The Phenomenon - Ch.2 - Day 1, 10:45am (Patreon)

All four of us sat at the kitchen table. Kevin finished his cereal but otherwise hadn't moved, he was just staring down at the table with a look of complete shock on his face.

Mom and dad sat in their usual spots sipping coffee. They both had that same look of dull shock, like they were completely overwhelmed and at a loss for what to do or how to act.

I was siping a glass of OJ and trying to get my head around it as I watched the news.

Even more surreal than the two teenage anchorwomen was when they cut to the Prime Minister in Ottawa.

A cute brunette with a short pixie-cut and an adorable face was wearing a suit that was miles too big for her. She was surrounded by an assortment of security guards and other government officials, and every single one of them was an attractive nineteen-year-old girl wearing clothes that didn't fit. And they all looked varying degrees of freaked-the-fuck-out.

In a way it was almost funny. Like if you could imagine a few dozen college freshmen from an all-girls school got together and dressed up in different outfits and put on a weird play or movie or something. Except it was all real, and nobody seemed to know what was going on.

After a half hour of TV news I had the basic gist of what happened, at least as far as the government and news people knew.

Last night at around two AM Eastern Time or seven AM GMT, there was a global power failure that lasted five or ten seconds. And at that exact moment, almost every human being on Earth was changed.

If you were more than nineteen years old, you became an attractive nineteen year old girl. If you were under nineteen and a boy, you became a cute girl but stayed the same age. The only group that so far appeared unaffected were people who were already girls and under the age of nineteen. 

The news-girls made it clear this was all preliminary, the phenomenon only happened eight hours ago and nobody had time to check every last human on Earth, but so far this is what they'd found. 

They also made a point of specifying only humans were affected. Apparently someone had already thought to check with a few farmers and zoo-keepers, who confirmed none of their animals had changed.

The reason for the state of emergency and the stay-at-home order was there'd already been rioting and mass panic elsewhere in the world. In Europe, Africa, and further east, where people were either awake when it happened or had been awake a lot longer than us in North America. And the authorities were worried of the same things happening here.

Eventually I asked, "Can we turn that off now? They're just repeating stuff and it's getting depressing."

Dad gave me a funny look but he hit the mute button then asked, "How are you handling this son? Are you going to be ok?"

I bit my lower lip then nodded "I'm managing. And um, I was thinking? Can you all start calling me Callie from now on please? And obviously I'm using she/her pronouns too, so please stop calling me 'son'. I mean, it doesn't fit anymore, right?"

Now all three of them were staring at me.

"I mean, I'm a girl now right?" I added with a blush. "Might as well get used to it. What about you?"

I turned towards Kevin and asked, "Are you cool with she/her pronouns? And have you thought about a new name or anything?"

Kevin clenched his hands into fists and there were tears in his eyes as he shouted "My name is Kevin! And I'm a boy!"

Before I could respond he got up and ran out of the kitchen. I heard his footsteps as he ran up the stairs, and finally his bedroom door slammed shut.

"Crap," I sighed. "I guess he's still pretty freaked out about this."

Dad finally spoke up and asked in a shell-shocked voice, "Why aren't you as upset about all this as the rest of us?"

I blushed again, but replied "I don't know? I was really freaked out when I first woke up but it's not that bad right? I mean, it's not the end of the world or anything."

Both my parents kept staring at me, and mom gestured towards the TV. "It may well be the end of the world! It's everyone, everywhere! This isn't something to joke about, it's... It's..."

She had tears in her eyes now too but when dad moved closer to console her, mom pulled away and muttered "Don't touch me."

I felt a twist in my gut as it hit me. They were the same transmisic, homomisic people they always were, regardless of what they looked like. And mom couldn't see past dad's new appearance. She wouldn't let dad touch her, because dad looked like a girl now. And mom hated anything that she deemed 'gay'.

As I stared at my parents it started to sink in how much bigger this was going to be. What was like a dream come true for me and probably lots of other trans girls out there, was going to be a nightmare for almost everyone else. Seeing my brother's reaction and my mom's made me realize, this was probably going to be hell for a lot of other people. My stomach lurched as I thought about one group in particular, and I felt scared and sick. 

I took a deep breath then told my folks, "I'm going upstairs to apologize to Kevin. Um, just reminding you again my name's Callie now and I'm a girl."

My folks just stared at me as I put my empty glass in the sink then left the kitchen and hurried upstairs.

I knocked on my brother's door but he didn't respond. I told him through the door, "Kevin? I'm sorry ok? I didn't mean to upset you. If you want to talk or whatever I'll be in my room. And um, please remember my new name's Callie and I'm a girl. I'm your sister I guess?"

After that I went back into my bedroom. I got my laptop out of my backpack and set it back up on my desk then waited impatiently while it booted up. Once it was finally ready I started up Discord. There were a few trans servers I was on and I was really curious to find out what was going on with them.

It took forever to connect, but I realized the internet was probably going haywire. So was Discord, but after a few tries I finally got on. There were like ten thousand new messages in servers that normally only had a couple hundred, and I scrolled through the last hundred or so to try and get a feel for what was going on.

Like I figured, there were a lot of confused but happy trans girls out there.

And I was relieved to discover the TV news was dead wrong about two big points. If you believed the mainstream news media, there were no men left in the world. And according to them, the only people who hadn't been affected were girls under the age of nineteen. 

They were wrong on both counts, and of course they never bothered to check with the one group of people who actually knew anything about gender. In truth there was another demographic who hadn't been affected, and there were still some men who hadn't changed.

The cis would probably shit themselves though when they found the only men left on Earth were trans men.

I breathed a sigh of relief. I knew a few trans guys online and if they'd been hit by this phenomenon too I could imagine that'd be like hell for them. They were spared, and knowing that made me happy.

I typed up a brief checking-in post, since I saw a lot of other folks doing that too. Mine was more or less the same as the other ones people were posting. I was confused but happy, trying to roll with it, that sort of thing.

That was all I had time for, as I was distracted by a knock at my bedroom door. I closed the laptop lid and asked, "Yeah?"

"It's me," my little brother said through the door. It would take me a while to get used to his new voice. He sounded as cute as he looked, but I knew he wouldn't appreciate me telling him that. "Can I come in please?"

I moved to the door and opened it up, then tried not to stare. The first thing that hit me was his beautiful long silky hair had all been roughly hacked off, leaving him looking kind of pathetic. The second thing was with the two of us standing face to face, my little brother was now a few inches taller than me. 

I was pretty sure his height probably hadn't changed, he was like five-foot-six and I used to be about four inches taller. Now assuming he was still five-foot-six I was three or four inches shorter. It was a weird sensation, and it meant I was probably smaller than I first thought. I'd have to make a point of measuring myself later, but for now I forced myself to snap out of it since I could see Kevin was still really upset.

"C'mon in Kev," I said as I stepped out of the way.

He quietly moved past me and took a seat at my desk where I'd been a few moments earlier. I closed my door then sat cross-legged on my bed facing him.

"How are you doing bro?" I asked. I was making an effort to see past his cute new appearance, to remember he was the same little brother as he was yesterday.

Kevin was obviously still in shock, and fighting back tears. He asked "How come you aren't freaking out? You seem so calm, so relaxed... Mom's on the verge of a nervous breakdown, dad's like a zombie or something, and I'm... I don't even fucking know. But you're just chill."

I took a deep breath then sighed. I didn't want to lie but despite the circumstances I wasn't ready to come out yet about being trans. I finally shrugged, "I don't know? I'm just being pragmatic I guess, or practical. I know it's a lot, I know the world's fucked up and panicking, but it's not going to help any if I panic too?"

He frowned at me, then asked "Are you serious about changing your name? You're... You just want to be a girl now?"

I bit my lower lip but nodded, "Yeah. Just roll with it, go with the flow, that kind of thing? So yeah. I'm Callie, I'm a girl, I'm your big sister."

Kevin stared for a few more seconds, then his lips slowly curled into a faint smile. "My 'big sister'... Except you're smaller than me now. Doesn't that make you my little sister?"

I blushed but I couldn't stop myself from grinning. "I guess. I'm still three years older than you though, so don't let it go to your head."

He chuckled, or at least he probably tried to chuckle. It came out as a cute giggle, which unfortunately crushed his mood just when he was starting to feel better.

Kevin sighed and asked "Um, Callie? I really fucked up my hair. Could you help trim it or something for me?"

Hearing him say my new name sent a thrill through my body and I had to bite my lip again to stop myself from smiling.

"Sure Kev," I told him. "Let's go into the bathroom though, I don't want your gross hair all over my bedroom floor."

That put a small smile back on his face, and the two of us went into the bathroom together. 

With him being taller than me now it was kind of awkward, until I got him to sit on the edge of the bathtub. That made all the difference in the world, and I got out some scissors and did what I could to sort out the mess he made.

Not that I was any kind of stylist or anything, but with a brush and scissors I could at least even out the jagged parts and get his hair into a shape that sort of resembled the boy's style he had before.

When I was done he got up and looked in the bathroom mirror, and smiled again. 

"Thanks Callie," he said quietly. "I really appreciate that."

I smiled back and replied, "You're welcome Kevin. Anything I can do to help, ok? We'll stick together, right little brother?"

He grimaced slightly, "What a fucked up morning. But yeah. We'll stick together. Little sister."

It was weird but touching, like both of us going out of our way to validate and affirm the other's gender. I was a girl, I was Callie, and at least my little brother had accepted me. 

My little brother who was now a tall attractive teenage girl. Or I realized, he was basically a trans guy now. Same as my dad. Same as every formerly cis guy in the world.

My smile slowly faded again as the enormity of it all started to hit me again.

What a fucked-up morning indeed.