Tracy stared at the dice in his hand, still not quite able to believe that the it really was him. Seeing the large, masculine fingers with their short nails was so strange and when he turned his head he got a look at himself in the mirror. Seeing a big, muscular guy staring back was quite the shock, but what made it even more strange was how, once he stopped really thinking about it, it didn't feel that strange to be a guy. Up until they had started the game he had been an ordinary girl in college and now he was a guy and it wasn't like he was a female version of himself, no, his reflection was like that of a stranger, still tall, but muscular, bulky even, and to make matters worse, he had abundant body hair. If there was one thing that Tracy considered a turnoff in a guy, it was body hair.
Tearing his attention away from his reflection, Tracy looked at his friends and instantly felt bad about having been so distressed by his changes. Sandra with her strange mixture of animal features, Samantha with her huge milk filled breasts and little baby Emily all had it far worse than him. He at least looked normal, even if he wasn't exactly who he was supposed to be.
But would that last past his rolling the dice? So far the game had been almost kind to him, or at least kind compared to what it had done to his friends, but there was no telling how long that would last. If he had been asked he about it he would have said that he believed the game to have a sense of humor, what it had done to the others showed that, but he was also sure that it wasn't the kind of humor that most people found funny. If the game was a person, it was the sort of person that he would never want to be friends with.
Realizing that the others were looking at him, he shrugged and rolled the dice, wincing when he saw them land on a pair of ones.
"Well, that sucks," he grumbled, his deeper voice surprising him as he spoke, "Let's just hope Sandra rolls better."
With what he hoped was a brave smile he picked up his card to see what the game was going to do to him this time around.
"Alright," he cleared his throat, "Here's what I got and it's a tough one: 'Pick a friend or yourself - To go back to how they were at the start - Only one of them or just you - Making the choice will be the hardest part'."
As much as he wanted to have it be himself, he had just been thinking about how his friends had it worse. Did he want to be selfish and go back to normal or use it on Sandra who was looking at him with her wolf ears lowered and her eyed wide and fearful? What about Samantha, who had suffered mostly mental changes so far and was looking at him suspiciously? Of course if he wanted to think about who had it the very worst, that would have been Emily, even if her changes were mostly her own fault for trying to break the rules and antagonizing the game? Then again, could he blame her for how upset she had been? If the game hadn't made an example of her would he have freaked out just like her? Really, any of them could have ended up in her situation.
Just as he was about to make his choice a muffled ringing interrupted his thoughts. Samantha and Sandra quickly checked their phones, but of course it wasn't theirs. Tracy recognized the ring tone and it was coming from the closet where he had discarded his clothing when he started to change into a guy.
Without thinking, he got up and retrieved his phone, wincing when he saw the number the call was from, "It's Rick. I was supposed to study calculus with him tonight for the big test next Tuesday."
"Ouch," Sandra winced, her tail twitching, "I took that class last semester. It's a hard one."
"I know," Tracy moaned, "Rick's going to be so pissed off if I don't study with him. Studying together is the only reason the two of us have been passing so far."
Samantha adjusted her hold on Emily and shook her head, "Yeah, but how will your boyfriend respond to you looking the way you do now? Not well I bet. Or do you want to hope that Rick's either the world's most accepting guy ever or secretly bi? Let the phone ring, see if he leaves a message and take things from there."
Sandra nodded, "Unless you want to use your card on yourself."
And tempting as that sounded, Tracy wasn't sure if he could make that choice. It was Samantha who he was the most worried about right now. With all her mental changes, he was worried about what would happen if she won the game. Just the way she was holding Emily protectively against her massive breasts was enough to set off alarm bells in his head.
"Sorry Sandra," he whispered, "I'm using the card on Samantha."
For a moment she glared at him, then her expression turned to one of confusion as her breasts deflated from the size of basketballs to their previous b-cup size, leaving her oversized shirt hanging loosely off her.
She shook her head, looked down at Emily, then looked at the others with wide, frightened eyes, "That was awful. The things I was thinking. I wanted to stay the way I was, worse, I wanted to keep Emily this way. Can you believe it? That I'd even think about doing something like that to one of you? And when you got that card, before you used it on me I didn't want you to. Just thinking about it was starting to make me mad. I was thinking that - "
"Calm down," Sandra cut her off and gave her a hug, "It's all good now. You're back to normal and we can get through this together."
Tracy nodded, ready to say something until he caught sight of movement out of the corner of his eye. Looking down he saw Samantha's piece slowly moving across the board until it was back on the first square, "Shit! That sent you back to the start!"
"No!" she looked down and winced, "This is bad."
"Yeah, but we've learned something," Sandra said as she reached for the dice, "Reversing changes reverses progress."
"So, in case anything like that comes up again, let's think strategy," Samantha added.
"I see where this is going," Tracy said approvingly, happy that they were all on the same page and had a game plan, "Barring worst case situations reversals will be used on whoever's farthest from the goal."
"And we'll be more careful of mental changed from now on," Samantha said quickly, "If anything like that happens to me again say something, okay?"
Tracy and Sandra nodded.
"Speaking of game plan," Sandra said quietly as she shifted the dice from hand to hand, "Tracy, check and see if Rick left you a message. Maybe we can come up with a way for dealing with that too if the game takes too long."
Now confident that they could make it through the game, Tracy checked the message that Rick had left for her and shocked the others by laughing.
"This is great guys, he was calling to tell me that he's got to stay late in his genetics lab because of the fruit fly lab. He won't be able to study until after dinner, so that gives us what, two or three more hours?"
Sandra looked puzzled, "A lab that late on a Friday?"
"Ouch and yuck," Samantha said gravely, "And don't laugh. I need to take the genetics course with that lab next semester and from what I've heard it's a beast. Two years ago all the flies got out and the entire class had to opt for pass or no credit because the fruit fly lab is like a quarter of your grade. Your final presentation is based on it and pretty much half of the final exam is about the methods used."
Tracy managed to stifle his laughter, though he was still occasionally giggling with relief, "Okay, I'm going to avoid that lab then."
"Good luck with that, now let's get on with the game," Sandra brought their focus back to the moment and the predicament they were in.