“Hey Jenna, fancy meeting you here,” you said, casually sauntering up to her and her friend’s, acting as cool
and collected as you could manage.
Looking up from her current conversation Jenna then gave you a friendly little smile, saying, “Oh hey Simon,
how’s it going?” while her friend’s all glared at you with judgmental eyes, presumably already anticipating
your intentions.
“Good, good thanks. So, you been here long? I didn’t see you arrive.”
“Uh yeah, no, we only got here about 5 minutes ago; Alison’s a friend of Pete’s,” she explained, gesturing to
a pretty redhead behind her in a sparkly pink top, “So he invited us all along.”
“Ah, cool, cool. Pretty wild party though, huh?”
“Uh, yeah I guess. We just got here so...y’know...”Jenna shrugged awkwardly, causing you to inwardly kick
yourself at your poor attempt at small talk, still feeling incredibly nervous, even with the couple of drinks
you’d had.
“Ha, yeah right, of course. Sorry,” you laughed, trying your best to cover your mistake as you noticed
Brittney standing there rolling her eyes.
“So Simon, what’s this I hear about Coach Jenkins scouting you for the football team?” one of Jenna’s friends
then interrupted; Erica you were pretty sure her name was, having seen her before in one or two lectures. You
of course had no idea what she was talking about, shrugging your shoulders and looking a little puzzled as she
then hit you with the punch line, “According to Brittney here, you got quite the catch.”
“Yeah, that’s a...that’s a good one,” you weakly smiled, trying your best to cover your embarrassment as they
all burst out laughing (including Jenna, who tried her best not to), realizing you were never going to live
that incident with the football down. “Jenna, I couldn’t talk to you in private for a minute could I?” you
then asked as the giggling died down, figuring it best to move the rest of this conversation away from her out
to get you friends to somewhere you might be a little more comfortable.
“Uh, sure I guess,” Jenna replied, looking towards the rest of her group, most of whom were clearly gesturing
for her not to.
Your face however, instantly lit up when she said yes, taking it as a sign that she didn’t think you a total
douche and getting a little more excited at the prospect of actually asking her out. “Great!” you smiled,
telling yourself that there was indeed a God and that he or she was currently smiling down on you as you put
out your hand to gesture towards a much quieter spot in the overly crowded dorm.
Unfortunately you realized just then that the God’s weren’t in fact smiling on you and that they instead
seemed to be punishing you as you noticed a plain gold ring once again adorning your finger, shimmering rather
brightly just as it had done before when all of the weirdness had happened. “Oh shit, not now, now, not now!”
you screamed inside your head, quickly pushing your hand into your pocket and out of sight before anyone
noticed and turning to Jenna in somewhat of a panicked state. “Urm in second thought’s its not important. You
uh...you hang with your friends, I’ve really got to go.”
“O...okay, sure...” Jenna replied, looking a little baffled by your strange behavior as her friend’s made
scathing little remarks to one another, one even going so far as to say quite loudly, “What a freak!”
You didn’t have time to worry however, realizing that any minute you could transform into a woman in front of
an entire dorm room full of people, your earlier doubts about being crazy going right out the window as soon
as that glowing ring had suddenly magically reappeared on your finger, and that as close as you were to
actually getting somewhere with Jenna (and how you may just have blown it again), you really needed to find
somewhere to hide.
“So-sorry, I gotta use the toilet,” you flusterdly told her as you spotted the currently open and unoccupied
bathroom door, cringing to yourself as you said it (knowing exactly the kind of images it would conjure up)
but realizing that you had little other choice as you quickly turned and pushed your way past the crowd
towards it, feeling that same tingling once again up and down your spine and the heat making its way through
your veins.
“Excuse me! Coming through! Out of my way!” you yelled as sweat began to pour down your face, hearing the
sisters voices inside your head;
“You are the bearer of our legacy, let all of our strength, power, beauty and courage imbue your body, just as
it did all those who came before and so it shall all those who follow after...}” they repeated, the same
mantra as before as you pushed your way past the final group of drunken freshman and dove into the bathroom,
locking it shut and collapsing back against the door.
“Oh God, why me? Why now?” you asked yourself as you looked down at the brightly growing ring, the light
quickly getting stronger and stronger with each passing second as the fire within your body intensified fully.