It was morning. I should have already gotten up. But, to put it simple, eggs on all of that. So, let's go over a few things.

One, nobody cared what I saw. Everything I saw, they ignored, like it wasn't happening. I felt my tail moving the night before, I swear it, but did anyone comment on something literally shuffling around back there? Not a soul. This ignores the fact that I was literally moving around on hooves. Did they care? Did they even see? No.

So, I thought about it. I mean, there was only one real explanation that came to mind. It had to be in my head. I was delusional. My feet were still feet. My tail just didn't exist. It was the only way this could make any amount of sense.

Looking back on it, it also made more sense than just... refusing to go to a doctor. They would just look at me, look at my ID, and proclaim I'm insane. Of course my eyes were still blue, my hair still brown. No, I don't see a tail. No, you have perfectly normal feet. Yes, you need help. Here, I have this comfortable jacket to keep you warm...

So, I was going nuts, just... nuts, loose in the head. I didn't actually need a doctor at all. I needed a psychologist and maybe a mountain of drugs to get my psychotic episodes under control.

That's all...

With a groan, I pushed upwards, my altered feet, er, hooves, clopping as I stood up on them. "If it's all in my head, it's up to me if I get through this." It was all in my head! That was good and bad. I could... push through it.

I turned in the mirror to look at that tail that was not there. It was longer, with the same blond hair that was on my head that was actually brown. As I twisted about to get a better look, I could see other things that were clearly just delusions. Namely, I had a nice little set of knockers, right on my ribs? They were perfectly normal, except, you know, my not supposing to have them.

Also, it was hard to pin down exactly, but had the room grown? No, that was stupid. I was stupid. The whole thing was dumb. My fear of my hooves was what was keeping me from reaching top shelf things as easily, duh. Just... soft breaths, calm down... Insanity was, by definition, in your head. Just... calm...

So I celebrated by pissing on myself. I mean, no, not... I didn't plan on that happening, I swear. I was standing in front of the bowl. I was aimed right, and... it ran down my leg. I yelped like a little girl (high pitched and everything) and immediately clenched up. The heck?

As I cleaned myself up, I got to learn something new and exciting about my fantasy. Tucked under all the male parts, I had a lady part. It gets better, because those lady parts were... odd looking. I know what they're supposed to be, and mine were thicker and darker? Not that I should have had any of any color! I had grown a lovely set of mare vulva. I...

Let's just be real. Let's keep it calm... I wasn't totally stupid. I was... imaganing... myself turning literally into Derpy. Derpy was a mare, so, ta da, I had to be a mare. I imagined the 'real' me standing there, not actually holding things in place, pissing on myself. God, how embarrassing. I was a guy, a human guy. Still, there was a solution!

I just had to do what most ladies and plenty of guys did. I parked my butt on the bowl. There, ah, sweet relief! I did all the things my biology demanded of me and was ready to spring up and leave when it hit me. Should I... clean... those imagined parts? They were just my imagination! I was a guy... A guy, dang it...

And yet, I was not a slob. So, one gentle dabbing later, I was actually ready to continue with the day. I had my pants pulled up, even if they felt they were entirely the wrong shape. My hips were a bit too wide? My tail, even longer overnight, hated being in it and liked to sway and swish even tucked inside. That just proved it, I figured. If no one noticed the captive animal back there, either they were ignoring me, or it wasn't there.

"Let's do this," I said to pump myself up. My voice cracked, like I was a pubescent kid, stuck somewhere in the middle of octaves. Staggering out of my apartment, clopping along on my perfectly normal feet, I jugged over to my bike. The way I figured, if I just assumed it was all fake and did things like I normally did, it'd work out. Best part? It was... kinda working. I jogged right over and had the bike unlocked in a jiff. "No more messing up," I promised in a voice that sounded more feminine than not.

All in my head! I pedalled swiftly to work. My shoes, which were definitely not hooves, kept my feet nice and safe. I got the bike locked and hurried in with a smile. That day, I'd do better. I'd be great. I'd ignore the stupid stuff that was obviously fake and just do my job! It wouldn't even be hard, I quietly promised myself as I got into attire and came out, still smiling. "How can I help you today?"

And so I sat down in my bosses' office, tears stinging at my eyes and refusing to stop.

"We need to talk," she began, her fingers steepled in the way she only did when bad things were on her mind. "Let's start with the good. You seemed much more involved today. Your attitude was significantly improved. Is something going on at home? You were very distracted yesterday."

"Sorry about that," I implored with more of Derpy's voice than my own, not that she seemed to notice or care, because I was obviously imagining it all. "Just a personal thing. I put it aside to give it my one hundred percent!" I smiled as best I could, but I wasn't sure how convincing it was. I wouldn't have been called in like that for a pat on the back.

"You're creating quite the strange situation for me. Today, you received several commendations from the customers, even as you continued to mess things up. You spent roughly a third of your shift time fixing messes of your own making." She tapped one finger, then the next, working down her set. "You kept people waiting, though they were patient about it, it was still over the allotted amount of time for what you were doing."

She leaned forward. "I appreciate your customer service. It's one of the reasons I hired you in the first place. Keep up that smile, make them happy to be here, but you do need to keep up with the work, and these accidents will only slow you down. Maybe--" She waggled a finger at me. "You're rushing." Rushing? "Take it a little slower, lower yourself from a 9 to an 8, and get it right the first time. You'll save time in the long run."

"A-alright," I agreed. She wasn't firing me! That was, by far, the biggest takeaway I had from that moment. "Sorry for the trouble."

"You're usually more on point. Is everything alright, at home?"

I was turning into a pony and nobody could see! I mean, that sure wasn't something I'd say... "Sorry for being distracted. I'll take it down a level." I lowered a hand flat with the ground for emphasis. "Get it done once right."

"Exactly so." She seemed pleased with my answer. "Go on, your shift is over."

And so I was dismissed, but not from the job, phew! I gathered my things and made my way out, doing my best to ignore my imagined transformations. I had... lady hips, to put it bluntly. I tried to power walk in my usual manly way despite it, and I was moving. I blamed that more on bravado than anything else. I was determined to do it right.

I swung a leg over my bike to mount it and a great loud tear echoed over the area. With dark red cheeks, I brought my legs back in together on either side of the bike. Had I just? I did... My pants had surrendered the good fight and I was more wearing two pantaloons rather than one set of pants. Right on the seam, torn right down the middle. I... was...

Nobody was watching. People were walking past me, not seeing a thing. Another illusion? It... had to be. I dared to stand on the bike and began pedalling despite the wardrobe malfunction, and nobody cared. My legs were just kinda hanging in the breeze, whipping about with my pants trailing in the breeze created from the movement. Nobody noticed. Nobody raised any alarms. It was all in my head. All in my head.

I climbed off the bike at the shopping plaza that included the grocery I worked at. My next shift wasn't crammed as tightly as it had been the last few days. I had some time. I'd just-- My thought derailed as one big hoof came down on the tattered leg of the split pants and I took another step, ripping it right off of me and almost sending me to the ground with the awkward and sharp tug. I was wearing my shirt, my undies(pushed down to make room for a tail that wasn't really there), and my shoes, but no pants. I stood there, paralyzed with shame and horror.

But nobody ran away. Nobody came closer. The world went on. "See you later?" I glanced towards the voice to see a mare speaking with another mare. A nod received, they both trotted away from one another. I blinked, and they were gone. Another delusion. Just... like my lack of pants. I was going crazy, even more crazy. Deep breaths... Deep... If nobody was reacting, it wasn't real. Just... assume you had pants on. I hiked towards a small mexican place to get a snack.

Illusion or not, it was cold. Chilly to be specific, that wind kissing my exposed legs. I nudged the door open and stepped inside. Nobody cared much about the pantless man walking past them. "Do you have something sweet?" I asked, which is not something I normally asked for. Usually, I got...

I couldn't remember what I usually got.

"You want a churro?" asked the guy behind the bar, smiling nicely.

"That sounds good, yeah." No no! That was a terrible lunch. My diet was really shot lately. A good daisy sandwich would have been better. Wait, daisy? Are those even edible? By the time I caught myself on that line of logic, a churro was on a tray in my hands, and I wobbled towards a seat to crash onto it and let out my breathe.

Why was I losing it so hard? I took the churro in a hand, my fingers not wanting to curl properly until I glared at my hand. Mmm, at least it was a good churro... Man, I was going nuts, and what could I do about it? There really wasn't much in the way of emergency mental care. Welcome to the States!

I worried my tail in one hand as I chewed with the other. I only noticed when it was half gone that I was holding that tail, brushing its hair and petting it in a vain attempt to soothe myself. The worst part? It was... kinda working. The gentle brushes of the imaginary tail made me relax into the seat. The rest of the churro gently vanished.

I still had most of an hour. Maybe... something real? The churro was nice, but it wasn't lunch. I was back on line, humming a little song to myself. I couldn't quite name the song. Something from a movie somewhere? It was chipper. Humming it made me happier.

Someone else was humming along. I glanced over and saw a pony twirling a cap at the end of a hoof as he hummed right along. "Miss?" He was gone, and it was my turn. I checked around. Miss? He was looking at me. Why... was he looking at me? "I'm a guy."

He blinked before looking so very embarrassed. "Oh, sorry! Oh god. Um, wanna free drink?" There was a deal! My smile apparently was answer enough as he wrung up the free drink. "What can I get for you?"

"I'm a little out of it today." Understatement alert! "I want something filling." And full of veggies! I caught myself before I said that. "Like a big burrito?"

"We have a baked burrito that's super popular," he suggested and when I nodded, he finished ringing me up, the drink canceled out on the price. "It'll be out in a bit."

I was standing there, waiting for my turn to get my food. At least I had a big drink cup, which I thrust under a spigot and bade to start spewing fizzy sugar water at me, mmm, fizzy water. "You look ready to enjoy that." I glanced over to see a smiling lady.

"Actually, yeah." I took a nice big gulp of the concotion, a mixture of a few different sodas. Cool, refreshing, fizzy... "Mmm, yeah, that helps."

"I know that feeling," she laughed popping the top on hers. "Mind if I join you?"

That had to be the first time a random lady asked me to join me for lunch just... out of the blue? "Sure." She seemed nice, and I could feel a smile forming as I sank down onto my chair and she across from me. I didn't know her. I had no idea who she was, but she looked happy to be there. "You come here a lot?" I did get my buritto, parked in front of me, waiting to be devoured.

"It's close to where I work." She pointed off. "So, yeah, all the time." She took a chew of her own food, a salad it seemed. It looked good. "Sorry if I was pushy. You just had a nice feel." She waved it off like it was nothing. "That sounds goofy, but most of the people in here are either entirely zoned out, or they're kinda creepy. You don't match either of those.

Oh, well... Good? "Glad I could help." I took a good bite of the burrito. Mmm, despite my urge to eat so much sugar, some real food was still good. I could feel my tail swaying left and right, brushing the chair behind me. She didn't notice, or didn't care. It was a fake tail, in my head, so of course that made sense. "I've had an odd week, really."

"Aw, that's too bad." She raised her soda for a toast, which I met, sloshing them together before we both took a pull. "Here's to us making it through the week."

"That's a toast I'm behind," I laughed in my strangely soft voice. That was all I needed to get more people to want to be social with me, become part-horse. Made perfect sense! "I have work in..." I glanced at the watch as I took another bite. "About half an hour or so."

"Fifteen here," she sighed, working on her lunch. "Still, nice meeting you. I'm Jessica." She offered a hand towards me.

I took it with my own smile. "Muffins." That... was not my name. That was not my name! "Sorry! I mean, uh..." I had a name. It was a lovely and nice name. I remembered a lot of people using it, calling me. "Ditzy."

"Don't be so hard on yourself." She patted me on the shoulder. "Muffins, huh? See you around." And she was up and moving, not noticing how upset I was at the loss of my name.

People didn't just... lose names, right?

"You have a name, it is--"

"Derpy!" I said out loud.

"Sure, that works," agreed the voice, actually responding to me for the first time. "Derpy, what a lovely mare you are. There's a griffon waiting so patiently for you to come here. Do hurry over. I'm not one to keep patients waiting on deliveries."

It was in my head, all in my head. Arguing with... myself... would just make me look crazy. So I tuned her out. I finished eating and started on my way towards the grocery store, clip-clopping a little more comfortably than I had before. I was... getting used to it, for better or worse, and part of me wanted to, what, not exactly skip, but move in almost a bounce, like... despite going totally nuts, part of me was happy, and wanted to show it.

By the way, I had lied. I wasn't wearing shoes. At least, not that I could see. I mean, I was fairly sure I was wearing them, or my feet would be all bruised, and people would be staring at me. I was clip-clopping along without any issue, so I must have had shoes. Easy logic!

My vision went funny, doubling, but without the same immediate headache. I just felt dizzy. "Wait for me!" cried a small filly, dashing down a cobbled road that was also the canned veggie aisle, racing to catch up with her father who was saying something but I couldn't quite pick it out.

They were gone, I was still walking, and growing, apparently. My undies were pinching something awful, not that anyone noticed or cared. There I was, walking through the grocery with no pants on, and no shoes, at least that I could see. Did anyone care? Nope! So I went with it, strolling to the break room in the back and into the bathroom there. Flicking the light on and clicking the lock shot, I had a little privacy.

The tiles in there were so... perfectly checkered. I spent a moment just admiring how my eyes could move from one black square to the next, infinite different patterns seeming to swirl depending on how I looked at it. It was a little thing, but I liked it.

Why was I staring at the bathroom floor?! I shook myself back into the present and hurried towards the bowl. Hooking my fingers into the band, I worked my undies down and off, letting out a loud sigh. "That's so better." My voice was soft, female. Kinda cute, if it wasn't my voice.

My voice was still there! I could hear me, the real me, just... pitch shifted and cracking in an awkward middle place. With my underwear removed, I turned to the nearest mirror that took up most of the room, stuck gazing at myself. I was... in short, a mess. Stuck in some strange partway point, the grey fur at the bottom of my legs was inching upwards. My tail was longer still, twitching fitfully. I crossed my arms over my new breasts, just to unfold them a moment later. I had... breasts.

That was not normal... I reached to feel one and shuddered. It wasn't a powerful sensation, really, in the big scheme of things, but it was so strange and just new. The dark nipples felt different, stronger? Just different... They were in the wrong place, halfway down my front as they were.

"You should say goodbye," whispered that female. "Go on. I can feel it. You're just nervous."

"Nervous about what?" I mean, I had a lot to be 'nervous' about.

"Becoming a lady instead of a gentlecolt, of course," she spoke, her voice seeming so calming and alluring, Seducing me into calm. "Reach for it. Tell it goodbye."

Now, if I were of sounder mind, I feel certain I would not have done what I did. But... I did. I had grown smaller since even just that morning. Despite that, I wrapped my stubborn fingers around it, and I did what most pubescent boys learn to do as they matured. Even as I went about this, in the middle of the bathroom, rocking my hips, standing on hooves, eyes glazed and one of them half shut, I could feel the, uh, new side of me stirring and responding.

When I arrived, I slammed over the finish line twice at the same time. My world contracted and exploded all at once, and I made quite the mess, roughly gasping for breath, trying to regain some manner of balance. Oh... wow... I mean... shoot, if being bi-gender was an option on its own, I might have taken it just for the intense rush that was a double climax...

I staggered towards the sink, forgetting about the mess I had just made. I cleaned myself up with paper towels and warm water, the floor, forgotten.

The door suddenly opened. Oh, right. That was a public bathroom, with multiple stalls. I stuffed the dirty paper towels in my hands down into the trash just as a guy wandered in past me. "Yuck." He noticed the mysterious mess on the floor and laughed. "People are hella dumb, leaving all kinds of messes." He didn't realize what the mess was, or that I was involved, despite being entirely exposed from the hips down.

I laughed nervously with him, glancing at the mirror and realizing I was all the way exposed. I grabbed my abandoned shirt and got it back on, not that he seemed to care. "See you on the floor." He worked there, I dimly remembered, but not much more outside that. I rushed out as he called out a mild complaint of leaving him the mess to deal with. In the mirror as I rushed, I could see my face was pushing out. I was gaining a pony's snout where once I had a nice flat human face. My nostrils flared with the sudden gasp of it.

I shoulda felt bad at that. I was too busy losing every marble I had. I was... Something was happening, and I didn't know how to describe it, or approach it, or what to do about it. Even if I was in a hospital, what would they even be looking for?! What I had, they had no cure for, but a padded room.

Damn it all.

I pushed through work, I had to. I kept making messes, but I took my first bosses' words into account. Slow down... I took it slower, carefully. It... was actually kinda working. Sure, the world was in double and the headache was coming back, but if I did things slowly, surely... I could get through it.

"Excuse me." A customer was behind me. "Where are the green beans?"

"Canned, fresh, or frozen?" I asked, standing up and turning to them, my imagined tail swishing about. I was genuinely happy at the idea of helping that person.

"Canned, if you have it?" He pointed to the pasta aisle. "I saw tomatoes in there."

"Oh yeah, you were close." I pointed to the aisle next door. "Right there, on the... uh, left side. Have a great dinner!"

"Thanks." They smiled, seeming genuinely happy at my service.

Which was the theme of the day. The customers increasingly loved me, my co-workers and bosses kept wondering what was wrong with me. I didn't have a good answer for them. I just tried to keep going, nice and slow. No more accidents... please... I suddenly tipped forward, my hoof striking a fallen can and I smashed face first into the floor, with the extra pain that a snout count bring to such an act. "Ow..."

But I gathered myself up and got it slid away before getting back to work, trying as hard as I could to ignore that I was still mostly naked. C'mon brain, start working again!

Author's Note

We get a bit explicit at points there, but that isn't the focus of this story, promise.

Join the special community of folks who like my stories and/or get your own here at atreon!

Don't want to do an ongoing thing? You could

Join my discord to chat!