Identity Fracture

 

                “Yeah! Let’s fuckin’ get it, boys!” Sam roared at the bar one night, drink in hand with a big grin on his face as he watched his sports team win. He downed the rest of his glass and pounded the counter in celebration along with the other guys. Although he was happy to be in his natural environment, he hadn’t found much camaraderie with anyone at his school yet.

                Sam had grown up as a typical sports jock. He had a strong build, short blond hair, and excelled in various sports teams while struggling to pass his classes. As the self-proclaimed ‘King of High School,’ he hadn’t expected that he’d be any less amazing in his freshman year of college. But nobody knew who he was here, the football season hadn’t begun yet, and the classes were even harder.

                Over the first several dull months of his semester, he found himself becoming addicted to toxic masculinity-based and not-so-subtly racist influencers, and even developed an online persona that regurgitated the slop he listened to. With so many likes and followers coming his way, his confidence began to return to what it had been back in high school, and it wasn’t too long before he felt like he owned the place with every lecture hall and hallway he walked down.

                One evening in the later half of the semester, Sam noticed that a petite Asian woman was grabbing a snack off the shelf at their local student store. Without a second thought, Sam walked up and snatched it out of her hands. “Whoooopsies, better luck next time,” he sneered. “Hey! What the hell, dude?!” the woman retorted at the same time. Despite being a foot shorter than Sam, she tried to grab it back to no avail. “Screw off, China,” Sam said as he forcefully pushed her back, almost making her fall over.

                The cashier walked out from behind the counter and ordered Sam to get out. After a brief spat between the two, Sam threw the snack at the woman and started to fake a cough. “Ah shit, I think I got COVID from that,” he said, laughing to himself. The woman was glaring daggers into him as she caught her breath. Before Sam turned the corner, she marched up and yelled “Hey!” Sam turned around, and in one quick motion, the woman grabbed a fistful of powdery dust from a pouch in her purse and threw it directly into Sam’s face.

                Sam coughed and reeled back, swearing in between his hacking with his eyes shut tight. The woman darted out of the building before Sam could retaliate. Grandma taught me to do that to people like him, she thought as she walked back to her car, but…I wonder if it’ll actually do anything. Once Sam had rubbed the dust out of his eyes, he angrily marched back to his dorm. “Stupid yellow bitches,” he mumbled. “Next time I see her, or any of ‘em, I’ll teach ‘em a thing or two…” He practically kicked his door open and threw himself onto his bed in frustration, thankful that his roommate had moved out of the space a few weeks ago which left the dorm all to himself. After watching a few more YouTube videos on his phone that echoed his hatred towards independent women and immigrants, he fell asleep; although, something in his bones ached throughout the night, making it difficult to feel fully rested.

                Early the next morning, Sam went to the gym on campus before it was time to attend classes. He laid himself down to do bench presses, which was his routine start. He would often start around 250 lbs (113 kg), and was so confident in his strength that he hadn’t considered getting anyone to spot him for a while. He did a few reps with no issue, but from the moment he brought the hefty barbell down towards him several minutes later, something was clearly wrong. His arms struggled to lift the weight back up and were shaking almost frantically. Sam’s face turned red, and sweat was practically erupting from his whole body as he desperately tried to keep the weight from crushing him. When it became clear he wasn’t going to lift it back to its starting position, an embarrassed “Help!” escaped his lips; however, he was alone in the room.

                Through sheer adrenaline, Sam managed to shove the barbell off to the side using his whole body, making an alarming amount of noise as he panted and struggled to breathe. “Fuck! …FFFFuck!” Sam spat, swearing in circles. By the time someone else had come into the gym, Sam was still red, flustered, and embarrassed; he decided to leave, as he didn’t want anyone to realize that the massive barbell with scattered weights on the floor was his doing, or that he didn’t have it in him to pick everything back up.

                The gym fiasco had put Sam into a rottener mood than usual. He attended his classes but gained practically nothing from them, as all he wanted was a way to vent his frustration. Although he hadn’t noticed through his long-sleeved shirt, his biceps atrophied throughout the day, making his toned arms look thin and lanky by nightfall. When he had finally realized it shortly before bed, he couldn’t stop squeezing his biceps in fear, looking for any trace of the muscles he had built over the years.

                “What the fuck is this, what the fuck is this!” Sam continuously yelled to himself, disgusted with how his arms looked. This is pathetic, this is… “Wait…” Pathetic. Weak. There was a voice in Sam’s head. It was his own voice, but Sam had always been a person without an inner monologue. “Fuck this, my head hurts…” God, I feel so fuckin’ robbed… Sam barely slept a wink that night, overwhelmed by the developing voice in his mind which couldn’t seem to be turned off.

                Sam scowled at himself in the mirror after getting dressed the next morning, unable to find a shirt he was comfortable with. The tight ones, or the tops that revealed his arms, fully displayed how weak they had become. But feeling long-sleeved shirts billow around them also wasn’t satisfying. Everyone’s gonna think I’m a wimp, he thought, feeling more self-conscious than ever before as he walked around campus that day. Sam was constantly mumbling to himself, balling his hands into fists, and lightly pounding against walls and buildings throughout the day to help quiet the voices, if only for a moment.  

                Sam sat down at a bar later that evening, figuring that a barkeep was one of the few people he could talk to without fear of judgement. “H-Hey man, do you ever hear voices in your head? Like, your own voice? Like, uh, almost like talking to yourself in your head?” he asked after getting his drink. The barkeep responded that he did, which was a relief. Sam explained how he had just started to have the sensation, which made the barkeep chuckle and respond: “Been that way as long as I can remember. Didn’t think it just happened to people out of nowhere.”

                More of Sam’s physique thinned as he slept that night, including the hair on his body. As if the thoughts in his head weren’t already driving him crazy, both his pants and shirts looked and felt goofy on him now, although a belt seemed like a good enough fix for the time. Unable to focus through his lectures, he sought information about sudden muscle atrophy with varied results. He went back to gym that afternoon, but was only able work with weights that were much lighter than he was used to.

                Throughout the week, Sam returned to the bar to talk to the barkeeper about their inner monologues. The man assured Sam that the ‘voices’ often didn’t make sense and would often downplay themselves, while also reinforcing the fact that Sam’s actions were what made him, him, as opposed to whatever the inner voice was saying. He ended with: “No matter what some guys believe, people like us can’t actually control our thoughts. All of us get some messed up crap up there from time to time, but the thoughts don’t make us who we are.”

                Although Sam was still lamenting the condition of his body, which thankfully didn’t get any worse over the week, he slowly felt his confidence returning thanks to the barkeeper’s reassurance. “Not real,” he would remind himself whenever his thoughts veered into weird or self-deprecating places. “They’re just not real.” He even felt good about buying new clothing to either hide or fit his slimmer build, confident that he’d beef himself back up in no time with a proper routine. His confidence even pushed him to attend all of his lectures, and his note-taking had become better than ever. 

                Despite his best efforts, Sam only saw marginal improvements to his strength and body after two weeks of a rigorous workout routine. Over that time, his skin had become even softer and thinner, and his bones continued to ache as they subtly changed in ways he couldn’t notice, eventually reducing his overall height by more than an inch. The only thing that stopped him from spiraling back into madness was making a new friend at the gym, a thin nerdy guy named Kaleb who was also trying to bulk up for the first time. However, the friendship itself also became a partial cause of discomfort, as Kaleb was the kind of guy Sam would always bully and shit-talk. Kaleb introduced him to all kinds of video games and TV shows, and it was difficult for Sam to tell if he genuinely enjoyed them because of how insecure he’d become.

                “Final fuckin’ Fantasy MMO,” Sam chuckled to himself in bed one night. “So fuckin’ stupid.” Contrary to his words, he was thinking about the characters he’d seen and about what his own custom character could look like. It seems fun, he thought with a scowl. “It’s a nerdy little Japanese game,” he said out loud as if to argue with his thoughts. I could download it…

                Another week passed, and the arguments Sam had with himself grew more intense. He hated that he enjoyed hanging out with Kaleb and felt ashamed that he had downloaded the MMO onto his laptop days prior, although he had not opened the game yet. He tried to amp up his already-active gym routine and diet which only led to frustration and faster burnout, making him want to read or play games with Kaleb even more.

                That evening, while Sam and Kaleb were playing Mario Kart on the couch side-by-side, Kaleb shuffled closer to touch their shoulders. Before Sam could react, Kaleb hovered his hand near Sam’s thigh and whispered: “Hey, so, I was wondering…” Sam’s heart fluttered for a moment before he went into fight-or-flight, lurching away from Kaleb and standing up. “Dude?!” he yelled. Kaleb shrunk back into the couch with a flushed red face. Neither of them knew what to say for a moment, then Kaleb uttered: “Haha, I, uh, thought we had a good thing going here.” Anger boiled within Sam. “You think I’m fuckin’ gay? Huh?!” Sam cursed and yelled at Kaleb with a few other choice slurs. “I’ll put fuckers like you in the dirt any day of the week!” Sam punched Kaleb in the face with far less strength than he was used to, but his small fist flew fast enough to inflict a black eye. Then, he ran back to his dorm with tears streaming down his face.

                Sam angrily face-planted himself into bed, screaming and cursing at the world. “Why do I look like this?! Why do I look so fuckin’ gay and weak?!?” What happened to me?!” It was only after he ran out of the breath that the voice in his head came back for more torture. Why did I do that? He was my friend. He was nice to me. I wanted to keep playing with him… “Not real. The voice ain’t fuckin’ real,” Sam huffed; by now, ‘not real’ had practically become something he said religiously. “I don’t wanna play with gay dudes…”

                Sam felt a brutal cramp around his pelvis as he got up, frantically searching for porn. “I-I ain’t fuckin’ gay…” He dropped his pants and started to stroke his small, shriveled dick, focusing as hard as he could on the woman in the video. After failing to feel anything for a few minutes, he switched to a lesbian video, so panicked that he hadn’t realized that the developing pain in his balls was coming from his scrotum wrapping tightly around them. Bullets of sweat beaded on his forehead as he tried to power through the pain, refusing to look at anything besides the screen. He could feel vomit in his throat as his testes soon pushed up and into his body. Women, women, I only like women… I’m not…wait…

                It wasn’t long before Sam’s cock had pulled back into his body in a similar fashion, turning his stroking fist into fingertip rubbing. For the first time in a long while, Sam’s thoughts were briefly aligned with how he actually felt – Ow, God it hurts…why does it hurt so bad… Sensitive folds and tissue blossomed out of the nearly blank space between his legs, lightly wetting his fingertips as new membranes formed around the tiniest opening. The pain became too much for Sam to bear, and he threw himself out of the chair onto the floor as his lower body spasmed, slightly broadening his thin hips to give his body some curvature.

                Once the pain had finally subsided, Sam craned his neck and looked at his shaking hand, unable to believe what he was seeing. No, I had wrong earlier, the voice in his head said. I don’t like women… I am a woman. Sam groaned in sudden pain again, squeezing his eyes shut as tension gripped his body. With all of the subtle changes he’d already endured, his skeleton was primed for the finale. His bones snapped and grinded, briefly but gruesomely pushing themselves against his flesh or painfully against the floor as they quickly changed and shrunk one final time, diminishing his frame beyond recognition. He could only yell in agony as he squirmed dainty little legs out of his unzipped jeans and flailed pencil-thin arms against the floor. His hands and feet were compacting so much that he felt as if they’d burst from pressure, and he couldn’t feel his slim fingers or toes as they adjusted to new proportions.

                I-I am a woman…! “NO!” The thoughts in Sam’s head, no matter how contrary they were to how he felt, still always felt like him. But something had changed, these thoughts felt like a different entity entirely. Yes! “NO!” Sam rolled onto his side as the pain enveloped his chest and face, feeling maddening pulsings from within them. The skin across his masculine-leaning androgynous face rippled as his skull morphed, reforming his facial features as if they were made of putty. His large nose almost completely flattened into his face as his nostrils grew and flared, while his angled jaw rounded and diminished, making his filling lips look even larger by comparison. Sam thought his eyes were being pushed back into their sockets as his eyelids completely reshaped around them, turning them into sharp almonds.

                The pained groaning escaping Sam’s lips almost matched the noises from the pornstars he could still vaguely hear through the displaced headphones. Pangs of sharp pain shot into his chest as he rolled onto it, unbeknownst to the fact that he had developed a small bosom with enlarged nipples. Goosebumps and cold sweat plagued his body as its Caucasian hue was quickly enveloped by a faded yellow. His sense of time and space was shot, and he had no idea if he had been laying on the floor for minutes or hours when he tried to move again. Long, dark hair was inadvertently tugged at by his hands, and by it sticking to the sweat on his back, as he shook like a newborn fawn trying to get on his hands and knees. What happened… With a strained grunt, Sam pulled himself to sit with his back against the wall and looked down. His vision spun harder than any hangover he’d experienced, but it was obvious that something was wrong. When it finally focused on the petite body of an Asian woman, Sam screamed and flipped out – but only internally. The physical body he gazed at remained still. He could feel every miniscule fidget and twitch it made, and could feel how utterly beaten and exhausted it was, similar to a high-intensity workout. But he couldn’t move the body at all.

                “Wow,” Sam’s female body breathed. “Just…wow…” Sam himself didn’t know what to think, too many impossible things were bombarding him. Hard raps on the door startled Sam, almost making his body leap into the air. Sam tried to yell, but his lips only quivered. “Police, open up!” a voice yelled from the other side of the door. “J-Just a moment!” Before Sam knew it, words had escaped his lips, and his body was getting up and moving, albeit slowly and groggily. His body yanked a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around itself before opening the door. The police looked Sam up and down, then asked: “Have you seen a kid named Sam? We got a report of him assaulting someone…this is, uh, his room, right?” “Ohmigawd I’m so sorry,” Sam’s body spoke with unexpectedly fluid femininity, “he just left to go grab something on campus. I don’t know when he’ll be back, though.” “Alright, thanks for your help. We’ll be back later. Can we have your name, for the record?” Sam’s face became flushed for a moment before forming a vague grin. “I’m… I’m Shuchun.”

                What is going on?! What is happening?! Sam was shouting as loud as he could in his mind while ‘Shuchun’ rested on the couch, taking it all in. She abruptly replied out loud after 30 minutes: “Isn’t it obvious? I…” she laughed before continuing. “Maybe it’s not obvious. I thought I was you for a long time. I was in your head, your body, feeling everything you felt…but after a while, you kept arguing with me. I thought that was normal, too. I thought I – or you? – was talking to myself or something. But it kept happening, and happening, and happening…and you attacked Kaleb! Not me, th-that was you!” Shuchun unexpectedly caught her breath, not expecting to feel intense emotions. “A-And before that…I thought my body was changing. But it was your body. Your body was changing…because of me. And I… I must have just sped it up, I think? Hmm…”

                Give me my goddamn body back! Let me out! Let me out! Sam yelled with ferocity that was only possible without physical vocal cords. After another long moment of thought, Shuchun spoke again: “I get it now. We were never the same to begin with. I…I can even think to myself with my own voice, and the yelling in my head… is who I used to be-no, the person I used to ‘inhabit.’ You can’t hear the thoughts in my head, can you?” What the fuck are you talking about?! Give me my goddamn body back, you fucking yellow whore! Shuchun held a hand to her head and laughed. “Oh my God, that’s right, I think I came to be…after you insulted someone. A small woman, like me.” Her laughing turned into a cackle. “Karma really is a bitch!”

                Sam’s thoughts turned quiet when Shuchun threw off the baggy T-Shirt and loose boxers, then stepped into a steamy shower. He could vividly feel everything Shuchun felt despite having no control over her actions. The weight of her small breasts and hips with each turn, the long hair that tickled her narrow shoulders and back, the warmth of her inner thighs with nothing between them, and the sensitivity of her brown nipples as she molded them with soapy hands.

                Over the next few days, Shuchun emptied Sam’s bank account for all kinds of girly clothing, accessories, and hygiene products. Sam’s mental voice would vary from rage, despair, pleading, or insulting as he was forced to see and feel the world through Shuchun’s eyes and body. Her body would occasionally react to Sam’s thoughts, like a finger twitch or a quick eye dart, but he was unable to wrestle any further control no matter how hard he tried. Goosebumps also raised on her body whenever she put a little extra care into her privates from how emasculated and ashamed Sam felt. Shuchun found that it helped arouse her, knowing that the man in her head could feel how open and vulnerable she felt when she spread her legs and touched herself.

                “Ohhh! Mmm! Oooh!” Shuchun moaned one night, feeling extra devious and horny after a long week of acclimating to her new life. “Oooh yes, I’m Sam and I love…being a woman…” Sam’s mental voice was silent. It had only been a week and he had given up hope of escaping his prison. “Oooh Sammy, we’re so s-small…so cute…” Despite Sam’s hatred for his new reality, he could still feel Shuchun’s arousal. Her wet fingers inside of her body, then on her tongue. Her swollen, pinched nipples, and her smooth, lithe body on the bedsheets. This isn’t me… he finally thought out the blue, as if to remind himself that he should hate what he was feeling. “Do you think the boys liked the dress we wore today? I know the professor did…” Just the thought made Shuchun shiver with Sam’s discomfort, which only made her hotter.

                “Sammy, you’re not arguing today,” Shuchun huffed. Not real… “We’re in this together, right?” she teased, biting her lip. Not real… Her back arched off the mattress as the vibrator began buzzing. “O-aa-aahh…!” Shuchun and Sam both reveled in the bliss of a female orgasm. As Shuchun calmed down, Sam thought: If I knew you were…th-this, I would’ve tortured you, too. I should’ve fucking tortured you… Shuchun’s lips curved into a sinister smile, and she spoke as if she were talking down to a child: “Awh Sammy, you’re such a sweetheart. Do you want…me to buy us some new toys? Hmm?” I want a bullet in my skull-your skull. Shuchun squealed and chuckled warmly as she began round two.

                As weeks turned to months, Sam’s voice dimmed while Shuchun thrived living a new life that was uniquely hers. She ended up finding the woman who had thrown the dust into Sam’s face and told her everything that had happened – the woman was so thankful for the result that she ended up letting Shuchun live with her for the time being. Shuchun also made quick friends with Kaleb and dove deep into all kinds of games, books, and TV shows with her new gay bestie, proud to be the nerd that she was.

                Neither Shuchun nor Sam knew exactly when it happened, but after feeling, moving, and looking like a woman for so long on top of feeling and experiencing her emotions and sensations firsthand, Sam’s own voice and identity became indistinguishable from Shuchun herself. When she had finally realized that Sam wasn’t quipping or buzzing in her head anymore, she figured that he may have finally been snuffed out for good.

I hate being stuck in here…! Shuchun thought to herself one night, trying to mimic Sam’s voice. But it wasn’t the same. Sighing, she mumbled that it had been fun while it lasted. She could still remember things from Sam’s lifetime, but it was simultaneously hard to believe he had ever existed at all. Over a year had passed in the blink of an eye, and she had just finished celebrating her ‘birthday’ as given to her by the woman who had essentially created her. Shuchun still had a lot to figure out given that she didn’t have any valid citizenship or identification, but she was beyond excited for what the future held and didn’t take a moment, or a single aspect of her autonomy, for granted.