Search for a way out

You sat up once the glass tube had lifted all the way up. Deciding to regain some modesty after seeing multiple other beings suddenly staring at your freed state, you buttoned up your shirt and zipped your pants back. Some of the other captives pounded on their glass and yelled things at you, perhaps calling for help, but you couldn't even hear the faintest thud from their impacts. "What do we do now? Should we help them?"

"There's nothing we can do," Steph mumbled, barely able to speak since you were slightly tense looking around at all the observers spying on your newfound freedom. "We're not superheroes like this, I don't even know what we are really. But we're just going to hurt ourselves if we try to break them out, they have to do what we did to get this far."

With a sigh, you glanced around, brushing Steph's longer hair out of your face. "I guess. Any sign of an exit? How do we get out?"

As if on cue, the floor began to glow, a path of arrows forming at your feet, extending out of the chamber and past the other containment tubes, into the darkness beyond your immediate vision. You instinctively started to walk the path, but you paused when Stephanie's whole form clenched around you, startling you enough to stop in your tracks.

"What are you doing?" Steph asked. "You're just going to follow where they say to go?"

You frowned, crossing your arms, hefting Steph's breasts with your forearms in the process. You didn't mean to, crossing your arms was an **** action, but any sort of touch like that seemed to make Steph moan lightly. "What do you suggest then, just walk off in a random direction? I don't know how far any of this goes, who knows what happens if we go the wrong way and can't find this path again if it's the way to at least get some answers."

"I don't really care about answers, I just want to get out!"

"And then what?" you asked, shaking your head. "What if we finish whatever this is and then you return to normal or something? If we did, say, find some secret escape path through some vents or something, you're basically stuck as you are for good. You can barely stand on your own without someone inside you, so you just want me to wear you forever? Or someone else to?"

Steph went silent for a moment. She'd been the more assertive one with her words up to this point, but she seemed to accept defeat at the hands of your logic. "Just be careful. If it takes us somewhere that I don't like, don't just make the decision for us both, okay? I'm... I don't want to just be forgotten as some skin you've put on and you call all the shots. You're right, I don't want to be like this, I'd rather be doing what you're doing, it sucks being a passenger in my own body, but I'll tolerate it if you're on my team, got it?"

You nodded. "Yeah, we're a team. If I have to think fast, I'm going to do it, but otherwise I guess we vote."

"And if I vote no?" Steph asked.

"Then... we figure it out when we get to that point." Glancing around one last time at the people desperately trying to exit the chambers, you helplessly shrugged at them before beginning a journey along the arrow's path. You walked slowly, trying to get used to the added shape that Steph's body provided. She had been very slim on her own, but you realized all this padded flesh had just been contained within her hollow body until you put her on, there was still quite a bit to her. Given that her shape was additive to your own, it seemed you were chosen since you had been fairly slender as well, so then they could 'mask' your maleness within her, covering you up entirely with some clever trickery. You wondered how this was even possible as you passed by test chambers that reflected your new figure back at you, a shapelier girl that seemed slightly more above-average in proportion now than either of you had been, but still very carefully crafted to look like a sexy girl once worn. If your face had been shaped differently, or your shoulders too broad, it would have broken the illusion--you wondered if Steph's shape was designed specifically to complement your own, that she was literally made this way for you.

You bit your bottom lip as you looked closer at the reflection, and Steph became curious. "What is it? Why stop now?"

"It was a stronger feeling when I was younger, but I always thought I was born in the wrong body. Looking at us like this, those feelings are sort of flooding back to me now that the shock of the moment has passed. And, um. Well, looking at you and me like this, it makes me feel... good. Not like the 'good' we had back in the chamber, just a sort of comfortable feeling, like this feels right. That probably sounds weird, sorry. It doesn't seem fair to you that in order to get what I want, you sort of have to be stuck."

Steph thinks for a moment. "Well, then I guess that means you better take good care of me, huh? If you've been given a chance to experience a happiness like that, the least you can do is make sure I stay safe and sound. That's all the more reason you should consult with me, you're going to need a guide on how to be Stephanie Wicker, if we do get out of here and I'm stuck like this for good."

"Sure," you said with a chuckle. "I won't say I would make a good substitute for you, but I'll try."

You followed the arrows until there was nothing but darkness around you, where the field of glass tubes was just a mere glow behind you, distorted by a slight haze in the room that helped obfuscate details throughout the area. Not much further, you came to a door, which itself lit softly with lines of light snaking around the wall. Next to the door was some sort of scanning device, with a symbol of a hand lit up atop it. Stepping to it, you looked at the instructions. "Place right hand palm-down in scanner," you said. "Okay, Stephanie, decision time. Do we use this and go through? I'm guessing this is how we get to the next phase."

"Or it could be some sort of test," Steph said, "or even a trap. If it does just open a door, it will at least alert someone to where we are. But, at least we know where the door is now. We could follow the wall in either direction for a while, see if it leads anywhere else like to any different doors. If we don't find anything, we just turn around and follow the wall back. At the very least, we've got some privacy right now, no people in chambers looking at us, we could just find a blank stretch of wall to hunker down and, y'know, figure ourselves out a little better. Maybe if we're just near the door we can watch someone else use it. What do you think?"

You rubbed your chin--or, rubbed Steph's chin, as you thought. It sounded like you had four options before you. Go through the door if it really is just a door, explore the perimeter to the left, explore the perimeter to the right, or just settle in nearby for a bit and observe what happens when someone else reaches the door. Steph didn't want to follow the rules, but you felt a little concerned about what might happen if you didn't comply with instructions--that might be why you were the one in control and she was just the skin around your body. You felt like deviation from the path might be dangerous... but there also might be a reason why you're paired up this way, for precisely this reason.

Then again, it might just be a door, and you both might be overthinking it.