Brian sighed to himself as he walked through the park, wishing he had something positive to think about. It was a bit depressing to take his nightly walk through the forest near his home if he was just going remind himself about his confidence issues. Brian tended to be on the shy and timid end of the personality scale, and it usually meant that he avoided talking to people or making himself the centre of attention, or much attention at all.

Working retail had been a nightmare, and being shy and never being able to present himself confidently had lost him one job already, and he sometimes just wished that he could be somebody else, or at least someone a bit more outgoing. It wasn’t like he didn’t have friends, but he wasn’t the type to approach somebody.

He had tried the bar scene, but being unable to look anything but awkward had made that unsuccessful. In all honesty, it wasn’t that he didn’t have the looks for it, as he tried to remind himself. Tall, Short brown hair, square jaw, fit body, face that didn’t look like it had been hit by a sledgehammer, it was mostly the fact that nobody wanted to go for the guy who looked like he’d run away the moment you tried to talk to him.

Still, if he was just going to whine to himself about his problems, he felt like he shouldn’t bother coming at all, and put it out of his mind as he enjoyed the cool breeze passing by his jacket and the atmosphere of the place.

 Most people would have found the place creepy at night, and not a place they’d find themselves in unless they had a flashlight and were looking for notes pinned to trees, but Brian had been coming for years, and had gotten to the point where he didn’t even bother using the torch he brought half the time, preferring the relative lack of light of the stars and moon thanks the relative lack of light-pollution compared to the rest of the town, and his night-vision to navigate around.

He figured that he had better head back, and began to head towards the footpath when he spotted a small glint in the corner of his eye on the ground, and not the normal glass glint of a discarded beer bottle. He moved closer to it, and it seemed to be some kind of necklace. Somebody’s lost jewelry? He fished it out of the thick grass, and instead of jewelry, it was a circular rock with a hook on the end and a circle cut out of the middle on a necklace with two large pearl-like balls on it, and for some reason it reminded him of something.

He stared at it for a second before remembering what it was. A magatama, he believed? That was the correct name for it, right? It actually reminded him of the one worn by a character in the Ace Attorney series, and come to think of it, the necklace looked exactly the same, as far as he could remember, what with the colour and the extra balls next to it on the necklace. Probably just a coincidence, he thought to himself. He couldn’t imagine why you’d have a replica of it though, it wasn’t exactly like magatamas were a popular fashion accessory. Or at least the last time he checked, he wasn’t big on fashion.

He supposed he should probably give it to the police or something in case it was valuable, but he couldn’t exactly do that in the middle of the night. And it was a bit too big for his jeans’ pockets, so he put it around his neck, feeling a bit self-conscious despite the empty park. He was ready to tear it off if anybody came near when he began to feel very odd in a way he couldn’t quite explain, like his skin was trying to move on its own volition.

He tried to ignore the feeling, but it got stronger as he went on until he started to feel sick to his stomach and doubled over, a sharp spike of pain going through him. He let out a slightly high-pitched yelp as it hit him, leaving as quickly as it came, Brian panting as he brought himself back up. What the hell was that? If that happened again, he’d probably have to go check himself into a hospital or something, and in the middle of the night too…

He brushed a bit of hair out of his eyes, the sensation of it bothering him, before he realised that his hair wasn’t long enough to even touch his eyebrows, let alone his eyes. And was his hand smaller than usual, or was he just crazy? In fact, everything seemed slightly smaller… It was probably just an effect of whatever had affected him before, he reasoned, ignoring his slight lack of balance as he wandered through the taller than usual trees.

He felt the long grass brush up against his ankles, which was odd, since he was wearing jeans and perfectly normal shoes, and hadn’t felt anything before. One of the legs must have been pushed up. He looked down and bent over to correct the issue, before staring in amazement at the sight of his jeans’ legs slowly receding upwards, already starting to approach his knees, looking more like shorts at this point.

Even crazier than that was the fact that his leg hairs were quickly disappearing, leaving smooth legs that, by the look of them, were growing thinner, Brian able to feel them growing more slender, a slightly painful feeling as his bones and muscles rearranged themselves. Even his shoes were melting away, the heel growing thicker and blacker as the entire top half disappeared save for the usual straps of a pair of sandals, leaving a pair of black sandals adorning his suddenly smaller and daintier feet.

At this point, Brian was starting to panic. Whatever the hell was going on had to be a hallucination, or a crazy virus, or something, clothes didn’t just disappear like that. And what was happening to his leg? Whatever was happening, he was clearly not well, and he resolved to get to a hospital as quickly as possible.

However, he took a brief glance down again, and to his dismay he saw his jacket quickly shrinking away on the front, growing looser around his hips as the sleeves shrank back to just past his elbows, growing larger and more open, the material seemingly changing to a softer one. A quick look at his shoulders revealed that the back was perfectly intact, but from just past his shoulders down the jacket failed to cover his entire front half, and seemed to be turning a deep purple.

Brian almost discarded the altered article of clothing as he stumbled onwards, for some reason stopping himself before he could take it off. And for some reason he was glad that he had stopped himself. After all, he liked this jacket. Why did he like this jacket? It was really more of a weird coat now anyway, which was kind of neat.

Wondering between worried thoughts about why he was just accepting his new coat-thing, he almost bumped into a park-bench, starting to reach the outskirts of the forest. He sat down onto it, trying to calm down and figure out just what was going on, almost burying his head in his hands before he noticed how much smaller they were now.

Ok, so unless it was a hallucination, clothes didn’t just change on their own, and something was going on with his body. Again putting aside hallucination, it couldn’t be some weird disease. Which left what, magic? Aliens? He ignored the part of his brain telling him to look for a more down-to-earth explanation, and thought back. What had started this? He was feeling fine today before now, and it all started right after… His eyes rolled down to the magatama on the necklace he was wearing. Was it that? No, that was stupid, it wasn’t a magic necklace, magic didn’t exist.

 But it’d be really cool if it really was a magic necklace.  Some part of him thought, and before he could question why he just thought that he gave as gasp as his waist painfully cracked, pulling in as his hips pushed out, giving him what he embarrassingly admitted was a much curvier figure, his hips, while remaining fairly thin, swelling out to more feminine proportions. He also noticed that his jeans had stopped shrinking at above-his-knee height, his jacket/coat having grown longer to almost reach it, and had faded to an odd cream colour, losing its denim texture.

Ok, so magic, he thought to himself. He was turning into someone or something else, because of magic. That… Was kind of amazing, when he really thought about it. After all, that meant that magic really was real, and that… He stopped his slightly excited train of thought. It was like a much more excited person was talking, and he again wondered just what was happening to him.

He readjusted his position on the park bench, having apparently shrunken again while he was sitting. When he stood up, he guessed that he was at least a head or so shorter, and probably would have only barely reached the shoulders of his normal height. At this point, he found himself less panicked and more interested in where this was going, and his fingers went up to touch the supposedly magic necklace adorning his neck.

The moment he touched it, he felt a jarring pain in a very personal area, and a familiar feeling replaced with a different, more feminine one. He immediately surveyed the damage, and with no idea how to feel, acknowledged one fact to herself; she was now female. She wasn’t quite sure how to put that to herself, it sounded ridiculous even in her head, unconsciously having automatically changed pronouns when referring to herself.

Going over her changes so far, Brian realised she really only had one major part of his torso unaffected, and as if on cue, his shoulders painfully pulled closer together as her chest pushed out, nipples growing larger as pectorals turned to small but very apparent breasts, obvious through her t-shirt.

Ok, so she was a girl. She had just magically turned into a girl. Magic was real and it apparently did that to her. And she wasn’t freaking out. In fact, she was kind of… Ok with it? In fact, she was actually kind of excited to see what would happen to what was left, all thoughts of going to a hospital abandoned.

After a moment, her newfound patience and willingness to see the last of her changes unfold paid off, as her t-shirt seemed to merge with her jeans, the material of both growing thicker and softer, the legs of her jeans forming together into a loose skirt, the feeling of wearing what was now a dress slightly embarrassing to Brian, although one she found felt strangely natural.

The dress parted in the middle before being quickly bound by a large sash that formed around it, tying many times around it into a v-necked kimono-esque garb, the sash forming a large ribbon on the back, the colour changing to a darker purple than her coat, differentiating itself from her cream dress. Underneath it a small bra formed over her breasts, and his boxers formed into a much more suitable pair of underwear for her.

Believing her changes to be complete, Brian was about to move again when she felt her face ben to contort, his lips growing slightly thicker as her nose shrank and her features rearranged themselves into a much more feminine form. Her hair darkened to a shiny black as it grew much longer, reaching almost halfway down her back, a small bun tying itself up at the top of her scalp, bound by a purple pearl-like orb similar to the ones on her necklace. Her hair straightened out into long bangs reaching almost to her eyes, while two more chest-long bangs grew down the sides, adorned with two  more pearls at the ends.

After waiting another minute to see if she would change any more, her original fears completely forgotten in an excited interest in what had happened to her, she searched her clothes for any pockets, finding some on the inside of her coat, relieved to find that her phone and wallet hadn’t fallen out or disappeared. She went for her phone’s camera, but realised that it was too dark to get a clear picture, and checked her wallet for her driver’s license, wondering if it would have changed.

And even in the dim light, illuminated only by a single lamppost ten or so metres away from her, she was able to make out herself on her driver’s license, if not any of the words on it. And instead of his usual face staring back at him, it was the face of a young girl that couldn’t have been older than seventeen or eighteen, and thinking about her odd clothes and the magatama, she did seem to look like a non-anime version of the character Maya Fey, as crazy as it still sounded to her.

She meant, she had turned into a video game character, which was amazing! Was there a reason for it? Could the necklace do it again, but with somebody different? The thing was incredible! She slowed down for a second, thinking that the character of Maya had been what he was picturing while she was holding it and putting it on. Was that it? She had turned into somebody else just because she was thinking about it?

And thinking about turning into somebody else, she thought back to her problems that she had been thinking about just before she picked the magatama up. It felt like it was somebody completely different she was thinking about, and couldn’t imagine herself in any of those situations. Being shy, not being able to talk to people? She was fine at doing that! She realised that she seemed to have gone through some kind of a personality adjustment while she was changing, and she couldn’t see anything wrong with it. After all, she was who she was, right? She gave a quick smile at the thought, considering what had just happened to her. That definitely wasn’t something set in stone anymore.

She supposed she should be thinking more about what would happen to her after this, but right now, she wanted to take this new body for a test run. Maybe get something to eat, a fast food place maybe? Hopefully nobody would pay too much attention to the fact that she was dressed like an anime character, she thought to herself as she headed back into town, looking for somewhere to get a burger.