Riley is a woman in an alternate world

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 light purple 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 not certain you remember, but you were involved in an incident earlier. There was an attack..." The last sentence she spoke was quieter. "We ran some tests, and there was nothing alarming, but in these sort of situations, it can be hard to know the extent of what's happened."

Another nod from me, slow as I took this all in.

"Ms. Smith, you were caught in a reality bomb," the nurse said. "There doesn't seem to have been any physical change, so you may have gotten off easily," she added, her voice equal parts questioning and almost hopeful.

Ms. Smith was indicative. They found records, so that meant I had jumped, mentally, into another body. An alternate version of myself, who happened to be female.

I looked at the nurse, and she had a more concerned look on her face. I hadn't responded, and she had to take that as proof that I hadn't gotten off easy.

I shook my head. "No, I-" 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. "I think I... swapped bodies with an alternate, my mind came here. I was a guy, before."

The nurse's face shifted, but she **** it back to neutral before nodding and forcing a small smile. "Alright, that's... good to know," she said. "Obviously, any information we have is vital. 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 one of these attacks 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 I was stunning. This female me had the same brown hair I did, but it fell to her shoulder blades 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 pair of white panties. I wondered for a split second if someone in the hospital had put them on me, before realizing that they 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. She had longer hair then, apparently. 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.

If she even existed here. There was no guarantee that she did...

I dropped the wallet back into the purse and was about to grab the cell phone that I could see in it when the doctor made his appearance. I gripped the purse and placed it back on the table.

"Hello there," the doctor said. "I know you've been through a lot today, and we don't want to keep you here much longer than we need to. I want to run a few quick tests then we can let you go. I'll provide a number for a mental health specialist that you can talk to about your... situation. We should have you out of here in a couple of hours, if all goes well."

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. "Sounds... great."