Riley has become a younger woman

As I cracked my eyes open, I could see long strands of hair hanging in front of my eyes. I looked down and saw two large bumps pushing out a hospital gown. I could hear the heart monitor's beeping increase in frequency again as I saw what had become of my body. I lifted my hand, seeing the slender hands that ended in black nails and slowly lowered them toward my crotch.

Even though I already knew, though I could feel the difference down there, I needed to confirm it. My hand patted through the gown, and I could feel it. I pulled my hand away and could hear my own breathing as I neared a full panic. Each shuddering breath that I took caused my new breasts to heave.

I was only pulled away from my panicked self-inspection when a nurse walked in, a look of concern on her face even before she saw me. Her eyes widened slightly as she met mine. "Oh, you are awake," she said.

I opened my mouth, but couldn't find words. I nodded instead.

"That's good," the nurse said. She **** a smile, clearly trying to be reassuring. "When we got the alert from your room that your vitals had changed, we were worried. Situations like this can be messy, as I'm sure you can imagine."

Again, all I could do was nod. Even if I could find my voice, I wasn't certain I was mentally prepared to hear it. Doing so might just push me further into panic mode.

"I'm sure your confused. Something has changed, right? Of course it has. You wouldn't be reacting like this if it hadn't..." The last sentence she spoke was quieter, almost admonishing herself. "We ran some tests, just to make sure you weren't at risk. Sometimes, with reality jumps, there can be differences in what immune systems have gotten used to."

Another nod from me. It made sense. Some realities were so very different that I could imagine the illnesses that they dealt with had to be different.

"We also pulled your info," the nurse said, lifting her hand in a gesture as she did. I followed where she pointed, and saw a purse on the bedside table. "It's standard practice, to try and identify victims. We were able to pull files for a Riley Smith, but he was male..."

It took a moment for her words to sink in. I was still me, which made sense. That was how it worked. You didn't swap with other people, only alternate versions of you. The closes that you could come was being **** into a world where you had no alternate, occupying an otherwise empty space, for all intents and purposes.

But that did mean that the reality that this body came from had to be close to our own, didn't it? If my name was the same, then that meant something, right?

I looked at the nurse, and she had a more concerned look on her face. I thought back to the way she trailed off. That and the look she was giving me made clear exactly what she was getting at. She wasn't certain the extent of what had happened to me. She couldn't have known, until I woke up, whether my body had been swapped or whether this female Riley Smith had been brought here completely.

I nodded again. "Yeah, th-" I stopped as I heard my voice for the first time. Too high, much too high. After a lifetime of my own voice, it was so fundamentally wrong to hear a new voice coming out of my mouth. I swallowed, and even that was labored as I tried to pull myself together. I could feel tears stinging my eyes, and even that elevated my panic level. Was it the situation, or was it this new body with it's different hormones and slightly different wiring. I took a few shuddering breaths and tried to blink the tears away, not quite succeeding on the second point, before speaking again. "Yeah, that's right. I... swapped bodies with an alternate, I guess, but I think this is still the world I grew up in."

The nurse didn't really look relieved at that, but she nodded and smiled slightly. "Alright, that's good to know," she said. "The more info we have the better. I'll go and get the doctor so we can run some more tests. It might be a bit before we can get back to you, with everyone who was brought in. Do you need anything?"

I looked down at myself. I didn't have any IV or other lines running into me. The only device attached to me seemed to be the heart monitor. "I kinda want to... assess the damage?" I said it more as a question, because I didn't feel particularly sure of anything at the moment. It was a practiced speech mannerism, but it didn't sound right coming out of this new mouth. It sounded more... vapid? It put me in mind of when my sister had been younger and had gone through something of a valley-girl phase, I had mocked her relentlessly for it.

Did I really sound like that, or was I blowing things out of proportion?

"That should be fine," the nurse said. "We need you to keep the monitor on, but it's on wheels so you can take it to the bathroom and have a look." I must have made a face, because she smiled and explained. "It's not uncommon for the stress of a change like this to push people's bodies. Full on panic attacks, heart attacks in some cases. We want to try and prevent those, if we can. You're all going through enough right now."

I nodded, and she left. I stood from the bed and grabbed the monitor, making my way to the bathroom with it. Once inside, I made my way to the mirror and gasped at what I saw.

Not only had I become a woman, but a young one. I couldn't be more than 18 or 19. Still, I was stunning. This female me had the same brown hair I did, but it fell to the middle of her back and was wavy. I wondered idly if mine would have taken on a similar waviness if I had ever let it grow out.

Her eyes were the same brown as mine, but they seemed so much more expressive, somehow, than mine had been. Larger too. I could still see the start of tears in each of them. The rest of her facial features reminded me a lot of my sister. The same noses, inherited from our mothers side if she was to be believed. Small, almost button-like was how she had described it. Her lips were full, and looked slightly puckered all the time. Her skin was flawless.

I shook my head, forcing myself to remember that this wasn't some other person I was looking at. It was me. I turned my attention further down. I was no expert on breast size, but the ones on my chest seemed large. Again, not fully surprising. The women in my family were fairly curvy, if my mom and sister were anything to go by. I lifted the gown up to have a better look, and was momentarily shocked as I saw that I was wearing a black thong. I wondered for a split second if someone in the hospital had put it on me, before realizing that made little sense and it had likely come with the body.

I continued lifting the gown, stopping when it was above my... my breasts. They were nice looking. Full without being obscene. Largeish pink nipples. I idly touched one and gasped as I felt a jolt shoot through me, connecting right to my new equipment. I pulled my hand back and shook my head.

I looked over my body. Like my normal one, I didn't get the impression that this version of me was an athlete or anything. She was in shape, but not really muscly or anything. I had wide hips and a full butt, to my chagrin. I was definitely a knockout, and that would draw all sorts of attention I didn't ever want to deal with.

I looked back into the mirror, trying to gauge my entire body. I had been almost 6' tall before. Now? It was hard to tell, but I was definitely much shorter. If I had to guess? Probably 5'3" or 5'4", at the most.

I turned away from the mirror and went back to my room. Still no doctor and still no nurse. I walked back and sat on the bed, then glanced to the purse. I grabbed it and looked through it. There was a lot of stuff in it. Make-up, tissues, tampons...

My heart sank as I saw that one. I would need to deal with periods at some point, in this body. It was only the faster beeping of the monitor that pulled me out of the spiral that threw me into, that helped to ground me. I took a couple of minutes to compose myself, because I didn't particularly want the nurses to come and interrupt this part, or to find me panicking over something like that. It would only make things worse.

I continued until I found a wallet, and I opened it. I was quickly met with the alternate me's drivers license. The picture was a slightly younger version of the face that I had seen in the mirror. I looked over the information, wondering if I would need to get a new license (and ultimately deciding, yeah, I probably would). I managed to confirm my height was 5'3", which meant I was shorter than my sister now. I knew she was 5'5". That was hard to swallow, being shorter than my little sister.

Though, I supposed she wasn't my little sister any more, according to my new ID. This body was, as I had guessed, only 18. My sister was 22, so she was now, technically, older than me.

I dropped the wallet and continued looking until I found her cell phone. I was slightly surprised to find that it had service. It kind of made sense, though. If the world this body came from was as close to mine as I assumed, then there was no reason for the same major companies to not exist. I pressed a button and was met with a lock screen.

I sighed, looking up toward the ceiling. "Alright, great..." I said, trying not to focus on my new voice. "I guess it's time to see how similar you are to me." I entered my password, my birthday, and was glad to find that it worked. I clicked on Facebook, half out of **** of habit and half out of curiosity. I was met with an error telling me my account didn't exist. Which, I supposed, it didn't.

Similar results with Twitter and Instagram. I gave up on social media and just checked the photos. I was practically bombarded with them. I had never been much of a photographer, really. That apparently wasn't true of my alternate self. I saw pictures of her at all sorts of events- parties, out at clubs, things like that. She seemed to have a more active social life than I did, at least from the pictures I was seeing.

I also saw a number of pictures with guys. Her kissing them, them kissing her. Clearly more than just friends. "What does that mean for me?" I asked aloud, not expecting an answer. I had been straight, and if she had been as well, then where did that leave me?

I didn't have time to think more on it as the doctor made his appearance. I dropped the phone back into the purse and placed it back on the table.

"I understand you've been through a lot already," the doctor said. "But we'd like to do some more tests, just to get everything in order. It'll take a few hours, at best. We're obviously very busy, but we should have you out of here by 5 or 6 at the latest."

I looked at the clock. It was about 1:30 now. I had been out for a little over an hour then. "Alright," I said. "Let's do it then."