Worst Case Scenario

Author’s note: this one is sort of inspired by the anime “Simoun” but does not take place in that world. There is a reference to suicide at the start, so read with care.

I stood on the highest point of the bridge I could, trying to steel myself for the jump.

From here, I could see most of Cuan City. I could see the dome where our governor ruled, the massive mansions, the beautiful parks, and the bay that the city is named after.

But my mind kept going over how things got this way.

It’s not like I didn't know that becoming a guy was possible, even if I didnt want to be one. There are never enough willing girls, so the machine chooses enough to make things balance out.

Nobody really knows why we’re all born girls, but if it wasnt for the machine we all go through at seventeen, the machine that makes half us us guys, our race would die out. So its hammered into us as we grow up that becoming a guy is a brave, even a patriotic choice.

But when I was a kid, everybody teased me saying I was far too girly to ever be picked to become a man.

And I cant say they were wrong.

I loved being a girl.

But on my seventeenth birthday, I went to the machine. The machine is in a tower just outside town, and joining me there was every girl born in the same month as I was. We spent several days in a large dorm together, reveling in our freedom from adult supervision and trying hard to not think about the process itself. But then we all went to the center of the tower, entered the sacred water, and listened while the machine assigned us.

And I came out knowing I was going to become a man.

And for a while, I just sort of ... shut down.

They put me in the transitional building with the others who would become dudes. Some were happy, already practicing being macho. Some were crying, and some were so angry that they had to be restrained.

But some were like me, in a state of shock.

Most recovered.

I never really did.

I stayed there for the nine months it took for my body to finish its transition, hating every moment of it.

The only way I could handle it was to basically shut down inside.

It only got worse when they tried to set me up with a girl for mating purposes.

They tried dominant girls, they tried submissive girls. I found them attractive, but the thought of using the thing between my legs was a non-starter.

A girl named Sara, who had been a close friend before my change, even had the bright idea of having some dresses made in my size, suggesting that if I wanted to be girly, I could do that and no one would hate me for it even if I was a guy.

She just didnt understand that it wasnt the clothes I wanted.

In fact as far as I was concerned putting pretty clothes would only highlight my problem. As far as I could see the clothes were designed to make a woman’s body pretty. And I didnt have a woman’s body.

So all the clothes did was highlight what was missing.

Not trying to knock any dude who could take that route. It just didnt work for me.

Which lead me to standing on the bridge, trying to summon the will to jump. It might not have been the highest place in the city, but most of the higher towers would be difficult to get into.

And I figured it was plenty high enough for my end.

I was so focused on trying to jump, I didnt notice Sara coming up to me till she spoke.

“Sam? Please. I’m sorry, Please dont jump.”

“Sara? How are you here?”

“I’ve been worried about you for days. So I only pretended to go to work, and instead followed you, Now, please, dont do this.”

“Why shouldn’t I? I’ve felt dead inside since I became a man might as well get the outside to match.” I cried.

“Because there is an alternative. The powers that be dont advertise it, but there is a way to go back to being a girl. The machine will let you go back.”

“Why wouldnt they tell us?”

“Because the government think that if girls knew there was a way back, they wont even try to adjust. And in a lot of cases a former girl can adjust if they try. And the need for males is so great, we need every single one who is capable of making the adjustment. I think its stupid, it hurts girls needlessly, but there it is.”

“They really can make me a girl again? You’re not just saying this so I wont jump?”

“I pinkie swear, Samantha.”

So I backed off the edge of the bridge, and into Sara’s arms.

And into a future I never imagined was possible.

End