Chapter 2
The Forest
“Uhhh, my head.”
Deep in the middle of a forest, a girl lay on the ground, rubbing her head. Blood trickled out of a wound at the back, seeping into the grass and dirt. That girl’s name was Olivia.
“What happened?”
She ran her hand over the back of her head, wincing as she did, feeling some liquid but quite a lot of dried crusty skin. Bringing it to her face she saw a small amount of blood on her hand, along with some scab where the wound was healing. While she was concerned about the blood and the wound, another revelation shocked her more.
“Ehh?”
The hand holding the blood, strangely enough, was dark brown in colour. Looking at her other hand, she found the same thing. Her hands and her arms all showed the same dark brown skin tone.
“Why is my skin a different colour?!”
Thinking back, she tried to figure out how she got here, how she got this head wound and why she had this new skin tone.
.....
But she came up blank.
It would appear the head wound had possibly given her short term amnesia. What she did remember though, was that ever since she was born, she had never had this skin tone.
Back on to the head wound, she looked around to try and figure out what may have caused it. As she did, she managed to find a rock near where her head was with blood on its surface.
“I guess that clears up that issue.”
Whether she fell onto the rock or was hit with it, she did not know. This was another question she wanted answers to.
Deciding to stand up, she wobbled all over the place as she moved. She almost fell over a couple of times, but she was able to persevere and stabilised herself.
Looking forward she was met with trees as far as the eye could see. Flora was present in abundance, adding some much-needed colour to the constant green and brown from the trees. Flowers of various colours, dotted the area around her, showing various shades of blues, whites and yellows.
Looking down slightly, she also found that the floor felt further away from her than it used to be, which gave her a little dizzy spell. This then led her to look down at the rest of her body, trying to figure out why she was so tall. It could be she was standing on a hill or rock or something.
This though led to an even more startling discovery.
“What? Why is that there?!”
Down at her private area, what should have only been her female genitals, now included the male version as well.
“How?!”
Seeing a penis was very new to her, aside from the obvious of her suddenly having one, as she hadn’t had any sort of experience with men before given that she had always preferred the fairer sex. But she had done some ‘research’ before by watching some videos, all of which was before she realised her sexuality. Inspecting it she could see that it was the same skin tone as the rest of her body, and from her ‘research’, it looked to be quite a bit bigger than average, as far as she could tell from her limited knowledge.
She then looked at the rest of her body to see if there were any other changes. Her body shape was similar to how she looked before, and her breast appeared to still be the same C-cup she had previously. What was different though, was the muscles that now bulged across her body. She had missed this before, being completely shocked by the skin tone when she was checking her arms.
She ran her hands along the muscles on her arms and legs, finding them to be incredibly firm. This was also true for the six-pack that she now had.
“I feel like the only way I could have gotten like this is if I went to the gym constantly for years. I know for sure that I didn’t do that.”
She also found that she was correct about her height, as she could not recall her legs being as long as they were now.
Having finished inspecting her body, thoughts started to run through her head, trying to figure out everything that had cropped up in the few minutes since she had awoken. How did she get wounded? Why was she taller? Why was her skin tone dark brown? How is she more muscular? Why does she also have a penis? Many questions plagued her, but she had no answers.
At this point, instead of driving herself crazy by continuing to question everything that she had no way to answer, she decided to figure out what she hoped was an easy one. Where she was.
As she looked at the many, many trees, plants and flowers, there was nothing of significance she should see. Her easy question may be harder than she thought.
But as she did, she realised that she could hear what sounded like rushing water nearby.
“Ok. I don’t know what happened to me or where I am.” She mused to herself, trying to look at the situation a bit more calmly. “What I need to do is find someplace to rest and think this through. I need some shelter, food, water and hopefully, I can find someone to help me make sense of all of this.”
Wanting to get one of the three sorted, she headed towards the rushing water.
…
After a minute of walking, she made it to a river. Not massively wide, but it was large enough that she would have to wade into it to reach the other side. Looking down at the stream she quickly took a few gulps of water.
“Ahhh, very refreshing. Much better than tap water.”
As the ripples dispersed, she was finally able to see her face. It was hard to see using a river as a mirror, but the face reflected was quite similar to the one she always had, aside from a few differences.
The main one was again the new skin tone, but she also saw her ears pointing out at the side of her head, the shape of which reminded her of elves or goblins from fantasy novels. These were definitely different before.
She still had the same shapely nose and green eyes as before, but it was her mouth that also showed some differences. Her lips had the same plumpness, but she now had two of her teeth, similar in shape to tucks, extend out of her mouth, pointing upwards. Opening her mouth, the rest of her teeth looked normal, it was just the two teeth in her bottom row that were drastically different. Thankfully, the last thing that remained the same was her hair, where atop her head, it was still long, red and flowed in waves ending below the small of her back.
Only one thing came to her mind after seeing her reflection. ‘I look good.’
It also may have been her own personal bias, but even with all of the changes to her face, she thought they all worked well, making her look quite beautiful. Aside from the tusks, she wasn’t quite sure about them yet.
“Well, some good some bad.” Olivia flippantly brushed off the changes to her body. While they were shocking to her at first, Olivia was the type of person to not worry about the things she knows she cannot control or change. Having a dark brown skin tone, having a penis, and other various changes, while alarming, are things she has no control over. Why waste time worrying about them.
That’s not to say she doesn’t care or disregards other things. If there is a situation where she can do something about it, she will try her hardest to do just that, especially when it comes to helping people.
…
Her thirst was now satiated, she decided that she had to move on.
“Now I just need food, shelter, and someone to tell me where and possibly what I am.”
Common knowledge dictates that civilizations are generally found near rivers and other sources of water. This meant that continuing down the river was a good way to start. This gave her continuous access to water, and there was likely food and hopefully shelter along the way.
As she travelled, she realised being in this forest, she might come across wild animals. While she hoped they would be passive and just avoid her, the likely hood was that she may encounter a bear or wolf. Even though she was now quite muscular and fit, she lacked any sort of combat experience, meaning defending against either of these animals, especially barehanded, would just end up badly for her.
Needing a weapon of some sort, after some searching and scavenging, she was able to find a large, strong and durable stick. Not much to look at, but a massive upgrade from her fists. She also found some sharp rocks, one of which she used to sharpen the end of the stick, giving her a very rudimentary spear to fend off animals with.
“Now I have a weapon.” She said to herself. ” I just need something for storage.”
With no way to store anything, that too had to be fixed. Along the river, large-leafed plants occupied both sides. These were the perfect things to use to make a makeshift backpack. Taking a few and layering them, she stabbed various holes across the edges of the leaves. All she needed now was some sort of binding, which she found further down the river.
The binding she found was that of vines hanging from a few tall trees. The branches protruded out over the river and the vines dangled just above the water. If anything, these looked to be perfect in order to jump across the river with. Whether it would hold her weight, she did not know and didn’t want to try and find out. Not yet anyway.
Resting her spear, leaves and rocks against the tree, she proceeded to climb up it while holding one sharp rock in her teeth.
This was another new experience for her, never having needed to climb a tree before. It would seem that her improved physic allowed her to make short work of the tree and reach the branches, which she then shimmied along. The branch was somehow able to hold her weight, but it did strain as she moved along. She tried to spread her weight out as best as she could and reach out to the tops of the vines. A few swings of the sharp rock later, and she had her vines, which she threw down to the floor.
“That wasn’t so hard. Now I just need to get back down.”
While up in the tree she did look around, to see if there was any sign of a town or village. Although she could not see any actual structures, she did see smoke rising out above the treetops, in the direction she was travelling. Whether it was a town or just someone camping she did not know.
She then proceeded to shimmy back to reach the trunk of the tree. As she did though, she heard more straining, and then a loud crack.
“Oh no.”
The branch snapped completely at its joint to the rest of the tree. Still holding on, the branch fell and landed straight into the river below.
Olivia struggled and she ended up under the water, which quickly filled her lungs. This just seemed to get worse as she flailed about, and it all looked like it was over.
That is until she realised that she could feel the bottom of the river and that she hadn’t actually sunk very far. Calming herself down, she then went to stand up, which very quickly got her above the waterline. Looking down, the water was only up to her waist.
“I feel very stupid for panicking now. Glad no one saw that.” She said embarrassed, as her cheeks grew red.
She then started to wade out of the river, hoping nothing else embarrassing would happen. As she did, she missed the animal dashing through the tree line, which watched her as she stepped out of the river.