---
Before, I was Collin Hayes.
Badge number 4172. Five years on the force. Clean record. Big ambitions.
I wasn’t reckless at first. I followed procedures. Filed reports. Logged license plates. Took photos from across the street. The orphanage looked ordinary—too ordinary. Bright murals. Donations listed on a clean website. Friendly volunteers who smiled just a little too hard. But every week I saw it: people going in after dark. Adults. Teenagers. Sometimes families. And none of them ever came out.
When I brought it up, my partner went quiet. My sergeant changed the subject. The chief finally pulled me aside and told me, flat out, to let it go.
“Some things are above our pay grade,” he said. “This one will get you killed.”
I should have listened.
But I wanted to be a detective. I wanted to matter. I wanted to prove I was more than just another uniform taking reports no one reads.
So I went alone.
---
I broke in during what I thought was a transfer night. Instead, I walked into candlelight, chanting, and a symbol carved into the floor that made my head ache just to look at. Hooded figures turned toward me in unison. At the center stood the cult leader—calm, almost amused—as if I had arrived exactly when expected.
I shouted commands. Drew my weapon. The ritual stopped.
That was my mistake.
The air went heavy, like my lungs were filling with wet cement. Pain hit me everywhere at once—deep, internal, wrong. I fell to my knees as the cult leader screamed in rage, not fear.
“You break what cannot be paused,” he said. “So you will finish it.”
---
The change started inside me.
My chest burned as bones shifted, ribs creaking as if being reshaped by unseen hands. My shoulders narrowed. My voice cracked once, twice—then came out higher, thinner, unfamiliar. I clawed at my uniform as my body softened beneath it, muscle draining away while my frame compressed and reformed.
The worst part was lower.
A deep, hollow pulling sensation tore through me as something rearranged. My manhood didn’t vanish in a flash—it withdrew, inverted, rewritten by magic that treated my body like clay. I screamed until my throat gave out, until there was nothing left but gasping silence and a new, alien ache between my legs.
Then came the symbol.
Heat seared my stomach, and I watched in horror as a glowing mark burned itself into my skin—a looping sigil that pulsed like a heartbeat. Every throb sent a wave of nausea and dread through me, instinct whispering truths my mind refused to accept.
Around me, the cultists began to change too—but not like me.
They shrank. Collapsed inward. Robes pooling on the floor as their bodies regressed rapidly, skin smoothing, limbs shortening, voices dissolving into infant cries. Within minutes, the room was filled with newborns where adults had stood.
The cult leader staggered, clutching his head, furious and terrified.
“You will carry what we meant to release,” he cursed. “You will be the vessel.”
Then everything went black.
---
I woke up in a hospital.
Female. Officially. Legally. Medically impossible, they said—but undeniable.
The symbol was still there.
It took weeks—months—to understand the curse. The truth came slowly, painfully, through accidents I still dream about.
A hand on a shoulder. A hug meant to comfort. A moment of contact.
Regression. Pregnancy. Birth.
No memories survived the process. Not names. Not faces. Not love.
I lost my girlfriend first. Then my best friend. Then two officers who tried to help me before I knew what I was.
By the time I disappeared from my old life, Collin Hayes was listed as deceased.
---
Now, I live under a different name.
Colena Westgate.
A woman people see as perpetually pregnant, perpetually tired, perpetually alone. No one asks too many questions. They never do.
I moved cities. Changed documents. Learned how to live with a body that feels both like a prison and a responsibility. I learned control—gloves, distance, rules I never break. I learned how to deliver babies safely. How to endure the physical and emotional toll of bringing someone into the world knowing they will never know who they were.
Eventually, people started coming to me.
The terminally ill. The hopelessly addicted. The ones who begged for a clean slate when nothing else worked.
I don’t advertise. I don’t charge money. I make them sign forms that explain everything I can explain without sounding insane.
Some call it mercy.
Some call it monstrous.
I don’t know which is right.
---
Epilogue
Some nights, I dream I’m still a cop.
I’m walking the beat. My badge feels solid on my chest. My voice sounds like mine. I’m chasing leads instead of fate. I wake up with my hands on my stomach, feeling the faint pulse of the symbol beneath my skin, and the dream collapses.
I miss my old life every day.
But I also know this: the cult wanted power. They wanted domination. They wanted to erase people without consequence.
Instead, they made me something that chooses.
I don’t forget who I was.
I don’t forgive what they did.
And I make damn sure every new life that comes from this curse starts without suffering.
I may not be a detective.
But I still protect people.
Just… not in the way I ever imagined.