Kim sat at her desk during class, staring at James from across the classroom. As usual, he was completely enamored with her best friend, Serena. Kim had always been self-conscious about her appearance, despite the fact that she was a white, short brown-haired girl with a muscular body. She had achieved her amazing physique from being on the track team for college and working out every day at the gym. But she never felt pretty.
Kim couldn't help but feel jealous of Serena's effortless beauty and the way James was always fawning over her. She had tried everything to catch his eye, but nothing seemed to work. She ended up leaving class as she normally did and went straight to Janice, her college biology instructor who she regularly did teaching assistant work for. After a brief chat, Janice approached her with an offer that was too good to be true.
It sounded like a dark and horrible idea at first. But after the instructor mentioned that she wanted to teach Serena a lesson for cheating on the last few assignments and quizzes, Kim realized that she could get something out of this. Janice had been working on an experimental serum that would allow someone to phase into another person's body and assimilate them into a brand new fused body. Kim was skeptical at first, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized that this might be her only chance to win James over.
“You can literally become her,” Janice explained. “The students who were working on this serum had really detailed notes, but it was never commercialized. But here’s the thing - you’d be making changes. It isn’t a complete take over, but you’ll merge with her attributes and control her. The merging isn’t consistent, so I don’t know what you’ll look like when it’s done. I believe you’ll still mostly look like her, which sounds like what you want to win him over. Completely experimental, though, but the PhD students were confident about its safety. The only downside is you have to be near her and make physical bodily contact with her.”
With a mix of fear and excitement, Kim agreed to take the serum. Janice knew everything in her field, and while she couldn’t guarantee the serum’s safety, the young woman knew she had to attempt this if it meant taking James’ heart for herself. Kim thought deeply about it and realized that today was the perfect day to do this.
She knew that Serena would be at the gym later that night. Serena already worked out alone, and she rarely interacted with any of her friends after that time. So, Kim decided to text her and asked if she could meet her at Serena’s dorm room after her workout.
“I wanted to give you a surprise at your place - we never talk anymore,” the text message had said. Thankfully, James’ crush said yes. Kim grabbed the serum from her instructor and made her way to her own dorm room to plan out the logistics of what she was going to do.