Scott Hanes knew it was supposed to be a challenge, but spending the night in a haunted mansion couldn't be too hard, could it?

“Alright, freshman,” Keith said, looking Scott square in the eye and not even pretending to blink. Scott wasn’t sure he could stop blinking, which was a serious condition for him after having too many beers. “Alright. You managed to not completely fuck up The Buzzed Staring Contest.” Keith turned to his buddy Terry, currently just barely awake on the couch. “Dude, mark the point!” Terry lazily reached up and made a tally mark beside Scott’s name on the whiteboard next to the couch.

Just one more to go and he’d officially be a member of the frat.

Keith patted him on the back, which nearly made him fall off his stool, but he managed to hold on just enough to not faceplant. “Good job, freshman! One more to go!” Keith got up from his own stool and uneasily wandered over to the bowl on the coffee table. “Let’s root around in here and see what we come up with for your last challenge…”

There were upwards of two hundred little slips of paper in the bowl, all courtesy of frat members and their friends, all challenges that new pledges had to pass in order to join. A pledge needed to pass six challenges randomly chosen, and Scott had just managed his fifth. First was The Streak, where he had to run through a sorority house completely naked and count how many girls screamed, how many yelled and how many stared. He counted four screams, two yells and one stare.

Second was The Flag Pole, so far the one he considered the most annoying challenge, as he had to go through an entire class using an erectile aid to stay hard the whole time. He wasn’t allowed relief, he wasn’t allowed to explain himself, he just had to have a boner for 90 minutes straight. The only good thing about it was that he usually sat in the back of the room and nobody really paid attention to him.

The third challenge was The Puke Test, where he’d had to go around the food court at the local mall, steal people’s food and eat as much as possible until he was either thrown out or he puked. Somehow, nobody kicked him out, so he went two hours eating other people’s food until he threw up on a cute girl in a purple crop top with a big rack.

Challenge number four had been The Raid, probably the easiest challenge. All he’d had to do there was sneak into the girls’ locker room at the local gym and steal as much as possible without getting caught. The only issue had been the $25 single day fee.

And then finally, challenge five, The Buzzed Staring Contest, the one he’d just managed to get through without passing out. He’d always been a lightweight when it came to drinking, something his older brothers had chided him for, but this time he got through four beers without getting steaming piss drunk, a new personal record!

And now Keith was looking for the sixth challenge, the one that would cement his place as a fraternity member if he passed, or his place as a total loser if he failed. On the plus side, he didn’t think the guys from the frat would disown him completely, as half of them were his brothers’ friends anyway. A little shade thrown his way by juniors and seniors wouldn’t send him into a crying fit.

After a great show of rummaging through the little slips of paper, finally Keith theatrically pulled it out: Scott’s last challenge. “Ready, freshman?” Keith asked. Scott nodded. “Good.” He unfurled the paper and read it silently, nodded contemplatively, then finally closed his eyes and set it down on the coffee table beside the bowl. “I hope you are ready, Scott Bartholemew Hanes, because this... This is a challenge no pledge has ever completed.”

Scott scoffed. “You’re just bullshitting.”

Keith shook his head. “No, I’m not.” He handed the paper to the guy behind him, Peter. Peter looked at it and whistled a long, slow, depressing whistle.

“No, no he’s not,” Pete said. He then handed the paper to the guy beside him, Aaron. Aaron just laughed.

“You got the big one,” Aaron said in amusement. He then passed the paper onto Terry, who let out the loudest, most guttural laugh Scott had ever heard.

Terry stood up, walked over to Scott and handed him the paper. “You. Are. Fucked.”

---

Challenge number six was The Manor, and Scott didn’t really see why it was considered such a difficult challenge. Stay one night in the supposedly “haunted” mansion just outside the city limits, something kids had been doing for decades and nobody ever came out any worse for wear. The owners didn’t even seem to care that people were doing this, supposedly they even kept the place stocked with food, it was almost like a free hotel. Scott had never been inside it, but his oldest brother had been and had lived to tell the tale. Maybe that was before he pledged to the frat.

Scott got out of his car and walked up to the front door. It was unlocked, as it supposedly always was. He expected to go inside and find some homeless people, maybe a family of raccoons or something along those lines, something easily manageable for the night ahead. It was nearly midnight and he needed to stay there until at least six, when everybody at the frat got up to get ready for classes.

He walked inside and was immediately taken aback by the decor. The owners really kept the place in good shape, considering they didn’t use it for anything.

The main hall was three stories, with the third story looking down on the second and the second story obviously looking down on the first. The staircase in the center of the room went straight up to a landing halfway between the first and second floor, then branched into two curved sections the rest of the way. Similar curves then went from the second floor to the third. A very large, very beautiful golden chandelier hung from the ceiling, so very far above.

There were two doors on the first floor, one to the east and one to the west. Beside the door to the west was what looked like a closet, but upon closer inspection was an open toilet closet, consisting of just the toilet and a sink, nothing more. The door to the east had a plate above it reading “Dining Hall”, while the one to the west was unmarked in any way.

Guess I’ll try that one, he thought. He wasn’t hungry, and mostly just wanted to sleep and get this ridiculously easy challenge over with. Hopefully there were first floor bedrooms.

The door to the west opened easily enough, just as he thought it would, leading to a hallway. Five doors lined the right side of the hall, six were on the left. He cautiously checked each one in turn. The first was definitely a bedroom, but it was a kid’s room, specifically a little girl’s. It reminded him of his little sister’s room back before she hit puberty and decided that boy bands and rom-com posters deserved more space on her wall than flowers. In fact, Jasmine had a very similar looking desk and bed when she was little…

Scott slammed the door shut. It didn’t just remind him of his little sister’s room… It was his little sister’s room! It was Jasmine’s bedroom from when she was around nine years old, the details still vivid in his memory. What… he thought, but his thoughts were interrupted by the next door opening all on its own.

Just looking at the back of the door, he knew exactly what he was likely to find. Yet another copy of Jasmine’s room, this one from when she was sixteen, as he remembered the stupid K-pop idol poster on the back of the door. She’d only had that for a few months before she ended up taking it down and replacing it with a meme poster of a cat, which still hung on her door to this day, over a year later. He slowly approached it and took a look inside, confirming his suspicions.

Except that a carbon copy of his sister’s bedroom wasn’t all he saw. Sitting on the bed was a girl, probably around sixteen, reading a glossy fashion magazine. Her face wasn’t familiar to him, but her clothes sure were, almost perfect imitations of his own jean shorts and Black Panther tee-shirt. Almost in this case being that the girl’s shorts were much shorter and her shirt hung off one shoulder, exposing her bra strap on the other side. She also wasn’t wearing shoes, but socks that went up almost to her knees.

Anxiously, he knocked on the back of the door to get the girl’s attention. She looked up from her magazine and a smile spread across her face. “You came!” she gushed.

Scott pointed at himself. “Me?”

The girl dropped the magazine on the bed beside her. “Duh, silly!”

“Do,.. Do I know you?”

She giggled, then stood and rushed over to him. “Not yet, but we’re going to get to know each other pretty well, soon.”

Scott carefully backed away from the girl and the doorframe and back into the hallway. The girl quickly moved out into the hallway after him, where she ran to the other rooms and started opening doors. Why does she seem so interested in the other rooms? he asked himself. And more importantly, who the hell is she?

As if the girl could sense his thoughts, she practically bounced back over to him. “My name’s Sarah, and I’m curious to see what kind of rooms you populate my house with!” She pointed to two of the rooms at the end of the hall. “I bet those belong to your brothers!” She ran toward them before Scott could actually ask her any questions, opened one of the doors and said, “Yep! Boy, your brothers sure are smelly! Do they ever bathe?”

Rather than thinking it, Scott simply asked aloud, “What is going on here?”

The girl – Sarah – stuffed her hands in her back pockets and casually strolled back toward him. “What’s going on is that you’re in my house, my house changes based on peoples’ memories, and right now we’re looking at yours.” Taking one hand out of her pocket, she pointed at each room around them. “Each room is a memory you associate something important with. There’s never any people in them, just the furniture and the walls and all that.” She nervously kicked at nothing on the floor. “I wish there were people.”

Scott felt a little sorry for her just then. And then he questioned why he felt sorry for her, as this whole situation was crazy. It was like he’d Inception’d his way into a nuthouse or something. “None of this is real, is it? Did I wander in during a gas leak, pass out and now I’m dying of carbon monoxide or something?”

She was still facing the floor, but her eyes looked up at his face, then she smiled coyly. “I dunno, Scott. How about I do something to make you realize how really real all this is?”

He blinked. “Um… Do what?”

She raised a hand – “Just this.” – and snapped her fingers.

And suddenly Scott was alone in the hallway, the doors were all shut and the lights that had been on were now off. In fact, the hallway appeared to have shrunk a great deal, now consisting of only two doors on either side and what appeared to be a closet at the end of the hall beside the entrance to a staircase.

He looked around, hoping to see some trace of her. “Sarah?” he asked. “Where’d you go?”

After about five minutes of nothing, he sighed. My imagination playing tricks on me because I’m freaked out. That’s all. Probably still a little buzzed, and my anxiety’s tripping over how this is supposed to be the hardest challenge. There was no way any of that just happened, and I’m just standing here in a hallway all by my lonesome, that’s all.

He knew he had to be right about that. It was the only way to rationalize what was going on. Why he’d imagined an entire conversation with some girl he’d never met, he didn’t understand. Maybe she was somebody he’d passed in the halls at school that he’d thought was mildly attractive? She was cute, that was for sure. He especially thought her bright green eyes were pretty captivating. He could stare into them all night long if he had to.

He put her out of his mind and decided to go upstairs. He quickly checked the rooms to make sure they were empty, and luckily they were. He wasn’t sure what kind of hallucinations he’d make himself see before he finally made himself sleep tonight, but he was sure he didn’t want to keep having them in that one hallway. Onward he trudged, making sure he didn’t drag his socks along the carpet.

The second floor of the hallway had been much like the first. He assumed this was the bedroom side of the house and that the rest of the house branched off for different things. The bedrooms on the second floor, thankfully, were just as empty as the first. He made a mental note that the one closest to the stairway had the nicest bathroom, so he decided he’d use that one for the night. The owners even left sheets and blankets on the beds, which was nice of them.

He felt a chill run through him as he prepared to lie down for bed. He shivered just a bit, rubbing at his shoulders for warmth. He briefly wondered why one shoulder was exposed when the other wasn’t, but his mind was then drawn to another thought: Did I leave the front door open? That would explain the chill in the air. He immediately got up from the bed and headed for the end of the hallway, the door that led to the second floor of the main hall.

Much to his surprise, he found he hadn’t left the door open, but instead found Terry and Aaron wandering around on the first floor with the flashlights on their phones turned on. What are they doing here? he wondered, completely confused by their presence.

“What are you guys doing here?” he yelled down at them from the railing by the staircase.

Neither of them said anything.

“Uh, guys?” he inquired, realizing a second later that that chill from earlier had returned. He brushed a few stray locks of hair away from his face and started rubbing at his shoulders for warmth again. He was starting to regret wearing shorts. “C’mon, guys, this isn’t funny!”

Since they, for whatever reason, either weren’t listening or just couldn’t hear him, Scott decided to go downstairs. As soon as he reached the bottom step, Aaron looked in his direction and said, “Scott?”

“Yeah, man, who else?” he asked.

Terry patted Aaron on the shoulder and said, “C’mon, man, he’s not here.”

What? “Uh, yeah I am, I’m right in front of you.”

Aaron sighed. “Yeah, but why’s his car here, then?”

“Maybe he chickened out. He wouldn’t be the first. Or maybe he left the car here in case we drove past so we’d think he actually came here. Not like Keith cares if he did the challenge or not, after all.”

Oh, that’s reassuring.

“Maybe…”

“Let’s just get out of here, man, I’m missing date night with Mikey and she’s kinda cranky whenever I’m not back by midnight.”

Aaron let out another sigh. “Yeah. Anybody ever told you your girlfriend is weird?”

“That’s fiance, and you don’t know the half of it, man.”

The both of them turned their backs to Scott as if he weren’t there, as if he didn’t even exist.

The door was shut, and Scott was alone yet again, but that chill hadn’t quite left yet. He rubbed at his shoulders again, not quite sure what to make of what had just happened. They apparently hadn’t seen him at all, yet it was like Aaron had seen him, but didn’t quite realize it. None of it made a bit of sense, just like the chill in the air.

From somewhere up above, he heard giggling. Sarah? he thought. Had he imagined all of that again? Had Aaron and Terry even been in the house? He hated that he was unsure of himself. Go find the giggler, he told himself.

He bolted up the stairs to the second floor where he had been, but he saw nothing there, he just kept hearing the giggling.

“Where are you, Sarah?” he demanded.

Above him, on the third floor, she poked her head out over the railing and looked down at him. “Right here, Scottie.”

He rushed up the stairs to the third floor, where Sarah leaned against the railing, arms crossed under her breasts, a smirk on her face like she had a secret and Scott was never going to know it.

Before he managed to ask any questions and find out what was going on, he noticed that she looked a little older than she had before. If he had to guess, she was eighteen now, just like he was.

“What’s happening, Sarah?” he asked her, forcing a stern tone out of his voice.

She giggled some more. “You asked me to show you how real this was.” She snapped her fingers. “Remember when I did that?”

He blinked. “Um, yeah?”

She continued giggling. “Well, when I did that, you left the mortal plane and ended up on mine. As far as everyone out there is concerned, you’re nowhere. It wouldn’t matter to them if you were standing in the same spot, they’d never see you. They might feel your spirit, but they’d never know it was you.”

“What. The. Hell?!”

The giggling turned into full-blown laughter, laughter that Scott could feel deep into his bones. “That’s right, now we’re the only two people here, which means neither of us is alone for the moment.”

Scott blinked again. “Whaddya mean by that?”

She walked over beside him, then leaned over and whispered in his ear, “Soon, there’s only gonna be one of us left.”

---

Scott backed away from her, unsure of what she meant by that. Her smile stayed on her face, mischievous and deceitful. A pretty face, full of secrets and lies. Whatever she really was, it was hidden behind this girl.

“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice panicked.

She clasped her hands in front of her chest. “Oh, Scottie, don’t you worry your pretty little head. When all’s said and done, you’ll be a much, much happier person, and with any luck, you won’t find yourself so alone anymore.”

He felt anger welling up inside him. Anger born of fear. He was terrified of whatever it was she was doing, but he wanted to tear her to pieces because of it. “What’s going on here, Sarah?” he demanded.

She grabbed his hand and pulled him into the only door on the third floor, another bedroom. This one he recognized just as he had the other two, because it was his own. His bed, his desk, his dresser, his… Vanity? He didn’t have a vanity. Come to think of it, the posters on the walls… They were similar to the ones Jasmine had on her walls, but they skewed older. Fewer boy bands, more male models.

What the fuck is going on here?!

Sarah pulled him over to the mirror hanging on the closet door and then backed away as soon as she could, though her smile never faded.

Scott nearly threw up when he saw his reflection. His clothes had changed completely, changed into an exact copy of Sarah’s feminized imitation of what he’d been wearing when he came in. The outfit looked out of place on his male frame, especially since he even had the bra on. His hair was also different, having gone from a close cropped style to a kind of pixie cut with loose bangs.

He spun around and balled his hands into fists. “What are you doing?!”

She kept on smiling, a sight that was slowly but surely turning into the most disgusting thing he’d ever seen. “Oh, don’t worry, sweetie, things’ll be settled soon enough.”

“What the fuck are you?!” he screamed, his voice cracking slightly.

She walked back over to the mirror and snapped her fingers. He watched as the reflection of the room faded into a solid sheet of grayness. In just a few seconds, even that faded into what looked like somebody’s recorded memories, playing out like a movie. The memories focused on a girl, one that would unmistakably grow up to become Sarah, just based on her haircut.

It looks like… the 40s? Scott wasn’t quite sure, but that looked to be the general time period.

And then Sarah answered his question. “1941, back when I was a little girl.” She snapped her fingers again, shifting the images to a different set of her memories. “I hope you recognize the house, since you live in it now.” He actually hadn’t realized that until after she mentioned it, but yes, that was his house, just without the second floor addition that his grandfather had put on in the 80s shortly after his dad was born. “Even back then, drivers weren’t particularly good about paying attention to children in the road.” Another snap and the memories changed again, this time to Sarah’s bloody body in the road, completely still.

“You died?” Scott asked.

She nodded. “And the driver is somebody you know, sweetheart. Not your dad’s side of the family this time, but your mom’s. Drunk driving runs on your mom’s side of the family, huh?” She giggled again. “At least I was the only victim.” She snapped her fingers again and the mirror returned to its normal reflective state. Scott caught sight of himself again and slid to the side where he couldn’t see the reflection. “And that’s why we’re here, Scottie. That’s why we’re…” She started laughing. “That’s why we’re going to be spending the rest of your life together!”

Scott backed away. “Whuh…”

She kept laughing. “Oh yes, Scottie dearest. By the time I’m done with you, there won’t be a you, or a me, there’ll just be an us. It’ll be so much easier for you to tell everybody all your memories of being a little girl when you’ve got them, and it’ll be easier for me to flirt with your friends when I know them better. It’ll be mutually beneficial for the both of us! A complete girl, just like I didn’t get to be all those years ago.”

He jabbed a finger at her. “You’re fucking insane!”

She continued to laugh, this time going full maniacal laugh. “Really, baby girl? Because I think that body you’re growing into says otherwise.”

Scott froze. What’s she… He looked down and his suspicions – his fears – were confirmed almost immediately. That bra he had no reason to be wearing was slowly but surely filling up. And up. And up. Sarah wasn’t that busty herself, but his mom and Jasmine were on the bigger side, so it only made sense he’d be on that end of the spectrum, too. He’d constantly teased Jasmine about being too showy with her breasts, and now he was well on the way to being significantly worse.

“Damn, girl…” Sarah purred, “You’ve got quite the rack on you. The boys will be so into you.”

He growled, but it almost sounded exactly like her. “Shut up, you fucked up ghost!” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he covered it with his hands. He did sound exactly like her now.

This only caused her to giggle. “Talk dirty to me, babe. And get ready to hear guys say that all the time.”

“You died when you were a little girl in the 40s, how the hell do you know what guys are like today?”

She leaned against the wall. “Keith told you nobody ever managed this challenge. All kinds of boys come through here, looking to make the frat. All of them leave the next morning with new outlooks on life, specifically feminine outlooks.”

Scott felt his eyes widen. “You’ve been turning guys into girls for 80 years?!”

She reached out and grabbed his chin. “And it all ends tonight with the two of us. Bonded together by the taking of a life, joined by the reinvention of one.” Her other hand slipped into his shorts, into the panties he had at some point been subjected to…

…Into his new vagina.

“And lemme tell you, Sarah, I can’t wait to be out of this dusty old house and back into my old bedroom.” She laughed again. “You did figure that part out, right?”

Scott used all of her strength to push the giggly ghost away from her. She wasn’t staying around for this, she had to leave. She bolted, pushing through the bedroom door as hard as she could, so hard she nearly couldn’t stop herself and took the balcony railing right in the gut. A gut that now contains a womb… she thought darkly. Being female wasn’t as much a problem to her as why, however.

She scrambled down the steps two at a time, the action making her breasts bounce despite her bra. The sensation was odd and yet somehow familiar to her, as if she had some locked away memory of having dealt with that kind of thing before.

My first gym class after I started growing, I didn’t have a sports bra yet and all the boys decided that would be the day they’d notice me.

She pushed the thought out of her head. That wasn’t a real memory, it couldn’t have been. She hadn’t been a girl back when she had gym class. She needed to escape as soon as possible, before other things in her mind started to change.

From the third floor, not even trying to give chase, Sarah shouted, “There’s no point in running, Sarah dear! It’s not going to take very long!”

Yeah, fuck you, you annoying bitch! she thought… And then realized that even her internal monologue sounded female.

She made it to the second floor and nearly tripped over herself. Her center of gravity was different now, lower, probably thanks to her much more pronounced butt. She supposed she needed something to balance out her breasts, but that didn’t make up for her sudden loss of coordination. She grabbed the stair railing and hoisted herself back to her feet.

The rush to the landing between the first and second floor was interrupted by every single door in the house bursting open at once, scaring her into falling on her ass in a panic. She couldn’t see the ghost bitch anywhere, but Sarah knew she had to be around somewhere, watching her, preparing for the moment when she’d strike and take control.

You’re not taking me, you pathetic bitch! I’m getting out of here! She got back to her feet unsteadily, but with a surge of confidence she wasn’t sure she’d be able to maintain if not for the fact that she could see the open front door before her. Just one half staircase to go.

Briefly, almost absurdly, she wondered where she’d left her shoes. She hadn’t remembered taking them off, but her feet were adorned only in her favorite pair of knee socks, the ones her older brother Mark had gotten for her after a particularly intense break up. He’d also punched her ex-boyfriend in the face, which had gotten him a scolding and a week without his phone, but he’d said it was worth it since nobody should ever treat his baby sister like that.

No! That’s not a real memory! Stop thinking like that! She knew it was the truth, but she was having so much trouble distinguishing the difference now. The memories she had as a boy and the memories the ghost was implanting in her mind were starting to mesh. She was positive that if she stayed in that godforsaken house any longer, there wouldn’t be any differences between the two selves.

Sarah reached the bottom step and found herself coming to a screeching halt, not just in motion but she almost felt her heart stop, too. The ghost stood there, hands on her hips, smirk on her face and gleam in her eye. She almost seemed taller than she had been before, but Sarah assumed that was just her own distorted sense of perception playing tricks on her.

The ghost leaned forward. “It’s time, Sarah.”

Sarah shook her head. “No!”

The ghost laughed. “oh, no no no no, no.” She wagged her finger. “You don’t have a choice, and let’s be honest, you don’t even want a chance.” She straightened her posture. “You’re so far gone you can’t even remember which you is really you.” She folded her arms under her breasts. “So let’s just get this over with and enter the world of our new life. I’m sure Mark and Hank are worried about their baby sister after her boyfriend told them he couldn’t find her.”

Sarah blinked. “Muh… My boyfriend?”

The ghost’s smile widened. “Yeah. Your boyfriend. Aaron, remember?”

Aaron… The name reverberated in her head. It was as if she’d simultaneously never heard it before and yet knew it so intimately. Aaron… Just the very sound of it made her feel… Things. Things she knew she’d never felt before, but things that were so familiar and so much a part of her. A heat that she couldn’t deny. Aaron… She closed her eyes tight as if to drive out the thoughts the ghost was putting in her mind, thoughts of lust and excitement.

“Oh, but don’t worry, when we leave this place, it’ll be like tonight never happened. We’ll wake up in our bed, clutching our favorite fluffy bear, in our favorite nightie, ready to take on the world and get to our first class on time. And we’ll be thinking about our upcoming date night with… Aaron.”

Again, the name sent erotic shivers up Sarah’s spine. She had no idea just thinking of her boyfriend’s name could make her so wet, so turned on. Aaron. It was like a trigger word, but instead of anxiety or anger, it was triggering her most carnal desires.

The ghost took her hand. “Whaddya say, Sarah? You ready to go home now?”

Sarah looked down at the hand holding hers, watched it fade, watched it completely disappear. She looked back up from her hand and saw that nothing stood in front of her anymore.

What was I doing here? she asked herself.

Sarah Bianca Hanes rubbed at her eyes. She felt so very tired now…

---

Sarah woke up with a light headache. She wasn’t sure why, though. The only thing she remembered doing last night was…

Aaron.

She hugged her teddy bear, Mr. Wuggles, to her chest and sat up. Whatever was bothering her, she’d have to push it aside. She had classes to get ready for, a trip to the mall with her BFFs, and a very special date night with Aaron planned. The day had just barely started and already she had so much to look forward to.

She dropped Mr. Wuggles onto her pillow, straightened out her sheets, and waited for her roommate to finish up in the bathroom. Sarah was prepared, and she was going to face the day with a confidence she couldn’t remember the last time she felt.

I don’t know why I feel this way, but it’s like today is the first day of the rest of my life.