An Inescapable, Wretched Prison

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Content Warning: This chapter contains depictions of intense dysphoria. Please be advised.
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Finley!

I awoke with a start, my hand tightly gripping the covers next to me as if clutching someone’s hand.

As my breath stabilized, I reacclimated to my apartment. Still here. Still not Elisabeth. And still without Finley.

You know that feeling when you take a disastrously-timed mid-evening nap, only to wake up sweaty, your mouth all weird, and feeling somehow less rested than before? That was where I was at. My PC was still on, the light blaring through the darkness of the room.

I checked my phone for the time. 2:32 AM. Sure feels like the witching hour.

And, 3,615 notifications. Whoa.

I ain’t reading all that.

Putting my head back under the covers, I tried to sleep some more. It refused to take me. I was agonizingly alone, stranded back in a world I had thought I would never see again.

Would I ever get to see Finley again?

The idea brought immediate despair. I prepared to cry, something I’d gotten used to in Lumineuse and Andraste. For some reason, though, no tears were forming. They were trapped behind my eyes. I tried as hard as possible, really focusing on that sadness — only a single tear formed. Just one. It rolled down my cheek, and I brought my hand to my face to wipe it away.

The hydrogen bomb went off.

Touching my face was a huge mistake. In doing so, I was reminded brutally and immediately of my body, the large hand feeling foreign as it swiped my masculine cheekbones. Slight facial hair scratched it on the way back.

The feeling paralyzed me. I stopped breathing. Crushed by a semi truck, a ten-ton weight lowered right onto my torso, oppressive. Get it off. Get it off! Help!

Overwhelmed, I curled up into a ball under the covers — but even that didn’t help, as I felt the absence of my breasts over my skeleton and frame, which were just simply too big. I was like a Scourge, bones overgrown, unnatural, wrong.

Why did I feel this way!? I had lived twenty-something years in this world, NOT as Elisabeth, before! Twenty-something years as a… man.

Why was it now impossible to comprehend that reality?

I was kneecapped. Even just adjusting my body felt like a herculean task. I couldn’t rest, couldn’t cry, couldn’t even sit still in bed without the very shape of my body feeling overwhelmingly apparent. A reality I couldn’t escape. Unable to get up, wallowing in that pain, I lay curled in bed, completely hidden under my various blankets in a tiny realm of darkness and warmth from my own breath.

It was awful. I had never known such misery, such intangible pain, in my entire life. The heaviness on my chest was unbearable. What did it mean?

Through it all, one thought, one single desire, manifested in my addled mind.

I need to be Elisabeth.

The thought brought comfort. I am Elisabeth.

I needed my long hair, my slender frame, my modest breasts, my cute giggle, my purple eyes. Give it back!

Am I like those people on TV? The ones that keep showing up in the news?

I didn’t want to be. But the desire — no, the need to be Elisabeth once more was too much. I was not a man. I couldn’t be.

So, too, did the need to be with Finley materialize as I lay in the darkness under those blankets. I miss him.

What would he say?

I tried to focus on him. “Deep breaths, Elisabeth. It’ll all be okay.” Remembering his voice brought comfort, eased the pain. I did as memory-Finley instructed. Deep breath in, deep breath out. Repeat.

The pressure stabilized.

I miss you, Finley.

What would he think of my body now? He probably would find me disg-

No. That wasn’t right. Not only was he bisexual, he truly cared about me for who I was. I had never even gotten the impression once that it was because of my feminine body that he fell for me.

Still, I miss you.

What could I even do? Nobody could come save me from this. There was no magic to-

I took another few deep breaths, letting the memory of the prince provide a flickering flame to focus my mind on. The pain waned.

Hold on a second.

I got there once. I can do it again.

Who said I couldn’t be the hero of my own story?

The same resolve I had felt when I decided to go after Marie began to suffuse throughout my body. You spent enough time moping, me.

If I’m hurting, then I’ll just have to get up and do something about it.

But I did not want to leave the safety of my blanket bubble.

Come on. Come on!

With every atom of my being exerting itself towards the end, I threw the blankets off. Get the hell up! Do something! I pushed myself out of bed. The light of my monitor nearly blinded me. I’ve got the internet now.

God, I’m thirsty.

I got up and went to the kitchen, downing three full glasses of water right at the sink. Better. More. I stuffed two slices of bread in my mouth, washing them down with a fourth glass. Good enough. I’ve got work to do.

Sitting back down at my desk, I wracked my brain for anything from that book I had read. Soul something, but what? It escaped me. Why didn’t you pay closer attention, me?

My searches online yielded no results, either. Typing a series of “reincarnated,” “transmigration,” or “other world” in any combination returned a bunch of anime. Not helpful. I added the word “soul” to my search. No luck.

Fine, whatever, I thought.

I sat in my gamer chair (limited edition!) for thirty minutes running through everything I could think of. Nothing felt right, though.

Exasperated, I went to some social media to take a break. The notification icon read: +999. I was not looking forward to going through all of those, a bunch of posts talking about “the stream” or something…

…Wait.

An idea came to me. If my whole life there, as my own VTuber, had been streamed, why couldn’t I go back the same way?

Somehow, though I didn’t understand exactly how, my life there was connected to mine here specifically through my avatar. I was sure, I could feel it in the deepest corner of my being, that that life was real. It was not a dream. My identities were intertwined.

What if all I had to do to go back was stream? It was worth a shot.

Despite the time being far removed from my usual scheduled stream time, I opened all my programs. It only took a few moments to get set up; even if I had been absent for a month, I had done this a thousand times.

With a deep breath, I hit “go live,” closing my eyes in anticipation of returning to myself, perhaps holding Finley’s hand.

Nothing changed. A few chat messages popped up, exclaiming surprise at the “giga late stream,” but I was still in the body of a man. And still not next to the one I needed to see. I stopped the stream.

What was it, then?

I thought back to the instance I had first gone to that world. What was different? I suppose it was an event? And I had felt especially awful in the lead-up to it. Was that it?

I have to go back.

I have to be with Finley again. And…

I have to… be a woman. I need it.

And I don’t want to come back.

I didn’t have any events planned for the near future, though. So, dummy? Just make one? Oh. Right.

Shooting out a quick post, “continuing #THEStream! Tomorrow at 10 AM,” I thought about how I could maximize the chances of making it work. Those hallucinations came back to me, little chat messages that reminded me of where I had come from. They were all real. Perhaps…

I added another post: “and I really need your help #elisabuds. I gotta go back.”

It was worth a shot.