Panic! It's clearly a hallucination!

"Hey, somebody! Help me, something's... wrong!"

You didn't know what else to do, but you tried to call out with your new voice. It sounded strange in your ear, you expected such a feminine voice to just speak in a feminine way, but you sounded like a woman doing an impression of a man with your brief syllables and limited pitch inflection. You would have crawled out of bed to find someone, but movement in your legs produced a shooting pain too great to bear. Instead, you remained anchored to your bed, with an unfamiliar shape and voice and nothing else to work with.

All of this had to be some sort of trick of the mind. You were injured so badly, your mind was making up some bizarre narrative to distract you from it. What you saw, what you sounded like, it must be all in your head... you were certain of this conclusion by the time Dr. Walker stepped into the room, hurrying to you.

"Alright, stay still, Jason. I'll raise the bed, just lie back." Dr. Chloe Walker seemed to know what she was doing, though you were surprised to see her helping you in a medical sense. Was this another part of the hallucination? She raised the back of the bed up so you didn't have far to lean back to rest and still speak to the good doctor. "I'm sure you have a lot of questions, but you need to have an open mind, got it?"

That struck you as an odd request, given your situation. Still, you nodded slowly.

"Good. Now, first, I'm sure Zoe filled you in on the basics, yeah?"

You shook your head. "I'm hearing things, like I heard Dr. Hildebrand's voice, but she's not here, and I look nothing like myself, and--"

"Calm down, champ." Chloe rested a hand on your forehead, but she wasn't checking for your temperature, she was assessing your new adaptive bandage. "She should be awake and fine, so I can guarantee you that what you're hearing was in fact my colleague. Zoe is what she claims to be, she's covering you. She's saving your life, so keep that in mind, because your injuries wouldn't have been treatable on-site without her. But she can't move or speak in any way that an outsider can hear, so yeah, it might seem like a hallucination. It's one of the disadvantages of her bodysuit nature."

Chloe handed you a hand mirror, and you stared at your new face. You were clearly confused as you stared at your face, with its gentler features and big doe eyes framed by brown bangs. You looked up at the blonde doctor as you had a realization, a thought that you felt could tear down this whole hallucination once and for all.

"I look nothing like Dr. Hildebrand though, so how can I be her? And look, my hands are too small, my body is just smaller everywhere!" Except in a couple key locations that you omitted... "That's not possible if I'm wearing something!"

Dr. Walker sat down in a chair, as she realized you were going to take some work to convince. "First thing's first, you've seen adaptive bandages in action, right? They can change shape and skintone to match a wearer. Zoe can do that to a much greater ****."

"I picked this form for a reason," Zoe's voice piped up in your ear. Your startled reaction signaled to Dr. Walker that she didn't need to continue to speak for a moment. "There would've been an even bigger panic at Hideki if it seemed like I was hospitalized and everyone tried to talk to me while I was bound to you when you probably don't know enough about me to act the part. This is, hmm, a 'burner' persona you could say, an identity that won't cause nearly as big of a fuss when you talk to others. For the next few weeks, you'll be Zelda Hildebrand, the ID is on the table."

You picked up the wallet on the nearby table, opening it up to see a photo of your new face on a driver's license, listing your new name and everything.

Dr. Walker smiled as you went through the wallet. "You do make a good sister to Zoe, I think. And again, it's all temporary, in a month you'll be able to be yourself again."

You huffed a little, cutely puffing your cheeks in frustration even though you didn't realize you were doing anything of the sort. "If Zoe can shapeshift, how come she couldn't just shapeshift in to me again?"

"I'm right here, you can just address me directly. And I could make an appearance that somewhat resembles you, but you'd look more like a sister to yourself than anything. I can shapeshift into a variety of womanly shapes and features, but I'm limited to that on my own."