Pink and Black

A cheerleader and a goth become exaggerated versions of each other through a weird Facebook quiz. Mature.

'Find out what your Friends think about You! Stephanie Madison took this Quiz!'

Amber didn't use Facebook much, but she had an account because everyone did. Her phone had pinged when she got the email notification, which had taken her to Facebook, where she saw the ad for some quiz app. Stephanie, huh?

Amber wiggled her black-nailed thumb over the link, thinking about whether to do it. It couldn't hurt, and to be honest, she was interested in finding out what Stephanie thought of her these days. Back in middle school, they had been tighter friends, but it seemed so much easier to be friends when they were young. They had hung out, played in the yard, done sleepovers; typical little kid friend stuff.

Once they'd gotten to high school, Amber had followed her interests into alternative music, cheesy vampire novels, and finding the darkest clothes her mom would buy her. Stephanie had gone off and gotten all athletic, and by now, in her senior year, she was on the cheerleading team. So it made sense that they didn't hang out a whole lot, but they had been good friends before, so...

Ah, what the hell. Might as well give it a shot.

---

'Find out what your Friends think about You! Amber Lee Knowles took this Quiz!'

Stephanie had assumed the ring from her phone was another update from one of her group chats, but instead it was a message from Amber. Amber? Wow, she had barely even talked to her in years. Maybe she wanted to reconnect during their last year of school together?

The mirror on Stephanie's closet door caught her reflection as she glanced up and fixed her hair, then leaned on her elbows and took a look at Amber's profile. Stephanie herself was pretty close to your standard-issue, small-town cheerleader, with a figure she kept slim through daily gymnastics and cardio, and naturally wheat-blonde hair. There on the screen was Amber's profile photo, trying to look dark and mysterious, with heavy eyeliner, and her straight black hair draped over one eye. Amber's hair was natural, too—she was half-Korean on her mother's side.

Sure, they did look different, but Stephanie did her best to not let looks influence who she was friends with. She and Amber hadn't talked much, but she wasn't going to shun an old friend just cause she was a bit goth now.

Stephanie hit the button and started answering the questions the quiz asked about Amber.

---

‘How do you think your Friend Stephanie Madison spends her free time?’ the quiz asked.

‘Exercising and listening to dance music,’ Amber typed in. She’s a cheerleader, easy.

‘Rate your Friend Stephanie Madison’s attractiveness,’ the quiz prompted, from ‘1 (worst)’ to ‘5 (best)’

Really? Was anyone ever going to rate anything but four or five? Amber hit five. Stephanie was probably one of the prettiest seniors, anyway.

---

‘What sorts of TV shows do you think your Friend Amber Lee Knowles watches?’ the quiz asked.

Stephanie scrunched up her face, then typed in, ‘Probably a bunch of spooky stuff about ghosts and history’

‘What do you think your Friend Amber Lee Knowles has as a favorite flavor?’

Oh, this one was easy. ‘Chocolate, because it’s dark.’ She added a toungey-face emoji.

---

Once Amber was done, she waited for the results, where it would tell her what other people had said, but all the quiz did was load a blank screen again and again. Stupid cheap Facebook app.

Amber tossed her phone onto her sheets and stood up. After sitting hunched over her phone for about ten minutes, she felt like she needed to move around. As she paced around her room, she snagged up clothes she'd left on the floor and tossed them into her laundry hamper, as a faint nod toward cleaning up.

She was still in the mood of comparing herself to Stephanie, and what floated to the top of her mind was a slightly jealous thought. Stephanie was slender and pulled it off really well and looked pretty, while she herself was slender but instead mostly looked awkward. Amber was a little too tall for her own body. She tugged the curtains over her window open by about half, lightening her room with some of the spring sun.

Amber stood in the light, barefoot in her tank top and jeans, and closed her eyes. She could just stand here for a while, warm and pleasant and not moving, just enjoying. Then her stomach groaned, and she opened her eyes again. So much for a moment of peace—now she was hungry.

By the time she was downstairs and in the kitchen, Amber nearly felt dizzy. She didn't think she'd skimped out on breakfast, but there was no arguing with her body. She grabbed sandwich fixings from the fridge and bread from the cupboard, and assembled a quick ham-and-cheese-on-wheat sandwich.

And then her sandwich was gone in a few bites. The edge faded from her hunger, but she still felt like she needed more. Okay, fine. It had been a small sandwich, so just one more, she thought to herself. This time: ham, bacon and turkey, three kinds of cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, and a swirl of mustard on top. She stood at the kitchen counter while she ate it, leaning over the plate to keep the crumbs in one place.

The second sandwich disappeared almost as fast as the first, but it seemed to satisfy Amber's hunger. Oof, now she needed to lie down. She walked into the living room and flopped back onto the couch, nestling down and grabbing one of the pillows to put beneath her head. She rubbed her face with her fingertips, then pulled her hand away and looked at her purple nails. She was pretty sure she'd painted them black last time she'd done them. Maybe the polish faded if she left it on too long.

Amber set her hand down at her side. While her hunger had faded, now she had a tight, sore feeling suffusing her body, as if she'd just spent all day trying to exercise and needed to stretch. She groaned and reached her arms above her head, arching her back, pointing her toes. Her shoulders popped. Her biceps flexed slightly. The hem of her tank top ran up her stomach, revealing that it was a little thicker and firmer than it had been minutes ago.

Amber closed her eyes and settled her cheek on top of the pillow, letting her body relax. A warm feeling lapped up against her skin, lulling her into a nap. As the sunny feeling wrapped around her, her skin grew subtly more tanned, without a hint of a tan line in sight.

Amber awoke with a yawn and a bat of her lightly mascara'd eyes. She wasn't sure how long she'd slept, but it couldn't have been much more than half an hour. Her tank top clung to her chest more tightly now, wrapping around the small handfuls of her breasts, while her jeans felt tight around her hips. Amber, who'd never been much more than a twig, felt the tightness of her clothes, and her first thought was that she felt fat.

Not by much, but she definitely needed some exercise. Blame that big sandwich she'd had, she thought to herself. She rolled off the sofa and got to her feet, springing up with a little bounce to her chest. Her parents had an exercise room in the basement, but if she was going to work up a sweat, she was going to do it to music.

First heading upstairs to her room, Amber grabbed her phone and a hair tie, so she could tug her black hair back into a ponytail. She gave the tip a little twirl and tug with her fingers. Oh, duh, shoes, she thought to herself. It'd hurt to go jogging barefoot. She stuffed on socks and a pair of sneakers. Earbuds in hand, she headed down both flights of stairs.

With her music on shuffle and the earbuds in her ears, Amber hopped onto the treadmill, turned it on, and started to jog. With hard-pumping symphonic metal behind her, she felt like she could run for hours. She hadn't ever seriously used her parents' exercise equipment before, but then she'd never felt this fat or had this much pent-up energy before, either.

Amber licked her lips as she bobbed on the treadmill. Her tongue pulled back to find that she'd put on her raspberry lip gloss. She didn't remember doing that, but at least it meant her lips wouldn't get chapped while jogging.

Each time she bounced from foot to foot, she felt her body's own motion, particularly in her chest and around her hips, right where she was 'fattest'. As she ran, each bounce was a little heavier, each slap against her ribs a bit bigger. Amber was puffing softly. She reached out and jammed a lavender-tipped finger against the Speed Down button on the treadmill, turning it from five to four.

Amber's ponytail bounced behind her, too, swinging from one side to another almost like a pendulum. A small split appeared down the middle, cutting the ponytail in two as if she had put on two hair ties and not just one. As they swished through the air, the gap between the two ponytails grew, until they were high up on either side of her head, more like two small black pom-poms bouncing behind her than one smooth ponytail.

Amber's black leggings hugged her legs tightly, but even they couldn't keep her butt from bouncing around as she jogged. And her sports bra, meant to hold everything snugly under control, couldn't keep her boobs from trying to escape through the neckline of her tank top. She mashed the down button again, setting the level down to three.

Amber's scalp tingled as a small wave of sweat came over her, setting a light gloss to her tanned skin. She assumed it was just the itchy feeling of sweaty hair. Unseen to her, streaks of blonde were inching out of her roots, sliding down through her hair, and starting to infiltrate her ponytails.

As the next song on her phone started, it flashed on her screen: 'Phrygian Abyss [Dance Remix]'. She would have skipped it, but that meant fumbling with her phone, and to be honest, the dance beat was good to jog to and kept her in a steady rhythm. To keep in time with the song, though, she had to set the speed down another notch to two.

Amber breathed through her mouth now, sucking in deep breaths, and then pushing her lips into a plump 'O' as she exhaled. Around her ankles, the socks she'd been wearing puffed up into pastel blue legwarmers, matching the ruffled scrunchies that had replaced her hair ties. Her tank top retreated up to her chest, leaving her stomach bare and revealing the tight tone and broad flare of her hips peeking up above her leggings.

Her hair, from the bangs that were bouncing around her cheeks to her two poofy ponytails, had settled on a warm blonde, though she was too focused on running to the beat to catch it out of the corner of her eye.

Amber must have been on an endorphin rush from working out, because her brain felt buzzing and warm and hazy. She was in the zone, and probably could have kept going if her boobs weren't getting sore. She poked at the down button with her light blue fingernail to set the treadmill to walking speed.

After a short cooldown, Amber hopped off the treadmill and bobbed her head to the peppy club music playing from her phone. She scampered upstairs, then pulled out the earbuds and tossed her phone on her bed. Then she peeled off her tank top and unclipped her sports bra. With a deep breath of air, she tossed the bra on her bed, letting her boobs breathe for once.

It was so hard having E cups when you were eighteen, she thought with a little smile. She wrapped her hands around the underside of her breasts and heaved them up a little.

Wait a minute.

Amber pulled her hands back and gasped. Even with her mind feeling foggy, she realized this wasn't the way things were supposed to be. Her nails weren't that long, her br—boobs weren't that big, and her butt was so not that fat.

Amber walked around her bed, past the corkboard with cheerleading ribbons pinned up, and stood in front of her closet door's full-length mirror.

Worse than looking cute, Amber looked hot. She had the sort of figure that could make the popular girls at school jealous, and her blonde bangs and ponytails were perky and fluffy in a way her flat hair had never managed to achieve. And her face, it was...still her, but in a way she was entirely unfamiliar with. She was wearing mascara and even had a little bit of eyeliner traced around her eyes. Her lips, strangely plump and tender, were tinted pink by the lip gloss she was wearing.

Blinking through her mental fog, Amber grabbed her pink-cased phone. She had an idea—Facebook, that would have pictures of how she was supposed to look, right? But when she opened it up on her phone, her new face was staring back at her, smiling brightly with some girl she'd never seen over her shoulder. Breanne, from the squad, obviously.

Amber shuddered. She'd felt that thought enter her mind, sliding in like someone was pushing it through a mental mail slot. Her phone chimed. She looked down at the new message from...Rachel's boyfriend! Gahh! Why did she have so many Facebook friends now?

In shock, she threw her phone at the bed.

"Oh my god, this is, like, crazy," she squeaked, tugging at the bottoms of her ponytails. When her voice came out cute and bubbly, she pursed her plump lips together as tight as possible.

That quiz. It was crazy to blame this on some dumb quiz she took, but she'd answered all those questions about Stephanie being pretty and blonde and working out and having a ton of friends and now SHE was pretty and blonde and worked out and had a ton of friends.

"Oh my gawwd. Ohmigawd stop saying that!" she snapped at herself, then clapped her hands over her mouth. She was having none of that.

She rescued her phone from the bed and tapped her way to her friends list. Ugh, like, why'd she have to have so many friends now? She scrolled down until she reached the M's, and there near the top was Stephanie Madison. She opened up a new message.

'omg steph the quiz is bad!!!! u shud come over like now!'

Amber closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and then went back through and fixed her spelling and deleted the extra exclamation marks.

---

Stephanie finished the quiz and was left with a spinning 'loading' wheel before getting dumped back to her news feed. What the heck? Where were the results? She tapped around a little, even checked Amber's profile for the post, but it was gone. Oh well, stupid app.

Stephanie stuffed her phone back into her pocket as she rose off her bed. Too many things to do in a day to get bothered by one thing on Facebook not working. Her phone dinged again as she headed for the kitchen. With one hand, she told Breanne that yes, practice was still on for tomorrow afternoon. With the other, she opened the cabinet and took out a glass.

She was always good about staying on her diet, but as she opened the fridge, she found she didn't really want to go for the pitcher of filtered water. Indulging a small craving wouldn't ruin her diet, after all. She grabbed the jug of whole milk and thumped it onto the counter. From another cabinet, she pulled out a box of chocolate mix and dumped two spoonfuls into the glass, then stirred in the milk.

After lifting the glass to her lips, Stephanie drank the whole thing in a few thirsty gulps. Eyebrows raised, she looked down at the empty bottle—dang, she'd polished that off fast. A gentle pang of emptiness rolled around in her stomach, so she poured herself another glass and mixed in some more chocolate mix, but didn't drink it right away.

On her way to the living room, Stephanie tugged at the hem of her pajama pants, pulling them up on her subtly thickening rear. She wasn't aware of the slow weight seeping into her frame, except as far as it was encouraging her to have a seat and take a load off. She set the milk on a coaster and plopped her butt onto the couch.

Stephanie turned and twisted, looking for the TV remote. Its corner was peeking out from under the coffee table, so she sat forward and leaned down to grope for it. Her fingers touched it, then she felt a sudden bump against her chest that made her pull back.

"Ow!" she hissed, one arm across her chest. She lifted her hand away—no actual injury, she'd just slammed her boobs into the edge of the table when she hadn't meant to. The thought crossed her mind that she might be going through some kind of late-puberty growth spurt. That was the last thing she needed when she was trying to stay in shape; her body going off and doing its own thing. She still remembered being fourteen and outgrowing her whole wardrobe over the course of one summer.

With the remote, she turned the TV on and let it stay on the channel it had been tuned to, the trailing end of some improve-your-fashion reality show. Stephanie couldn’t say she really cared, but it was good enough to watch in the background while she did stuff on her phone.

The pocket of her pajama pants was a snug squeeze, but she wiggled her phone back out and checked it. No new messages, dang. Normally she'd have someone to respond to.

While Stephanie checked through her various apps and accounts, her tee shirt tugged at her shoulders. She pulled on the hem to adjust it. That made it sit more comfortably for now, pushed away from her stomach by the swell of her chest. Her bra still fit, but her tee shirt was becoming more clearly stretched around her developing breasts.

And now she was thirsty again. Stephanie licked her dry lips, wishing she'd put lip balm on when she'd gotten up. Instead, she grabbed her glass of chocolate milk and downed about half of it at once.

A pleasantly cool feeling washed over Stephanie, like when she'd practice outside and a breeze would come and blow away all her sweat. It started in her throat, but then spread across her shoulders, down her spine, out to the tips of her fingers and toes. A soft sigh left her mouth. The tan that she had worked up from all her time outside, between cardio and cheer practice and cheering at games, began to wash away, starting where her tan was darkest: her arms and face.

Fueling part of that feeling was the slow melt of Stephanie's muscle tone. She had to be athletic enough for all her routines, so she kept up a healthy tone, but now that subtle thickness was fading from her arms and shoulders. Her shirt, shrunk from its loose material into a stretchier, skin-tight fabric, now clung to her slimmer waist.

Stephanie knocked back the last of her glass of milk, licking the drops from the rim. Okay, she'd had two glasses, she could...could do one more, maybe, okay? Again, the chill washed through her body. Paler skin rose to the surface, making her cheeks pinker now that her tan no longer obscured their color. Not even freckles remained on her pale complexion. And now, from the tips of her hair up, a rich black color inched into her locks.

She paused while opening the fridge door, looking down at her purple-painted nails. Weird, had she redone them recently? She must have, and then totally forgotten about it.

When she pulled out the jug of milk, a small craving struck her then and there. She was really, really thirsty. Her eyes clouded over and an irrational urge ran through her. She put her lips around the mouth of the jug and tipped it back.

Stephanie inhaled between her mouth-filling gulps. Her lips flushed and tightened around the rim and swelled a rounder and more protruding with each swallow. Her stomach ached when she was done, as she'd drank at least a half-gallon right on the spot, but at least it had satisfied her craving.

As she slumped back onto the couch, her chest swelledin the corner of her vision, pulling her tee shirt's neckline down until it naturally became a low V-neck. The relaxing, cool wave sweeping through her body pulled the black in her hair all the way up to the roots and melted away more muscle, dwindling her waist, leaving her slimmer, in one way.

Only one way, though, as she still steadily developed a curvier figure. Her ass cushioned her seat on the sofa as she settled in. She kept her head raised slightly so the top of her chest wouldn't cut off the bottom of the TV. The fashion show had ended, and the next show was some 'documentary' about how aliens could have been involved in historical events. Stephanie laid her black nails on top of the remote, but didn't change the channel. This was kinda neat, even if it was kinda trashy.

Pulling out her phone, Stephanie checked her messages. None, weird. Usually she got at least one or two every ten minutes or so, and now she'd gone a while with nothing.

Her pajama pants clung to her legs snugly now, and holes began to open up, forming a diamond pattern. In moments, the fabric running from her thighs down to her feet had become fishnet stockings, while a purple-pink plaid skirt rested around her hips.

A fuzzy feeling flickered through her head for a moment. A smile grew on her lips. This show was actually really insightful—all these connections she'd never made, they all made so much sense here. She flopped her phone into her lap to check it, but as she looked down, all she saw was the pale cleavage stuffed into her black-on-pink goat skull tee shirt.

Duh, she had to hold her phone out, because she was up somewhere around double D's and she...was... Wait a minute. No she wasn't. And now that she thought about it, there were a lot of things that were wrong. She looked really pale, and her hair had a little pink streak running through her dark bangs, and not only did her lips have some glossy black lipstick on them, they were also soft to the touch and nestled into a natural pout if she just closed her mouth.

As much as Stephanie wanted to keep watching the show, she turned it off, then tried to stick her phone in her pocket. Instead, it just bounced to the floor. No pockets in her skirt, duh... No, not duh. She hadn't been wearing a skirt!

Stephanie took a few running steps, but her body wasn't suited for moving like it had been, so she stumbled, bumping her hips and chest up against the wall that she clung to for support. She pushed off and shoved open the bathroom door, clicking on the light to see her reflection.

The fair-skinned, dark-haired girl stared back at her, wide-eyed and with a natural curve to her lips that made her look slightly surprised at everything. But right now, Stephanie was definitely surprised for real. Her hair hung down past her shoulders, letting out its natural curl in silky, dark waves. A single stroke of pink ran from the front of her bangs down the right side of her face, playing off the blush of her cheeks.

And speaking of her cheeks, she couldn't quite tell if they were dusted with blush or not, but she had definitely gained makeup, somehow. The thick eyeliner, trailing off the corners of her eyes, made her think of some Egyptian-style makeup tutorials she'd seen. Her eyeshadow, a reddish-magenta, added some warmth to her skin while still keeping her smoky, dark look.

Standing there in front of the mirror, she got to fully experience the effect of her new fashion: the blatantly rebellious, scandalously-cut tee shirt with the short skirt and tantalizing fishnets. Even the details she'd seen before, like her short, black nails, stood out to her now.

"Oh my ghh--," she said, biting her lip to hold in the last word. "I'm goth?"

Her hand on the walls to keep her steady, Stephanie found her way back to her room. Her shades were drawn, giving the room a glowing, brownish light that played off the book covers crammed into her bookcase and the plethora of magickal pouches and artifacts spread out on top of her dresser. It was like a witch had moved into her room while Stephanie wasn't looking, except that the witch was herself.

Stephanie's mind spun off in different directions and got lost in the haze every time, but there was one thing she could think clearly about, and that was that she'd definitely been cursed.

Her detailed knowledge of the occult told her so.

A tingle ran down her spine that made her flinch. She dropped onto the thick sheets of her bed. How did she know that...? She closed her eyes and tried to think straight, but all she could think about was the curse. Had she done anything that would have caused something like this? Anything to do with magic and spooky things, or being skinny, or...having dark hair and fair skin...the quiz!

Stephanie still held her phone desperately. (No pockets.) She held it out in front of her face, where she could actually see it, and turned it on. The Facebook app wasn't even installed anymore, so she had to log in through the browser, like she was some...uh, that word for people dumb with phones. Why was she feeling more vapid about everything but spooky stuff?

Hunting through her history and her posts, then Amber's history and posts, she found nothing. No trace of the quiz. A quiz that appears mysteriously, vanishes just as quickly, and all her changes were a direct link to how she'd described Amber? Definitely magic, but what kind?

...Her first thought was that she might have wished that she'd known Amber better before taking the quiz. No, too unrelated, too vague. Her second thought was that the quiz itself was magic. Some kind of karmic retribution? Maybe a genie or other spirit was behind this.

There was a soft ding, and Stephanie wondered briefly if it meant she had an idea. But then she picked up her phone again and checked the screen. A new message from Amber. The quiz had said that Amber had taken it too...which meant that either she was falling victim to it, or it meant that Amber was the one who'd turned her into this sexed-up goth girl. After some thought, she decided it was worth the potential magickal risk and opened the message.

'omg steph the quiz is bad! you should come over right now!'

Why was Amber's icon some perky-ponytailed cheerleader...? Oh. Oh dear. She needed to get over there right now, and fix this for the both of them.

---

"Oh my god."

"Oh my goddess," Stephanie replied.

She stood on the porch of Amber's house in her fishnets, V-neck and skirt, wearing a pair of black high-heeled boots. Between her pale complexion and her slimmed-down figure, she seemed delicate, like she shouldn't be out in the sun for too long or exert herself too hard, or she might crack.

Amber, on the other hand, was in a white tank top with the school's logo stamped on the front in blue, a pair of tiny, snug pink track shorts, and her blue legwarmers. She didn't have lipstick like Stephanie's solid black shade, but she did have a sparkling pinkish lip gloss. Her body was no less curvy than Stephanie's, but thanks to the subtle thickness of her muscle tone, she seemed sturdier. She was definitely a bottom-of-the-pyramid type cheerleader.

"Like, come on in," Amber said. Stephanie clicked in on her boots and flopped onto the couch with a loud sigh.

"So I see what kinda stuff you were saying about me," Stephanie said, looking Amber up and down.

Amber looked at the ground and shuffled her feet. "Yeah...I think I got maybe, like, a little over the top with my answers."

"No, come on. Don't get all mopey cause of this. All I said was that you like dark stuff and ghosts and whatever, and it did this to me.” Stephanie held her arms out in display. “It's taking what we said and going like, super extreme." If getting up wasn't a considerable effort, she would have given Amber a hug.

"But what is it?"

Stephanie raised her phone. "It's some kinda curse. I've been looking on paranormal forums and stuff but no one's seen it before."

Amber brought out her own phone and sat down next to Stephanie. "By the way, your hair's like, super cute," she said.

"Thanks. You pull those ponytails off really good! And your skin looks great, and the makeup—" Stephanie cut herself off, but she liked how well the strokes of eyeliner complimented the shape of Amber's eyes. She didn't want to say it in an insensitive way though, and she didn't trust her bubblier vocabulary. "You're a way cooler cheerleader than I was."

"Aww, thanks," Amber cooed. "You're doing a super good job of like, thinking about magic and stuff. Now here, lemme borrow your phone," Amber said. "I wanna try to like, delete the quiz from our profiles. Maybe that’ll break the curse thingy."

"I thought it vanished after we took it though," Stephanie said, turning over her phone.

"Yeah, but when you use an app, it's gotta ask for permissions, and there's a big list of all the stuff that's got permissions," Amber said.

In a minute, she had tracked down the quiz on both phones. Stephanie took her phone and copied the link to post to her paranormal forums, then on the count of three, they both pressed the delete and uninstall buttons.

They both waited for something to happen, like maybe a rush of magic returning them to their regular forms. After a couple seconds of silence hung between them, Amber bounced back up to her feet. "Maybe it takes a little while. You like, wanna drink?"

"Milk's good," Stephanie said. "How do you keep from hitting your boobs on everything?" Amber seemed to move so easily with the big mounds on her chest that it made Stephanie feel like a klutz.

"Well, duh, I got cheerleader reflexes," Amber said. In a minute, she came back from the kitchen, a glass of orange juice in one hand, and a glass of milk in the other. As she set them both of the table, a taut, fibrous sound reached Stephanie's ears, like the sound of fabric being tugged from both ends. Her eyes fell on Amber's chest, where her nipples made small dents in the fabric of the tank top and her breasts began to...rise?

"Oh my goddess, Amber! Your boobs!" she gasped.

Amber, with a surprised look on her face, glanced down at her chest, then brought her hands up to feel them. From both inside and outside, she felt the firm, sculpted, inert mass inside growing.

"Ohmigawd, fake boobs!" she squeaked, snapping her hands away. "Make it stop!"

"I don't know how! Maybe it's angry cause we deleted it?" Stephanie said, her voice squeaking out of her lungs at the last word. Something was squeezing her, too. She put her hands on her waist and felt something smoother than just a shirt, something more like velvet, with small, stiff ridges—she was wearing a corset over her V-neck, and it was tightening.

Amber stumbled back a step as she tried to take in everything that was happening to her breasts. Instead of their large-but-natural size, they were tightening up, defying gravity more, jutting out further. The effect wasn't as jarring as it could have been; there was still a natural sag and bounce to her breasts, since they had so much mass to begin with, but now it was hard to deny that they'd been augmented. Her tank top barely held them back: a pair of rounded globes that demanded attention and forced Amber to shop at specialty online bra stores.

Amber's hair fluffed as if the air had grown humid. Even all cheerleadered-up, her hair had been relatively straight and smooth, but now it was like someone had taken a bike pump to her hairdo. Her bangs fell to either side of her cheek with a little spring and curl. Her two ponytails looked almost like blonde pom-poms fastened to the top of her head, wiggling atop their blue hair ties.

"Stephanie, I—ghhh," she groaned, eyelids fluttering. A huge burst of sensation hit her right between the legs, and her brain erupted into static. She couldn't think, could barely process anything beyond the immediate physical reactions of her quick, hot breaths and the hammering of her heartbeat.

Meanwhile, Stephanie eeped out little squeaks as the corset's straps pulled tighter. She patted at her back, where the laces were. The corset was still relatively loose, leaving about four inches of her shirt exposed in back. A pair of laces were stringed up through the eyelets on both sides, and they were slowly tightening. She fumbled at the string, trying to find where it was knotted so that she could pull it out completely. Her stomach, already slender, was tugged inward by the tightening corset. The two sides of the corset in back were three inches apart and still tightening.

Stephanie's hair grew longer, spilling down her back. The single pink streak widened as her bangs were cut short, falling forward now, forming a trimmed line across her forehead while her long locks tumbled downward. The pink streak ran down the entire length of her hair, to the tip that dangled near the bottom of her ribcage, then ran across her short bangs to the other side of her hair, where there was another streak; pink in front, and black in back. The gap between the two sides of her corset in back was only two inches wide now.

The heels of her boots cranked upwards. There was one inch of space left in back where she could still feel her shirt, with the purple corset closing in quick around it. It squeezed around her pink V-neck and pushed her breasts up and her hips out. A tingle touched her lips, and then spread into a throbbing sensation, pushing her dark pout out thicker, rounder, plumper, standing out from her face in an eye-catching sort of way. The corset finally closed around Stephanie's waist, keeping it squeezed to a slender circumference.

Stephanie squeaked as the thump of pleasure struck her between her legs, sending static fuzz up into her brain, though not as intensely as was rocking Amber's mind right then.

The fake-breasted cheerleader teetered, then blinked away some of the fuzz and looked down at the pouty, pale goth girl squeezed into her corset. The first thing that bubbled to the surface was a disdain for the girl's strange outfit and dark makeup and neon-streaked hair.

"Ohmigawd, you're such a weirdo goth," Amber said, sneering, her mind still fighting through the haze.

The first thing that snapped into Stephanie's mind was anger at the pretty, popular girl with the pumped-up boobs and bleached hair.

"Oh. My. Goddess. You're such a fake slut!" Stephanie said, lisping her words just a little.

But when each of them saw the hint of pain and disappointment on the other's face, it brought memories back to the surface from when the two of them were in middle school. They'd had sleepovers together where Amber would tell ghost stories and Stephanie would teach her cartwheels. Or was it Stephanie who made the fortune tellers and Amber who brought the makeup to practice on each other? It didn't matter. Either way, they were friends.

Their memories were like shifting sand dunes, rolling from place to place, defying any attempt to map them out, but when it really came down to it, they had each other. That remembered friendship, that willingness to reconnect when it had been so long, was a guiding light for them.

Even in the face of whatever magic was trying to drive them apart, they were still able to find each other. Amber knelt down on the couch, straddling Stephanie's legs. They locked eyes for a moment, and then Amber pressed herself on top of Stephanie. Their lips met, Amber's pouty curve and Stephanie's overstuffed 'O' of a mouth.

With her arms wrapped around Stephanie, Amber almost felt like she was holding a doll, she was so light and delicate and finely balanced. But despite her pale skin, her body was hot to the touch and felt good against Amber's skin. At the same time, Stephanie felt like Amber's lips almost vanished into hers; sure, her cheerleader friend was pouty, but she didn't have a mouth made for kissing like she did. With her body pressed up against her, she could feel the little trembles running through Amber's body, as she tried to come to grips with the newly intense sensations flooding in from all corners of her body.

The kiss between pink lip gloss and black lipstick lasted for only a short while, but time seemed to move slowly while they were squeezed together. With a soft gasp, Amber pulled back from the kiss and leaned against Stephanie's chest. From the wide-eyed look on her face, Stephanie could tell that Amber hadn't meant to sink into a spontaneous kiss, either. After a moment to catch her breath, she said, "I'm sorry for saying that. It was like, super rude. I dunno what I was thinking."

Stephanie's lips wobbled slightly, and her breathing came with little, quick squeaks. The way Amber shoving her breasts against her own chest, Stephanie got the feeling that she herself was the more sensitive of the two. It was all she could do not to squirm from the pressure she was putting on her chest. With her cheeks flushed softly, she gasped, "Y-yeah, same here. Sorry."

A flash of realization crossed Amber’s face and she pulled back, giggling shyly. "Um, whoops. Guess I'm still, like figuring out my own strength."

Stephanie sighed in relief and leaned back. "No, I'm fine. Just...tender."

Amber plopped down on the couch beside Stephanie again. "Ohmigod, me too. This is gonna be crazy-weird to get used to."

Stephanie put a hand on Amber's shoulder. "We're gonna fix this soon, don't worry," she said.

---

The locker door swung open and hit Stephanie right in the chest. Again. She figured she might be better at it after a week, but no, she was bumping her boobs into desks and doors and other people and whiteboards and pretty much everything else. At least lunch was next, a chance to sit down without having to lean over a desk.

The familiar sound of laughter came down the hall, as Amber walked a half-pace ahead of two of the other girls on the cheer squad.

"So did you leave after that?" Breanne asked.

Amber shook her head and her ponytails bobbled around. "Nah, even if he's kinda dumb I was like, super into him," she said.

Lisa gave Amber a gentle slap with the back of her hand. "You're such a slut," she teased.

Amber caught Stephanie's eye. Amber paused, turning to the two other girls. "All right, I'm gonna go get lunch but, like, see you at practice!" she said.

"Ugh, I wish you wouldn't hang out with Stephanie." Breanne rolled her eyes. "She's so weird and she dresses up like a dork. I don't get it."

Amber's smile turned into an angry pout, directed straight at Breanne. "Ohmigawd Breanne, stuff like that is why people hate cheerleaders! Maybe if you stopped being so stereo—um—such a 'typical cheerleader' you'd have more friends," she snapped.

Lisa shrunk back a little as Amber turned and looked at her. "Like, do you have a problem with my friends?" Amber knew that neither of them wanted the most popular girl on the cheer squad mad at them.

"No, totally cool, hang out with whoever!" Lisa said.

"Good. Later!" she chirped, leaving them behind as she joined Stephanie to head to lunch.

Sitting in a corner, tucked away next to one of the auditorium doors, Stephanie and Amber settled down after eating.

"So like, any word on a fix?" Amber asked. Stephanie brought out her phone, though she'd already checked the forums just that morning.

"No...some people don't even think it's real. I don't get that, like, we both saw it happen!" Stephanie said.

Amber shrugged. "It must be the whole thing where like, it was always this way for everyone. No one in my family believes me either."

"Maybe we'll find something in another week," Stephanie said, putting her phone away. "It's not so bad though. Like, it's cool to get to dress myself up, kinda like having a life-size doll."

Amber giggled to herself. "Yeah, it's like, pretty neat."

"And it's not like I don't like being like this, it's just that weird feeling where, like, I'm not sure how much of that is me," Stephanie said.

Amber put her arm around Stephanie's shoulder and pulled her close, and Stephanie looped her arms around Amber's neck.

"Well, as long as we're together, we can enjoy each other's lives, right?" Amber said.

Stephanie's thick pout curled into as much of a smile as it could make. "Yeah. Best friends! So, what's the latest news from the squad?"

Amber shook her head. "Nuh-uh, I went first yesterday. You first, any cool new spooky stuff happening?"

And for the rest of their lunch period, the two girls traded stories about the lives they'd traded.