The familiar and unfamiliar face stared back at Levar from the mirror. He had once had a mustache and goatee which added to his imposing physique as a fullback on the football team. But since Second Puberty started, they just grew back wispier and wispier every time he shaved. Now, a week after the last time he shaved, his dark brown skin was perfectly smooth.
It wasn't just facial hair that was different. His face was slightly off in a lot of ways. It didn't look wrong or anything, but it was no longer familiar. His nose was a bit smaller, his lips a bit plumper, his chin a bit smaller, his cheekbones rounder... He stared at himself for a long time, trying to find everything different. It was scary, and what was scarier was that, as it happened slowly, it was getting harder to remember what he used to look like.
He stripped down and prepared to shower, inspecting himself as he did so. The muscles he had worked on so hard to maintain were slowly vanishing, melting away, making Levar skinnier and skinnier every day. But the biggest surprise came when he checked the measuring tape he had put on the wall. He had shrunk. From 6'2 when he last checked he was now 6'0. Combined with the loss of muscle mass, he had never felt this weak and fragile. And his chest... there was no escaping it anyway. It was flabby. Puffy.
Forgetting the shower, Levar sat down and buried his face in his hands, taking deep breaths. What was it Dr. Burton said? Breathe. Accept. Embrace. He felt a pang of jealousy as he remembered Carol from the group. How big was she going to get? He had worked since he was a teenager to be an athlete, but she looked like she was getting a bodybuilder's physique overnight. Would she be playing football too?