Nurse - A Fresh Start

Mark closed his eyes. Each day it felt as though they took more effort to open, until keeping them closed felt like his default state. Things were easier that way. Occasionally, he would flit them open to see the changes to his room – the nurses popping in to check his medication, the rare visits of doctors to check his charts before disappearing off to another room and other patients. But, by now, every time he looked a scene he had already seen being played out before him repeated itself. The nurses shifted, the doctors changed, but ultimately it was the same actions, the same processes, and the same monotony. The only thing that Mark knew was actually changing was him.

He was dying. He had been told as much when he was first admitted the previous month. The dim flame of hope had burned for those first few weeks, but swiftly it faded as reality smothered it. The treatment had shifted from curative to palliative. There was nothing more that the hospital could do, so they shifted from healing to stopping his pain. Mark breathed deeply, feeling the now familiar concoction of drugs working their way through his ruined body. Sometimes, he almost forgot he was ill, the sensations so dampened by painkillers. Other times, particularly during the night when he couldn’t hear the distant footsteps and chatter of human life around him, then he noticed the pain. Dull, but still present, a dark reminder of his own mortality.

He had initially hoped for visitors, but no one had come. Mark knew that he had no family nearby, and no friends that would have visited. By now he had almost come to terms with the physical pain, but the emotional strain of feeling forgotten hurt even more. Grimly, he wondered if anyone would even notice him gone, except for the medical staff who would swiftly clean his bed and prepare it for another, perhaps better liked patient. Sometimes he would hear the voices of people in the corridor outside his room, their curious, inquisitive tone immediately obvious that they weren’t the nurses he was used to hearing. Each time he’d hope they’d stop at his door and come in, revealing themselves to be a once forgotten acquaintance or lost family member – anyone to keep him company towards the end. But, each time, they passed by, and Mark was left alone.

Each night, he was finding it harder to stay awake. At first, the network of pipes and machines his body was connected to felt intrusive, like his body was ensnared in some great net made of plastic and metal, keeping him in his bed with repetitive beeps and whirring sounds. Now, there was a small comfort in them. They kept his pain at bay, just enough to make it easier to drift off each night. Once, he raged against it, but now each night his body yearned for rest, and he embraced it.

As Mark let sleep take him, he thought of the same bitter thought as usual: he felt cheated. He wasn’t old, he wasn’t sick until recently, and he felt like he hadn’t gotten his proper start at life. He had never properly imagined his own death before now, but he had at least pictured himself at a venerable age, surrounded by friends and family as he took one last voyage. His reality couldn’t be further from this imagining, and the most depressing part was that he knew there was no chance of him ever truly experiencing it. He was never going to get better.

Mark wasn’t religious, but in his hospital bed he had found himself making wishes, if only to keep himself occupied amidst the boredom. Initially he had wished for recovery, then when that became impossible, he had wished for peace. Now, as he felt his body slipping further, he wished for a chance to start again. He had plans of love and a life well lived, and he felt that all of that was being cruelly ripped from him by an unthinking, terrible universe, striking him down in the prime of his life due to nothing more than bad luck. It was monstrously, horrifically unjust, and the thought that he had been personally wronged by life drove him onwards. Mark breathed deeply, and silently wished for another chance.

During the night, Mark slipped away.

His eyes flickered open, and Mark had no idea where he was. He didn’t feel panic, but instead felt a profound sense of peace. For a moment he forgot he had ever been sick or in a hospital – he simply existed, untethered. He thought back to being a child and falling asleep during a long car journey. He would wake up in his bed with no memory of how he got there but know that he was placed there by someone who loved and cared for him.

Mark realised that even with his eyes open, he couldn’t see anything. Everything was awash in a bright white light. He closed his eyes, but still could see the same brightness, as if his eyelids did nothing to protect him from it. He realised he was sitting down, a weirdly unfamiliar sensation after being in bed for so long. The memories of the hospital slowly seeped back into his mind. Mark moved his head to try and look around, but it felt as though it was in a dream, his muscles moving in a lazy, disconnected way that made it hard to control them accurately.

“Hello, Mark”, a voice said, clear and pure ahead of him. It was soft, nurturing, but spoke with a subdued power that he instinctively felt in awe of. He looked up and could see something standing a few paces away from him. It shone with a light impossibly more intense than the white surrounding it. He found that he naturally averted his eyes, barely able to glimpse the entity in the periphery of his vision.

“What’s going on? Who are you?” Mark cried. He could hear his voice echoing everywhere, in the space around him and inside of his head. It sounded like his own several months prior, not yet reduced to a tired whisper through medication and sickness.

“Fear not”, the voice spoke, and a sense of calm washed over him. He realised now that one of his earlier wishes had come true – he felt at peace. He didn’t know where he was or what had happened to him, but Mark knew that at that precise moment, nothing was wrong in the world. He simply existed in the moment, unchained from pain or worry. “I am here to help you”, the voice said slowly. It spoke with a calm, measured cadence that reminded Mark of a kindly schoolteacher, patiently going through a lesson with a struggling child.

“What are you?” Mark asked, his mind racing. Religion had never been a part of his life, but now it was hard to doubt what he was experiencing. “Are you an angel or something?” he asked, pressing further. Then, after a grim pause, he quietly said, “Am I dead?”

The voice spoke back at him, gentle and comforting.

“If that’s the way you find easiest to interpret me, then yes”, it said. Though Mark couldn’t see the entity’s face, he felt from the tone of their voice that they were smiling. “You wanted a chance to start again? You have it”, it said, the voice growing less echoey with every syllable as it slowly coalesced into something more real.

“What?” Mark asked, confused. Despite the sense of peace throughout himself, his brain was working overtime, trying and failing to interpret the supernatural in a natural way.

“A new start, free of pain, suffering, and feeling like your life was wasted. Isn’t that what you wanted? To live a life with purpose?”

“Yes. More than anything”, Mark said, determined. Now that the being had reminded him of his wish, he realised how much he wanted to cling onto life, to fight against the darkness and feel his lungs filling with breath once more.

“Good”, the being responded, satisfied. “Well, no time to waste!”

Mark instinctively closed his eyes as another burst of light shot out from the person opposite, but it was no use, the brightness flooding his vision.

“You must work really hard to keep your hands clean, especially in your line of work”, it said. Mark looked down at his hands, trying to work out what it was talking about. With all the philosophical talk suddenly undercut by the casual statement, he furrowed his brow, muddled.

“I do?” He asked, but before he could be given a response, memories seeped into his brain of the frequent, almost obsessive handwashing he did. His skin was often red and raw, but he remembered the importance that he placed on hygiene. Mark looked down at his hands. His skin grew more tender, slowly spreading down from his fingertips as it worked up his arms, then down his body, until all of his skin had a heightened level of sensitivity. The hair on his legs, arms, and chest all grew softer, with most vanishing as if it was never there at all. Mark ran his hand over his exposed arm, still sticking out of his hospital gown. The touch felt precise and smooth, and as he ran his long fingers along it, he couldn’t remember ever having arms that felt anything other than this. “That’s right”, he said quietly, rolling his fingers in his palm. “I remember being taught how to wash properly, especially under each nail…” Mark said, his voice trailing off as he inspected his fingernails, now neat and short with a healthy, glossy shine to them.

“And your hair, does that get in the way of working?” Mark was asked again. He reached up to feel his hair, trying to work out what it meant by work. He could tell that he did something important and fulfilling, but he couldn’t quite remember what. He found himself pulling at his hair, and as he did so he felt it sprout out underneath his fingers. Vibrant, bouncy strands began to tumble over his shrunken hands. At first, the sensation felt strange, but then Mark realised that he had always had hair like this.

“It does sometimes! That’s why I tie it up now and then”, Mark said, looking to his wrist where a hairband had materialised. The feeling was reassuring.

“And what about your diet? It must take a lot of effort to keep that thin!” Mark heard the being say. He knew deep down that he wasn’t thin, but somehow found that he couldn’t refute what they were saying.

“I try and eat healthily, when I can”, Mark said, the words coming confidently and naturally out of his mouth, as if he didn’t need to process their meaning. “It’s difficult to grab a bite to eat between shifts, but I manage!”

Mark’s body began to slim down. Painlessly, he felt his hip bones shifting, and he unthinkingly adjusted in his seat. His shoulders slimmed down, and as he rolled his neck it grew longer slightly, his posture improving. With every moment his body was feeling more alive, the sensations that Mark hadn’t even realised he had been missing slowly returning.

The world around them was changing in turn. The empty, airy white plane that Mark had found himself in was shifting. The ground beneath his feet as they tapped on the floor became more solid, turning into the practical, hardwearing floor of a hospital. At the edges of his vision, he could see that the limitless space that had once surrounded them was slowly filling in, grey walls forming and gradually becoming more visible, like an image through a lens that was being focused.

“So, you must enjoy working here then”, the voice said, losing its echo entirely, adjusting to the acoustics of the room. “I mean, it’s hard work, but you’ve got to enjoy it, right?” it continued, now speaking more candidly. Despite knowing that he had never met the being before his life short life, Mark felt that he had somehow known them for years. The light around them faded, shades of blue and brown forming in its absence. Gradually, they were looking more humanoid, a distinctively female figure now matching their voice.

“For sure!” Mark answered, feeling his face burst into a stunning smile. From it, more changes radiated around his face. His lips thickened, his tired, unwell face changed into one that was now bright and full of life. His jaw shifted upwards, giving his smaller head a more feminine point to it. The slight stubble that had grown in his hospital stay vanished as if it were never there, and long, curled eyelashes grew out from his eyelids. Dark, thick eyebrows, perfectly styled at the top of his face grew symmetrically. Finally, a layer of makeup formed, emphasising the natural beauty of his features while still remaining subdued enough to be work appropriate.

Mark looked around. His surroundings were both familiar and unfamiliar. He realised that he recognised it as the hospital he was just in, but now he was viewing it from a wholly different perspective. The desk he was sat at was in his ward, but he knew he never would have been able to sit there. The space was reserved for staff, not patients.

He knew that something was wrong, but somehow, sitting in that chair, rather than laying in his bed and waiting for the end, felt far more comfortable, even if it was strange. His hospital gown shifted, the fabric moving over his thin body as it changed and reformed before his eyes. The collar grew into a sharp V-neck, the fabric now clinging tighter to his body. His felt his trousers soften and grow slimmer on his waist, now sitting higher above his thin, pert behind. They lengthened, altering to cover his now long, shapely legs. His worn out hospital slippers undid themselves, magically squeezing onto his feet as a pair of practical white trainers, perfect for walking around the ward in at any hour. The grey fabric of his hospital gown grew darker, shifting to black before bursting out in a rich burgundy. Mark struggled to remember having ever worn anything else. The sensation of wearing it felt brilliant, not only for its comfort but also from what it represented. He had earned this uniform, and he was proud to wear it.

Beneath Marks’ nipples, hidden reserves of fat began to build. They slowly gathered, swirling around them as his areola grew wider, spreading over the small breasts that were forming on Mark’s chest. He sat up straighter in the chair, as if his body was immediately able to accommodate the subtle but still noticeable weight of the perky breasts.

He glanced at the woman ahead of him, leaning casually against the desk. Just from her demeanour, Mark knew that she was in charge. She smiled with the confidence of someone who managed a competent team of professionals, but who also knew when to step in and take charge if needed. As her once radiant form faded, so too did Mark’s memory of it. It was difficult to see the woman now as anything other than a fellow nurse, her blue uniform brilliant, taking a brief, deserved break amidst a busy shift.

The sounds of the hospital flooded in. Mark had forgotten the annoyance he felt as he had slowly gotten used to the constant barrage of sound. The whirring of the vending machine a corridor over was now just a reminder that another nurse was about to take a break. The bleeping of the numerous devices in the ward was no longer pestering, but a quiet way of monitoring everyone’s health. As Mark looked across the various displays, he knew that he had mastered each of them. Years of medical school training alongside practical, on the job experience had made him a capable, compassionate nurse. More memories lodged themselves in his mind. His old self was fading away, but Mark found it impossible to focus on that – the reality of this new life was too exhilarating that he couldn’t remember experiencing anything else.

Underneath his uniform, new clothing formed. Over his shoulders, a pair of straps formed, connecting up to two soft cups which supporting his breasts. A pair of practical, comfortable panties appeared over his hips, cradling Mark’s shrinking manhood. As his genitals changed, Mark found it far more natural to sit with his legs touching, his thighs gently rubbing against one another. A slit formed in the flesh of his groin, his testicles shifting and changing to form vaginal folds, with his penis reaching its final position as a small and extremely sensitive clitoris. Inside, new organs formed, ready for all of life’s wonders.

Mark slipped away for a second time. Someone new was in his place. A young, passionate nurse with no memory of being anything other than her fantastically feminine self. At the forefront of her mind, among all the new memories of school and family, something stood out above it all: her name.

“Anyway, I think it’s time for the end of my break!” Maria said, standing up from her chair. She appreciated the time off of her feet, but she knew that working in the hospital meant that she had to put the comfort and health of the patients above her own.

“So soon?” The other nurse asked, already knowing the answer. “A shame, I felt like I was just getting to know you!” she said with a chuckle.

“We’ll have to catch up another time!” Maria said with a grin, heading off to her patients and into her new life.

The other nurse watched her go, sipping her coffee with a wry smile.

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A commission for improve1101! This was a really unique premise and I was glad I got to write it. Next up I'll be working on the winner of the last Patreon poll before getting back to commissions. 

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