Amy and I were walking to the shops to buy some lunch. It was a cold and sunny afternoon and there was a strong, cold wind. To keep warm I had to put the hood of my jacket over my head and hold it there to stop the wind from blowing it off again. Amy’s issue was with the wind itself and not the chill in the air. The breeze was constantly blowing her long, blonde hair into her face and mouth so she had to tie it up into a messy ponytail. As we walked we kept our heads low to stop the wind taking our breath away and considering the conditions I wondered why I agreed to walk to the shops in the first place.

We reached the halfway point in our walk when we went through a rather large park, sometimes hired out for community events. The park was mostly an empty field with a undercover stage and gazebo near the road. The perimeter of the park was surrounded by wooden posts spaced apart enough to let people walk through them but block cars and near the stage there was a small driveway blocked off by a locked chain. Amy and I made our way to the stage, to seek cover from the wind, if only for a moment.

Making is undercover I removed my hood and let my breath catch up to me as I leant against the brick wall. Amy stood next to me but something had caught her eye. “That’s odd,” she pointed to the centre of the stage, “that wasn’t there yesterday.”
I followed her finger’s direction to see a small square pool of green water only 4 inches deep dug into the concrete of the stage.
I walked over to the pool and gave it a closer look and saw that the edges and bottom were fully tiled and the pool looked like it had always been there even though I knew for a fact it had not. “It is rather strange isn’t it?” I concurred with Amy. “It’s perfectly built, minus the filter or anyway to drain the water,” I continued to say as I examined the pool further. “Either way, it’s an odd position for a pool and I can’t understand why anyone would put it here.” I took a step back to look for any signs about the pool or why it was even place here, but saw nothing
Amy also walked over to the pool and gave it another look. “I wonder why the water is green?” She asked as she squatted in front of the pool. “It’s warm,” she observed, placing the tip of her fingers into the water. “Really warm, it feels rather nice too.”
I couldn’t believe Amy’s carelessness, she had touched the liquid in the pool, which could’ve been anything, with only a moment’s hesitation. While there weren’t any warning signs, that didn’t mean the water wasn’t dangerous, though other than being green there didn’t seem to be anything else odd about it. I squatted besides Amy and reached down to the water with my own hand and had my fingertips hovering just above the surface of the pool for a moment. I looked over to Amy who had completely submerged her hands before she touched her face, relieving herself from the cold. I returned my gaze to my own hand and placed my fingers in the water, it was warm like Amy had said but the sensation was weird and strange, I didn’t think it felt nice but more so it felt numb, as if other than the warmth I couldn’t feel my fingers anymore.

I pulled my hand out instantly and observed my fingers, the warm sensation was still there but so was the numbness. I was a little worried and tried to move my fingers and breathed a sigh of relief when I could. I was still looking at my hand when I heard five ‘plops’ as something fell into the water, followed by another five, then two, then another four. I looked down at the water to see ten fingers, two palms, a pair of lips, a nose and two ears submerged in the water. It took a while for my brain to process what I was seeing before I recognised these parts as Amy’s. I turned to face her and was horrified by what I saw. She no longer had hands, just flesh stumps at the end of her arms, nor did she have ears, a mouth or a nose and all that remained was smooth featureless skin. Oddly enough she didn’t seem to be struggling to breath, and instead all I could see was the fear and panic in her hazel eyes. I was just as shocked as she was and we both remained motionless and unable to act. I was still looking at her when the hair on her head slipped off as if it was a wig, which left her completely bald. She noticed this too and reached up to touch her bare head with her wrists but she never got the chance as her forearms fell from her sleeves, followed by her upper arm. I tried to move, to comfort her but I was paralyzed in fear.

The next thing I saw happen to Amy was even more strange and horrifying as her eyes rolled from her eye sockets and into the water. This was especially strange as when they fell out of her head, her eyelashes and sockets vanished with them, as if she was born without eyes. Her head was now completely featureless except for the two remaining eyebrows, which fell off much like her hair did before. The next thing to fall off was her head, which rolled into the water, followed by her neck. Amy’s body remained upright for a moment before her legs and feet crumbled beneath the weight of her body and she fell forward into the green pool. I looked down and watched as her clothes dissolved into nothing, leaving her body parts completely naked in the pool. Inspected it for a moment and noticed her vagina and breasts were now separated as well. Instinctively I blushed and turned away. As I was looking away I then heard another ‘plop’ and my attention returned to the hand I had dipped in the water just before Amy began to fall apart.

I looked at my right hand, and saw that it was missing my pinky finger then I watched as one by one each of my other fingers fell off, leaving my hand without any digits before it fell off too. My left hand followed next, leaving me with two stumpy wrists, and I knew I’d soon find myself in the same position as Amy. I expected my disassembly to go the same way as Amy’s had and expect to lose my ears, mouth and nose next, but instead I felt the same numbness, that affected my fingers, creep up my arms and as it reached my elbows my forearms fell off, followed by my upper arms. My heart was racing which just seemed to spread the the numbness to other parts of my body and I wasn’t sure what to do. There wasn’t any point running as I was soon going to be disassembled myself and it was better to stay with the parts I had already lost. I didn’t want to let this continue to spread either but that wasn’t my choice to make. All I could hope for was once I completely fell apart I could be put back together again. If I had my arms I would’ve left a note or called someone on my phone to let them know what had happened but that choice was also taken away from me so I resigned myself to my fate. I hadn’t seen Amy’s legs fall apart and I was curious as to what it had looked like, also I didn’t want to collapse onto my own weight and risk injury so I sat down by the pool and dipped my feet into the water, carefully avoiding touching any of Amy’s parts. As expected my shoes and socks dissolved as well as some of my pants, what I didn’t expect though was the rest of my pants dissolving too, leaving me sitting on the pool’s edge just wearing my underwear, shirt and jacket. I looked down at my feet and lifted them up out of the water just as my big toes fell off and I watched as each other toe followed. In light of the situation I couldn’t help but sing ‘this little piggy’ as each toe fell into the water. Sure enough my toeless feet followed soon after. I tried moving closer to the water by putting my legs in the pool and pushing against the edge to pull myself closer. It worked for a little bit before I lost my lower legs. I pulled my thighs out of the pool just as they fell off, leaving me limbless. Next I felt my genitals go numb and watched as my penis slid into a different position in my underwear. If I still had my arms I would’ve reached into my underwear and pull them out so I could inspect them further but I was unable to do so.

All of a sudden I fell forward, fact first into the pool as my torso detached from my pelvis, I should’ve seen this coming as Amy’s was also detached that way. As I still had my mouth and nose I struggled to breath and I was drowning in this strange pool, next to Amy’s parts and my parts. I soon found relief however as I saw my mouth and nose fall to the bottom of the pool, followed by my ears. Then everything went black.

I’m not sure how long I had been resting in the pool for when I felt a pair of hands grab the side of my head and pull me out the pool. I could feel my head being rotated a few times and even flipped upside down as someone seemed to be examining me. I was then lowered into what felt like a plastic container. I sat there for a while longer, void of all my senses but touch before whatever I was in was lifted up, causing me to roll to the side and come in contact with something, soft and made out of flesh. I rolled off and onto this other part several times before I release what it was, it was Amy’s breasts. Panic raced through my mind, which feels a lot different without the heart rate to go along with it, as I thought of the possibilities of why I was in a container with Amy’s breasts. I had two main thoughts on why I was where I was, either they just placed several parts in the one crate and I just so happened to end up in the one with Amy’s breasts or they thought my head was Amy’s. That last thought was the scary one, it meant, assuming they could put us back together, I would be reassembled as Amy. While that was better than remaining a brain in a senseless body for the rest of my life, it wasn’t a scenario I wanted to play out. My only 2 hopes were that we could only be reassembled with our original parts or that whoever collected us realised their mistake before it was too late.

I tried to think of something else as I was rocked back and forward in the crate as I could only assume I was driven somewhere but I kept imagining myself stuck as Amy for the rest of my life. I also couldn’t help but wondering how she was faring in this whole situation, last I had seen of her she had been rather scared and frightened and she had been in this state longer than I had. Eventually I had stopped rocking around and the crate had been picked up and taken to somewhere with controlled heating. I was carried for quite sometime before being put down again. I waited in the crated for another eternity before someone picked up my head and placed me on a cold bench, I was poked and prodded a few times and at one point I’m pretty sure my brain was scanned for activity. That made me relax slightly as it meant I was with what I hoped to be experts and that they knew I was still alive in some sense.

Being left to just my thoughts and touch was frustrating as I couldn’t tell if and when I slept or for how long, nor could I tell how long I had been in this position for. It kind of reminded me about the paradox of existence I had heard about once, that if you took someone and made them float senselessly in a void do they recognise that they exist or something along those lines. I knew I did but without stimuli I was mostly all thought and could feel the occasional feeling here and there but when my environment remained the same for too long and I didn’t have an active thought it didn’t feel like I exist. While I was in one of these periods of inactivity I felt a set of hands hold me steady as someone else poked me with a needle.

When I became aware again, everything was different. I could feel my heartbeat and my diaphram going up and down. I could hear the sounds of beeping machines and reddish light filled my vision. I wanted to move, sit up or anything but it seemed to be taking a while for my mind to respond to having a body again. I heard a door open and close and a pair of footsteps walk across the floor over to me. I tried to open my mouth, to say something, anything but all I could muster was an inaudible whisper.

A hand then grabbed mine and squeezed it reassuringly. “I know it’s a lot to take in but you need to give yourself time to readjust to having a body again,” a woman’s voice said. “You and your friend have been through a lot, I can’t even pretend to imagine what you went through.” She the proceeded to take my vitals. “Good news is you’re completely healthy,” she informed me. “Now I’m just going to give you an eye test. We’re not sure how your brain is going to respond to seeing again after so long, so if you feel any pain or discomfort let me know.” I managed to give her a soft nod in response. “Good,” she commented as she pried open one of my eyes revealing a torch. “Now follow the light.” She began to move the torch around and I kept up with it. “Good, now the other one.” She let me close my eye before testing the other one with the same result. “Well your vision seems to be perfect,” she informed me. “Now would you care to try and open your eyes?”
Slowly I managed to open my eyes and after some adjustment I could see the room clearly. I seemed to be inside some sort of hospital room, though it was private and had no windows but a few pictures instead. The lady who was looking after me had bright green eyes, tied up black hair and was wearing a lab coat, not a doctor or nurse’s outfit. On the coat there also seemed to be a patch logo, saying something Labs and I soon realised I wasn’t at a hospital but some science institution, which made sense given what I had just been through.

I then recalled Amy and wondered if she had been restored yet. “H…. How’s?” I managed to whisper more clearly. The woman gave me a sympathetic look as she tried to figure out what I was asking.
“How’s your boyfriend?” She guessed. “I’m not sure, he’s not my patient but I know he’s in one piece at least.” She gave an awkward smile, clearly wondering if that pun was appropriate or not and waited for me to respond.
I sat their and tried to process what she had just said, ‘my boyfriend’ Amy and I were just close friends, not boyfriend and girlfriend. No that wasn’t the point, the point was she said he and boy, meaning my fears I had forgotten about, came true. My head was confused with Amy’s and now I was… I was… I reached up towards my chest and came across a pair of breasts, I gave them a slight squeeze. I then continued to squeeze one as my other hand went down my body and came across the labia, my fingers then parted them as I touched the vagina I now had between my legs.

My heart was racing and I was in shock, I was Amy, or at the very least a large percentage of me was. “I’m… I’m not….” I began to tear up and the woman who checked in on me realised what had happened.
She let out a gasp and dropped her clipboard before taking a step backwards. “I um… I’ll ah….” she was lost for words. “I’ll let my boss know about this… um… situation.” She said as she left the room, leaving me alone once again, with the realisation I was now a woman and Amy was a man. What got me was that this woman was able to accept that Amy and I had fallen apart and been put back together but she couldn’t handle finding out I wasn’t meant to have this body.

I sat up, off the bed and felt Amy’s long hair at the back of my neck, I could even see some out of the corner of my eye, yet I couldn’t bring myself to examine it, instead I couldn’t draw my hands attention away from my new breasts or genitals at least not until I heard the door begin to open once again. Then I felt the guilt of my actions and withdrew my hands immediately. This time three people entered the room, the woman from before, who still looked flustered, a man in a suit and tie and a man also in a lab coat. It was the man in the suit that spoke up. “I’m sorry for the mix up ma’am…. Sir!” He quickly corrected. “I understand your experience with the pool you came across was troubling enough, yet alone being restored with the wrong body parts. The first part couldn’t be helped but the second part we take full responsibility for and you and your friend will receive full compensation for this mix up which includes free counselling and rehabilitation for your new body. Once again I would like to express our deepest apology, thank you.” The man in the suit then walked out of the room. This time the other man spoke up. “Your friend will also be apprised of the situation and we will take you to meet him when you’re both ready.” He told me. “Now Dr Chelsea will address all needs, issues and concerns you might have.” He then left the room, leaving me with the doctor who attended to me before.

Dr Chelsea was still rather red faced about the whole situation but she gave me a compassionate look. “Do you need anything at the moment?” She asked nervously as if she was now unsure how to handle me.
While I had a million questions racing through my mind, I wasn’t as freaked out about this as I thought I would be, perhaps not having a body for a while helped a little, or I was still too shocked and I probably would break down later. Still I didn’t want to be left alone at this time, not just for myself but so I wouldn’t be tempted to continue touch Amy’s or I guess my body the way I had before so I tried to think of a reason to get her to stay, any reason. I then thought of the first thing that came to mind, one of the earliest issues I knew I would need to deal with in my new form. “I need to go to the bathroom.”