GTS Agent Ch 27: This is What I Am! Secret Exposed! (Final)

The morning air was crisp, the kind that wakes you up even when you haven't slept well. Traci and I walked side by side down the cracked sidewalk, the occasional car passing by, its tires hissing against the damp pavement. Usually, she'd be rambling about some ridiculous thing she saw online, or poking fun at how dead I looked in the morning. But today, she was quiet. Too quiet.

It wasn't like her. Traci was the kind of person who filled every silence, even the ones that didn't need filling. But now, she walked with her hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket, her eyes downcast, her mind obviously somewhere else.

I glanced at her, frowning. "You okay?"

She blinked, snapping out of whatever thought had her distracted. "Yeah. I'm fine."

I didn't buy it. "You sure? You seem... off."

She waved a hand dismissively. "I'm just tired."

That made two of us, but this wasn't the usual "stayed up too late" kind of tired. Something was bothering her.

We walked a few more steps before I tried again. "You never told me where you went over break."

Traci hesitated. It was small—just the briefest pause in her step—but I caught it.

"I didn't really go anywhere," she said finally. "My mom's been sick, so I've been home taking care of her."

I frowned. "Sick? Like, bad sick?"

Traci shrugged, her hands still deep in her pockets. "She has her days. Sometimes she's okay, sometimes she's not. It's been like this for a while. She misses work sometimes, I miss school. Just how it is."

That didn't sit right with me. Traci never really talked about her home life, but I knew her mom worked a lot, and from the little I'd pieced together, things weren't always easy for them. Still, there was something about the way she was saying it—like she was trying to keep the details vague on purpose.

"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked.

She looked up at me then, giving me a small, tired smile. "What, so you could worry? No thanks."

I wanted to push, to ask her more, but she changed the subject before I could.

"What about you?" she asked, tilting her head slightly. "Your parents. What's their deal?"

I blinked. That was... unexpected. Traci never really asked about my family, and honestly, I never really talked about them. Not because I was hiding anything, but because there wasn't much to say.

"My mom's, uh... she travels a lot. Work stuff. Sales." I shrugged. "That's all I really know about what she does. She's always been like that. Never stays in one place for too long."

Traci nodded like she was expecting that answer. "And your dad?"

I hesitated, rubbing the back of my neck. "I don't really know him," I admitted. "He disappeared when I was a kid. Like, literally just left one day, and that was it."

She didn't say anything, so I kept going.

"My mom never liked to talk about him. I guess I never really asked, either." I gave a short, humorless laugh. "Guess that makes me a bad son or something."

"I don't think it does," Traci said, her voice softer than before.

I glanced at her, and for the first time, I saw something different in her expression. It wasn't pity, exactly, but it was close. Like she was connecting the dots to something she hadn't considered before.

"I see," she murmured, almost to herself, like she was deep in thought.

I didn't know what to make of that, so I let the silence stretch between us. This whole conversation felt... off. Like there was something she wasn't saying.

But maybe that was just Traci. Maybe we both had things we weren't ready to talk about.

The college campus buzzed with early morning energy—students scattered across the front courtyard, some huddled in groups, others rushing to make it to class on time. The familiar sight should've been comforting, just another normal day. But something was wrong.

I felt it before I even turned around.

Traci had stopped walking.

Frowning, I turned to face her. She stood still in the middle of the sidewalk, her hands clenched into tight fists at her sides. Her expression was different—gone was the usual mischief, the teasing smirk. Instead, sadness clouded her dark eyes, her lips pressed into a firm line.

"What's wrong?" I asked, stepping closer.

She looked up at me, and for the first time, I saw something I didn't recognize in her—guilt.

"I'm sorry, Douglas," she said, her voice quiet but heavy. "I wanted to do this in a much simpler way... but now I have no choice."

A pit formed in my stomach.

"What do you mean? Traci, what's going on?" I took another step toward her, my concern spiking into something closer to fear.

Before I could get another word out, a sharp, unnatural sound split the air.

A ripping.

Loud. Tearing. Like fabric being shredded apart.

I froze.

It took me a second to process what I was seeing.

Traci's body was changing.

Growing.

Her clothes—her denim jacket, her t-shirt, everything—split apart at the seams, unable to contain the sheer mass that was expanding before me. Her arms lengthened, her legs stretched, her form towering higher and higher. The ground beneath her groaned, cracks spider-webbing through the pavement as her shoes burst apart, leaving her barefoot against the crumbling earth.

My breath caught in my throat.

"What... what's happening?!" I staggered back, my mind scrambling to make sense of it.

Traci looked down at me, her face still the same—but now enormous, her expression unreadable as her transformation slowed. The earth beneath her feet buckled slightly under her weight.

"This is the truth," she said simply.

Her voice was deeper, more resonant now that it carried down from so high above.

"This is what I am."

My body refused to move, my brain still trying to grasp what I was seeing. People around us had finally started to react—some screaming, others backing away in pure shock. But I couldn't even process them.

Traci—my Traci—stood at fifty feet tall.

The friend I had known for years, the girl who had walked beside me just moments ago, was now a towering figure, her bare feet sunk slightly into the broken pavement.

"I'm a GTS Agent!" she declared, her voice ringing out across the courtyard like a goddamn loudspeaker.

I barely registered the murmurs of terrified students around me.

"A... a what?" I managed to choke out.

Traci—no, this giant version of her—smiled.

"And you're coming with me."

Before I could react, before I could run or even think, her massive hand reached for me.

"Wait, what?"