"Hey."

Seth woke up, turning onto his side to see Dad's face staring back at him.

"How are you feeling?"

"My pain is so incredibly severe that I can't think of any words that accurately describe how horrible I feel."

In a heart rending moment, Seth saw his firm as a rock Dad cry. Dad gently wrapped his arms around Seth's neck, and held Seth's head against his chest.

"Seth," he sobbed, "didn't I tell you how dangerous this was?"

"I was an idiot Dad," he cried, "a stupid, teenage idiot."

"Did... did many people find out?"

"No," Seth croaked. "Wyatt, Zoey, and three of her friends."

Seth wheezed. "I wanted so long to date her. She was my crush. Now... now that's all gone."

"No," Dad tried to reassure. "This is really horrible, but your life can still go on. At... at least it was before a lot of people came."

Seth tearfully nodded.

"I'm... I'm glad that Mom got me," he said. "I... I can only imagine if my ex-mom had been around for this."

"Seth," Dad swallowed, "I told you not to call Tiff that."

"She was a deadbeat a**hat and a half," Seth said. "Good Mom thankfully got me out of there and kept me from completely falling apart."

Dad hugged Seth again, and Seth squirmed as he felt his now long hair brushing up against his back.

"Do you... do you want to get up?" Dad asked. "Getting up and moving will help you feel better. It's already 1:30."

"No," Seth refuted. "It won't."

"I'll let you sleep a bit longer then," Dad said.

He got up, and turned Seth's bedroom light back off.

"We all love you Seth," Dad said as he opened the door. "I'm not mad that you did this. I... we're going to do everything we can to make things work out."

Seth just buried his face in his pillow, and wished that this was a horrible nightmare, or simulation, that he'd wake up from and realize that he was in some post-apocalyptic wasteland that he had to save as a bada** action hero. And a man.

*****

Seth woke up to his stomach groaning, but thankfully, it was not from gene juice.

He slowly got out of bed, and gestured for the lights to come on. He walked up to one of the walls, and with a quivering lip, said, "mirror."

A rectangular patch of the wall in front of him lost its beige tone, and became a reflective mirror.

For a moment, Seth was gripped with terror, and averted his eyes.

He hugged himself with his arms, which unfortunately made him aware of what was on his chest.

"No," he whimpered, "I need to look."

He slowly looked back at his reflection. He maintained his gaze, but he was shaking.

In the mirror was an eighteen year old girl. He could see his familiar face, but it looked much more feminine. There was no trace that he'd ever had facial hair. His jawline was different.

His dark brown hair now cascaded halfway down his back. His shirt tented out, obscuring what he knew was there.

Taking a deep breath, he pulled up his shirt. It felt like he was flashing himself.

There sat two female breasts.

He slowly lowered his shirt, groaning long and deep in his throat.

This impulse to look at what had happened spurred him further. He didn't want to see it. He couldn't bear to think of what was down there.

Gritting his teeth, he dropped his pants.

What he saw was horrible, and unmistakable.

It was true. Seth was no longer a he, but a she.

His body felt like it was going to shut down from how in shock it was. Despite that, he forced himself not to turn away or shut his eyes. This was him now. It was his body. And he'd need to come to terms with it eventually.

He tried to be brave, but soon felt himself getting sick, and had to cover himself again.

Once, Wyatt, Skylar, and Seth had dared each other to play as girls in a VR game. It had felt really weird, but it didn't prepare him at all for this.

This horrible, sudden escalation in Seth's pain made him want to crawl back into bed and stay there. But he hadn't been able to sleep very much in the last few hours, and he felt really hungry.

It was time to confront this.

Seth walked down the hallway, and found his family in the living room watching a movie on the wall.

Their eyes all turned on him, and he instinctively recoiled, going back down the hall.

"No Seth," Mom said, grabbing him. "it'll be alright."

Mom held tightly onto him, pulling him along, and settling him onto the couch.

Seth avoided looking at Dad, and especially Lily. He simply hung his head in shame.

He briefly opened his eyes to see that Mom was folding out the table on the couch, and she set a plate with steak and potatoes down on it.

"I saved your dinner honey," she said in a tender voice.

Seth silently accepted a fork and knife, and for a moment, focused his mind purely on eating.

But his escape from the world around him seemed to flash by in an instant. Once Mom took the plate and utensils away, Seth resumed hanging his head down. He didn't feel like he had the will to even get back up and go to his room.

He felt the couch shift slightly as Mom sat down next to him.

"Seth honey, do you want to talk?"

"No."

"How have you been feeling?"

"I said I didn't want to talk."

"Talking will help you feel better."

Seth looke up, and finally forced himself to look into Dad and Lily's eyes.

"Nothing," he said, "will ever make me feel better. Especially not any of you." He cringed. "Or anyone else," he added.

"Seth," Lily teared up, "I promise I'm not gonna laugh at you or anything, I... you've just been acting like a zombie. And I don't mean that in the way like calling you lazy, but in like the way you'd feel in a movie if someone you loved became a zombie, and -"

"That's enough Lily," Mom said.

"You're going to have to start living again," Dad said, "you can't spend tomorrow doing this too."

"Yes I can. I can do it for the rest of my life."

"You're going to feel absolutely horrible," Dad said.

Seth's facial muscles tightened up, and he began sobbing again.

"I looked at myself in the mirror," he blurted out.

No one said anything.

"And it really did happen. I'm a girl. I-I-I'm a-a g-girl."

He'd stared down at the ground, but now, he looked up to his Mom's eyes.

"This is going to last forever isn't it?" he shakily asked.

"We... we contacted DeNeticA," Mom answered. "They... they said that at the present time, they can't undo permanent -"

Seth drowned out his Mom's words with more crying. He went into full on wailing mode again.

He tried to just ignore that anything around him existed.