chronoSprockets

  The pounding of my friend Kyle's shoes is unmistakable. I quickly try to dodge to the side of the corridor but he collides with me hard.

  I fall over onto the floor with my bag and Kyle's nky frame draped over me. He untangles himself from me and then offers me a hand while eyeing the corridor like a hawk.

  "Sorry Es, but we might as well get out of here before faculty finds us on the floor. Or worse still could happen and he could find us here."

  I scowl at him and pick myself up without his aid.

  "I thought you were meant to be good at this."

  "You know I am man. I'm just rusty and this is fucking terrifying, okay?" I nod, the thought of being caught is terrifying to me.

  "I'm on my way to try to work in the library. I can run fast enough if I need to, like I did st night."

  "He'll find you there and get you. We have to go off the grid, Es. We have to leave campus."

  Es isn't my legal name. It's a nickname I've preferred for years now though, and luckily my friends aren't assholes about it even when our lives are being torn apart.

  "No we don't Kyle, she'll give up for the afternoon eventually. She has a life too so she has to calm down eventually... we've been doing this for nearly a day now."

  "I don't want to be-" Kyle's speech is interrupted by the skidding of trainers from the other end of the corridor.

  The woman wearing them ughs to herself and regains her bance. I lock eyes with her and Kyle begins to hoist me down the corridor in an instant.

  She continues her gleeful pursuit.

  -----

  This all started yesterday evening. It was a Sunday night and me and my friends had got together at Kyle & Ethan's accommodation. It's the biggest pce any of us have.

  It was the usual sort of ordeal for a Sunday night. Five guys who hang out frequently at university shoot the shit and drink all night long. Eventually we'd pass out watching random YouTube videos and wake up collectively hungover, all in time for css the next day. We did it every week and a few times in the middle of it.

  Last night went very differently to how it usually goes though.

  I arrived there around 5PM with not much on me but my messenger bag and a few cans of cider.

  Kyle was already drinking a beer and ughing at his phone on the sofa. He flicked his combed blond hair to the side as I came in and gave me a fist bump. I accepted it and cracked open a cider.

  Ethan came into the lounge a few minutes ter and gave us a disapproving look. Then he sat down next to Kyle on the sofa with his considerably shorter stature. Kyle is more than a few inches taller than him, and never fails to poke fun at how small Ethan is compared to him. Usually also how small he is compared to everyone else.

  Puberty hadn't done much for Ethan, I'd always thought he was luckier for it.

  I suggested we py some Mario Kart while we wait for the others, then Ethan started drinking one of my ciders and agreed. We ended up pying eight tracks before Jeremy arrived.

  Kyle pyed Princess Peach, Ethan pyed Koopa Troopa and I pyed Daisy.

  Jeremy knocked on the door and Ethan let him in while I narrowly edged out Kyle in the ninth race.

  The contrast between Jeremy and Ethan is more startling than Kyle and Ethan.

  Jeremy pys for a local football team regurly and has been doing so since he was a teenager. He's by far the tallest of us and the most physically well developed. He also often gloats about how he's the only one of us who has a girlfriend currently. Her name is Sabrina and he cares about her deeply.

  It's an act that Ethan never fails to tut at. I think they've developed a bit around it at this point. Ethan's never had a boyfriend, so he compins about it constantly to create contrast with the gloating.

  Jeremy grabbed a tall can of beer from the fridge and sat down to join us. We all squeezed together tightly and restarted for another round of races.

  Kyle started talking about the great boobs on the girls in the game and ribbed Jeremy into pying Rosalina. If two guys were pying girls, why not three?

  We got four races in before Matt finally arrived. Him and that damned ceramic pte. None of us could have guessed what would be happening in a day's time as a result of it.

  I should have known something was wrong when I noticed that smirk on his face. He quietly slipped the ceramic pte onto one of the kitchen counters and sat on the arm of the sofa next to me.

  We all csped hands with him and cheered uproariously as he started with a vodka Red Bull. I struggled to avoid staring at his curly dark hair while Jeremy and Kyle taunted each other aggressively.

  Ethan won the fifth race, he was cool and collected the entire time.

  Kyle rotated out and headed to the kitchen to grab a bite to eat. I remember seeing him curiously staring at the ceramic pte while Matt picked red Yoshi and proceeded to floor everyone in his first race.

  He came back nibbling on a cookie and for an hour or two we took turns getting thrashed by Matt. All the while we proceeded into an ever deeper state of drunkenness- and quickly forgot about the imminent stresses of our respective degrees.

  Usually Matt was the most competitive of us, even Jeremy wasn't more competitive and he pyed local sports weekly.

  Kyle had always cimed to be "really good at a few specific games that he'd never get a chance to prove his worth in these days", whatever that meant. Ethan had never shown a competitive bone beyond silently creeping up scoreboards.

  I didn't care for the rituals. I just liked hanging out with my friends and we usually had pretty good times together. University and my life were hard enough to manage already without getting myself worked up over drinking games that ended badly.

  The evening continued like this until someone finally asked Matt about the ceramic pte. He broke into a chuckle and downed his drink there and then.

  What followed was a retelling of his afternoon.

  After his 2PM lecture, Matt had apparently gone on a walk through town to look for something fun to spice up tonight. He'd looked through the local game stores and found nothing particurly new. He'd looked for some particurly strong alcohol and found nothing too new to our palettes.

  Then he walked into a charity shop on a whim and saw the ceramic pte. It was perched on a shelf in the back and he was enthused by it immediately

  It had green and white swirling together on it to form a mesmerising pattern. He measured it before he came over and it was fourteen inches wide. What really drew him to it was the fact that it had faint runes inscribed into it, and he knew Ethan had some experience vaguely reading runes. Ethan nodded at this point and mentioned he'd been sneaking gnces at it to try and figure out the linguistic origin of the runes.

  Matt continued and said he bought it instantly to show to us as a cool knicknack. Maybe if nothing else we could pce shot gsses on the runes and do something silly?

  It seemed fairly innocuous from his story. I wasn't sure what to say about it but Matt was one of my oldest friends and he always meant well. He put in a lot of work to keep us together, Matt was the glue that held our ragtag band together.

  We drunkenly started poking and prodding it when it was brought over.

  Ethan kept telling us to be careful as he looked through a heavy book from his personal bookshelf. I joined in and might have contributed to annoying him past a point, but it was usual fare. We were a group of guys, this was our bread and butter right?

  Frankly I was just happy for a distraction.

  A few drinks ter we were all incredibly drunk to varying degrees, and it's a miracle I remember that many details past that point.

  All I know is Ethan managed to figure out what a few of the runes were meant to be read as. In his drunken state he was very funny trying to expin the Indo-European origin of them.

  I know then I did a very stupid thing, because I suggested Matt read them out as if it was some dumb magic ritual. We all got a good ugh out of the suggestion. Kyle knocked into Jeremy and spilled his beer while ughing.

  Matt's never been one to turn down a challenge or fun opportunity though. He got us all to y our hands around the rim of the pte and asked for a description of what the runes said on Ethan's phone.

  So, five drunk guys who had css in eleven hours ended up trying to take a magical reading of a ceramic pte seriously.

  From the first word he read out loud I think everyone could tell it was a mistake. I don't know what anyone else felt but I remember my fingers feeling like they were magnetised to the pte. As Matt spoke what I could guess to be a dialect of Latin, the room stilled and I went still and hoped this would all be over and just a harmless prank.

  Then the runes started to glow a bright pink and swirl into the air to form a neon pink cloud. Kyle started screaming at this point. Matt didn't stop reading though, I looked at his face at one point and he looked enthralled by the words he was uttering.

  The cloud began to form into discernable letters as the runes pulsed and whirred ethereally. It was a simple phrase in English: "You're It!"

  As quickly as what looked like a hallucination came, the letters dispersed into the air and my body buzzed with a nauseauting warmth.

  Everyone else had a glowing pink outline around them. No one was even panicking at this point, I think we were all just in shock.

  My eyes passed to Matt and the warmth faded. He was glowing so brightly. Then his form started twisting and shifting beneath the shroud of light. I looked at the others and saw none of them glowing anymore. I immediately turned my gaze back to Matt's face and saw the light fading from around him.

  But there was a woman there instead. She wore Matt's features and had cute eyes like hazelnuts he had, but her hair was now longer and it framed her face to make it look softer. It was also incredibly obvious she now had a chest that Matt didn't usually have.

  She was still discernably Matt though. Matt was still wearing her own clothes and shoes and had a recognisably dumb look on her face. I wasn't sure how to refer to her then but I could see the start of a grin forming so it was probably okay to refer to Matt as a woman? I would be gd to be referred to as a woman if something like that happened to me.

  This thought was repced with the biggest issue that my longest known friend had just been magically transformed into a woman by magic. The same magical pink light that passed through all of us. Somewhere in my drunken mind I felt oddly tingly about this whole situation.

  But all we had to go off was the phrase "You're It!" appearing in mid-air, and then one of us being turned into a woman. Everyone else was hopefully catching on to the dire stakes of the situation at least.

  I moved my hands off the pte as soon as I was allowed to in case anything more substantial happened.

  I remember that Kyle had a look of terror on his face before running into the bathroom. Ethan paled and started flicking through the book again, seemingly oblivious to our reactions. Jeremy was shifting uncomfortably and trying to edge off the sofa without much subtletly. I just stared at Matt's evil grin and heard her giggle ominously, her voice was brighter and sounded much more like the Matt I knew before puberty.

  She looked at all of us in turn while I was frozen. I think we must have all got what was happening very quickly, and Kyle must have because he had run away from Matt first.

  Everyone knows what game "You're It!" is associated with, and it didn't take a room of drunk people to guess what would happen if we were caught.

  Matt spoke for the first time in her bright new voice.

  "I'll give you all a headstart for fun."

  I could see Kyle out of the window opposite me sprinting off under streetlights. Ethan bolted back to his room. Jeremy broke free of his nerves and barrelled out the door in a rush.

  I was still caught in the headlights of her eyes. I was slightly curious to know what actually happened if she caught someone, but that all changed when she started to get up.

  My inebriated body snatched up my bag and left the living room in a panic, with only Matt and the ceramic pte left in it.

  I could hear her footfalls as I ran out the open door and tried to desperately escape.

  I didn't stop sprinting until I reached my room and smmed it shut. Then I prayed the others on my floor wouldn't be mad about me barging in te at night.

  Matt sent a selfie of herself posing cutely to our text thread with the message "You can't run forever - Mattie" with a winking emoji. Butterflies churned in my stomach and I pushed them down and tried to sober up.

  This morning Mattie was still a woman, and earlier I saw her nearly catching Jeremy outside the chemistry bs. No one had messaged in the group chat since her message.

  It felt like a war had begun on campus. The first shots were only a blurry memory to our hungover bodies.

  -----

  It's two hours ter in a Subway when mine and Kyle's phones ping. We got here thirty minutes ago after losing Mattie just on the edge of campus. I'm exhausted, my nerves had been on constant alert all day and I just wanted a break from Kyle's manic state.

  It was scary the thought of being turned into a girl, sure. But what is it worth running two hours in the afternoon to get away from?

  He's been fidgeting ever since he finished his sandwich, and the ping only made him more anxious.

  "Chill. She's not going to randomly grab one of us by the shoulder in a sandwich shop."

  "You don't know that Es. If I was It I'd be doing the sneakiest and most cunning moves, tagging my friend in Subway could be the strategy." Kyle has always cimed to be good at games like Tag from when he was younger. Whether he is still that good or not has yet to be shown from under a day of gamepy.

  I'm just trying to survive and go to university while not letting the worries overtake me.

  "I'm checking my phone Kyle. Keep watch if you have to."

  The ping was from our group chat, the first message since Mattie's original message. She's asking us to meet on "neutral" territory this evening. Neutral territory in this case meaning mine or Jeremy's room, since Kyle & Ethan's pce was where this started.

  Apparently she's not going to try and catch us there, because she thinks we should probably figure out rules and etiquette if we've been magically cast into this. She apologises for acting a bit mad for the past day. It's agreeable I suppose. I look up to see Kyle staring at his phone as well.

  "What'd you think Kyle? Do you think we should go?"

  "No. If he's already committed enough to this to call himself Mattie, then he won't hesitate to tag one of us okay?"

  "It seems like a good idea actually. We could just try and figure out a safe way for this to go, the pte is still at your pce right?"

  "Yeah. Ethan put it in a box in his closet when I went back there to change my clothes."

  "Right."

  "I have to keep on my toes constantly, or I'll have a rack like Mattie. He does have good tits to be honest. Not that I'm gay or anything."

  I just nod slowly and send a text offering my room as neutral territory. Then I get up from the chair and sling my bag over my shoulder.

  "Well I'm going back to mine. You should come, safety in numbers and all."

  "I can survive well enough on my own."

  "If you say so." Truthfully I still have csswork to do today, which I was going to do before Kyle dragged me to Subway. I had an assignment to finish for tomorrow.

  I start walking towards the door and Kyle catches up to me before I can even turn the handle.

  "Fine. I'll come with you Es, but as soon as it's done I'm legging it."

  "That's okay with me."

  We begin to cautiously make our way to my accommodation. Most of the caution comes from Kyle and not me, I think if Mattie was actually trying to catch us before the meeting I wouldn't be able to stop her. I'm just speed walking while he drags me behind bushes every few seconds.

  It takes us twenty minutes longer to reach mine as a result. As a result I have very little time to work on my assignment, not that I would have got much done with Kyle pacing back and forth in my room constantly.

  Jeremy is the first to arrive. He looks exhausted and his shirt is soaked through with sweat. I ignore Kyle's paranoid gnces and greet him warmly.

  "You okay Jeremy? Did you run here?"

  "Yeah. It's good practice for the game on Friday right? Sabrina said she was able to come watch so I've gotta keep my strength up."

  "Are you stressed at all or? Kyle has been having heart palpitations and we lost Mattie over an hour ago."

  "I just wanna be able to have normal guys' nights still. If Mattie enjoys this I'll py along, but I just don't want her to go too far."

  I nod at him and he sits down on my bed next to Kyle. I can hear Kyle briefly apologising to him for something st night. You can really tell how different people they are from this position.

  The jittery blond currently going on about his strategies to avoid Mattie, compared to the well-built guy who seems mainly concerned about his match in a few days.

  Ethan arrives a few minutes ter and silently nods at me, then he takes my chair and starts flipping through a book.

  "Ethan?" He looks up at me annoyed.

  "What is it Es? I'm reading up."

  "Reading up on what?"

  "The runes? So we can transte the rest of it and see if that in any way helps us."

  "What did the stuff Mattie read out even say?"

  "A mantra inscribed into the outer rim of the pte. In English it'd be something like... "Chase. Hunt. Fall. Transform."."

  "Oh. I'm sorry for maybe suggesting she read it out loud. I know you have Linguistics work to be doing that isn't reted to possibly being turned into a girl."

  He shrugs at me and goes back to reading. I wash my face in the bathroom out of stress and when I get out there's a knock at the door.

  I open it and see Mattie in front of me. She's put a bit of effort into making her newly longer hair look nice. I recognise all her clothes but she's obviously picked the more tight-fitting parts of her wardrobe to wear. Her top more clearly shows off her new chest underneath it.

  It's obvious even to me though she could do with some more fitting outfits that aren't just guy clothes. Girls have different figures to guys right?

  If I was knowledgeable enough I'd also guess she was wearing a smidgen of makeup. She's really getting into this huh? At least she's smiling at me about it, so it must be fun.

  "Es!" She goes in for a hug. I'm unable to stop her and accept my fate.

  Mattie pulls back from the hug and looks at me weirdly.

  "I wouldn't tag you in neutral territory, come on let's get this over with."

  She pulls me into the room in front of the other guys while I blush and look away.

  "Okay guys! Let's discuss rules and etiquette."

  "How about I run out of the room and you never tag me? Can that be a rule?" Kyle asks sardonically.

  "That'd be no fun. Besides we don't know what the magic that's transformed me does! Maybe not pying just does something worse."

  "She has a point. We don't understand how the magical mechanics of this game of Tag specifically work." Ethan says, barely looking up from reading.

  "She? Mattie, are you committing this hard to being a woman just for the game? Everyone's been referring to you as one all day." Kyle crosses his arms and gres at her, I just stand more to the side near Ethan and smile nervously at Jeremy. He makes a wanking gesture directed at Kyle.

  "Well, since you asked so nicely Kyle, yes. I'm going by Mattie and would prefer to be referred to as a woman. I might as well see what happens! It's all in the spirit of the game and having fun with my friends." She sounds excited about being a woman, I'm so happy for her.

  Jeremy nods and says "Good on you Mattie."

  "Fine. Just don't expect me to suddenly call myself Kylie or Ke-" Kyle pauses speaking as he makes a disgusted face. "-or any other girls' names if you somehow manage to tag me and the same happens."

  Ethan throws one of my pens at Kyle. He squeals and flips the bird back.

  "That's fine Kyle. No one's asking you to." Mattie tries to regain control of the situation and flicks her hair back. "Anyway. I want us to set up some rules about this, it'll make it more fun and fair for everyone. Unless no one wants to py at all and we just want Ethan to nerd until we can figure out how to maybe circumvent the magic."

  Silence. I don't want to speak up and be the first to suggest we quit something that's already begun. Kyle looks like he wants to speak but he doesn't in the end. Ethan scrunches his face then sticks it back in his book. Jeremy is flitting his eyes between us all.

  "Okay then. Rule one: No tagging in neutral territory. Can someone write this down?"

  I nod and take a pen and pad from my desk and start scribbling her words down.

  "Thanks Es. Anyway from this moment onwards, neutral territory is defined as dwelling of a participant in the game who is not "It". It'd be quite rude and go against the spirit of the game to tag someone in their own home or someone else's refuge."

  Nods all around, a fair rule.

  "If you're at "It's" pce, it's your own funeral okay? You know what you're risking. Apart from Ethan and Kyle's pce, the whole thing apart from their rooms is neutral territory. So just keep in mind if you ever want to not py or hide out, just stay at your pce. This also means no tagging on neutral territory during our usual social events."

  "Rule two: We're still friends. We're not dicks to each other and we should still keep up our university work no matter what happens during this game okay? So just don't mess with someone's schedule or social life too hard to tag them."

  I gre at Kyle then go back to writing.

  "Rule three: Ethan is clearly hard at work to try and transte the rest of the runes, so just keep that in mind and don't mess with the magical ceramic pte. It could mess with the end-game state and have really undesirable effects for all of us. Okay?"

  Jeremy murmurs in agreement and I nod happily at Mattie.

  "Rule four: Please say if you're It in the group chat for crity. Maybe even take a cute picture of yourself like I did." Kyle rolls his eyes.

  "And remember, this is meant to be fun! We're young and dumb and so let's just mess around and enjoy ourselves. Thank you for getting all that down Es." She smiles at me.

  "I'll text it all to the group after this, yeah."

  "Okay! Great chat. I have some physics work to do this evening so I probably won't be out until tomorrow morning but... I'll see you all tomorrow! Maybe we can meet at someone's pce tomorrow night for some mid-week drinks?"

  Kyle shoots his hand up. "Mine. I want guranteed safety Mattie."

  I make a mental note to head to Kyle's tomorrow night if my life hasn't been turned upside down by then.

  Ethan suggests we head out in intervals just to make sure Mattie doesn't tag anyone this second. Jeremy heads out first as he has practice very soon, Kyle follows shortly after and then Ethan goes. Before Mattie heads out she gives me another hug.

  "Good luck, Es. I believe in your ability to win this if you can avoid me." She winks at me and then jogs out my room.

  The butterflies in my stomach torment me while I lie down and try to nap. I'll finish my work ter.

  -----

  The next morning, I drag myself out the door and start to walk to my lecture. I'm keeping my eyes peeled for Mattie as I go, because as absurd as the past day and a bit has been, it's kind of fun to be pying something so child-like as an adult.

  Nothing has gone on in the group chat but passive-aggressive exchanges between Kyle and Mattie. Jeremy had a date st night with Sabrina while Ethan is nowhere to be seen. Nothing about someone else being tagged and what exactly happens.

  My lecture goes well if not slightly boring compared to the exciting thought of what's presently happening. It's fun right? It's scary but still fun. Mattie had a lot of good points yesterday.

  I walk out in the te morning sun and around an open area surrounded by four university buildings we call the Quadrant.

  I stumble back as Kyle fshes past me like a bolt of lightning. He just barely avoids knocking me over again. I look to my left and see Mattie ughing and following close behind him, close to well... me!

  It's time to get your game on Es.

  I run to join Kyle and quickly catch up to him due to the lightness of my bag today. He cocks his head at me and we begin to head to the east side of campus.

  "Are you doing okay?"

  "Why are you following me man? Now she'll get us both."

  "Kyle there's only one It at a time in Tag."

  "Shut up. You're ruining my strategy." He takes a deep breath and pauses for a moment. Then suddenly he's not running next to me anymore.

  I turn around to see him regaining his footing after tripping over. It's like watching a car crash in slow motion, I can't move any further as I watch it happen. Mattie is only a few metres behind him. She's beaming and her curls are bouncing on her shoulders as she runs and-

  -she firmly grips Kyle's shoulder. I'm too far away to exactly make out the words but I can tell exactly what she's saying.

  "You're It."

  Pink light transfers from Mattie to Kyle and he's cloaked in a cocoon of vibrant colours. As much as I want to keep my eyes on Kyle, I also can't help but keep looking at Mattie intermittently to see what's happening to her.

  She looks the same for now even as the pink light goes ever more faint to brighten Kyle's cocoon. That's weird, I didn't think this would work like that?

  I don't have time to think about it anymore because the cocoon explodes into a brilliant pastel rainbow. I share a friendly gaze with Mattie as she shrugs at me while looking over herself. Then I turn away and begin to leg it off campus to grab lunch.

  And I'm just in time too, because I can hear the high pitched screams of what is unmistakably now Kyle.

  I don't want to find out what happens if I stay near him.

  chronoSprockets