It turned out I had the ability to shapeshift into anyone, at least as far as my imagination was concerned. I stuck to real people at first: a professor I’d had in college, my manager at my previous job – although seeing his face again was particurly unpleasant – as well as a random assortment of celebrity men. Then, when I encountered no resistance, I tried shifting one thing at a time, like my hairstyle or eye colour.

  For things like colour, it was mesmerising to watch the change wash over me from the roots of my hair outward or from the edges of my eye inward. When it came to the shape and features of my body, however, every change was as grotesque in its process as the final result was unnerving. It would be bad enough to watch my bones morph like cy being shaped by an invisible hand, but given that my changes radiated outwards from my heart, my skin bulged and stretched over mismatched limbs – strangely not causing me any pain despite the wince I gave every time I saw it.

  In short, it was deeply uncomfortable but painless, and I quickly learned to shut my eyes as I worked. Unfortunately, that just made the shock of seeing something foreign in the mirror all the greater.

  My mouth – or the mouth of the buff actor I was stealing the body of – hung open in the mirror, staring at the shining purple eyes, still half-convinced this wasn’t real. I shifted back to the body I was most used to, the way my baggy shirt draped over my frame comforting me in its familiarity. “Freaky…” I muttered, exiting my bathroom without another gnce at the mirror, scared of what I’d see in it.

  On my way to get some water – my throat felt strangely parched after only a few minutes in the bathroom – I was surprised to run into Luna on my couch, having momentarily forgotten she was staying with me.

  She was picking through a box of her things, the only one she’d brought up into the cramped space we now shared.

  I slid silently behind the couch, giving myself a few seconds to recollect my thoughts before saying anything. “You can use my closet, by the way – I don’t have anything in there anyways,” I told her, pouring water from my pitcher into a gss.

  She startled, looking up at me. “Oh, hey Greg, where’ve you been? And you don’t have anything in your closet? What about your formal clothes?”

  “They’re just in my dresser…?” I hedged, realising I’d made a mistake a bit too te.

  She continued, oblivious to my discomfort, “C’mon babe,” she shook her head, “You’re supposed to hang them up so they don’t wrinkle – I can’t imagine how much time you have to spend ironing…”

  I cringed, not wanting to expin that I didn’t know how to iron my clothes because I’d always thought it was something only girls learned. “Yea… Anyways, I don’t need a lot of space anyways – go hog wild.”

  “Thanks again,” she said, gncing at the suitcase and box she’d brought in, “You really are the best.”

  I ughed, “Who me? The unemployed college dropout that doesn’t know how to function?”

  She scowled, “That’s not how I see you. You–”

  “Well it’s the truth,” I said, cringing again at my own interruption, but needing to change the subject to literally anything else. “I messed around with the magic earlier,” I admitted, trying my best to keep the scepticism out of my voice.

  She took the bait, excitement lighting up her face. “Omygod! And?!”

  I changed my eye colour to purple – something that I couldn’t notice without a mirror and therefore wouldn’t freak me out – and walked over to sit next to her on the couch.

  “Woah…” Her eyes sparkled, reflecting mine, “So are you gonna post something, try to go viral?”

  I thought back to the conversation I’d had with my mom, the way her instinctually asking if I needed money had made me feel – small and incompetent. “Yeah, sure.”

  —

  Apparently, filming was harder than we thought. There was a seemingly infinite amount of depth when it came to focal lengths and camera specs or whatever, but even beyond that level of technicality, just the act of capturing an image digitally and making it not look terrible was shockingly complicated. There needed to be enough light, and not just that, but the right colour of light, and it needed to be coming from the right angle, and…

  Suffice it to say that it took Luna and I the better part of the afternoon to get something remotely convincing, and after spending that much time messing with my body, I was emotionally exhausted.

  Surely, all of this effort will be paid off, right? Millions of views, thousands of dolrs?

  As Luna went through the process of making new accounts to post the video to various ptforms, a strange mix of anticipation and dread creeped into me. Our goal was to get a lot of views and a number going up was something I found inherently exciting, but taking away the abstraction, the idea that thousands, or potentially millions, of people would soon be looking at my face, talking about it and thinking about it was nauseating.

  Of course, we’d gotten carried away; the video, regardless of its quality, was never going to prove magic existed to the world, not to an audience used to special effects and AI generated nonsense. By the time we’d finished eating dinner, a few hours after the posts had been made, we’d gotten a collective handful of views, including two comments from bots advertising view-purchasing services and one from a real person that read, ‘lmao the cgi isn’t even good. my dog could do a better job’.

  I sighed, staring at Luna’s ptop screen from beside her on the couch.

  “Sorry, Greg, I really thought that’d work…”

  “Don’t worry about it – maybe they’ll take off ter,” I supplied. “Or maybe this is just a useless superpower and I just have to suck it up and get a real job.”

  She giggled, “Oh, so magic is dweeby, but calling it a ‘superpower’ is okay?”

  “Shut up,” I ughed, “Superheroes are mainstream these days.”

  “I guess you can go as whatever superhero you want for Halloween…” She paused. “Yea, maybe your ‘superpower’ is useless…”

  “Let’s just pretend this never happened…” I grumbled, stalking off to take my shower. I ignored Luna’s snarky response behind me as I scrounged together a clean t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and began my routine in the bathroom.

  Unfortunately, thoughts of my superpower lingered. It felt like I was missing something, as far as things to profit off of. Other than actors, what kind of people benefit from having incredible control over their physical appearance…?

  I nearly slipped as I stepped onto the slick tile and my brain finally figured it out.

  Duh, bodybuilders would benefit from shapeshifting – at least competitively speaking. But I don’t know if I want to even pretend to be a walking refrigerator with half the flexibility… Ugh, if only there was a profession that was all about looking as attractive as possible…

  I continued washing myself in a trance, shapeshifting my body hair away without a thought when it came time to scrub my skin clean. ‘I didn’t even know I could do that…’ I thought, numbly registering the way my smooth skin felt before continuing. That smoothness was nice for a moment, while it was making my cleaning more convenient, but that moment soon came to an end and I had to return to my default.

  My towel itched and scrubbed my skin dry, I got dressed, and I headed back out to look for Luna.

  “Hey, Greg,” she started, looking up from her computer. “You know how Candice stole Snuffles from me?”

  I nodded, bending over to pick my gss of water up off of the coffee table.

  “Well, do you think you could use your powers to get her back?” She pleaded, eyes wide.

  “Uh… how?” I asked, sceptical.

  She tilted her ptop towards me, showing the social media feed of a pretty woman around our age. “This is my ex's girlfriend – if you shapeshift into her, you might be able to get into her apartment and get Snuffles back.”

  Discomfort rumbled in my stomach. I knew enough about transgender people to know shapeshifting into a woman would be a bad idea for me, hence why I hadn’t done so yet. On the other hand, it was Snuffles we were talking about, and drastic times called for drastic measures…

  I heaved a sigh and put up my best smile. “Yeah, I guess I can, what’s the pn?”

  A mischievous grin danced across her face, “Well, during the te afternoon…”

  —

  I shuffled in pce after knocking on the door to Luna’s old apartment, resisting the urge to spin in pce and watch the skirt she’d lent me flutter.

  Wearing the garment was strange, almost as much as wearing a stranger’s body, but certainly not as strange as wearing a woman’s body. Everything was different and visceral, scattering what few thoughts I could gather – which I assumed was a symptom of the dysphoria I’d read about. But I wasn’t here to meditate on the meanings of gender or empathise with transgender people, I was here to perform a reverse cat-burgry.

  The door swung open to reveal the confused face of Luna’s ex, Candice. “Hey, honey, what’re you doing home so early?”

  Now came the hard part – or, given that my distracted mind was constantly experiencing dysphoria, the harder part – trying to act just enough like Candice’s girlfriend to get Snuffles, but not enough like her that she’d kiss me or something.

  With that in mind, I grumbled a non-response, and stepped inside, pushing past Candice and scanning the room. I’d been here before, when it had only been Luna living there, and back then the majority of the space had been taken up by Snuffles. She’d had a huge cat tree, a litter box, several food bowls, and a litany of little toys scattered across the beige carpet. Most of that was missing now – thankfully the food bowls were still there, although it seemed unlikely I’d be able to retrieve them.

  I found Snuffles hiding behind the drapes, her little white feet sticking out from below the crimson fabric. My steps slowed and I attempted to use my shapeshifting to smell more like Luna, although I had no idea if it worked. I pulled the curtain back, revealing my roommate’s pussy, which looked as intrigued as she did fearful. “Here kitty kitty,” I cooed, reaching my hand out.

  She inched forwards, nose first as she tried to evaluate my trustworthiness.

  “So, uh, what’re you doing babe?” Candice asked, leaning over my shoulder.

  Snuffles and I startled, hunching towards the window with spooked expressions. Snuffles hissed, while I suppressed mine, my desire to appear as a normal human being outweighing my surprise.

  Candice backed off, confused, as I scooped up Snuffles in my arms and dashed to the door, ignoring the concerned shouts behind me. I sprinted down the stairs, my chest, skirt, and the cat in my arms all bouncing in different worrying ways. I hit the pavement on the ground floor and dashed to the parking lot, even with no indication I was being chased.

  Luna threw the passenger side car door open for me from her seat behind the wheel, and, as soon as Snuffles and I were strapped in, took off, the tires squealing for a moment on the worn asphalt.

  I panted, holding Snuffles back as she meowed and struggled in my arms towards Luna.

  Luna reached over, scritching the top of Snuffles’ head, “Don’t worry baby I’ll give you some attention soon, but I’m driving right now.” Her eyes gnced at me, “And don’t think I’ve forgotten you, you’re the fucking best, and you deserve pets too!” Without looking she moved her hand up to my head, ruffling my hair for a moment before reaching under my chin with her fingers. She was about to scratch there, a prospect I had no idea how to feel about, before she froze and thought better of it, dropping her hand.

  I coughed awkwardly, self-conscious about my body again. Stealing someone else’s body is so gross… I comforted myself by soothing Snuffles as much as I could, finally getting her to purr just as Luna parked.

  The car shut off, and the ambient city noises around us began to leak in along with the winter chill. Without much prompting, Snuffles jumped from my p to Luna’s, yowling and meowing at her in a lecturing tone – probably compining about being left to fend for herself.

  I got out of the car, having had enough of the sweet scene. A stranger walked by, an older man whose eyes stayed fixed on me for just a hair too long, and I cringed at another reminder of my body, hurrying ahead of Luna to get back to privacy.

  I don’t want anyone to see me like this – this is so weird…