Me and Debbie met freshman year of college. Since then, we've been thick as thieves. We were roommates freshman year, but we both managed to get individual housing since then.
What I'm trying to explain, is that this is a person who I care about, someone who I'm close to.
Which makes it sort of weird how things turned out. I feel like she might not have been the only one affected by that weird board game.
But I'm getting ahead of myself.
Me and Debbie do a lot when we hang out together. I mean, now we do even more, but even before, we hung out a lot. Sometimes we'd just shoot the shit, sometimes work on homework, sometimes hit the pool, but more often than not we would play board games together.
And that's why we ended up playing a game called Changes! described on the box as "a fun game for friends and family" the "and family" part concerns me now that I know a bit more about what it actually is.
Wait, I'm getting ahead of myself again.
I should probably, like, introduce myself, before telling you about the literally Fucked Up supernatural happenings that happened to me. So, I'm going to do that.
Hi, I'm Sal. It's short for Saladin. I am white, but my parents were both big into history, and for some reason that's the name they chose. I am a guy, always have been. Well, I guess you could say that trans dudes have always been guys too.
Whatever, I'm basically trying to say that I have a penis I was born with. That's about the most important thing about me for the purposes of this story. I'm also very good at board games. That's almost as important.
Also probably important is that I was a virgin when all this happened. I'd briefly dated in Middle School, but it never came to anything. Well, I mean, you'd hope it never came to anything in terms of losing virginity. It was Middle School.
But in any case I hadn't really dated since then. Not that I was unpopular, particularly, the stars just never aligned, and I was pretty shy around girls I liked, and I never swung the other way.
Debbie was much the same. She hadn't really dated anyone. Like. Ever. She might have been a lesbian, or ace, I don't know, we never brought it up, and, well, it became a moot point during the game.
She had chestnut hair that she usually kept in braids, freckles, and not much in the way of curves. I wasn't into her particularly, and she wasn't into me.
I say "had" for reasons that will become apparent later on.
I had a pretty lanky frame myself, dirty blond hair, and sharp features. That's all pretty much still true. Because, as I said, I am very good at board games.
If that doesn't make sense yet, don't worry, it will soon enough.
Anyway, we were in the campus library looking through the games selection when Debbie spotted a new game. It looked pretty unremarkable, blending in well with the rest of the games with it's minimalist red box and simple white text proclaiming it, in all caps, to be "Changes!" exclamation mark included, with the caption "A fun game for friends and family".
Despite the absolute nothing that the packaging told us, Debbie was still interested. We had played all the other games available and we were in the mood for a new experience.
"Besides" Debbie said at my protestations that it could be a boring waste of time. "How bad can it be? It could be more fun than it looks like."
She was right about that second thing, God was she right about that second thing.
The library was packed, bustling even, so we took the game back to my room. We unpacked it and I read the rules. It was a pretty standard game, traversing a board with generic looking tokens, helped along by cards and dice, though the dice had a strangely small role in it. Very much a strategy based game.
In addition to the regular deck, there was a deck of "Change Cards" which were only scantly described by the rules. You could get Change Cards by landing on a Change Space, and they seemed to be more of a negative effect on your opponent then a positive effect on yourself, given that there seemed to be some stuff about giving your opponent Change Cards to help get ahead.
We were both wearing T-Shirts and Jeans, mine for a Sci Fi series, and her for a Fantasy one. The game was pretty standard, almost tedious even, until I got my first Change Card. I landed on a Change Space and drew from the Change Deck, and what I got surprised me.
It said:
Mental Change
beneath was a stylized brain
the text read:
Choose a mental change to give your opponent.
Debbie saw my confusion and asked "What does it say? Any actual explanation as to how.."
In my head I jokingly thought, make her worse at board games!
"How the card.. things, thing?"
She seemed suddenly confused by what she was saying. Still, I didn't quite put 2 and 2 together. After all, board games that change reality are the subject of bad movies, not real life.
"Maybe?" I said, "It says something about a mental change, but I don't see any mechanics by that name in the rulebook."
"Mecha-what-nows?" Debbie said, as though her entire mental vocabulary around board games had been erased.
Thinking she was playing some kind of joke on me, or had misheard, I said
"Mechanics, you know."
"Like, people who work on cars" she tilted her head "Why would they be in a rulebook for this game?"
"Ha ha" I jokingly half-laughed."Anyway it's your turn."
"Okay" She said, "What do I do again?"
She didn't seem to be joking, or putting up a facade, or even generally dumb, she just seemed genuinely confused. This was strange, given how simple the game was. So, still thinking she was joking, I said "Just play the lowest number card in your hand." Obviously the worst possible advice, the goal was to get to the other side of the board, so going a shorter distance was, generally, a bad-
"Okay." She played a 1. "Now what do I do" She beamed at me like an eager, if confused, student.
"Move... one... space?" I was starting to get confused, concerned even. I should have put away the game right then, but another idea was worming it's way into my head. A quite unwholesome one. I didn't even think of it as bad, morally, at the time. Like, the thought that rewriting my friend's, my dear friend's, personality into my personal braindead fuckslut would be in any way bad or untoward, didn't even cross my mind. That's why I feel like I was also affected. Or maybe I'm just making excuses. Anyway.
She moved one space.
And hit a Change Card herself.
I started panicking.
"Physical Change" She read out.
"You know what, you'd look better with blue eyes." I didn't have to go to the mirror. I knew in my heart my eyes were blue now. What's more, I was quickly forgetting what color they had been before.
"Wow!" She said. "I was Not expecting that to actually work." She giggled, "anyway, is there anything else I do or is it your turn now.
