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Author's Note: I'm back, sorry for the long delay. I just couldn't get anything creative flowing. This one sorta cropped up out of nowhere, another one of my attempts to write a gender virus story. I really like this one. Its set in the not too distant future and I hope to continue it beyond this initial story. This first story is completely done but I felt it got a little too long to post as one story, so I'm breaking it up into pieces. I hope everyone really likes this one. Please don't forget to comment and provide feedback, it helps out a lot :D.
 

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1.

Tyler groaned at his sister's newest post:

A montage of her latest buys from some trendy second hand boutique because in her words "retro was in". It was a blatant lie, most of it she found in the back of their mother's closet, packed away as clothes from her teen days in the 2000s. But it wasn't cool to say you were wearing your mother's old castoffs. It was trendier to say you found it while trying to express your individuality or some such B.S.

He never really understood it.

He didn't really understand much of anything when it came to his sister, Kayla. They were twins but they couldn't be more different.

The difference between them was obvious from the moment they stepped into a room. Kayla had this way of moving—like someone had strung her up on invisible wires, pulling her into perfect posture, effortless grace. Every toss of her honey-blonde hair was calculated to draw attention without looking like she was trying. Meanwhile, Tyler slouched through life, hands shoved in the pockets of his perpetually wrinkled hoodie, shoulders curled inward as if he were trying to fold himself into something smaller, less noticeable.

School only magnified it. Kayla floated through the halls like she owned them, a trail of laughter and whispered compliments in her wake. She had the kind of face that made people stop mid-sentence—big, doe eyes, a symmetrical smile that photographers would’ve killed to capture. Tyler, meanwhile, existed in the margins. He ate lunch in the library, not because he particularly liked books, but because the cafeteria’s noise felt like sandpaper on his skull. His idea of socializing was nodding at the librarian when she stamped his overdue books.

He only had two IRL "friends" if one could even call them friends anymore. The rest of his social life was through a gaming headset.

Kayla was a social butterfly. She had numerous friends at school and multiple followers on all her Socials.

At home, it was worse. Family gatherings were a parade of cooing aunts pinching Kayla’s cheeks, uncles marveling at how much she’d “blossomed,” while Tyler hovered near the snack table, pretending he wasn’t counting the minutes until he could escape to his room. Even their parents, who swore they didn’t play favorites, lit up brighter when Kayla walked into a room. Not that Tyler blamed them. She was sunlight personified; he was the shadow stretching behind her.

Such was the life that he was happy to accept.

His phone buzzed, a text from his "friend" Benny:

You see the news. Some sorry sack in Huntsville caught The Bug.

He felt himself growing pale just from the fear of it.

The Bug was not the official name for the virus of course but no bothered to remember the real one. It cropped up out of nowhere a few years back and was terrifyingly life altering. Much like the Covid pandemic from nearly two decades ago but not as lethal. In fact, The Bug had not intentionally killed anymore. It had changed lives though. It wasn't the usual type of virus in that you got sick in the normal kind of sense.

It was the kind that changed you.

Not in little ways either.

It fundamentally altered you on a chromosome level, changing your gender completely. Boys to girls. Girls to Boys. It didn't care your race or ethnicity. It didn't care about social status. When it struck, it left "no survivors" in its wake. The governments of the world were at a lose. It came out of nowhere, struck a few people then moved on just as quickly as it came. It wasn't even consistent either. It could strike one town, inflict several people or strike another town on the other side of the country and infect one.

The only thing they did know was its target. It struck teenagers. The youngest victim was thirteen, the oldest nineteen.

Tyler stared at Benny’s text, thumbs hovering over his phone. He should’ve been used to this—The Bug was always lurking at the edges of conversation, a boogeyman story traded between classes. But Huntsville was only two hours away. His throat felt dry. He typed back: Yeah. Sucks for them. Then, after a pause, added, Hope it stays there.

Benny: Lot of us are skipping class for a few days, you in?

Tyler stared at Benny’s message, the words blurring slightly as his pulse kicked up. Skipping school sounded tempting—less chance of being crammed in a hallway full of potential carriers—but his parents would lose their minds if he tried. Kayla would probably narc on him too, just to watch him squirm. He typed back: Nah. Mom’d skin me alive.

Benny’s reply was almost instant: Your funeral.

Tyler sighed, tossing his phone on his pillow.

He decide to distract himself with some good ole fashion pve zombie slaying.

The glow of the monitor painted Tyler’s room in flickering blues and reds as he mowed down another wave of pixelated undead. His fingers danced across the keyboard, mechanical clicks punctuating each headshot. It was easy to lose himself in this—the predictable patterns of the zombies, the way they always lurched left before attacking. Real life wasn’t this simple. Real life didn’t have respawn points.

He played for hours before the bing.

A notification popped up in the corner of his screen—Benny’s username blinking insistently. Tyler hesitated, then alt-tabbed to the chat window.

Benny’s message was a single line: Dude. Check the news. NOW.

Tyler’s gut twisted as he pulled up the local news site. The headline screamed in bold: Huntsville Outbreak Spreads—Cases Confirmed in Ridgewood. His throat went dry. Ridgewood was his town.

Shit.

Benny: Still planning to go to school tomorrow?

He tried to concentrate on the game after that but he was too distracted. In the end, he finished up his current match and headed to bed. He spent the rest of the night refreshing the local news feed, in hopes that Benny was just messing with him. Sadly he wasn't. Besides the previous outbreak in Huntsville, the confirmed cases in Ridgewood were now two. It was terrifying to think, especially because he could potentially know the infected.

When he woke that morning, he was sore. He'd been sleeping on his side, his hand still clutching his phone. With a groan, he woke before his alarm clock.

Tyler's bedroom was a study in organized chaos—not messy, but lived-in. The walls were bare except for a single faded poster of a band he'd liked in middle school, corners peeling where the tape had given up. His desk, shoved against the far wall, was cluttered with the detritus of teenage survival: a half-empty water bottle, a crumpled granola bar wrapper, and a tangle of charging cables that somehow always knotted themselves overnight.

The morning light sliced through the gap in Tyler’s curtains, landing directly on his face like a personal insult. He groaned, rolling onto his back, and stared at the ceiling where a single, ancient glow-in-the-dark star clung stubbornly above his bed—leftover from some long-forgotten childhood phase. The rest of the ceiling was bare, not because Tyler disliked decoration, but because committing to tape felt like a declaration he wasn’t ready to make. His room wasn’t messy, just… undecided. The kind of space that hadn’t quite figured out what it wanted to be when it grew up.

Groaning, he sat back up then begrudgingly started his morning routine. It was a week day, so that meant school. He couldn't help but wonder if his mother would even let them go. Knowing that The Bug was out there was a pretty scary thing. While it didn't cause the usual illness side effects, it was still a very scary thing. Especially the rumors.

The rumors were worse than the virus itself.

Tyler had spent too many nights scrolling through forums where survivors—if you could call them that—posted their experiences. Boys who woke up with softer jaws, higher voices, hips that swayed without permission. Girls who found themselves broader, rougher, their laughter deepening overnight. But it wasn’t just the physical changes that terrified him. It was the stories. The *alleged* stories. Boys who became vapid, obsessed with mirrors and lip gloss overnight. Girls who turned into swaggering jocks, flexing in locker rooms they’d never entered before. As if The Bug didn’t just rewrite your DNA—it rewrote you.

He’d seen one post from a guy in Norway who claimed his best friend had turned into a girl and immediately started crying over chipped nail polish. Another from a girl in Texas who swore her sister had morphed into a boy and punched a hole in the wall because “it felt manly.” Tyler didn’t know if they were true. He didn’t *want* to know. But the possibility stuck to him like sweat, itching under his skin.

The Bug didn't just change you, it rewrote you.

Tyler dragged himself into the bathroom, blinking against the fluorescent glare. His reflection stared back—same tired eyes, same messy bedhead. He exhaled through his nose, pressing a palm to the mirror just to feel the cold glass against his skin.

For a brief moment, he wondered what it might be like.

The thought slithered into his brain like an uninvited guest: If I caught The Bug, would I turn into Kayla? Tyler blinked at his reflection—same sharp jawline, same stubborn cowlick at his temple. But for the first time, he really *looked*. His fingers traced the angles of his face, wondering if they'd soften. Would his hips widen? Would his voice climb higher, until it matched hers? The idea should've repulsed him. Instead, it settled in his chest with a weird, fluttery weight, like a moth trapped behind his ribs.

Tyler’s fingers lingered on his jawline, pressing into the bone as if testing its solidity. Would it really change? The mirror offered no answers—just his same tired face, same uneven stubble he couldn’t be bothered to shave properly. But the thought wouldn’t leave. *Identical.* The word buzzed in his skull like a trapped fly. Identical to Kayla. Not just twins—mirrors.

He shook off the thought. Now was not the time to scare himself.

The toothpaste tasted bitter, clinging to Tyler’s tongue as he scrubbed at his teeth with mechanical precision. Spitting into the sink, he caught another glimpse of his reflection—dark circles under his eyes, a crease between his brows from too many nights spent squinting at screens. He splashed water on his face, the cold shock doing nothing to dislodge the uneasy weight in his stomach. The Bug was in Ridgewood. Two cases. Statistically insignificant, except when it wasn’t.

He pushed the thought from his mind as he stripped and stepped into the shower. He didn't want to think about turning into a girl while naked. He managed a thoughtless shower before stepping out, to the mirror again.

He grabbed the towel he left lying nearby.

Toweling off, he caught the sound of Kayla’s laughter drifting down the hall—bright, effortless, like wind chimes. His fingers tightened around the towel. She’d probably already heard the news, already spun it into some dramatic story for her friends. Can you imagine? she’d say, tossing her hair over one shoulder. Turning into a boy overnight? I’d die. Tyler exhaled sharply through his nose. Of course she wouldn’t be scared. Kayla never doubted her place in the world.

With the towel wrapped around his waist, he padded out of his ensuite and back into his room proper.

He grabbed a t-shirt and jeans, dressing in his usual lazy manner before heading downstairs.

Kayla was already perched at the breakfast table like she owned it—because, let’s be honest, she basically did. Her honey-blonde hair was effortlessly tousled in that way that took Tyler forty-five minutes and a YouTube tutorial to almost replicate on bad days. Today, it was half-up in a clip that probably cost more than his entire Steam library, tiny rhinestones catching the morning light like she’d strategically placed them to blind him. She wore a cropped sweater that Tyler was pretty sure used to belong to their mom’s 2003 emo phase, paired with borrowed low-waisted jeans that made her legs look endless. The outfit shouldn’t have worked—like someone raided a thrift store during an identity crisis—but of course it did. Kayla could wear a trash bag and still trend on Instagram by lunch.

Their mother hovered by the coffee maker, still in her robe, scrolling through her phone with the intensity of a detective reviewing evidence. “Two cases,” she murmured, more to herself than anyone. “Both at Ridgewood High.” Her gaze flicked to Tyler as he shuffled into the room, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. “You’re not going.”

Kayla was the first to react:

"What?" Kayla's fork clattered against her plate, her perfectly plucked brows shooting up. "Mom, you can't be serious. It's two people—out of, like, two thousand." She flicked her hair over her shoulder with practiced nonchalance, but Tyler noticed how her fingers lingered near her collarbone, tapping nervously.

"It only takes one" their mother responded vehemently.

Tyler froze mid-step, his socked foot hovering just above the kitchen tile. His mother's words sank in slowly, like ink dispersing in water. Not going. The relief was immediate, a loosening in his chest he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. But Kayla’s reaction—her sharp inhale, the way her nails dug into the tablecloth—made his stomach twist. He knew that look. It was the same one she’d worn when she’d talked their parents into letting her go to that party last summer despite the “dangerous weather warnings.”

It was always about her image.

"Mom" she whined. "I have to go today. My friends..."

"Are no doubt having this very same conversation with their parents" their mother interrupted. "In fact, Rosemary and I discussed it last night. I assure you, Jessica will not be there"

"This is ridiculous" Kayla huffed, crossing her arms like a petulant child. "Nothing's going to happen"

Tyler stood there, watching the argument unfold like a spectator at a tennis match. His mother’s lips pressed into a thin line, her knuckles white around her coffee mug. Kayla’s face flushed pink, her jaw set in that stubborn way that usually meant she’d win. But this time—this time, something was different. Their mother didn’t budge.

Tyler hovered by the fridge, half-expecting his mother to cave like she always did. But her grip on the mug only tightened. "I've already emailed your teachers," she said, voice firm. "We'll figure out remote learning until this blows over."

There it was. He saw it in his mother's eyes. The final answer. He inwardly sighed. At least Mom was being level headed about it all.

Tyler didn’t realize he’d been holding his breath until his lungs burned. He exhaled sharply, watching Kayla’s face twist into something dangerously close to panic. Her fingers curled around the edge of the table like she might flip it—wouldn’t be the first time—but their mother’s stare didn’t waver.

"Kayla Marie Carver" Their mother only used their full names when she was really pissed. "That's enough. Your social life will survive a few days"

Kayla made a big huff as she stood up and stormed out of the room.

Just like a child.

Tyler and his mother pretty much sighed at the same time.

Kayla's bedroom door slammed with enough force to rattle the family photos in the hallway. He exhaled slowly, pressing his palm flat against the fridge door. The cool metal grounded him—something solid in a world that suddenly felt like it was tilting sideways.

"Dramatic much" he said under his breath.

The silence in the kitchen after Kayla’s dramatic exit was thick enough to chew. Tyler’s mother pressed her fingers to her temples, exhaling slowly like she was counting backward from ten. Tyler knew that look—it was the same one she wore after parent-teacher conferences when Kayla’s teachers gushed about her “vibrant personality” while tactfully avoiding the word disruptive. He grabbed a box of cereal from the pantry, shaking it just to fill the quiet.

"Thank you for not fighting me on this" his mother said, dropping into an empty chair at the table.

"Why would I?" he asked, doing the same. He spooned some Fruit Loops. "No offense but I'm not itching to turn into a girl".

His mother softly smiled. "And I'm definitely not keen on having two of her".

They scared a short laugh. There was humor there but so much more as well.

He was able to eat his breakfast in silence for once. Afterwards, he washed his dish and went back upstairs. The soft sound of music throbbed down the hall from the direction of Kayla's room. It was some catching Asian infused pop song.

Tyler paused outside Kayla’s door, the bass line of her music thrumming through the wood. He could picture her sprawled on her bed, scrolling through her phone with that practiced look of indifference—the one that never quite reached her eyes. For a moment, he considered knocking. Then he remembered the way she’d stormed out, the way she’d looked at him like he was somehow complicit in this. His fingers curled into loose fists at his sides before he turned away.

It was better to let her deal with her shit on her own.

Tyler slouched back into his room, the muffled pop music from Kayla’s room still pulsing through the walls like a second heartbeat. He flopped onto his bed, grabbing his phone—three texts from Benny, all variations of DUDE U OK??—and a missed call from someone he never thought to hear from again.

Callie.

His other "friend".

Tyler stared at Callie's name on his screen like it might bite him. They'd been inseparable once—back when life was simpler, when friendship meant sharing popsicles and scraped knees. He could still remember her grinning at him with missing front teeth, dirt smeared across her freckled cheeks as they dug for worms in his backyard. But then middle school happened. Hormones happened. Callie grew curves and confidence while Tyler grew taller and quieter, until one day they were just two strangers who used to know each other's favorite candy.

When they passed in the halls or met in class, they were polite but that was it.

Tyler’s thumb hovered over Callie’s contact, the missed call notification glaring at him like an accusation. They hadn’t spoken in months—not since that awkward group project where she’d paired off with some lacrosse player and Tyler had ended up doing all the work. His stomach knotted. Why would she call now?

He spent a few minutes wondering to call when he finally just did it.

The phone rang twice before Callie picked up, her breath ragged like she'd been running. "Tyler?" Her voice cracked on his name, too loud and too sharp—nothing like the careful, measured tone she used with everyone else now.

"Hey." He rolled onto his back, staring at the lone glow-in-the-dark star on his ceiling.

Hey? Really? That's what he says?

God, I'm an idiot, he thought, mentally kicking himself.

Callie didn’t seem to notice his idiocy. "You—you saw the news, right?" Her words tumbled out too fast, like she’d been holding them back for hours. "About Ridgewood? The Bug?" There was a wet hitch in her breath that made Tyler sit up straighter. Callie didn’t do vulnerable. Not anymore.

"Yeah," he said, gripping the phone tighter. "Benny texted me last night." The silence stretched between them, thick with all the things they hadn’t said for months. Tyler cleared his throat. "You okay?"

A muffled noise came through the line—half-laugh, half-sob. "No." The word cracked open between them. "My parents are freaking out. They won’t let me leave the house, not even to walk the dog." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "I think my mom’s crying in the kitchen."

Tyler blinked at the ceiling. Callie’s mom was a no-nonsense ER nurse who’d stitched up his knee when he’d wiped out on his bike in fifth grade without even blinking. The idea of her crying over anything was surreal. "Shit," he said lamely.

"They think it’s already here." Callie’s breath hitched. "At school. They won’t say who—just that it’s someone in our grade." The unspoken question hung between them.

Tyler sat up slowly, the mattress creaking under him. His pulse thudded in his ears. Ridgewood High wasn’t huge—just under a thousand kids. Their grade? Two hundred max. The odds weren’t impossible. "Benny didn’t say anything," he said carefully. Then, because Callie had once known him better than anyone: "You think it’s someone we know?"

A shaky exhale crackled through the speaker. "Jason’s been absent since Tuesday."

Jason. The name dropped into Tyler’s stomach like a lead weight. Jason Whittaker—six feet of lacrosse bro with a jawline that looked like it had been chiseled by someone who took their job *very* seriously. The guy who’d shoulder-checked Tyler in the hallway last year for "looking at Callie too long." The reason Tyler’s lunch period suddenly changed this year without explanation. Jason didn’t just dislike Callie having male friends—he treated them like trespassers on private property.

Tyler pressed the phone harder against his ear, the plastic warming his skin. "Tuesday?" He kept his voice deliberately flat, like he wasn’t mentally scrolling through every hallway encounter with Jason this week. "That’s… before Huntsville even hit the news."

But he hadn't actually seen Jason all week now that he thought about it. He didn't say that out loud though.

Callie made a small, strangled noise. "He texted me Monday night saying he felt 'off.'" The word dripped with irony—the kind you only earned after years of deciphering boy-speak. "Like, 'just a headache' off. Then nothing. His phone goes straight to voicemail now."

Jason caught The Bug?

The image hit Tyler like a punch to the gut—Jason Whittaker with softer features, long lashes framing widened eyes, that trademark cocky smirk replaced by something uncertain. His—her—broad shoulders tapered into a delicate collarbone, the letterman jacket hanging differently on a frame that no longer filled it out. Tyler's breath caught. Would she still strut through the halls like she owned them? Would her voice still drip with that same arrogant drawl, just higher pitched? The thought should've been satisfying. Instead, it left him queasy.

It scared him more than he thought.

A mental image of image of himself as a girl flashed through his head too.

Tyler’s fingers tightened around his phone, the plastic case creaking under his grip. Callie’s breath hitched through the speaker—a sound he hadn’t heard since they were kids hiding in her treehouse during a thunderstorm. "You still there?" she whispered.

Tyler swallowed hard, his throat suddenly dry. "Yeah," he managed, his voice rougher than he intended. The glow-in-the-dark star on his ceiling blurred slightly as he blinked.

He decided to distract her.

They talked about the new zombie game update—how the devs had messed up the loot drops again. About whether pineapple belonged on pizza (Callie was a firm yes, Tyler an emphatic no). About Mrs. Henderson’s painfully slow grading system, and how Tyler was still waiting on his last English essay score from three weeks ago. Anything but The Bug. Anything but Jason.

At some point, Callie’s voice lost that panicked edge, settling into the familiar rhythm of their childhood—easy, effortless, like slipping into well-worn sneakers. Tyler found himself grinning at her impression of Mr. Davies’ infamous “pop quiz face,” the one that always looked like he’d smelled something foul. She snorted mid-sentence, and the sound startled them both into silence before they burst out laughing.

He forgot her laugh. He missed her laugh.

The digital clock on his nightstand blinked from 9:59 to 10:00am, the numbers glowing neon blue in the dim room. Tyler realized with a start that they’d been talking for nearly two hours—two hours where the world outside his bedroom door ceased to exist. No Bug. No Kayla. No looming dread. Just Callie’s voice weaving through his thoughts like sunlight through tree branches.

He should have been in Biology class right now. It was all pretty surreal.

Tyler's phone buzzed against his ear—another call coming in. Benny's name flashed across the screen like a distress signal. He hesitated, thumb hovering over the ignore button. "Uh, Callie? Benny's calling. Probably freaking out."

The line crackled as Callie exhaled. "You should take it," she said, voice softer now—less like the girl who'd just been cackling over Mr. Davies’ eyebrows, more like someone remembering the world outside still existed. "Tell him... I don’t know. Tell him to stop licking doorknobs or whatever."

A SpongeBob reference. He smirked then laughed.

Then they hung up. He called Benny back immediately.

Benny picked up on the first ring. "Dude." His voice was all breathless urgency, like he'd just sprinted up five flights of stairs. "You will not believe—" A loud crash interrupted him, followed by Benny's muffled cursing.

Tyler heard what sounded like Benny tripping over his own gaming chair—again—before his friend’s voice came back, sharper this time. "Jason Whittaker’s Instagram just went private. And his profile pic? Gone. Like, blank silhouette gone."

He sighed. So it was true. Jason had It.

"So Cal was right" he sighed.

Benny's breath hitched through the phone. "Wait—Callie *knew*?" The shock in his voice was palpable. "Since when do you two talk?"

"She just called. She didn't know but she suspected" Tyler sighed, realizing how scared she must be.

Tyler's fingers dug into his mattress as Benny rambled about Jason’s sudden social media wipe—how his Snapchat score hadn’t budged in 48 hours, how the lacrosse team’s group chat had gone ominously quiet. None of it should’ve mattered. Jason was an asshole. But Tyler’s stomach twisted anyway.

Benny's next words came out in a hushed rush. "Dude, someone leaked a screenshot from Jason’s cousin’s private Snapchat story—there’s no way it’s him. This girl has, like, *butterfly clips* in her hair. And she’s wearing his letterman jacket."

Tyler's breath caught in his throat. Three days. Three fucking days. The CDC pamphlets said incubation took weeks—enough time for the fever to spike, for the body to ache, for the changes to creep in slow and inevitable like rust spreading under paint. Jason went MIA Monday night. Today was Thursday morning. There was no way.

"No way" Tyler was shaking his head even though Benny couldn't see him. "Its too early, someone is pranking"

There was a ping, telling him he got a message. Opening it up, he saw the image in question.

There she was, in all her glory.

Tyler’s thumb hovered over the image, the pixels burning into his retinas. The girl in the photo—Jason?—was angled away from the camera, her silhouette unmistakable in the oversized letterman jacket. Sunlight caught the delicate curve of her jawline, the way her lashes cast shadows on her cheeks. Butterfly clips held back strands of hair that looked softer than Tyler remembered, the color lighter, almost golden.

The photo blurred as Tyler's hand trembled. He zoomed in—there, just visible beneath the jacket's collar: the faintest hint of Jason's tattoo, the one he'd drunkenly bragged about getting last summer. A Spartan helmet, now stretched slightly across smoother skin. Tyler's stomach lurched. "Holy shit," he whispered.

That stupid tattoo. The school mascot.

Double shit.

"This has to be photoshopped" he said to no one in particular.

"She's cute" muttered Benny on the other end of the phone.

"SHE dunked your head in the toilet last year" he reminded his friend.

Tyler clicked off the image as Benny exhaled sharply. "Yeah, well, *she* can dunk my head wherever she wants now." The weak attempt at humor fell flat.

Tyler stared at the blank spot on his ceiling where the other glow-in-the-dark stars had fallen off years ago. His phone burned against his ear—Benny’s panicked breathing syncing with the pulse pounding in his own temples. The silence stretched like a rubber band about to snap.

"I need to see if Callie is all right" Tyler quickly said before ending the call with Benny.

Tyler didn't even bother texting Callie this time—he just called, pressing the phone to his ear with fingers that still felt vaguely numb. The line rang once. Twice. Three times. His pulse hammered against his ribs with each unanswered ring until—

Callie picked up on the fourth ring, her voice thick like she'd been crying. "Tyler?" The way she said his name—like she was clinging to it—made his chest tighten.

The sound of Callie's ragged breathing filled Tyler's ear, louder than the muffled pop music still pulsing through Kayla's bedroom wall. "You saw it too?" she whispered, voice cracking on the last word.

Tyler pressed the phone harder against his ear as if proximity could somehow bridge the sudden gulf between them. "Yeah," he said, voice low. The photo burned behind his eyelids—Jason’s sharp jawline softened, the arrogant tilt of his chin replaced by something uncertain. "Benny sent it to me. Look its probably just phot---"

"Its real" Callie cut him off. "His sister called and confirmed it"

Shit.

Tyler's fingers went slack around his phone. It slipped from his grip and thudded onto the mattress, Callie's tinny voice still spilling from the speaker—something about Jason's sister finding him curled up in the shower, shaking and feverish, his body changing before their eyes. The words blurred together like watercolors left in the rain.

Tyler scrambled for the phone, his fingers fumbling against the sheets. "Callie—wait, slow down." His pulse roared in his ears, drowning out Kayla’s music from down the hall. "How fast is this thing moving?"

The line crackled with static, or maybe it was just Callie's uneven breathing. "His sister said—" Her voice hitched. "She said it took hours, Tyler. Not days. Hours."

Author’s note: As I’m sure all of you know, comments are life blood to an author. I’m not begging or demanding, but I certainly would appreciate anything you have to say (or ask). It doesn’t have to be long and involved, just give me your reaction to the story. Thanks in advance...EOF