Changing Island: Entry 13

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Entry 13

Only one entry today; I had a very busy morning, after all. Besides having my picture taken (which honestly didn't take all that long), I also decided to move into Millie's house, since there was a space open. There's never too much to move when anyone wants to change houses here, since of course all the furniture stays with the house. However, when we'd agreed I could move and I came to retrieve my notebooks, I found that the desktop I've been writing these entires on had been spontaneously replaced by a laptop. And..other than being portable now, it's the exact same comupter: Same programs as far as I can tell, same files including all of my own documents.

While this isn't any more ridiculous and impossible than all of the other things I've experienced and heard about on this island, it just seems so oddly specific. It's like someone read my comment about only a few girls getting laptops on this island and thought it was a complaint. It wasn't; if anything, I can just tell I'll wind up doing something dumb and needing Nikki's help again more often than I ever would with an immobile desktop. But I can't argue that it isn't convenient; I was able to just pull the computer from my old house and take it to the new one intact instead of having to somehow gather all the files and transfer them over to a different computer. And, I'll admit, it is nice to have the option of doing my work sitting on a comfy couch or chair rather than always leaning over a desk in a bedroom.

Anyway, since I'm living here now, I thought it'd be best to interview my other housemate first thing. We were introduced before, but hadn't had a chance to talk much before the interview, and I'm finding that these interviews are a pretty great way to get to know each other. Her name is Emera, and she more or less just helps out with things most of the time. Like, she'll fill in for Millie at the library now and then, or help with the cooking, or go work in the salon if it's getting a little too busy. If someone needs an extra hand with something, Emera is one of the girls to come to. I don't know of any complaints about her work in all these different areas, so even if she isn't an expert in anything, she must still be quite multi-talented, and a pretty hard worker.

Plenty of the girls here had lives before they arrived that they were unsatisfied (or at least neutral) about. Emmett was nothing like that; he was a young, wealthy, hotshot lawyer of about middling rank and set to be promoted soon in a huge law firm. He wound up here because his personal yacht sank out at sea. Emera wouldn't tell me exactly how his yacht sank, which leads me to guess that it was some act of stupidity on his own part.

Also unlike many of us, he woke up on the beach somewhere in the middle of the night, with the moon high up in the sky. That meant there was initially nobody around to greet him; for reference, he arrived around a month after Kate, when the population here was fairly low. People do stay up late some nights, but this just wasn't one of them, or at least nobody who did happened upon him.

He walked inland and found the houses, knocking on the door of the first one he came to. No answer, so he tried the second, and then the third. He called out, but nobody happened to hear him in that area at that time of night. So he came to the conclusion that he'd stumbled upon some sort of abandoned housing project out in the tropics or something, especially since he found all of the front doors unlocked. He went into the fourth house he came to, calling out to see if anyone was inside, and once he was sure it was unoccupied, he just went to lie on the couch to sleep.

The end result of all of this was that Emmett had no contact with anyone and no particular warning about what was going to happen to him at first. So he was very confused when he woke up the following morning with shoulder-length hair. But he decided it was more important to focus on survival. He explored around the bizarrely pristine home to double-check that nobody was inside, and when he found food in the kitchen and had convinced himself that it was edible, he ate until he was full before going outside. Then—finally—Emmett encountered one of the girls already present on the island.

The girl in question was a little over-eager, and instead of saying anything meaningful, she just ran off to get Najira. Emmett tried to chase after the first human contact he had on what he'd thought was a strangely deserted island, but she had enough of a head start before he processed what had happened for him to keep up, and turned a corner where he couldn't see. After stopping and catching his breath, he called out a few times, each time hearing his voice come out a little bit different. His voice had already begun to change at this point, its pitch slowly rising; he thought it was just him being hoarse or tired. This time, he was next to Kate's house, so she and her housemates came out to see what all the noise was about—and so he encountered a girl with the "impossible" traits of foxlike ears and a fluffy tail.

There was a lot of confusion at this point, on both sides of the conversation. On Emmett's side, there was understandable stress and frustration that boiled out into some angry shouting about how very important he was. Fortunately, Najira finally arrived after a minute or two of both parties failing to make any sense to the other and yelled at everyone to be quiet. She apologized to the newcomer for the overall bizarre welcome and calmly explained the situation: Everyone stuck on the island, and the island seemingly transforming each new arrival into a woman over the course of the next few days. Emmett huffed, saying that this was ridiculous—just as his voice lilted up past a masculine tenor tone and began to sound like a girl's. So Kate just flatly asked him "what do you think's up with your voice, then?" prompting him to try to make it sound the way he thought it was supposed to, five or six times, all without success.

Emera remembers some of her exact words at this point, although she warned me beforehand that it was "not my proudest moment". He said, "This is absurd! I-I must have just come down with some laryngitis or something! You honestly expect me to believe any of your ridiculous story!?" Then he demanded to use a phone...there aren't any phones here. Najira offered to let him use her computer, noting that we do have Internet.

He stormed along behind her still fuming. He thought it all had to be some kind of trick at this point, maybe an elaborate kidnapping scheme that the perpetrators somehow thought would be easier than just locking him in a room or something. Around halfway there, he began to second-guess himself about Najira's height. Sure, he thought, she was a tall woman, but was she really this tall? Each time he tried to get a read on her, he measured her to be taller. This came to a head when he nearly tripped over the leggings of his pants, stumbling forward, and she quickly turned around and caught him, helping him get upright.

At this point, Emmett was still wearing the clothes he'd washed ashore in. They consisted of a fancy suit and tie, but not in the best of condition: torn up in places and previously soaked in ocean water. He'd lost his socks and shoes to the ocean, so he was barefoot. It was all very expensive, custom-made, tailored to his exact body shape—but as Najira calmly said something like "Oh, it looks as if you've started shrinking already," he realized that his coat was hanging awkwardly down past his shoulders, his sleeves and leggings were both markedly too long, and the woman in front of him looked even taller still. He was in complete denial, angrily shouting (in what was now a high, cute, girly soprano) that this had to be some kind of trick, even while our leader knelt down to carefully roll his leggings up nearly to his knees so he wouldn't trip over them.

As she'd anticipated, Emmett kept getting smaller as they continued on to her house and inside, to a bedrrom which was at the time unoccupied—and its resident computer. By this point, Emmett's eye level had sunk from over Najira's head all the way down to her impressive chest, and his continued display of anger was to mask a steadily growing fear that he wasn't dreaming or hallucinating and every bit of this was real. Najira stood off to one side in case he had any difficulty with the computer, which he insisted he wouldn't.

This is where Emera's story gets especially strange, for me at least. The law firm Emmett worked for, like I said, was huge. They had a website; they had ads on TV and radio all over the place: They should not have been hard to find. But, searching around, Emmett could not find a single trace of them. He'd been hoping to log into their website and use his company email to contact somebody for help, but the URL took him to the website of some town's local plant nursery instead. Not even his personal email address seemed to work; the mail service insisted that no such username existed. Emmett could feel tears coming down his eyes as he searched around desperately to try to figure out what was happening, and then finally started "loudly bawling" (Emera told me) and pounding on the keyboard with his fist.

At the end of this tantrum, Emmett crossed his arms over the keyboard and buried his face in them, still sobbing. He felt a hand gently touch his shoulder and sat up, sniffing loudly and trying to formulate some kind of angry response, when Najira just picked him up into a bear hug with his head over her shoulder, silently letting him cry it out. Once or twice she ran a hand through his hair, which he found much more comforting than he would've expected. Finally, she set him down in front of her and took a polite step back.

"I'm sorry you couldn't find them," she said. "This place is strange in many ways, and we still don't know what all of the rules are. It isn't the first time someone's looked for something on the net and it simply didn't exist."
Emmett was silent for a long moment after that, just feeling the reality of it all sink in, and then quietly apologized and thanked her. Emera told me that Najira said something "really cool and encouraging" after that, but she can't for the life of her remember what exactly it was.

The main realization that Emmett came to as his mind worked to truly understand what he was stuck with, was that Najira and all of the other girls he'd met were stuck in the very same sort of situation: stranded here, with no apparent way home. And so he decided then and there that he'd do his best to be at peace with living here, getting along with everyone and doing whatever he could to contribute and help make everyone happy.

That's when Emmett felt a weird push from his ears, and the base of his spine. He got out a confused "Wha—?" before he had fully grown a pair of small furry ears (well, smaller than Kate's anyway) and a long, slim, fuzzy tail. I wanted to save this detail until reaching it in Emera's account, but yes: She was the second girl with unusual, animal-like traits, and the first of what you might call "catgirls" here. Najira couldn't offer much of an explanation for this, just noting that something similar had happened to Kate before and it probably didn't signal anything too terrible.

Since he understood the situation now, Najira let Emmett know that the bedroom they were in was unoccupied, and he could stay there if he wanted—or go live in one of the empty houses if he preferred. With the realization he'd had and resulting decision he'd made, he concluded right away that he'd rather live close by other people, especially Najira—since he'd been very rude and maybe even hurtful to a lot of the other girls. She assured him that they wouldn't be too upset and she'd smooth it over if they were, but his decision stood nonetheless.

After she left him alone, Emmett decided that he wanted to take a better look at just what had happened to his body, so he went to the bathroom, peeling off the irritatingly loose and long, totally-ruined-anyway clothes as he went. What he saw in the mirror was a very short, quite effeminate man: Long hair, slender waist, short arms and legs ending in tiny, delicate hands and feet. There were, of course, the cat ears and tail he'd just gained, plus some small fangs in his mouth. Besides all of this, his skin had already shifted too, leaving it all soft and smooth, and even his face was already quite different, looking soft, round, and girlish. Najira would go on to tell her later that the face change had happened sometime during the hug, but she hadn't wanted to upset him by bringing it up.

He sighed, mourning the loss of his previous appearance for just a moment, and then turned around to try and find some clothes that would actually fit him. He was startled enough to jump briefly when he found his discarded clothes completely replaced by a white vest, a light-colored long-sleeved jacket with a zipper, and a pair of very short jean shorts. In all of the fuss, Najira had forgotten to mention the way this island likes to replace things like clothes whenever you aren't looking, but Emmett worked it out on his own that this had to be part of the same bizarreness that had him transforming into a woman in the first place. He shrugged and put on the clothes, reasoning that at least they fit him properly and weren't damaged beyond all reasonable use anymore.

After that rapid onslaught of changes, Emmett and everyone else was fairly surprised to find his body remaining unaltered for the entire rest of the day. Emera admitted it was a little embarrassing being such a short, feminine-looking man around all of those beautiful women, but he started in on his earlier commitment all the same. The first thing he went to do was apologize to the girls he'd met before for the shouting match, all of which said they didn't mind or made it clear they'd outright forgotten it had even happened.

After that, he went looking for things to help out with, and found a few tasks here and there until lunchtime. Then Kate called for volunteers to help her cook, and he was first in line. Emera told me at this point that he was "totally incomptent" at the time and Kate had to show him how to not cut or burn himself some five or six times, but—despite her apparent disposition—she was extremely patient with the newcomer the entire time.

The rest of the day went similarly. Emmett was slowly getting used to the idea that he'd be changing sexes soon, and even began to look forward to it as the girls remarked how cute they thought he'd look "once it was all over". Emera's own words are that he "went to bed that night happier than I remembered being in a really-really long time." He'd been spending years upon years working extremely hard nonstop, chasing fame and luxury, and it was already beginning to feel like all of that had been ultimately hollow and worthless. Not even doing all he could to enjoy all that wealth seems to have really brought him much joy back then.

He woke up to a feeling of tugging and slipping between his legs, and I'm sure you know what that means by now. Emera blushed and told me that this was the first time she ever made "kitty noises", just as the change came between Emmett's legs and the catboy fully became a catgirl for the first time. She got up and took a shower, and found her hips gently spreading themselves out, her chest slowly puffing up into some breasts, over the half-hour or so that she was in there; by the time she exited and toweled off, the transformation was already complete, leaving her a petite, adorable catgirl.

She's maybe half a head taller than Kate, but that still leaves her as one of the shorter girls on the island; she remarked to me that she actually really likes having "tiny boobs" that don't "get in the way all the time". I guess I'll find out eventually just how "in the way" mine are. Anyway, she went out of her way to find an outfit just like what her suit and tie turned into on her very first day for Saya's photo shoot—although there's a bikini top and bottom instead of the vest and male underwear from back then, which have long since vanished.

I decided, as a final question, to ask her just what it's like to be "part animal" the way she is. Emera giggled and told me that she doesn't mind at all having better hearing and balance, that her keener sense of smell is a "blurse" (which I think means it's good in some ways and bad in others?), and finally that it's still a little surreal to her to enjoy people petting her ears, but it's a form of enjoyment she wouldn't trade for anything.

On that note, Kate showed up a little bit after sunset today, announced that she was "here to see Em", and went to Emera's room. I've occasionally heard faint purring and barking noises from that direction since then. Well, I suppose this is what Millie meant when she told me one of the perks of living in this house was "the occasional big breakfast".

Changing Island: Entry 12

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Entry 12

I suppose it's time to talk about myself. This is...a little embarrassing to type up, to be honest, but I'm committed to making as complete and accurate a record as I can. I've been taking notes from the first time I noticed anything was different until it was over; I've been trying to mentally prepare myself to compose this practically since the first interview I took. I want to note not just what physically happened to me, but also...what I feel has happened to my mind.

Now, you shouldn't worry; I don't think it's like this island hypnotizes people or anything. It's just that I've noticed consciously, and can easily see from the tone of my own writing in the earlier entries, that my opinion of things definitely has changed. I think it's a combination of accepting my situation and getting to know a lot of other girls on the island, listening to and recording their stories, and ultimately knowing I'm not alone. I'll try to explain what I mean as I go, actually.

First of all, I wrote my initial entry under the impression that anyone reading already knows me, and so would be familiar with the circumstances of my disappearance. That's not very professional of me; I should at least say a little bit about that here. I'm an anthropologist and historian; I was in the north doing some hands-on archaelogical research into the history and culture of the indigenous peoples there, including taking interviews from their surviving descendants. I guess that might be what put me in the mood to do interviews here, or at least a part of it. Anyway, the ship broke up in a storm, like I said before, but I've been able to track down some news reports since then that most of the passengers and crew were rescued not long afterward, save for a couple of disappearances—including one Lucas Jost.

I don't feel compelled to relive my experience of sinking into the frozen water at great detail here in writing, but...I'm sure you can imagine. It was a huge relief to wake up alive and well, lying on my back on the sand with the waves lapping across my body and the warm sun on my front side. It was a relief until I sat up and had the briefest of looks around, and then it was extremely confusing. The questions that came into my mind were the same, I imagine, as a lot of girls' first thoughts when they woke up on this island: "How did I get here? Where's everyone else? Is this island inhabited? Where even is this?" It didn't help that I could pretty well immediately see that I was far from where I'd fallen into the ocean, way too far to not be dead. At least—according to my own understanding of geography and climate, anyway.

I didn't get very long to confusedly look around, trying to make sense of my situation, before some girls ran up to greet me and help me up. I had the situation explained to me, and of course I didn't believe it at first—but I soon decided that, even if it wasn't the truth, I wanted to hear everyone's stories. Najira came along to welcome me personally not long after that, helping me find an unoccupied space in a house to live in. I was actually offered a choice between a presently-empty house, or one with a couple of people already living in it in case that would help me adjust to things better.

All of the houses are pretty big here, with three to four bedrooms each and plenty of space for that many people to live comfortably and not get in each other's way. Najira's house is the biggest, with five bedrooms; the other four have been filled by different girls over the past five years, as evidently people shuffling around between houses is a moderately common occurrence. But I just wanted some space to think, and felt a little uncomfortable about—well—living with two to three gorgeous girls right off the bat, since I didn't yet believe that I would be one too pretty soon, so I elected to live alone at first.

When I came to my bedroom and looked around, I found the desk and closet stocked with plenty of notebooks, pencils, and pens. I assumed that this was what everyone got, but found out later that the amount of note-taking supplies I got was quite a bit more than most people find in their houses from day one. I guess the island knew what I wanted to do before I did; I was actually inspired by seeing the notebooks and the computer on that desk to go and try to start getting people's stories. I thought, even if what they were saying wasn't true, they seemed to believe it, and I wanted to hear it all firsthand. Since Najira was still there at my house to see if I needed anything, I asked her for an interview first thing.

When we were through, I asked her who else might be a good person to interview, and she suggested that Danny might be willing if I could catch her "between waves". After that, I wandered around, found the library and met Millie, and then of course there was Irya. It was a couple of hours after she got transformed by this island that I actually talked with her, and since I'd seen that change firsthand, it was a fairly brief interview. I didn't want to take up too much of her time adjusting to things here anyway, being fully aware of how much of a shock this place is even if you don't instantly shrink into a cute girl on arrival.

Something I've wondered about is whether accepting the reality that the change is coming, or wanting it, has some sort of influence over how soon it begins and how quickly it progresses. Irya's experience seems to contradict that hypothesis, but she could be an outlier for some unknown, unrelated reason; it's not like we have the means to actually rule out confounding factors in order to do a proper scientific study on this extremely supernatural phenomenon. But it certainly matches up with my own experience to think so, anyway: My first day here ended with me accepting the inevitability that I'd change, and the following morning I discovered that it had started.

For me, it started with a change to my face: I woke up, looked in the mirror, and saw a girl's face looking back. I'd actually been wearing a pretty big beard when I first arrived, one of several measures taken to help me out in the frozen north. But with how hot it is here, that was extremely uncomfortable, so I used a razor I found in my bathroom to shave it all off as best I could. The little bit that my efforts left over had now vanished, but it wasn't just that I looked clean-shaven. My face was small, round, soft-looking: Cute and girlish, standing out very starkly and strangely against my otherwise completely male body. The clothes I found to wear that morning all fit that male body just fine; I chose some bermuda shorts and a thin t-shirt that seemed like they'd be comfortable for walking out on the beach.

Given that the face is a very obvious feature, the first thing many people look at when they greet someone, it was only natural for everyone to comment on how I had "started" as soon as they first saw me that day. Dr. Haden didn't make any such comment; she has far too serious a demeanor, even while she's relaxing. I had to conduct my interview out on the beach, sitting next to her while she continued sunbathing.

She had her laptop next to her, and sat up to pull it over and show me those pictures she took. Not very many of us get laptops here, myself included, but it seems like the island decided Lauren 'deserved one' not long after her arrival. Anyway, I was a little shocked at how willing she was to show those kind of exposing photos, but she said "It's in the name of science" and "we'll all be women soon, anyway". I couldn't argue with either of those, not after seeing my face that morning.

At the end of the interview, I stood up and headed off to compile my notes on my computer, assured that Lauren was going to email me the pictures she'd shown me right away. I realized on my way back to my house that my arms and legs were missing most of their hair, and pulling up my shirt for a second, it became obvious that the rest of my skin was the same way as my face now: Soft, smooth, hairless. It hadn't stopped just because I was busy giving an interview; if anything, it was like it had waited until I was too busy with that to notice.

Nothing else seemed to happen to me for the rest of the morning. I had lunch in my house, and then went out to find someone else to interview. Then I spent a large chunk of my afternoon trying to interview Ciera; my entry on her already detail what made that a somewhat difficult process. I also asked a few of the other girls who'd been around at that time for corroboration of her story, but found that she more or less told me the whole truth, so there wasn't much need to mention that in the entry itself. I think the sand that wound up in my keyboard after that came from her, maybe deposited onto my notebook and then dropped onto the keyboard while I was holding that up in front of the screen.

I'm not really the best with computers, hence my preference for paper notes. So I didn't know it was the keyboard making it impossible to type what I wanted to type, and thought it was the entire computer having fits. Soon enough, I gave up in frustration since I didn't know what was wrong and was getting hungry anyway, and went to supper. I'd been invited to a small dinner at Najira's place (I think so I wouldn't have to be alone for every meal), and was glad to not have to prepare it myself in my present mood, so that's where I went.

Dr. Haden was another of the guests at that dinner. Perhaps Lauren saw that frustration on my face and followed me to my place to see what I was so upset about. It didn't occur to me until then just how open everyone's houses really are, but I guess nobody really minds visitors, or at least it's normal to tell people when you don't want them instead of that being the default.

After a change of complexion and a loss of body hair, what a lot of the stories I've compiled so far move on to is hair growth, voice change, and/or bodily shrinking. None of those things happened to me while I was watching Nikki try every diagnostic test under the sun on my computer and, simultaneously, interviewing her. Instead, I felt my shirt crawling its way up my stomach while its sleeves fell increasingly loose. I was always a little on the short side as a boy, and what was happening to me was partially the opposite of the usual: I got taller, yet also slimmer and narrower.

Nikki is quite a tall girl too—having maintained the height she had as a boy—and when I was thanking her for the interview and the help with the computer, she remarked that I'd grown—no doubt seeing that our eyes were now level instead of me having to tilt up to not be staring at her impressive chest. I only really put together what I'd been feeling for the past half hour or so after she pointed this out, and then I rushed to scribble some notes about it in the separate notebook I had earmarked to use for my own change.

Nothing else happened to my body that night. I noted down that my appearance was now "tall, but slim and slightly androgynous with an effeminate face". That's pretty much what I woke up to the following morning, and when I saw that, I was conflicted between being relieved or being stressed that things weren't progressing very quickly. I began trying to more seriously contemplate how I really felt about what was happening to me, and try to force myself to process it—but I still had interviews I wanted to do that day.

I saw Ara with her catlike ears and tail almost as soon as I was outside, and I had to know what was up with that. She'd been going out to get coffee—apparently one of her neighbors "made it the right way" or something—and allowed me to follow her back to her house/animal hospital for an interview, since she didn't anticipate being too busy that morning. I could hear my voice slowly changing while I talked to her, but it wasn't a very straightforward change; it was like it would get higher, then deeper again yet less masculine, and then higher again. This cycle repeated a number of times before it finally seemed to settle into the way it sounds now. I'd describe it as mid-range, decidedly feminine and mature, but with a hint of cuteness still—and that's just where it naturally settles when I don't think about it; I've found with some brief experimenting that I've actually got a fairly wide range overall.

Looking at my entry for Ara, I believe I can see the start of a change in the way that I write. First, I started to refer to a generic person on this island as "she/her" instead of something more general, which makes sense..everyone's female, after all. But it is definitely a stylistic change from what I would've written before coming here.

Second, I see the beginnings of my own commenting on other girls' appearances in..complimentary ways. I think I was starting to pick up the way that girls talk about each other all the time here on this island; everyone's more than happy to point out what she likes about how whoever she's talking to looks. It seems a little awkward to speak that way as a man, but..from one girl to another, it's hard for me to really find a fault with it. Would 'real' women, who hadn't been born as men, compliment each other this way? Maybe not...or at least it might be different particular features being pointed out. But it's a part of this island's culture, I think, especially if it slipped its way into my writings a mere two days after my own arrival.

At any rate, this is some of what I meant about my own mentality changing. Another point about that is my reflection at the end of that entry, about competing senses of dread and anticipation. Hearing a woman's voice come from my throat really drove home the fact that my own impending femininity was coming closer and closer. It forced me to think about it, for sure.

Saya's interview was next. I didn't include this in her entry, because it belongs here: When she barged into my room and announced that she was here to check if I was 'done', I told her I was still quite male, thank you. And she said, "Oh wow, that's a pretty voice you've got! And just look at that adorable face! I bet you're gonna turn out drop-dead gorgeous!" Asking her if she'd agree to an interview was partially my own way of brushing off those forceful compliments, I think; I was feeling a bizarre sort of embarrassment at having those features called out like that, and badly wanted to change the subject. Not that it helped much—she brought it right back up at the end of the interview, after all.

While I was sitting there composing the entry for Saya, I found some unusual discomfort in my computer chair that I'd never noticed before. I wriggled around, or stood up and briefly paced before sitting back down, and it would go away. It didn't take me too long to realize what was happening, and some quick examination confirmed my first guess that this was a result of my lower body beginning to take on more feminine proportions. That is: My hips were getting wider, and my bottom was getting bigger. It happened slowly and steadily the whole time I was writing; it soon began to pull the shorts and underwear I had on strangely tight, stretching them against..well, what was between my legs at the time..in a slightly uncomfortable manner. I put up with it until I was done writing, and then went to see if the island had given me something more fitting to wear.

By now, the growth was all done; I had hips to die for (or what would be that for a girl, anyway), and my thighs had grown noticeably plumper, too. The way I stood up and walked was different now because of that; my center of balance had shifted noticeably. It was strange: I was aware of the difference, but had no difficulty adjusting, as if my body and the motor-control parts of my brain already knew exactly what to do. Anyway, I found some underwear resembling a pair of boyshorts, and a pair of gymshorts, that were wide enough for my expanded butt yet still had enough room between the legs to be at least reasonably comfortable.

Millie actually bothered to knock on the front door to the house, loud enough for me to hear from my bedroom. I hurried to let her in, and we had a pleasant chat, still the interview I think I enjoyed the most so far. She could see how stressed I was about the changes coming on right away, and put both of her hands around one of mine, saying, "It's okay, you'll get through it and feel better than ever. I promise." The usual kind of encouragement people give each other on this island is helpful, but...I feel like Millie's quiet, kind words helped me the most of all. If I'm ever in a position to do the same, I definitely want to be more of a 'Millie' and less of a 'Saya', I think. But I'll admit, at the time certain parts of my body interpreted this gesture as a beautiful woman holding my hand and leaning in close, and..I was very definitely attracted to her. I managed to suppress it socially for the most part—I mean, I was probably blushing, and she was blushing for the first few minutes or so, but we both focused on the matter hand: Her interview.

I didn't think anything else changed while I was talking to Millie, not until she left and I stood up to go for a walk out on the beach. That was when I realized that I wasn't feeling quite so squeezed by the underwear and shorts I'd put on to fit the widened hips. No, they weren't any less tight—I was actually smaller in the place they'd been uncomfortable. Of course: The part of my anatomy that made me actually male was beginning to give way before the island's effects.

About Millie's entry, though. My first few entires, I wrote—and thought of—the women on this island as "they", "the inhabitants"..you know, other people. By our librarian's entry, I can see that I was already starting to feel like a part of the community: Now it's "us" and "our". I also started calling the other girls "girls" quite a bit, I can see, a trend that continues in my later entries on through to this one. And..there's more of me talking about how good the girl the entry is about looks. By the time I was typing Millie's entry, I knew my manhood wasn't very long for this world, so...if I even noticed I was doing it, I suppose I felt like it didn't matter anymore. After all, like Lauren said, "We'll all be women soon anyway."

I went out to the beach with Millie because I'd been planning to anyway, but also to get out of my own head for a little while. I won't be so histrionic as to describe myself as mourning for my masculinity, but it's fair to say that I did start out with denial and was inching ever closer to acceptance at this point...especially when I occasionally felt a slight, strange twinge of motion between my legs that afternoon. Maybe some of those were just my still-male body reacting the way one does to close proximity to scantily-clad, beautiful girls..especially when it was Millie...but I think the majority were just what you'd probably imagine. It's certain that enough of them were that that when I paused between supper and writing my last entry for that day to check, I found myself to be quite small down there.

I'd like to describe the experience of changing sex frankly and forthrightly. It's likely that not every girl on this island had exactly the same physical sensations, but I think it's fair to say that...even the ones who did have sensations similar to what I got, who I've interviewed, may have been understandably embarrassed to fully go into the details. I can't say for sure that anyone had an experience like mine, but...I believe it's likely that some did. So, the more a girl blushed when coming to this part of her story, the more I now suspect she was..putting her own description of it somewhat mildly. I won't name names, of course; I only want to talk about myself here.

All of that is to say..I took a seat on a couch in the main room of my house after I finished writing Millie's entry. No change had come between my legs while I was writing—thankfully, because that would've been pretty distracting—but almost the instant I was finished, this..curious tingling had started, down there. The tingling, I realized, was actually the same feeling I'd been getting before, but continuous instead of in only brief little bursts. It came on stronger and stronger from there (by now I was sitting down), turning into a tugging and slipping feeling. I found myself squirming around in my seat and making little..sounds of anticipation as it got sharper, and I could physically feel that part of me that was male starting to pull itself that last little bit inward.

I'll admit: I actually cried out when it happened. A very girlish "Aaa~aaah" kind of cry. Even after all of the build up, it was a surprisingly intense bragge of sensations: a quite sharp pull, a fuzzy, flowing sensation down there, and a motion in the pit of my stomach that must've been the rapid formation of a womb. The tingling and tugging had definitely been..stimulating me, down there, in the last moments that I was a man, and that stimulation seemed to somehow immediately transfer into the feminine organs I now found myself with being just as affected, if not even more so.

I probably cried out a little more while I experienced this, until it finally came to an end. And then I felt—just physically speaking, mind you—happy, satisfied, relieved. It was like something (some part of me?) had been pressuring me to feel that...pleasure, to at least give it a try—and now that I had, and had enjoyed it, that very same 'something' was happy, and I couldn't help being at least little happy with it. Maybe that doesn't make any sense; perhaps my tired mind was just making all of that up. But...I certainly wasn't dreading the transformation anymore; with my manhood completely gone already, there wasn't really anything to dread. I could only look forward to the rest now—or at least, that's how I felt that night.

The next day—today, my first full day as a woman—there was the breakfast and the interview with Kate. I can see those changes in the way I think and write about things in full force with her entry, from calling everyone "girls" to mentioning how cute she was (and still is!). She has this nonchalant, seemingly perpetually ill-tempered way of emoting that still fails to hide how happy she really is here with everyone else, but her tail is always wagging whenever she talks to certain people, or any time she hears someone compliment her appearance or her cooking. Excuse me—I'm tempted to edit that last sentence out, but I feel like it puts on full display the change of disposition I've undergone since the island began transforming me. That's another thing, actually: I've noticed myself increasingly describing anything supernatural that happens here as "the island" doing it, like it's a person or at least a living creature that causes those events. I don't think that's really how it is, but it's a convenient shorthand for "scientifically inexplicable phenomena" anyway, I suppose.

Returning to the topic of my own change: It was during breakfast and the subsequent conversation with Kate that my hair (I mean what grows from my scalp) actually, finally grew out. It was almost shoulder-length by the time I was done eating—some long bangs threatening to get in my vision while other locks framed my face—and it slowly trickled its way down my back and shoulders while I was interviewing Kate. By the end it was about halfway down my back, covering the back of my chest, and that's where it's stayed until now. Seeing Kate's hair still put up from when she'd been cooking, and noticing my own increasingly long hair, put that concept in my mind. So after Kate's interview, I asked one of the other girls just what everyone does to take care of their hair, and that's how I wound up at Jill's salon.

Jill told me that my hair didn't need any attention just yet—"Everyone's perfect when they first change," she said—but I clarified that I wanted an interview and why, and she was happy to oblige. I'll probably be back there to get her "assistance" too, maybe when it's not so busy. Or, maybe when I do want to do something new with my own hair, or my nails or something...but I digress.

I didn't change any more throughout that interview either, and you should note that at this point I looked every bit like a tall, cute, curvy woman—aside from a completely flat chest. My wardrobe choices this morning had been rather limited compared to previous days too, and I was stuck with only panties and bikini bottoms, not even any shorts to choose from! So...I was in a bikini bottom and as long a shirt as I could find, which still barely covered the upper half of my hips when I was standing up. Nobody really seemed to mind my state of dress, or even find it remarkable—as I've said before, skimpy outfits are a pretty consistent trend here because that's what the island provides and they're more comfortable out in the island's heat, so it's pretty much a completely acceptable state of dress.

I went back to my house to write up Kate and Jill's entries, and wound up sitting at my computer for quite a while in order to achieve that. Around halfway through writing Kate's, I happened to notice my chest seemed a little more sensitive than usual to the way my shirt moved across it when I shifted around in the chair. A quick examination found the nipples were bigger than before, both wider and taller, and so I knew that the last step of my change had begun. From there, tiny bumps slowly rose their way up from underneath those two as they continued to slowly get bigger themselves, and by the time I was nearly through writing Jill's entry I had what could reasonably be called a girl's breasts.

I took a moment before finishing up the closing few paragraphs to get up, roll the shirt up, and actually take a good look at them in the mirror. I..admit that when I was taking notes for Saya's entry, I felt like it was a little ridiculous of her to see herself having rapidly grown breasts—something that usually takes years during a woman's puberty—and yeet still impatiently poke and prod and jeer at them to get bigger already. But...I'll also admit I felt a slight disappointment at my own..'size', at this time. I wrote what I did at the of my last entry in anticipation and expectation of them continuing to get bigger for a while yet. It's fair to say that at this point I had no negative emotions whatsoever when it came to my transformation; it was all eager anticipation of what was to come.

I had some lunch, and then I took a break, going out by the beach to just talk. No notepads, no pens—I just wanted to relax and hang out with some of the other girls, like I had with Millie yesterday. I had to put up with the occasional teasing words as the girls noticed my chest pushing itself up and out more and more throughout the afternoon. Well, I say put up, but I found myself blushing, smiling and giggling along with them. They were, in their own way, cheering me on, and now I found myself happy to hear compliments of my increasingly amazing figure, as well as people pointing it out for me as it became even more so.

I must've thought they were finished growing five or six separate times, only to then feel the motion of my shirt across them as they swelled out just a little bit more. By suppertime they'd grown big—bigger than Millie's, for sure, and at least Ara's size. One of the girls invited me to eat with her and her housemates, and I was happy to accept. Then I came back here to start writing this entry. I was feeling eager and energized to write this, and even though I could feel my boobs pushing out a little more even as I sat down at my computer, I knew it wouldn't be much longer before I was finished.

In a...sort of coincidence, it was just after I wrote that part about the experience of changing sex that I felt one particularly long and hard push from my chest. I was already feeling a little..warm in the cheeks from thinking back over those sensations, and somehow the feeling of my bust growing this particular time seemed to exacerbate that, giving me a slight recurrence of the fuzzy feeling down between my legs, like another insistent reassurance that I am, completely and totally, a woman. Not that I'm really complaining...it felt nice, I must say.

Nothing else came after that, and I can't say that I really want it to. The breasts I wound up with are a pair of gigantic, almost comical globes that'll probably squish against each other once I actually put on some support instead of only having a loose t-shirt hang down over them. As of now, I have just the kind of gorgeous, tall, curvy body that Saya was probably anticipating for me, and I honestly couldn't be much happier with it!

Speaking of her...it's pretty late into the night now, so I guess I'll ask her to take my picture in the morning. I'm sure she'll do a great job of showing off all my best features!

I've also made a decision about my name: I'll be going by Luka from now on. Maybe it's a bit lazy, just cutting off one letter from my male name and changing another in a way that doesn't alter the pronunciation, but...I feel like it's "me". It's a little hard to describe, and I can see why other girls had a hard time fully and properly explaining why they changed their names when I asked them. I just want what the other girls on this island call me to fit, I suppose, the same way that I want my clothes to fit me; it simply makes me feel more comfortable.

I can ask myself, now, how I feel about being stuck as a woman. There are some aspects to it which I hadn't anticipated, much less anticipated enjoying quite so much. Being taller is nice. Like I was saying back in Jill's entry, it's hard for me to really even see the loss of manhood as a meaningful disadvantage in the face of everything else I'm getting.

On top of all of that, I feel like...it makes me fit in with everyone else a lot better. We've all got this bizarre, shared experience of washing ashore here male, then undergoing an involuntary metamorphosis into an attractive female. It's a part of what defines the community here on Changing Island, and how we all interact with each other; it's a known quantity we can use to help introduce any newcomers to this place, too. That's not to say that I think we couldn't all get along without it, but seeing how it's inevitable anyway, co-opting it as a kind of societal glue to help us all relate to each other better definitely isn't the worst way to handle it.

You shouldn't imagine, by the way, that this is my last entry; it's just that it's my entry. I'll be doing another interview tomorrow, I'm sure, and I'm intent on compiling my notes and typing up the accounts of the other girls on this island until I've got every single one of them down. And even then, I know my work won't be done—more boys will wash ashore with their own changes to experience and their own stories to tell. Even they don't, there's a lot more I can research and write about when it comes to this paradisiacal society we've got going here, and the various mysteries of supernatural provision and physical metamorphosis that seem to be intrinsic properties of this island. I'm bound to keep on writing about all of those things, because I'm Luka—the historian of Changing Island!

Was that too cliche? Too chipper? Too informal? It feels like the right thing to say to round this entry off regardless. No, I refuse to edit it out. I'll leave this in, too; I want an honest account of myself, after all.

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I've had the image for Luka picked out for a very long time, I think even as far back as the initial run of this story as an eventually-abandoned caption series. I had a rough idea of how this entry would work, and came up with some more ideas for it while I was putting together the recent bunch of entries for this story and tried to work those ideas in so this would feel a little more natural. Hopefully the wait was worth it.

Changing Island: Entry 11

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Entry 11

I've made mention of hair many times in my past entries, particularly how essentially every one of us gets longer hair along the way to turning into a pretty girl. It's a natural (or at least generally expected) part of femininity, after all, and I've had reason to have it on my own mind lately, too. With all of the girls on the island, with all of our varying lengths of hair, and especially with how much walking around sandy beaches and swimming a lot of us tend to do, it's only natural that everyone needs some help tending to all that hair.

All of that is to say, of course we've got a hair salon here. One of the big rooms off the entryway of one of the houses is where it is, and a liscensed beautician runs it along with her two housemates and the odd volunteer when the volume gets to be too much. She doesn't just cut and style hair, either, and is always happy to have another 'canvas' to paint with her particular kind of art. Her name's Jill, and today she was willing to give me an interview in her salon, even while she was busily working with customers the whole time. Talking while working seems to be second nature to people like her—or people with her sort of job, in my experience.

As I'm sure you could guess, Jill used to be a male beautician—named Jack. He was tall, rugged and handsome, proud of the way he kept his hair and his beard. There's no proof of this, because he was the sixth person to wash ashore here, around a month and a half after Najira did—so there's no pictures of how she used to look. He was working in a salon aboard a massive and extremely fancy cruise ship, got a little too inebriated at a staff party after hours, went up on deck, there was a storm...I'm sure you could guess this part too. He fell overboard, was underwater for maybe two or three seconds, and there was no ship when he surfaced. He tried to swim in a straight line, hoping desperately to find land or at least another ship, but he wasn't a very good swimmer back then, and eventually collapsed into the ocean, only to wake up here.

Since the island wasn't anywhere near as populated back then, nobody found him when he first washed ashore; instead, he slowly stood up and went inland to look for civilization, and soon found the houses. It was only after he called out a few times that Najira came outside to welcome him. Now, with how early into this island's habitation this was, the pattern of men washing ashore and turning into attractive women was known, but not to the point where they were completely sure it was inevitable. She told him that it had happened to her and the four other girls on the island at the time, and that it might happen to him, in an effort to keep him from being shocked if and when it did. Jack was somewhat distracted by her poorly-maintained hair, some frayed and split ends here and there, and let her know about those things as soon as she was done talking, practically begging her to let him fix it and help her not have those issues again.

The same kind of thing happened with the other girls as he met them—all of them needed the care of a stylist and a little bit of advice (at least, that's what Jill tells me anyway). He went looking for a brush and a pair of scissors in the nearest house and basically claimed a room to work in, pulling in some chairs and chatting with the five of them while he worked. He complained about not having everything he needed, and someone went and raided the nearest bathroom to at least get him a hairdryer. By the time he was done fussing with everyone's hair and giving them all advice, it was late in the afternoon, so Najira offered to treat him and everyone else to some supper at her place.

"Now, this part's freaky," is what Jill said. When they were done eating, Jack went back to the makeshift salon to put back all the borrowed chairs and grooming equipment, only to find the entire room had completely changed in everyone's absence. Suddenly there were mirrors across the walls, counters, lifting chairs and hairdryer chairs. The counters were fully stocked with everything a stylist could ever want or need, including shampoos and gels, sinks, hairdriers and razors and all the necessary outlets to run them. Besides that, the places he'd borrowed things from had either reclaimed those items or spontaneously generated replacements.

To me this isn't quite as shocking as I'm sure it was to them, given that I've already heard about the spontaneous appearance of an entire library filled with books—but I think this is the first time that something like this ever happened. Anyway, Jack called everyone to come look, and used some of that equipment for a second round with a few of the girls who were willing. And he noticed, after everyone left, while he was shutting off the lights in the salon and getting ready to go to a neighboring bedroom for a well-earned sleep, a "weird feeling down below, you know?" (Jill's words).

In fact, the very first change Jack seemed to experience was the source of this feeling. He went to a bathroom to check, and found that his manhood was already much smaller than he remembered, and visibly shrinking even more. Since he'd been warned this might happen, it wasn't quite as surprising as it might have been, but it was still—she told me—"super weird and surreal." He continued on toward bed from then, stripping off everything but his boxers, but he couldn't get to sleep while the strange feeling between his legs continued—especially not when he knew exactly what it was.

Maybe an hour or so after he lay down, the feeling came on especially strong for a matter of just a few seconds, and—well, Jill described it to me as "That's when my 'little Jack' became a 'little Jill'!" Which is to say, he'd already turned physically female, along with a small burst of "good feelings down there" before her body was finally comfortable enough to allow her to sleep.

She woke up the following morning to find that the boxers had shrunk into a pair of tight, feminine boyshorts, but the clothes she'd taken off the night before—as well as all the other clothes that had generated themselves into place in her bedroom—still looked like they belonged on a man's body: Pants, shorts, shirts, that kind of thing. In fact, she hadn't changed at all since becoming female, making her look and sound just like the man she'd washed ashore as. Jack wasn't really sure how to break this to the other girls at this point, so she decided to just not worry about it, putting on some swim trunks and a tank top and going to have breakfast and see whether there was any work to do.

A couple of girls wanted a little more advice from 'him', but with all the work Jack had done on his first day there, there was nobody in particular need of a haircut. She did persuade one girl to let her do her nails, and had some fun manicuring and painting them up "nice and pretty". Jack noticed her beard slowly steadily thinning away, shrinking into a few patches of peach fuzz by lunchtime—and this was the first thing anyone else noticed too, leading the girl whose nails she was doing to remark that that was probably the start of "the change". Jack sort of chuckled at this, but still felt too embarrassed to tell her why and said it was 'nothing' instead.

After lunch, Jack's facial hair vanished the rest of the way off, and so did the hair on her arms, legs, and torso, all of that skin softening and smoothing as it happened. She was actually delighted to see this shift in complexion, taking it as a sign that she wasn't going to be stuck as a strangely manly-looking girl for very long. Yet, similar to the day before, these changes were the only ones that hit her, and she was left smooth-skinned and female but still oddly tall, rugged and handsome-looking by the end of the day.

She was happy to wake up the next morning to a tangle of hair all around her head. That is—she wasn't happy about the tangled hair, but rather the fact that it had grown overnight to a length sufficient for it to even be able to tangle. When she got up and brushed it straight, she found it was already a couple of inches past shoulder length; additionally, its color had paled slightly, "like someone had done a bad job of trying to un-bleach it". This was wonderful news to the hair stylist, since it meant she could actually play with her own hair now instead of only other people's. Jill admitted to me at this point that—as Jack—he'd always been a little jealous of how pretty girls' hair could look. He made himself look as great as he could, but felt like he just couldn't pull off long, pretty hair and all the fun styles it could come in. Well—now she'd be able to do just that, even if she mostly still looked like the man she'd been back then.

All of her available underwear had been boyshorts the day before, and now it had all shrunk further, into panties and bikini bottoms. All the other clothes were different too, a little tighter-fitting and more feminine looking. Jill remarked to me that most of the outfits were too small to even fit her at all, leaving her with some male-sized swim trunks and a hawaiian shirt as her best option for the moment.

Anticipating that there wouldn't be very many "customers" today either, Jack decided to go out to the ocean and try to learn to swim a little bit better. She was thinking about how she'd wound up on the island in the first place; even though it's unlikely that even an Olympic-level swimmer could've gotten out of that situation alive (without our island "scooping him up" anyway), she just didn't want to feel so helpless in the water ever again. That meant she had on a bikini bottom under the trunks, of course. One of the other girls was happy to give her some pointers, but noted that a lot of it was just practice, after all—so Jack resolved that she would practice.

She noticed the color in her hair slowly draining out while she swam, like the ocean was washing off some dye. It wasn't long at all before it had turned a pure, snowy white—which Jill tells me makes it a "perfect canvas for coloring!" She actually likes to keep it the natural color a lot of the time, but now and then—including at the time of the interview—she'll give it some other color just for fun. Right now, it's this very pretty, vibrant red.

She came out of the water around lunchtime. Now, since she was actually female, Jack didn't feel too comfortable going topless, even though her chest hadn't "sprouted" just yet, so she'd been wearing that hawaiian shirt this entire time. It had gotten thoroughly soaked, and so was hanging down and dragging off of her; she thought it was uncomfortable because it was so wet. That was only partly true by the time she waded back ashore, because—once she was standing up straight on dry land—it became quite clear that it was also falling extremely loose around her shoulders and hanging its hem way down to her thighs. She had, in the course of the morning, shrunk quite a bit of height and width off, leaving her with a shorter and much more slender, androgynous build.

It was obviously a good idea to have a quick shower and towel off before going to eat anyway, so she used that as an excuse to also change clothes, and came out wearing a much smaller tank top and a pair of soft gym shorts, both of which fit her smaller body much more tightly and made her changes much more obvious. Particularly, the shorts did nothing to hide just how flat she was between the legs. So no sooner was she in view of the other girls than they took notice, surprisedly asking her when she'd "changed over".

Jack's voice was still a deep, male one; she was still a bit on the tall side for a girl, and while slim, her build remained androgynous and without any curves to it. But she admitted anyway that she'd actually been a girl since her first night of sleep on the island. Jill told me that she expected some kind of negative reaction from someone about her behavior—including keeping it a secret, since everyone seemed so interested in what was happening with her change—but instead everyone was supportive and encouraging, saying they were sure she'd turn out beautiful. Najira led the charge with this, but everyone else seemed sincere about their friendly expressions too.

Jill said that this was the moment where she felt truly accepted here, like this place could be her home for a very long time—and told me that she resolved to try to give that feeling to every other person who washed ashore here and got changed, in a similar sort of way. I actually haven't heard it put into words by any of the other girls here, but...I think that a majority must feel something quite similar. It explains the way everyone talks about new people changing, including to their own faces. Some new arrivals, like Kate when she was one, find this behavior a little bizarre and hard to swallow at first, but I think the intentions tend to shine through quickly enough.

Anyway, one of the girls had seen the manicure job she'd done the day before, and asked Jack for something similar, so she had some work to do in the afternoon. More customers came in while she worked, all wanting one beauty treatment or another, and she was happy to provide them. While her body didn't change shape any more for the rest of that day, Jack did notice her voice steadily changing, its pitch rising a little more just about every time she talked, until the end of her workday—about suppertime once again—when it had landed at a high, cute, but still somewhat mature girlish tone.

She announced at supper that she'd like to be called Jill from now on, and that she sincerely hoped her body wasn't quite finished changing yet. A tall, flat-chested girl could still be beautiful with the right 'do, Jill remarked to me at this point, but some curves and a softer face would go a long way to helping her out.

Jill's fourth day on the island started out similar to the others. She woke up with the same body shape as the night before, but found her available wardrobe altered once again: Nearly everything looked too small or short for her current size, and there were now bras and bikini tops among the things that didn't seem likely to fit her just yet. Given what had happened the day before, she took this as a good sign, and just wore the smallest tank top that would fit her out to the beach to try and practice her swimming a little more. There was nothing left to hide this time, so she used just a bikini bottom—all the boyish swim trunks had disappeared by now anyway.

Since she was actually expecting her body to change throughout the morning, Jill took periodic breaks to check in on it this time. She was delighted each time to find herself shorter, with narrower shouders, a slimmer waist, slenderer arms and legs ending in smaller hands and feet. The tank top that had been a tight fit on her coming out of the shower that morning was hanging loosely off of her upper body and trailing halfway down her hips by noon, and she was "starting to really feel like a girl now!"

These changes were complemented by some more in the afternoon. She went to work in the salon again then, having changed out the wet swimming clothes for a bikini bottom, some short jean-shorts, and a crop top that showed off her midriff before going to lunch. (I must say, it seems like Jill remembers every single outfit she wore back then...and possibly every one since then, too.) While she was walking around helping style a girl's hair, her stance and balance slowly shifted because of her hips spreading themselves out and her butt turning bigger and rounder. The salon mirrors displayed her face getting softer and rounder, becoming just as cute as her voice sounds. And last of all, once those changes seemed to be completely finished, Jill's chest finally showed some signs of growth.

They puffed themselves out only the tiniest bit before she went to supper, and after she'd come back to her house to relax for the evening, she found them very slowly raising and filling themselves out over the course of another hour or two, until they finally seemed to stop. She went to get a good look at herself in the mirror after then, and tells me that she right decided then and there she was "perfect!". I'm inclined to agree—she's got a petite figure, but still a very fetching and cute one. In defiance of her believing herself to be done, however, she woke up the following morning to find her right eye had abruptly changed its color from blue to a bright yellow. She found this mismatch with her unchanged left eye kind of annoying at first, but soon came to see her heterochromia as a unique aspect of her beauty, especially when other people said they thought it suited her.

By the time Saya came around, Jill was already a pretty accomplished swimmer, and had long since gone from doing it to get better to just swimming or floating around from time to time as a way to relax. She actually caught the beautician on her way back in from a 'therapeutic swim', which put her in a very relaxed and happy mood for the photo shoot. It seems like she gets along with our photographer quite well to this day, both of them having very compatible views on aesthetics—at least when it comes to girls, anyway.

"I feel like I already know," I said, "but how do you feel about being stuck a girl?"

"Pffsh, stuck," she answered first. "I mean like, sure, I dunno how I'd turn back, but why would I ever want to? Just look at this pretty face and amazing hair!" She gave her hair a little flip.
"Yeah, point taken."

Well, I said that, but in my opinion, there's more for a person to want out of her body than it just being attractive. Jill doesn't look extremely toned, but given how great of a swimmer she is (and how fast she seems to have picked up surfing since Danny showed up), I guess she must be much more physically fit than she looks at a first glance. It seems like being able to play with her own looks the way she always could others' is a dream come true for her, at any rate; I suppose Saya feels something vaguely similar to that, too, since she can be a really good model for her own photos?

That said, besides being healthy and fit and attractive, and not having some obvious, glaring flaw including being too short to reach anything—I'm having a difficult time thinking of what else I could ever want out of my physical appearance. I suppose that even being really short can be tolerable for some people, like Kate—I never once heard her complain about her height in that interview. Is 'just being male' really all that valuable in the first place? I'm not even sure I'm in a good position to evaluate that, since that ship has already sailed for me, and we don't know of a way for anyone to actually change back...

I think it's almost time for me to write an entry for myself. I'm going to take a break from interviews and compiling notes and just try to relax while I ride this the rest of the way out. I anticipate writing up the entry tonight, after sunset, so...until then, I suppose.

Changing Island: Entry 10

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At this point, individual entries are getting long enough that each qualifies as a full-size story part on its own. Expect to see me post more of these soon, hopefully this week.

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Entry 10

Last night's entry was the last one I wrote as a man. I suspect my last entry for today is going to be my own. But, as I've said before, I want to wait until it's completely over before writing that. For now, I want to talk about the girl I interviewed this morning.

I was very surprised to see Ara's cat ears and tail, but now that I've been here a few days and started to meet a lot of the girls here, I've found that she's far from the only one to get odd traits like that in the process of turning into a cute girl. People like that are definitely a minority here, but it happens often enough that those who've been here for a while aren't particularly shocked to see it happen again. It's rare enough to be notable, certainly, but not unheard of. Now, halfway into the first year—that is, half a year after Najira's arrival—nothing like that had happened yet. That's where Kate comes in. Only, at the time, she was a guy named Kale.

Did you know that people get stranded on Hawaii? They go there for a vacation, or thinking that they can live on that island paradise for one reason or another, and then they end up jobless and homeless and can't afford plane tickets back to the mainland. It's such a problem that some charities on the island offer to pay for people's plane tickets back to the if they have friends or family on the other end to receive them, as long as they promise not to come back. Kale was someone like that.

Kate wouldn't tell me much about how she wound up on Hawaii—I think it's still a painful subject, so I didn't press—just that he didn't actually have anyone to "fly back to" and got desperate, eventually deciding to stow away on a shipping boat headed across to the mainland. No one caught him, but a few hours out at sea there was a huge storm, making the sky dark and the seas particularly rough. In his efforts to keep from getting crushed by a poorly-secured shipping container, he wound up slipping overboard all on his own, and there was no way to call for help. He gave up on swimming beore long, not having much strength to begin with because of how little he'd been eating up until then, and sank below the waves.

The first thing Kale thought when he woke up on the beach here was that he'd miraculously washed up back on Hawaii, despite how far out at sea he must've been when he fell overboard. He pushed himself to his feet and staggered inland, hoping to find someone kind enough to get him medical attention—but eventually realized that, apart from some stiffness and hunger, he actually felt a lot less terrible than he had when he'd gotten on that ship. He was walking normally by the time he found the houses, and from there some girls noticed him and welcomed him to the Changing Island.

"People actually welcoming me and treating me like a person again? It seemed way too good to be true," Kate told me. "But I was starving. So I asked if I could have something to eat, anything." Najira took him to her place and microwaved some leftovers from lunch—it was about mid-afternoon—and explained our situation here while he scarfed it greedily down. His responses all took the form of affirmative grunts and "uh-huh" and "sure" while she explained; he didn't believe a word of it. "Gotta be some kinda weird cult," she said she'd been thinking at the time. "But, hey, she fed me, soooo..."

Kale was suspicious of everyone. He didn't believe that he'd get to live in an actual house with free food provided; he didn't believe the attractive girls all around him had once been men who then had their own accidents at sea and wound up on this island too. He put up a neutral front as best he could, but some sour responses revealing his actual emotions bled through here and there, quickly earning him a reputation as a "grump" that's stuck to this very day. Still, Kale was determined to take advantage of his strange situation while he could, and he used the ingredients in his house to make himself a nice, big feast for supper that night. Kate told me that he learned a lot of recipes and techniques for cooking in general from his mother when he was a teenager; she'd insisted that it would help him "survive in college or whatever." The two girls already living there found him making it and asked if they could have some, and he shrugged—which they took as permission. In his greed, he really had made more than he alone could eat, so it turned out to not be a problem when they showed up and started helping themselves, thanking him for the delicious food.

By this point, Kale hadn't undergone any noticeable transformation. But as the two pretty girls living in the house with him thanked him once again and offered to take care of the dishes, he shrugged again. Then, still sitting there at the table with a full stomach and an empty plate in front of him, Kale felt a weird sort of push from both of his ears at once—"like the ears themselves were pushing, y'know", she said. In a matter of seconds, his ears had grown from human ears into two gigantic triangular things covered in fluffy fur—mostly black like his hair, with some white tufts on the inside. And then a similar feeling came to his lower back, and a long, equally fluffy black-furred tail burst its way out from the base of his spine just as quickly as the ears had grown.

The girls stopped in their tracks and silently stared for a long moment. Kale reached his hands up at the big, twitchy ears and turned around in his seat, trying to make sense of what he was feeling and seeing. It was a shock, to be sure. It didn't help that their first instinct (after quietly staring) was to run out and get everyone else's attention on the weird thing that had happened to the new arrival. Before he knew it, he was an unwilling celebrity, every girl on the island barging into "his" house to come have a look at the freak (Kate's choice of word here). That was until Najira seemed to notice how much the attention was annoying him, and commandingly yelled at everyone to give him some space before eventually kicking everyone who didn't live in that house out. She apologized to him, saying nothing like that had happened before and everyone was just very curious about it.

At this point Kale thought he had to be the subject of some bizarre science experiment, or maybe a Truman Show kind of thing. The pretty girls, the house, the food—all was just to lure him in so they could give him weird furry parts and see how he reacted. But he resolved then and there that he'd at least take advantage of the food and shelter until he was fully well, and then the instant he thought things were going south, he'd find a way out. Build a boat in secret and sail off the island in it himself, if he had to.

The girls living with him apologized profusely for the incident after Najira left, and repeated their offer to "at least" do the dishes. Kale just shrugged, said "It's whatever," and went upstairs to his room to sleep. Kate noted to me at this point in her account that he actually paused to look at his ears and tail himself in the mirror, and thought, "These really aren't too bad, for being the result of mad science or whatever. They don't hurt or anything. They'd even be pretty cute on...a girl." He'd actually forgotten at this point that Najira had told him he'd be turning into a girl pretty soon.

Kale hadn't changed any more by the time he woke up the following morning. He took a shower, deciding to shampoo the new fur, and went down to get himself breakfast. Once again, he mistakenly made too much, and once again his housemates were happy to share the "burden" of eating it in exchange for their doing the dishes.

It was while he was eating that Kale found another strange thing happening to him. He thought he was slouching in his seat, and tried to sit up, only to find that he already was sitting up. His perspective sank steadily downward from there, and his legs even pulled themselves upward so much that he found his feet lifting off of the floor entirely until he scooted forward in his seat—twice. He kept eating, watching the girls at the table with him for a reaction. They definitely noticed it was happening—stealing glances here and there—but seemed hesitant to comment on it.

Besides getting shorter, and his limbs getting shorter, Kale's body became decidedly smaller everywhere. His shirt tented out around him more and more as he shrank, his shoulders narrowing and his frame slimming away. Just as he was finishing up his breakfast, the shrinking finally, mercifully, came to a halt, leaving him shorter than both of his housemates—in fact, shorter than most everyone on the island, even now. It was then that he brought it up in conversation.

"Sooooo...I just shrank. Right? Like, a lot?" he said. Both of them agreed, saying something about how his change was starting for real after the strange addition of the fluffy ears and tail. He asked, "'My' change?" and one of them said something like you know, how everyone who washes up here gets turned into a girl? It was then that he remembered Najira saying something like that in his first encounter with her. He couldn't muster any response to that other than "Oh."

He gathered his baggy clothes up over him and made his way up the stairs, eventually giving up and letting his pants fall off once he got to his bedroom. Then he went to the mirror, shrugged, and tossed his shirt off too, to really get a good look at what had happened. Not only was Kale now very short, but his skin had already smoothed over too, losing its body and facial hair and turning soft and supple.

Since he'd been homeless before, suffering from some malnutrition, Kale had been gaunt when he washed ashore; now his body looked thin, with a narrow frame, and yet perfectly healthy. He remembered at this point that the effects of starvation really should've made it impossible for him to enjoy meals the way he had since washing ahore—it seemed like he'd genuinely become healthier and healthier since coming here. "Score one for mad science," was his dry remark about that.

He turned around to get his shirt and put it back on, only to find that it had shrunk to a size that matched his new short, slender self while he wasn't looking. The pants he'd discarded on the floor had done something similar, not only becoming something that fit his now-diminutive size, but also losing most of their leggings in order to convert into some jean-shorts. His clothes had also "repaired" themselves, losing all of the tattering and tearing from their stint as his only set of clothes while homeless to become just like some brand-new clothes. He half-wondered if someone had snuck in behind him, grabbed his old clothes and set down new ones in their place...but surely his humongous ears would've heard something like that.

Kale didn't feel like going to a ton of effort for lunch; he just made himself a sandwich. He expected his housemates to be disappointed or upset that he wasn't making something for everyone, but they seemed to instead happily walk in (having been off at the beach for the morning), make their own lunches, and ask politely if they could join him at the table. His response was a shrug, of course.

It was a few bites into the sandwich that Kale felt hair tickling his ears, his forehead, the back of his neck and the sides of his face. He set it down and reached up to find soft locks which were at least twice as long as they had been before, and which were still growing. It was at this point that he picked up on a pattern: Apparently, his body went through another bizarre change every time he ate. But..this time, it was seemingly just his hair getting longer. He shrugged to himself and went back to eating his sandwich.

The girls asked him if he wanted to go out to the beach, maybe meet some more people? He started to respond "Sure, I guess", but didn't get farther than "Su—" before pausing because what he heard come out of his own mouth didn't sound at all like his own voice. He cleared his throat, and the throat-clearing voice was still thoroughly unfamiliar. "Uuh. My voice?" he said aloud. Kate's voice is about as deep as a girl's voice can get, but there's no mistaking it for a guy's voice; it's a woman's through and through. That was the unfamiliar voice coming out of Kale's mouth after he finished eating his lunch. The girls didn't seem nearly as surprised as he was, remarking that it must have changed along with his hair. He sighed—deciding that at least the rules of the weird game he was stuck in were consistent—and went back to nominally agreeing to go outside and meet some more people.

"You know how everyone on this island is like..ridiculously supportive about the whole 'getting turned into a girl' thing?" Kate said. "I mean, I'm sure you've noticed by now." I said sure. "Well, it's pretty much always been that way." Everyone was talking about how cute Kale was already starting to look, how they loved his hair, and the ears and tail were bound to make him look even better. There were plenty of apologies about everyone swarming his place before, too. However, he had some suspicions of an ulterior motive behind their friendliness when he realized that his housemates had been telling everyone how good his cooking was. A few people were asking if he'd make dinner for them that night, too. He tried to clarify that he'd just been making himself food and made too much, but the requests kept coming anyway. It seemed like some of the girls were even ready to fight over who he'd make dinner for first or something. So, remembering how she'd defended him from a crowd before, he went to Najira.

"You don't have to do anything you don't want to," she told him first of all. "I'm sure everyone would be happy to get to taste your cooking, but it's up to you if you ever want to do it again."
Kale thought about it and said, "Look, I don't mind making supper. But I don't wanna make someone angry 'cause I went to someone else's house instead of theirs, y'know?" From this, Najira got an idea.

The community center didn't exist at this point, but Najira's house is a little bigger than everyone else's. Her dining room is large enough that it can seat about as many people as were on the island at that time. She suggested that Kale just make supper for everyone—just this once, and never again if he didn't want to—using her kitchen, and then they could all eat together in her dining room. She offered to help with the cooking, and find some more volunteers to do the same if he wanted them. Kale thought about this offer, then shrugged and said "Sure, okay." To feed that many people, he needed three helpers, and the girls who'd been living with him and benefitting from his cooking so far were quick to take up the two empty positions. Well—he needed three 'half-competent' helpers, he clarified, and said if they started burning or cutting themselves or screwing things up, they'd have to go find someone else to take over for them.

While Kale worked with Najira and his housemates to make that night's supper, he noticed his shirt steadily shrinking. It lost its sleeves, pulled itself up off of his stomach to show his slim, flat midriff, dipped its collar down to expose his neckline. He was too busy cooking to really worry about some strangeness with his clothes; he just had to be careful not to spill anything hot on the increasing amount of exposed skin. His shorts also decided to get shorter, and the underwear he had under them pulled tighter—but not quite enough to be too uncomfortable. By the time they were serving the meal, Kale's shirt had been reduced to something like a very short crop top.

Since he'd done all the real work of cooking, Kale was invited to take a seat while some of the girls served the food. He dug in, feeling ravenously hungry after all of that work, and...well, at this point in her account, Kate said, "I was actually happy for the first time I could remember. Prolly not the first time in my life, but in a really, really long time." She isn't prone to saying things like that, and quickly brushed it off to go back to her usual way of speaking, which only makes me feel like it was all the more genuine. Kale basically didn't care anymore what kind of bizarre situation he was in, as long as things could continue to be like this—delicious food, a home of his own, people being generally nice to him.

Of course, he expected by now that another meal meant another step in his transformation. This was confirmed when he found himself wriggling back and forth in his seat, feeling an odd discomfort. It turned out this was his hips spreading themselves wider, and his shorts and underwear pulling tighter as a result—and maybe they were also shrinking. This pushed at his manhood, which in turn seemed to actually give way and shrink to help ease the discomfort. Kale slowly realized that all of this was happening as he continued to eat, but it came to a point where he couldn't focus anymore because of it, and quickly hopped down onto his feet and excused himself to go to the bathroom.

No sooner was the door shut behind him than Kale felt it happening: A gentle, almost pathetically weak tug between his legs took away the last of what was there and his time as a man on this island came to an end. Slowly walking up to the mirror in the bathroom, she found that her top had also shrunk again while she wasn't paying attention, becoming a positively tiny string bikini with only two little triangles of cloth to cover her flat chest. Well—it wasn't flat for very long; Kate told me she felt one little push almost as soon as her eyes focused on her own chest in the mirror, and in an instant two small but easily visible breasts puffed out into view, completing her change. Speaking of eyes—Kate looked up at her face at this point and noticed that the deep blue color they'd had before had brigthened into a very light, almost glowing shade instead. (This is my own description here, she just sort of nonchalantly mentioned that this is when she noticed they were different.)

She took a deep breath, then went back out to the table. Everyone could see right away that she was a girl now—the tight shorts holding flat between her legs and her clearly-visible breasts didn't lie. Someone asked, "Wow, you finished changing already?" and Kate said "Yep." This resulted in an eruption of people saying how cute and pretty she looked, which she admitted to me felt "pretty great to hear".

We don't have a picture of how she looked as a guy (Kate would probably say 'good riddance' or something like that), but Saya took her picture in that initial round of photos. Kate was busy eating a popsicle at the time, and gave her permission to have the picture taken with a shrug and an "Mmph," not even bothering to take it out of her mouth. I have to say, she really is one of the cutest girls on the island; the ears and tail bring it together in a way I wouldn't have thought furry parts would. I suppose this is true for basically everyone on the island, but I think Kate must also have a positively ridiculous metabolism; she eats snacks fairly often and downs huge portions at mealtime, but her figure hasn't changed a bit since that photo.

Kate still pretty much works as our town chef—not every day, just whenever she feels like it, which isn't too infrequent. In fact, the way I met her was this: Everyone was invited to the community center for a big breakfast this morning, and Kate was the one who'd decided to make it and organized people to help her do so. And I'm happy to say, it was delicious. While I was thanking her for the food, I explained a little about my project and asked if she had time for an interview. We conducted it right there in the cafeteria, sitting at the table across from each other. For the record, she does tie her hair back and use a hairnet (plus some custom-made "earnets") while cooking. She's even threatened to have a "tailnet" made if anyone complains of fur in their food, which nobody has.

At the end, I asked her how she felt about being a girl, and..maybe you can guess: She shrugged. "Beats the heck out of what I was before," she said. "Listen: I was a homeless guy, basically human trash to everyone else around me—and pretty much treated like it too. Here, everyone acts like I actually matter. I get food and shelter, and I have an easy 'job' cooking for everyone sometimes—you know, whenever I feel like it. I could be a snail and still be happy if that stuff happened to me. But, yeah, being a cute girl is pretty great all on its own, too."

Well, it's hard to argue with an answer like that. A part of me wonders if she's happy being female just because it's part of a package along with acceptance, food, and everything else...but it sure didn't sound like it.