. I looked to my left and I saw two other forms seemingly passed out. It was probably my friends.
“Looks like...I…” I stopped talking in shock.
That wasn’t my voice! It was a voice that belonged to a guy! I started to panic, I looked down to my body and noticed, I wasn't wearing my cosplay binder, but my chest was flat.
I pulled the collar of my shirt and I didn’t see my breasts, I saw a flat chest. That belonged to a man. The panic was worsened by the minute. I sat there staring at my chest in shock for a unknown amount of time before I had a very disturbing thought.
If my chest looked like a man's, and my voice sounded like a dude’s voice… Did that mean I was a guy down stairs too? The thought haunted me for a while before I became aware of how weird it felt to sit down. I gathered the small amount of courage I had and pulled my pants back. And my fears were confirmed. I was a guy in all but mind. Unlike my chest I didn’t stare at it for longer than strictly necessary.
Before I could continue having a panic attack, I heard a groan from one of the two forms that was sleeping to my left. It knocked me out of my shock.
With a lot of effort I put my hands in front of me and stood up, instead of walking like a normal person I was walking like a drunk. I couldn’t walk in a straight line, for some reason my balance was way off. The lump that now existed in my pants did not help with this issue.
When I got to the groaning form of my who I thought was my friend. I noticed that he didn’t really look like my friend, in fact he kinda looked like… Ryan?
I stumbled over to the other form to find someone who looked like Gavin?
“The fuck?” I cringed at the sound of my own voice.
In fact my voice was so cringey, that it seemed to of woken up the guy who looked like Ryan.
“Urgg, where am...I?” There was no doubt in my mind, that was without a doubt Ryan the voice was a instant give away.
Ryan looked around a bit before his eyes landed on me and seemingly widened in shock.
“Holy shit! Are you Michael!?” He exclaimed in a mix of shock and joy. His face seemingly brightened at the thought.
“What? No. Look I was at a convention with my friends do you know where they went, or where we are?” I asked.
“Wait? Michael is that you?” He must of had brain damage I thought to myself I just told him I wasn't Michael.
“I mean you’re Michael? I mean Michael! Shit what the fuck is going on?!” Ryan said in a panicked tone.
“Look dude, my name isn’t Michael it’s… Michael!” I said.
As soon as I said my name I realized that I couldn’t say my name. I mean my name wasn’t Michael! It was Michael… what the absolute shit was going on?
Ryan started talking again “ We were at a con together! Then we bought those pendant things from that creepy guy!” He said in a panicked voice.
“Ryan is that you?!” I realized I couldn’t remember his real name either.
His face took on a panicked expression, I realized unlike me he didn’t have anything to warn him that his appearance had changed. He seemed to be looking for a way to see what he looked like
At that same moment I realized I must've looked like Michael. The panic was started to creep on me again. But before it could Ryan started talking again.
“We forgot about Gavin!” He said in a panicked tone.
I turned around to look at the passed out form of my other friend. I got down on my knees to get a better look at him. Ryan did the same. We just kinda stared at Gavin unsure of what we should do.
“I kinda expected him to wake up…” Ryan said,
“This isn’t some bullshit story you know? He won’t wake up just to propel the plot or whatever.” I said in a sarcastic tone. I frowned, it was still strange to hear my own voice as a guys voice.
Ryan could seemingly sense my discomfort. A strange looked crossed his face.
“Wait Michael, are you a guy?!” He said in a shocked tone.
“No… well biologically I guess?” I said in a uncomfortable voice.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He said.
“Not really,”I replied “Let's just try waking the moron up okay?” I dodged a really awkward bullet there.
Before he could protest I started shaking Gavin, it seemingly worked because after about four seconds of doing it he started screaming. Initially it was probably the shock that caused him to scream, but once he saw our faces it was a confused scream, a scream I didn’t even know could exist.
After he stopped screaming me and mostly Ryan explained what was happening to Gavin. He seemed really confused. But once it sank in he started having his very own panic attack.
We all sat there in silence for a long time.
“Hey guys, I know we’re all having our own individual panic attacks, but I think it’s going to be night soon.” Ryan said as he was staring at the sky.
“Oh bloody.., I mean shit” Gavin started saying, he was having issues with his accent, it was as if voice couldn't decide it it was an American “We should probably make a fire and shelter.” Ryan said in a calm voice.
“I can make a shelter.” I said before he could even reply I walked off to the other end of the clearing we woke up in. I needed some alone time anyways. I started gathering long branches and long pieces of grass to make the shelter with. It took about two hours but I eventually made something barely large enough for all of us.
Ryan had a small fire going and Gavin was around gathering enough wood to feed the fire for the night.
“Did you get some good long hard wood Gavin?” Ryan joked.
“You bet I did, do you want to rub it? I heard it makes wood even harder.” Gavin replied.
I laughed at the sheer lewdness of their wood jokes.
The sun started to go beyond the horizon and the pastel blues of the day were fading into the deep rich purples of the night. The forest we were in started to seemingly go calm and and loud at the same time. We stopped hearing the birds, and started hearing the crickets. It was peaceful.
The calm night was occasionally broken with the laughter and chatter of my group. But eventually we started getting serious we all had the same vision of the void like space with the body’s we currently had going through us. We also started talking about where we were because none of us recognized the constellations, or the forest we were in. In short we had no idea where we the world we were, or if we're even on the same world.
“What if we never get home?” I said. There was a slight tone panic to my voice.
“We will.” Ryan replied. He put his hand on my shoulder in an attempt at comforting me.
I sighed, I pulled my knees closer to my body in an attempt to hide from what was happening around me.
Little did we know in a rather strange looking cave two ponies were currently talking about us. Of course we had no way to know about it. But it was interesting nonetheless.
“Has it been done?” A pony that was seemingly covered in shadows said to another.
“Yes, hopefully they will be enough to prevent what is to come.” Replied the other pony, who could barely be seen, he was a short pony with a white coat and black mane, he looked rather forgettable.
The one covered in shadows let out a sigh of relief.
“They will have to be warned.” The white and black pony warned.
“Then send some pony to warn them, as soon as you can” The shadow covered one told his companion.
The white and black pony simply nodded and left the shadowed one alone. The shadowed pony then sat down to rest. Because the next day was going to be very tiring.
