The Worst

It was hard for Herb to imagine a worse swap. He had literally become a blue haired freaky liberal with tattoos and piercings all over the place. This was a nightmare. Riley wasn’t any happier. They didn’t want to be in Herb’s body either -- several decades older and clearly identifying as a man.

But Riley took two steps back from the panic. Nothing really stopped them from redefining themselves in this new body. They could start expressing in a nonbinary way -- maybe even investigate hormone treatment -- even if the age thing was still a problem.

Herb didn’t quite have those same options open to him. He felt like embracing manliness in this form would be giving in and proving the other side right. But would embracing femininity be something he really wanted to do?

Hyped

In the days after the Great Shift, Malcolm was worried he was doomed to a world of skirts, high heels, and makeup. He had swapped bodies with a woman after all, and the gendered stereotypes in his head loomed large.

But as the days turned to weeks and the weeks into months, he realized he was still free to be himself. Sneakers, pants, and even a baseball cap were all commonplace for him. Sure, there were still some differences he had to get used to -- bras and periods, for instance -- but the whole thing wasn’t nearly as dramatic as he hyped it up in his head that it would be.

Woke

It probably would’ve been nice for someone to be there when a woke up -- a doctor, a nurse, an aide, or literally anyone. Maybe they didn’t expect me to wake up, or at least not at that moment. It was jus such a shock to wake up in someone else’s body and a woman’s body at that! I had so many questions and absolutely no answers to any of them.

I would come to learn that they didn’t expect me to recover so quickly. Heck, technically they didn’t expect me to recover at all. The accident had basically killed me, and the brain transplant was more experimental than anything else. They had hoped to learn if it was possible. Well, I was now living proof that it was!

Alone

Few people went to the side of Exchange Island with the rocky beaches. After all, why would they? The gorgeous white sand and gentle waves were filled with all the beautiful people and close to the resort.

But Andrew wanted to be alone. He needed some time to think. This was supposed to be a temporary body for a short vacation, but there was a resort-wide glitch -- everyone was going to be stuck in their swapped bodies even once they returned to the mainland.

That meant this female body was Andrew’s now. They were still working out details about if people would be able to continue their original lives or if they had to embrace the life of their new bodies. And in the meantime, Andrew just needed to hear himself think...alone.

Pledge

“What the hell is going on here?” Michelle asked looking down at her now larger and hairier hands.

“OMG!” Derek exclaimed, “You don’t know? There was a whole thing a few years back about hazing and harassment an stuff. Now as part of the pledge process, the frats together with the sororities to have pledges swap bodies for a bit. I think it’s supposed to teach empathy so, like, we don’t take advantage of you at parties or whatever.”

“That’s what it’s supposed to teach you; what the heck is this supposed to teach ME!?”

Derek shrugged. He was pretty sure he wasn’t going to learn anything anyway.