All the pretty things that we could be

A very special request by an Anonymous reader :) Hope you and Gabriel will like it ^-^

Contains spoiler for Life is Strange

Gabe was sitting in front of the TV with the joystick idle in his hands, looking transfixed at the screen of his computer as the ending of the game was unfolding in front of his eyes, the music playing as Maxine and Chloe drove off into the sunset towards perhaps a better future. It was the fourth time he replayed Life is Strange, and the third time he got to that ending. No matter how many times he would come back to that game, trying to influence the story by making different choices and finding out where those would have taken him, every time he would get to the ending it was impossible for him to bring himself to decide to take the route that would have resulted in Chloe’s death. He was simply too attached to that character to decide not to save her. That fictional girl that existed only in a game slowly started to feel like an actual friend for him, someone he looked up to. Someone he wished he could be.

It wasn’t so strange for him to be so attached to a fictional character. He was fond of everything pop culture, and the protagonists of his favorite stories had with time become his best friends. It didn’t help that in real life he could not make any real friend, beside one or two close confidants. He would spend his days watching movies and playing videogames, in an attempt to escape a reality in which he felt miserable and alone. Life in high school often felt like hell for him, being your typical shy and weak kid, getting bullied by his peers and being called wang-less and other mean names. He always felt like life was passing him by, and that all he could do was just look at it passively. Always looking. That was why he liked Life is Strange so much. He related so much to the protagonist Maxine. She was just like him, wishing to do the right thing but also wanting to be popular, to be liked, and to have agency over her life. But the character he was simply obsessed with was the other main girl of the story, Chloe. She was a rebellious, daredevil, charming, and witty punk girl, who did not answer to anybody but herself, and who would not let anyone bring her down. She was everything the protagonist wished she could be, and by extension everything Gabe wanted to be. She was the person he admired the most in the whole world, and she wasn’t even real.

As the credits rolled by he let out a melancholic sigh, turned off the computer, and went to the window. He looked outside thoughtful. Ever since he had completed that game for the first time he was so inspired by the way Chloe lived that he tried to follow in her footsteps, finally finding some balls to stand up to his bullies, and even going as far as imitating the way she spoke and acted, and starting to use her signature saying “hella” all the time. But all of that felt so shallow and pointless. He knew that he was merely putting on a mask, and that he could never be like her. He was no Chloe. At best he was a Maxine, only without the time-manipulation powers. And no matter how much he would try, he was stuck as his miserable, looser self. That was hella depressing.

Suddenly something caught his attention. A blue butterfly landed on the window right in front of his eyes. It looked just like the one that popped up in the game multiple times, Chloe’s spirit animal, and coincidentally his spirit animal as well. That was just too cool of a coincidence to let it pass by, and so he rushed to his desk and took out the Polaroid he had bought to start taking pics of things around him just like Maxine did. He got back to the window, relieved the butterfly was still there, and took a picture of it. The result was hella cool, and he immediately went to hang it to his wall well he kept all of the other pics he took. He kept looking at it for endless minutes, thinking to himself. It was hella amazing that a caterpillar could undergo a metamorphosis and turn into such a beautiful thing. He wished something like that could happen to him somehow, and that one day he too would have transformed into something that beautiful, and graceful, and most importantly of all free.

Suddenly he felt a breeze blow against the back of his neck, and his whole body started to tingle weirdly. That strange wind started to blow harder, and he suddenly felt all energies leave his body and his limbs starting to go numb. His hand started to hurt, and as he looked at them he saw them transform right in front of his eyes, as they became small and dainty, and the hair on his arms started to disappear. He felt something brush against the back of his neck, and saw a flock of hair fall in front of his face. They were rapidly growing long, and even changed color into a shade of blue. <<What the…>> he tried to say, only to suddenly feel something choke him, and as he coughed and cleared his throat he realized that his voice had changed, and that his adam’s apple had disappeared. He yelped in shock as a pair of breasts suddenly exploded over his chest, protruding visibly from under his shirt, and before he could bring his shaking hands to those mounds of flesh, a sharp pain in his belly made him bend over and fall on his knees. It was like his guts were twisting and turning, and it burned so much. He was too much in pain to even pay attention to the other changes his body was going through, as all his bones started to crack and reshape, his facial features changed into a delicate and feminine visage, his hips widened, and his figure became frail and thin. Finally the tingling sensation went to his groin, as he felt his dick starting to shrink and his balls disappear inside of his body, and a slit formed between his legs.

When the changes stopped he was covered in sweat, and his breathe was so heavy that he felt like he was about to faint. Slowly he regained some calm, and managed to stand up, wobbling a bit over his weak and thin legs, dizzy due to his different center of balance and mystified by his transformation. He caught a glimpse of his reflection in a mirror, and as he turned around he felt his heart in his throat and remained completely paralyzed as he saw a girl staring back at him in disbelief. It was so unsettling to see her mimic his every move, but the most amazing thing of all was that that girl looked awfully familiar. That cute face, those deep eyes, her blue hair… she looked just like a real life version of Chloe! And as he started to feel his face bewildered, and groped the new curves that had appeared on his chest, and sensed that alien emptiness in his crotch, he realized that all of that was real. Somehow he had become his favorite character from his favorite videogame.

For the following hour all he could do was to keep checking out his transformed body amazed, almost too scared to explore it fully. After a while he tried to figure out what had happened, and whether or not the world around him had changed as well. He soon discovered that even though he had in fact transformed into Chloe from Life is Strange, his name in the documents, the clothes in his wardrobe, and even his entire room changed to fit his new identity, the rest of the world seemed to still be the same. He had no way to tell how that had happened, but it must had something to do with the picture he took of that butterfly. It seemed like it had transported him to some kind of alternate reality, just like Maxine could travel to different points in time and alter reality using the pictures she took. His wish had come true! He underwent a complete metamorphosis, and he was now everything he always wished he could be! It was incredible! He shivered in anticipation, looking forward to the next morning when he would have gone to school determined to take his new life in his hands and live like the free spirit he always aspired to be. <<Wowser!>>

Once in front of the school building Chloe could not help but smile. She dropped the cigarette she was smoking, feeling the smoke burn in her lungs. It felt so satisfying, and she wondered how she managed to live all those years without even coming close to a cigarette. However it would not have been nearly as satisfying as the day she was about to have. She stepped through the door and headed straight to the bathroom. She was not going to attend any class that day, beside maybe to drop in at the end of the school day to flip the bird to the teacher. She had bigger fishes to catch at that moment, and was glad to find out her bully was there just like she had foreseen. She did not care for whoever was his victim that day. That was not his problem. All she cared for was to finally give that asshole what he deserved, and to make he weep and cry like the punk-ass bitch he was.

She went on to take a few satisfactions out of all the people that used to torment her in her previous life during the course of the morning, and a few hours later she left the school never to come back again. She would have been a high school dropout just like the “real” Chloe was, and from that day on she would have lived however she wanted, free from all ties to her old life. It was going to be hella sick! She took out her pack of cigarettes, deciding to leave the joint she had flawlessly rolled that morning for later, and lit it taking a big and nice puff. She then decided that from that moment on she would not have needed her Polaroid anymore. Not only by getting rid of it she would not have risked to somehow undo her transformation, but that thing also represented a relic from a life she wanted to leave behind her back forever. It was something more fitting for a girl like Maxine, definitely not something for the confident and independent Chloe. One last selfie would have been a nice send off to her old life, and would have marked the beginning of her new one.