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Andrew stood, leaning against a wall of golden tiles, trying not to betray the panic brewing inside him. In one hand, he clutched a worn college brochure; in the other, a backpack full of documents. A red T-shirt, slightly too short for him, and a floral skirt that hung loosely to his knees still felt like a Halloween costume. But to the eyes of passersby, it looked perfectly normal. More than that, even.
Guys passing by stole furtive glances at his slim figure. Girls—some with envy, others with approval—studied him as if he were a new competitor.
Just yesterday, he had been a 37-year-old man with a promising job at an advertising agency, two kids, and, to be honest, major marital issues and a laundry list of misunderstandings with his wife. But everything had changed after his idle wish, "I wish I could start over," coincided with his wife's exasperated muttering, "I wish you'd understand me for once." The curse—or as the mysterious old man at the antique shop had called it, the gift—had turned him into a freshman girl at his alma mater.
Andrew had woken up to the grating buzz of an old alarm clock—a relic from his childhood with a cheap polyphonic ringtone blaring on the nightstand. He reached for it, fumbling to silence it without opening his eyes. But something immediately felt off. The phone seemed smaller, almost shrunken, light as a toy. When he finally opened his eyes, he saw a blue screen with the date displayed on it: September 2004.
But that wasn’t the strangest thing. His hand… his fingers—long, slender, with neatly manicured nails slightly longer than he was used to. He stared at them, turning his palms over and inspecting each finger. Startled, he dropped the phone onto the bed.
— What the… — he murmured, freezing mid-sentence. His voice! High, soft, completely alien.
He sat up sharply and immediately felt an unfamiliar weight shift on his chest, moving awkwardly with his sudden motion. His eyes darted downward. Beneath the thin beige fabric of a nightgown, faint but unmistakable outlines of small, feminine breasts became visible. He touched them, desperate for the illusion to shatter, but the warmth of his palm made it undeniable. They were real.
— No, no, no… — Andrew whispered, panic swelling like a tidal wave. He tried to stand, but something silky and soft slipped down over his face, blocking his view. Hair. Long hair, brushing against his cheeks and shoulders. He swiped at it with his hand, but it stubbornly fell back into place, as if determined to remind him of its presence.
Andrew tried to focus, but everything around him was blurry, as though someone had smeared water over a painting. Even the outline of the bed in front of him looked distorted.
“What the hell is wrong with my eyes?” Andrew fought to suppress a scream bubbling in his throat. Everything around him blurred as if he were seeing the world through a fogged window. He rubbed his eyes with clenched fists, but it didn’t help. It took him a few seconds to realize that he could barely see now. A memory flashed in his mind—his wife, Samantha, endlessly complaining about her poor eyesight, angrily cleaning her glasses. Her words, “You don’t understand what it’s like,” echoed bitterly in his head, a retort to the jokes he’d made at her expense.
Andrew’s hand shot out, searching for glasses, but it bumped into something else. A small object fell from the nightstand with a dull thud.
— Dammit! — he hissed. His fingers finally found the frame of a small pair of glasses. He was just about to put them on when a raspy voice interrupted him from somewhere nearby.
— Mmm… Keep it down, will you? — The voice came from the side, hoarse and groggy. Andrew froze. Someone else was in the room.
— Who’s there? — he snapped, his voice trembling with tension as his mind scrambled to make sense of the situation. His fingers fumbled with the glasses perched on the edge of the bed, and he shakily slid them on. The world sharpened slightly, but it still wasn’t the clarity he once knew. The room looked painfully familiar yet completely different. Small and cramped, with faded pink wallpaper that had probably been hung twenty years ago, the place resembled the dormitory from his youth. But now it looked… too girly.