The bathroom light buzzed overhead. Sam sat on the cold tile, his back against the tub, knees pulled up, still panting like he’d run a marathon. His heart wouldn't stop pounding. His hands — Jo's hands — wouldn't stop trembling.
The medallion lay like a cursed coin on the sink. It hadn’t moved. But something about it watched him, like it knew.
He was still Jo. All of Jo.
That freckled face. The tan skin. That arrogant jawline and annoyingly perfect shaggy blonde hair brushing his shoulders. Sam could feel the air against his skin, and it wasn’t his skin at all.
He stood up on legs that weren’t his and walked barefoot down the creaky hallway, every step unfamiliar. Even the way Jo walked was different — looser, cocky, balanced like a ballplayer. The way his muscles shifted under the skin with every step made Sam feel like he’d stolen something too big to carry.
He made his way into the living room, where an old boxy eMachines desktop sat on a rickety desk made from stacked cinderblocks and a warped slab of plywood. The monitor flickered faintly — the kind that took 10 minutes to warm up, always humming like it wanted to die.
Sam turned it on. The boot-up screen sputtered to life with a grinding click from the hard drive. It was hooked up to the neighbor’s weak Wi-Fi — a miracle when it worked.
As the browser struggled to open, Sam stared at his reflection in the black screen. Jo Tanner looked back. Still.
He muttered under his breath. “Please be a dream. Please just be... a really awful dream.”
But it wasn’t. His breathing told him that. The way the shorts clung to his new hips told him that. The strange, powerful ease in his joints told him that. He was Jo Tanner. Somehow.
The homepage loaded after what felt like a year.
Search bar.
Sam typed with trembling fingers:
“Medallion transformation pain necklace turns into someone else?”
Enter.
Pages loaded slowly. A few nonsense pages, fanfics, weird forums.
But one stood out.
The Medallion of Zulo: Body Transformation Artifact - Known Behavior and Rules
(metamorphose.org)
He clicked it. The page opened with grainy images of old artwork and walls of dense text.
The Medallion of Zulo is a known magical artifact originating in speculative transmutation lore. Users report involuntary body transformation when the medallion comes into contact with garments previously worn by another individual...
Sam swallowed hard.
Transformations occur gradually and continue as long as the medallion remains on the user. Should the medallion be removed during the process, the transformation locks in its current phase for a twelve-hour period.
There it was. His eyes caught on the sentence, blood chilling in his veins.
“Twelve. Hours.”
He leaned back in the crooked desk chair, letting the weight of that settle over him like a heavy blanket. His legs twitched nervously. He had eleven more hours of being Jo. Just Jo.
Additional reports include minor mental resonance or behavioral mimicry from the person whose clothing is used. These effects are usually temporary unless prolonged exposure occurs.
Sam stared at that sentence. Mental resonance. His stomach flipped. Was that why he had nearly smirked earlier? Why he felt like walking tall? Would Jo's personality start leaking in?
His eyes darted around the page. More details:
The medallion cannot cause death.
Does not work on menstruating or pregnant individuals.
Cooldown: 12 hours per use.
Only one transformation active per user at a time.
None of it helped. The weight in his gut only got heavier. He leaned closer to the screen. It reflected Jo’s freckled face again. He hated seeing it, hated being it. And yet… underneath the dread, underneath the shame — a quiet thrill curled like smoke in his chest.
He didn’t feel scared walking around this house. Not like Sam always did. As Jo, he felt like the kind of kid who could fight back if someone kicked in the door. That was disgusting. He hated that feeling.
But God… it felt good.
Sam covered his face with both hands and groaned.
You are not him. You are not Jo. You are Sam.
But the line between them blurred more by the minute.
He glanced at the time on the toolbar.
7:12 PM.
That meant this ended around 7:12 AM.
He had all night stuck like this.
He stood up and paced the room, body moving too smooth, too confident. His voice kept echoing in his head. That Jo-tone. That Jo-walk. He wanted to scream.
This wasn’t just stealing someone’s skin — this was living in it.
He ran back to the bathroom, grabbed the medallion, and tried putting it back on.
Nothing. No pain. No glow. Just cold.
He tried holding Jo’s shirt again, the one from the gym bag. No effect.
That was it. He was locked.
12 hours.