Chapter 2 - Wake up -- wait, do I have to put on makeup?!

I was certain I hadn’t changed my sheets during the night, and I knew for sure I didn’t sleepwalk. So my blanket and pillow feeling softer than when I had gone to bed last night was extremely unusual. Of course, the softness just made me want to doze off and continue sleeping. Which I was about to do, until I shifted to the side and felt off. Just off. Not sick, not sweaty, not overheating nor too cold. Just off. Like if the brightness or volume settings on your computer changed, but the numbers were the same. It didn’t feel bad, just unusual, the way wearing a new shirt felt. It was at that moment I decided to sit up, not yet opening my eyes. I still rubbed them with my wrists to get the drowsiness out somewhat. It was thanks to all that movement that I properly felt what felt off. Boob jiggle. There was no way I could have boob jiggle, but I opened my eyes, looked down, and there they were.

“W-what the hell?!?!” A voice rang out across my apartment. It had come from my throat. It spoke the words I wanted to say out loud. But the voice that came out sounded nothing like mine. Where mine was gravely and rough, this one was more melodic. The growliness of it was closer to a cat’s purr than to the rumble of a drill. I felt my throat the moment I spoke, rubbing it and finding no hint of an Adam’s apple. Or any hint of facial hair. There was another important thing to address, that I was avoiding addressing to the best of my abilities, but that could only go on for so long. My skin? Coke-can colored. Okay, a shade of red close to but legally distinct enough from Coke red to not get me in trouble. I needed to know more. I had to make sure I wasn’t dreaming or hallucinating or anything like that. The nipple pinch hurt like hell. Why the fuck did I not go for my forearm?

But it confirmed that I was definitely not dreaming. This was real.

I had to go check myself in the mirror. As I got out of bed and stepped forward, instead of walking towards my bathroom at a worried but reasonable pace, I found myself plummeting to the floor, fully expecting my nose to make acquaintance with it. It didn’t.

The confusion of tripping and NOT kissing the floor hit me harder than the fall. I wasn’t sure why I had tripped, nor why I hadn’t completely face planted. I scampered up, felt my forehead, finding two hard nubs there. As for tripping? My underwear had slid down to my feet, and I tripped on it. But with that out of the way, I got myself at last into the bathroom, turning the light on to see my reflection.

The face staring back at me could have been my mom at nineteen, had she had candy-red skin, black hair, and a pair of stubby, kinda bullet-shaped horns. I had definitely shrunk. And I was definitely much more feminine than yesterday. Yes, I’m not mentioning that part of my new anatomy, but it felt... right. I was fully expecting to feel loss, sadness, confusion, pain from suddenly finding myself dickless, but no. None of that. Just a weird sense of peace. I laughed. I laughed hysterically, louder than I had ever laughed before in my life, as tears started streaming down my face.

“Whose idea of a joke is this? Everyone thinks about being a girl, everyone has that flash through their mind from time to time, so why, why did I have to wake up like this? What am I gonna tell dad? He’s gonna disown me. He was already not proud of my choice of major. I’m screwed if he sees me like this! I can’t be a demon girl!” I leaned to the side and went from sitting on the floor to lying on the floor, sobbing, holding my arms over my chest in a single-person hug. How could this have happened in the first place? There was no type of allergy that would make you wake up looking like I did. No source I could think of, as I cried and panicked on the floor, worried about what was going to happen to me. And that’s when the lightbulb went off. Grease Lord! He had to have something to do with this. There was nobody else I could think of that’d have an interest in the occult, and my current predicament was as occult as it gets. With my breathing gone from panicked to just teary, I peeled myself off the tile and approached my closet, grabbing a hoodie. It had been oversized on my original form, not by much, just enough for the sleeves to comfortably go past my wrists. That meant that in this one, I was swimming in it. I had no intention of flashing anyone, however, and thus with my improvised outfit, I rushed downstairs.

When I knocked on Grease Lord’s door, I wasn’t expecting to hear cartoony sounds of stuff falling over from inside the apartment.

“No no no, those were organised!” A muffled cry echoed out of it, not quiet enough for me to not hear it. “Coming! I’m coming, hold on!” I really hoped he wasn’t doing so in that way. Oh wait, footsteps, thank fuck. The door opened to reveal him. Greasy black hair to his shoulders, a t-shirt and jeans with a weird long coat over them, circles under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in a week.

“Yes good… morn...ing. Well, shit.” His eyes went wide; he frowned like a dog that tore up your favorite pair of shoes.

“I know you did this. I don’t know how you did this, but I know you did.” I tried to jab him with a finger to the chest. But the sleeves were so long on me, my hands didn’t make it out, resulting in him getting hit with a floppy sleeve instead. With a gulp and an awkward smile, he stepped aside to let me in.

“I’ll show you.” I walked by him quickly, giving him the space he needed to close the door and point me in the right direction.

His apartment was a mess. I felt like Godzilla walking through Tokyo trying to get around his towers of books. Piles and piles of them, barely organised, with many more in bookcases around the place. There were bundles of fabric just thrown around the place haphazardly, without care or consideration, often in very awkward spots. I hoped none of them contained worn underwear. A coffee table with a closed laptop on it felt like an island in the sea of books, with some covered-up seats near it. But as I turned to the kitchen counter, my nose caught a whiff of something. Bitter yet sweet, familiar and different. I had almost followed the smell to its source, if not for Wizard Dude clearing his throat to get my attention. I turned to face him as he gestured to the floor. Okay, it wasn’t a Human Transmutation Circle, but still a Transmutation Circle from how it looked, and it had transmuted me, a human, into a little demon lady. So I fully intended to call it one, thank you very much.

“Okay, so, last night, I tried like…” He was counting on his fingers. “Fifty? Right, yes, about fifty different demonic heritage awakening rituals.”

I shot him a look as if he had just claimed to be the second coming of Christ. “Why the HELL would you do that? HOW the hell COULD you do that?!” I threw my arms in the air in frustration, before shooting them down quickly again to pull the hoodie down. Despite its apparent size, I still had to be careful with huge movements to not flash anyone. Which I hoped I hadn’t in my little outburst. Ah great, Mister Strange Junior had a slight blush on his cheeks. I hadn’t avoided flashing him.

Deeeeeeeeeeeelightful.

“As to how, magic exists, and there are instructions. As to why, well, non-humans don’t need manuals as thick as the entire Song of Ice and Fire to cast spells.” He walked over to his laptop, opening it, and turning it to me. “So, I was hoping that I had some Other blood in me, that I was a Nihilim, so that I’d get cool demon powers.” Oh my god, he had a wolf-boy twink as his wallpaper. But it was that word that caught me off-guard.

“Nihilim? What the fuck is that?” As I asked the question, my nose was once again hit by that strange aroma. It was making me salivate. And from what I could gather it was coming from the… coffee cups from The Question? My brain cells slowly shut down as I walked over to them and just kind of stood there, taking the aroma in. I had no clue what it was, but I wanted whatever was in that cup.

“Term for Child of a Demon and Human. Nephilim is for Angel, Changeling for Fae.” He noticed me drooling and licking my lips over the cups of coffee now. I was fairly certain I’d damage his books with my saliva at this rate.

“Ah. Okay. So that was the one that worked. You’re free to take one if you’re okay with room temperature coffee.” I took him up on that offer and chugged it down as if I hadn’t drunk anything in days. I could barely describe the flavor, but the noise I made after finishing it is not one one should make in polite company. Then again, I was around Grease Lord McPotterfuck. Not very polite company. And with the cup downed, I was able to process his words at last.

“What do you mean the one that worked?” I licked my face clean to make sure no drop escaped me.

“Well, the last ritual I did required some special ingredients. The others just needed an incantation, sometimes accompanied by music. Probably why they didn’t work. This one though? It asked for a brew of four or more exotic beans in a broth form and the lactations of a bovid.” Wait, lactations? Ooooooh fuck me running. “Thus I got a vanilla soy latte with chocolate syrup, plus a hunk of goat’s cheese.”

“And I’m craving exactly what you said really badly now, which, fuck me, is very very very bad.” I cleared up one of the seats near the coffee table and sat down on it with a satisfying thud. Leather armchair, snazzy.

“Why is that bad?” he asked with a concerned look, stepping closer.

“I’m lactose intolerant!” I shouted at him, making sure not to throw my arms in the air again because I didn’t want to flash The Wizard of Grease once more. “Please tell me you can change me back and fix the cravings.” I rubbed my face, not used to the sensation of touching horns there, or how smooth and soft my face felt. It had been barely twenty minutes and the idea of going back to shaving and having rough skin already filled me with a sense of dread.

“Well…” He was wagging his finger in the air, pacing, obviously thinking. He stopped, dead in his tracks, turned around and walked into his pile of books, sinking deeper the further in he went. I was sure the floor was level. He emerged shortly thereafter, holding a tome aloft, as if he had dived for treasure and emerged out of the water with a successful find. Once upright, he looked through it. “Let me check, let me check -- ah yes, here it is! Nihilim, once awakened, can swap between their awakened and unawakened forms at will. Since Demonic magic is more based in emotions and such.” I sighed and got off the chair, standing in the middle of the room.

“So what now? Do I just will myself back?” I shrugged and he shrugged back.

“I guess? Just like, think transformy thoughts. Supposed to be like a muscle you train. Let me look for something while you try it...” I rolled my eyes at him as he dove into the fabric piles this time around, and I focused. Trying to focus all of my energies on becoming me again. On becoming me. I was humming. I was ohming. I was making goofy faces. I started making different poses. I tried whispering variations on ‘turn into me’ to try and force it.

“It’s not working! Why isn’t it working?!” I shouted towards the wizard as he poked his head out of a pile, some clothes covering it.

“What’re you focusing on?” He adjusted his glasses -- when’d he put on glasses? Did he just have a pair buried in the piles? Nevermind, I answered him.

“On becoming me again?” I shrugged, and he hummed, rubbing his chin that had about five hairs desperately trying to become a beard on it. I noticed him mumbling something to himself, but I didn’t catch what, right before he raised his eyebrow in thought while looking at me.

“Try focusing on becoming human again instead; ‘me’ might be too vague for the powers.” Too vague? How could ‘Me’ be too vague? I knew who I was supposed to be. You’re too vague, Dumbledore’s Emo High School Phase. But I did as he suggested, focusing on becoming human once more. To my surprise, a large pillar of fire appeared around me in a flash, scaring me half to death. But as it fell off, I rubbed my forehead and found no sign of horns.

“It worked! It worked!” I threw my hands in the air, but the excitement of transforming went away extremely fast. I felt itchy everywhere, and hearing my voice reminded me why I generally didn’t like speaking. Something I seemed to not have any problems with in demon girl form. The local wizard had managed to get out of his piles at that moment, but he turned around shortly after his gaze fell on me.

“Yes, it indeed did, and you were not wearing any, uhm, underwear I see.” Oh. Right. Fuck. The family jewels were on full display. Had to sort that out ASAP.