I signed up for the karaoke contest as a joke.

Not because I was drunk. Not because I believed in “stepping outside my comfort zone.” I signed up because the flyer said, in Comic Sans no less:

“WIN BIG! CONFRONT YOUR DESTINY!”

And I thought, Well, that’s ominous and stupid. Perfect.

My name’s Harper Wren. Twenty-six. Male. Allegedly. My dating apps are set to “open to women and chaos,” and my idea of dressing up is changing into a hoodie that doesn’t have cat hair on it. I’m lanky, pale, chronically sarcastic, and aggressively forgettable.

So when I walked into the Lucky Fox Tavern with a Sharpie name tag that said HELLO MY NAME IS: Nobody Special, I didn’t expect much.

The place was packed with people who did expect things—aspiring vocalists, people in rhinestones, that one girl who really wanted to relive Glee. And then there was him.

The emcee.

He stood in the back corner under the antique chandelier. Velvet suit. Pocket watch. Too-tall top hat. Rings on every finger. He looked like what would happen if a magician and a tax auditor had a baby and fed it only cursed cabaret.

When I signed the list, he was watching.

His smile didn’t reach his eyes, but it curled like smoke.

“Going to show us who you really are tonight, Harper?”

I blinked. “How do you know my name?”

He tapped the list. “You wrote it.”

“…Right.”

That should’ve been the moment I left.

I sang. Badly.

A brutal rendition of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know,” complete with a missed bridge, cracked high note, and near-murder of a microphone stand.

People clapped. Mostly because they were polite. Or confused.

I took a bow, flipped the crowd off (gently), and went to nurse my shame with warm whiskey and mild existential dread.

That’s when I saw her.

Avery.

I didn’t know her name yet. She took the stage next, wearing black jeans and an oversized band tee like she wasn’t trying. Her voice? Soft. Smooth. The kind of voice that makes you want to cry and then write a poem about crying.

She sang a song I didn’t recognize—something haunting, something low. I think it was in French. Or a spell.

I stared at my drink, trying not to feel anything.

But when the results came in, the spell broke.

They didn’t even call it “last place.” They called it “least resonant.”

Me.

Avery won, obviously. Deservedly. She didn’t even look smug about it.

The emcee strutted on stage and raised her hand like she’d won a wrestling match.

“And now,” he said, with too much glee, “to reward not just our star… but our specter.”

Everyone blinked.

He looked straight at me.

“Harper Wren,” he said. “For your performance—such raw vulnerability—you’ve won our transformative experience.”

And then he snapped.

Like, fingers-in-the-air snapped.

Like a stage magician pulling a rabbit out of your entire soul.

And everything changed.

The sound of my jeans tearing apart wasn’t loud, but I felt it like thunder.

My body twisted. Not painfully. Just… like Play-Doh being nudged into another shape.

Clothes shimmered. Shifted. Folded in on themselves and reshaped into something else. My hoodie slithered down into an off-shoulder black romper with pink glitter pinpricks across the chest. My shoes vanished into platform boots that hugged newly reshaped calves.

I gasped—and heard the wrong voice.

Soft. Feminine. A little breathy.

I looked down.

Curves.

Boobs.

A waist. Hips. Skin too smooth to be mine.

The romper clung to my new body like it had been grown in a lab for maximum aesthetic appeal. The boots were knee-high, shiny, and deadly. My arms—slender. My fingers—manicured. My hair—long, dark, with streaks of bubblegum pink cascading down like I was born to pose under neon lights.

The bar froze.

“Holy sh*t!” someone screamed.

“Oh my god, it’s like… Sailor Moon but horny!”

I turned and ran.

Or tried to.

Platform boots are not made for existential terror.

I locked myself in the bar’s grimy bathroom stall and stared at the mirror for what felt like an hour.

She stared back.

Big eyes. Glossy lips. A cute little nose. She blinked when I did. Trembled when I did.

The voice was wrong.

The body was wrong.

And somehow… it wasn’t.

It wasn’t just wrong.

It was terrifyingly easy to move in.

The way my arms sat against my sides. The bounce in my step. The urge to pose. My hips knew what they were doing. My reflection didn’t look confused at all.

That scared me more than anything.

Avery knocked on the bathroom door.

“Harper?”

I didn’t answer.

“You’re not alone,” she said. “You know that, right?”

“…Why are you even here?”

“You fainted.”

“That tracks.”

“Also… I think this is my fault.”

The door creaked open. She stepped in slowly, palms up. She didn’t stare at my chest. She didn’t freak out. She just sat down beside me on the grimy tile.

I asked, “Why would this be your fault?”

She winced. “When I signed up, the emcee asked me to describe my ‘ideal stage partner.’ Just for fun, he said.”

I narrowed my eyes. “What did you say?”

“I said… I dunno. Someone fun. Someone who doesn’t mind glitter. Sassy. Surprisingly soft. Cute boots. Bad decisions. The usual.”

I looked down at myself. At the glitter romper. The boots. The hair.

“Oh my god,” I whispered. “I’m your dream girl.”

She smiled—small and guilty.

“You’re someone’s dream girl,” she said. “I didn’t know it would do anything.”

The emcee wasn’t in the bar anymore.

Of course he wasn’t.

Avery helped me to her car. I sat with my knees together. Automatically.

She didn’t ask questions.

She didn’t press.

She just let me exist.

And that night, when I stood in her bathroom brushing my teeth with her spare toothbrush and wearing an old hoodie that no longer fit across my chest, I looked in the mirror again.

She was still there.

This new Harper.

She looked sad.

But not angry.

And maybe, somewhere behind those big dark eyes, she was wondering how long she’d been waiting to exist.

We didn’t call it dating.

At first.

We called it “trauma bonding.”

I stayed at her place for a while. Until the panic wore off.

She helped me shop for jeans that actually fit. Taught me how to walk in platforms without eating pavement. And when my voice cracked and I panicked mid-sentence, she just said, “You don’t owe anyone normal.”

She didn’t ask me to kiss her.

But I did.

Because she looked at me like I was real.

Three weeks later, we went back to the Lucky Fox.

The emcee was waiting at the bar.

Same rings. Same hat. Same smile like a hook under your ribs.

“Well, well,” he said. “Look at you, Harper. A woman of the spotlight now, hmm?”

“I want to undo this,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

He slid a cocktail napkin across the counter. On it was a crude sketch. Me—my old self—alone. In shadow.

Then he drew the new me.

In glitter. In pink.

With Avery.

“What’s a curse,” he said, “if it gives you everything you didn’t know you wanted?”

“I didn’t choose this.”

“You did, actually. You signed up. You mocked the stage. You begged the world to see you.”

I gritted my teeth. “Change me back.”

He looked to Avery.

She didn’t speak.

But she took my hand.

And I didn’t let go.

The emcee’s eyes gleamed.

“Very well,” he said. “But remember: sometimes we become who we are only by losing who we were.”

And with a wink, he vanished.

He never came back.

I stayed.

So did Avery.

And the girl in the mirror?

She stopped looking so scared.

She started smiling back.

End.