TheXtra Path

Grits: Hey, Reya. You gonna jump on chat?
Killer: She’s just stalling. She just doesn’t want to reveal she’s actually a guy.
Quincy: Who did I make that bet with that Reya’s a guy?
Mog: That’d be me. I’m starting to regret it.
Killer: Mog, Mog, Mog. You forgot Rule 37: There are no girls on the internet.
Grits: Haha.
Mog: Lol, so true.
Reya: You guys are mean. Give me a couple of minutes. My headphones just came in the mail.
Quincy: Hurry, we’re starting soon. I also want to cash in on that bet.

Simon smiled as he opened the package. Inside were pink headphones. As a joke, he told his online friends that he was a girl. He always played as the female characters in games, and he kind of wanted to experience what it felt like to be treated as a girl online. He had been able to pull it off so far, but the group recently decided to use voice chat.

Simon decided to go all in with his prank. He plugged the headphones in and opened the software that came with it: a high-quality voice changer.

“Hello, hello,” Simon said, testing the software. A female voice echoed back. He smiled and played around with the settings until he found a voice he was happy with. The program didn’t just change the pitch, but it also changed the way he spoke to sound more feminine. He didn’t sound like a guy with a high voice but like a regular girl in her early twenties.

Simon’s heart raced as he logged back into the game with the voice changer active.

“Reya’s here, reporting for duty,” Simon said.

“Welcome Reya. This is Grits. Looks like Mog gets 100 gc from Quincy.”

“A small price to pay to have a sexy girl on the team. So Reya, want to meet up in real life?”

“Don’t be a creep, Quincy. Oh, this is Mog by the way. Nice to meet you, Reya.”

“Being nice just because she’s a girl is equally creepy. Killer here. I can’t believe you broke the rule, Reya. Miracles do exist.”

“Nice to finally meet you guys. So, um, now that it’s established that I’m a girl, can we go play the damn game?”

After two hours of playing, the awkwardness of imitating a girl wore off. Simon got used to Quincy’s creepy flirting, and Mog being overly polite and protective. Killer joked around and made the whole group remain lighthearted, while Grits filled the captain role and issued instructions.

Simon heard the phone ring through his computer. “Just a second guys, I’ve got a call. Be right back.” Simon disconnected from the voice chat and turned off the voice changer. “Hello?”

“Hello? Who is this? This is Simon’s number right?” Simon’s mom said on the other line.

Simon’s mind went blank as he checked that the voice changer was off. His voice still sounded like a girl. “Um, my name is . . . Reya. Simon’s in the restroom right now and he asked me to pick up the phone.”

“I see,” Simon’s mom said. “You seem like a nice girl. Will you keep an eye on my son? I get so worried; he’s off at college alone, you know?”

“Sure, uh, no problem,” Simon said. It was strange to act like a stranger to his own mother. “I’ve got to go. Nice talking with you.”

“Nice to meet you too, Reya. Tell Simon I called. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye.”

Simon took a deep breath to calm down. He removed the headphones and said, “Testing, testing, one, two, three. What the crap!?” His real voice sounded like a girl. “How is this even possible?”

Simon quickly made an excuse to the other players and logged out of the game. He completely turned off the voice changer and shut down his computer. Still sounded like a girl. Simon felt the fear creep into his stomach as he paced around.

“So, now I sound like a girl but look like a guy? Will it wear off? Will I be stuck like this forever? Some kind of freak? I need to calm down. Talking to myself with this cute voice is so strange.” He put his hand around his throat; his heart dropped.

Simon rushed to the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror. His throat was completely smooth; his Adam’s apple was gone, or at least much smaller. And, for some reason, his brown eyes had turned green. “Okay, Simon. This is no time to panic. Ah, it’s even weirder to watch myself talk in the mirror.” His voice didn’t match his face at all. He took out his phone. Should he call his parents? A doctor? What would he tell them? A computer program changed his voice? “Maybe I can change it back with the program.”

Simon put his phone away and went back to the computer. He started the program and changed the voice back to male. His voice went back to normal on the computer, but not his real voice. Not losing hope, Simon figured it would take a little while to work. He started to play a single-player game and talked to himself.

An hour passed and Simon’s throat began to dry out. His voice still sounded like a girl. He decided to take a little break and get a drink of water. As he stood up, he felt a sense of vertigo as the room spun around him. “The stress is probably getting to me.” He massaged his head to clear his headache on the way to the kitchen. He opened the cupboard and casually reached up to grab a cup. He missed.

Simon’s senses jolted. He looked at his hand reaching towards the top shelf where the cups were. Usually, he could easily reach them, but now he was a couple of inches short of it. He climbed onto his toes and barely got a cup, but he was no longer thirsty. He nervously rummaged through the drawers until he found a tape measure. 5’6″; four inches shorter than he was before.

Because of the vertigo from before, Simon hadn’t noticed his different perspective or that his pants no longer fit properly. He rolled up the pant legs and tightened his belt. His shirt was also loose, especially around the collar, so much so that it kept on slipping around his shoulder.

“Girl’s voice, getting shorter, and slimming down.”

Simon wanted to curl up in a ball and disappear. He didn’t want to think about what was happening to him. He felt something brush past the nape of his neck. Thinking it was a fly, he brushed it away. As a result, he received a fistful of hair.

He rushed back to the bathroom. His dark short hair had been replaced with a light shade of green, which flowed down to his shoulders. It was almost the same style and color as . . . “No way. I’m turning into Reya.”

Just then, Simon felt pressure in his chest. He groaned; he had made Reya very busty, which was one of the reasons the others thought he was a guy. Simon stretched out the shirt’s collar, so he could see his bare chest. His pecks became rounder until they formed nice smooth orbs. Then, those orbs began to swell. And swell. They grew until they pressed against his shirt, stretching it out even more. They weighed heavily on his shoulders and hurt whenever he moved. He clutched them to keep them still; they were soft like a pillow, but it also felt odd as it was a new body part.

With a shaking now-feminized hand, Simon felt between his legs. Gone, or rather, replaced with something new. He also felt his butt, hips, and legs develop into a more feminine form. Looking back into the mirror, his face had changed to that of a pretty girl. He now looked, sounded like, and was physically a girl.

He fell to the floor, trying but failing to hold his tears in. He sat holding his knees for a long moment. He didn’t know what to do. With shaking hands, he grabbed his phone and made a call.

“Hello . . . Simon?”

“Mom, I’m in trouble.”

---

“Reya here, reporting for duty,” Reya said over the voice chat.

“Hey, welcome back,” Grits said. “Everything okay? You’ve been gone for a month.”

“Yeah, I had stuff to deal with.” Memories of being tested and of being counseled on how to adapt to the changes flashed through his mind. He . . . no, she shook it off. This was her fun time to forget about everything. “Anyway, how’s everyone been? Everyone still here?”

“Not much has changed,” Mog said. “Though you might be surprised by something. Killer is actually . . .”

“Hey, don’t give it away,” a girl said over the mic. “Well, I guess that did it. I’m Killer.”

“Weren’t you the one saying that there’s no such thing as girls on the internet?” Reya said, admittedly a little surprised.

Killer laughed. “Yeah, just trying to play coy. I’ve had a few too many bad experiences where guys immediately lose a few brain cells whenever a girl is present. coughQuincycough”

“I heard that,” Quincy said.

“When I heard you were coming back, I decided to reveal myself, just so you wouldn’t be the only girl here.”

“I’ve been wondering,” Grits said. “How did you do that? You sounded exactly like a guy.”

“I downloaded a voice changer and practiced a lot speaking like a guy. Kind of silly, huh?”

Reya laughed. “You have no idea.”

---

Author’s Note: This is a story I wrote back in 2016. It’s one of my favorites, so I wanted to update it a bit. By the way, here’s the original image, plus the AI remake.

YouTube: