Corre slowly opened his eyes. The demon was nowhere to be seen. Every part of his body ached and hurt.

  Ugh… I’m never doing that again. What the hell was I even thinking? I see lighting powers for like three seconds and think ‘oh, neat’. Well, at least I have it now. Can’t get any weaker because of it.

  He sat up and looked around. Not even a single trace of the girl he had fought.

  His clothes were feeling different somehow. His hand felt his shirt, bagging around him. Then his hand went to his side, no more wound.

  Weird.

  He tried to find the demon once more, but she was nowhere to be seen.

  “Figures.” His breathing stopped.

  That was not his voice. It was a high pitch, the wrong pitch, a complete opposite of what he was expecting.

  Corre covered his mouth, his eyes wide. What the- What was that? “Hello?”

  There it was again. His voice was different, he wasn’t imagining things. He felt his throat. His skin felt softer somehow. He looked down. “Aah! What the hell!”

  He didn’t look like himself. He stood up, but immediately fell down again.

  The weight of his clothes was much more than he remembered. He checked to see if they were different somehow, but they weren’t. He was. He finally managed to scramble to his feet and sprinted toward the river, needing to look at his reflection.

  He caught his reflection staring back at him. It wasn’t him. His features were softer and he was missing his scar on his forehead. Still, it looked familiar.

  His hand went through his hair, which was anything but short now. This is… definitely NOT what I expected. Man, I’m an idiot.

  He felt his face, being completely in sync with his reflection. Wait a minute. Isn’t that the- That demon! “What the hell! Why am I-”

  He heard a soft groan behind him. It was the demon girl. “You! Explain! Now!”

  The girl opened her eyes. “Wait, is that…Me?” She jolted fully awake. “Wait! No! No, no, no, no! That was not supposed to happen. I was supposed to be in your body, having control over your soul, not the other way around.”

  She wanted to punch him, but when the fist hit, or at least she expected it to. Corre felt nothing. She stumbled forward, having expected the punch to stop her. She went right through him, phasing through him, following the punch and falling forward on the floor.

  She got back up, her eyes wide, but determined. She went in for another swing, following that one up with another. And another, and another. Every fist phasing right through him, like there was nothing in front of her.

  He watched in amusement as the girl tried so desperately to hurt him, before snapping back to the situation at hand. “Are you going to flail around all day, or are you going to tell me what happened!”

  The demon stopped her punching and glared at him. “Oh, and why should I help you?”

  “Oh I don’t know. Maybe because you are the one who caused it!”

  “Well you agreed to it in the first place. Says more about you than it does about me. Besides, if I had known what would’ve happened, do you really think I would still go on with it? Do you really think I want to be some ghost?”

  Corre didn’t respond immediately. His gaze reverted to his reflection for another moment. It was that demon, but entirely how he remembered her. There was no mark on his forehead, but there also wasn’t a scar. His hand instinctively felt the place where it should be.

  The demon in front of him, or at least the ghost of her, also was missing the mark. The rest of her was exactly as he remembered. Not that he remembered much. Just running away, running into her, her annoying voice, then a contract. Wait, the contract! There must’ve been something about changing back, right? I mean, even if it was supposed to be the other way around, I doubt she’d want to be me forever. There must be a way.

  “Can you at least help me become a guy again? I am not planning on going on like this for the rest of my life.”

  “The sentiments are the same here. I don’t want to be a ghost for the rest of my life either.” The demon sat down, thinking out loud to herself. “I don’t know. It’s not like these things happen all the time”

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  Corre looked at her confused. “What do you mean? You are the one who caused this in the first place, how do you not know how this works?”

  “I mean I can see your veins running with my energy, I guess that’s something.”

  Corre sighed. “Fine. I see how it is. If you don’t want to help me, so be it.”

  He walked over to his bag, which had landed at the edge of the riverbank. I just have to get used to this? Like hell I will. He squats down over his bag, the bottom slightly wet.

  The girl noticed something, a central point, from which all the energy flowed. She reached for it, deep inside the man’s chest. One squeeze of her hands stopped the flow. Suddenly he felt a change.

  He shot up, feeling the weird jolt throughout his body. It was a quick change, but he felt himself getting stretched. His body now filled his clothes.

  His hand patted his chest. What the-? Hey! I’m me again! I knew it.

  “Hey, I am back to being me.”

  The girl looked up. “Well would you look at that. I got control over your form.”

  Corre, glad to be a man again, started to walk into a seemingly random direction.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Well I have to deliver this to some rich guy who promised me he’ll help me find my family.” He grabbed the golden egg out of his bag and held it up like it was some sort of prize.

  “Wait, where did you find that?”

  Corre smirked. “Why do you want to know?”

  The demon phased through him. “It is dangerous and you know it. Just put it back.”

  “Oh please, since when did you start caring?”

  The girl squinted, annoyed. “Because you’re an idiot and I don’t want to get banished. For that, I need you to not die.”

  “What do you mean? I don’t know much about the different curses, but I thought that with bind-curses, if I die, you could still try and find someone else?”

  “Yeah, normally that is the case, but this isn’t normal. Normally you just give me part of your soul and I grant you access to my power. As a bonus I can’t get banished until the binded person gets his soul released. But in our case, I tried to take your body, but for some reason it went the other way around, which is bullshit! Anyway, that means that if one body dies, so does the other.”

  “You tried what?!”

  “You’re a slow one, aren’t you. But hey, just because you can’t read contracts correctly, doesn’t mean I have to apologize.”

  Corre tries to punch the demon this time, the fist going right through her.

  “What did you expect?” She said unamused.

  “I dunno. Just felt like it.”

  “Well, are you going to tell me your name? I mean we are bound together for life now. Might as well get used to it.”

  “Like hell! There’s a way to stop this! Right? I mean, I thought beyonders could just break up a curse at any point.”

  “Like I said.” Her voice was starting to rise in frustration. “Not a normal bind! To break up a curse, you have to reenter a soul! Without a body, I can’t get in there!”

  “You really didn’t think this through, huh?”

  “I did! I don’t get why it didn’t work! I was supposed to have your body, forever! Not some useless ghost!”

  “Well, someones touchy.”

  “Shut up!”

  Corre laughed. “Man, you are too easy.”

  “I am not!”

  “You sure?”

  The demon stayed silent, but kept her frustrated glare at him.

  Corre let out one final chuckle. “Fine. Corre Astgill.”

  “Interesting name.”

  “Hey, tell me yours too.”

  “Why?”

  “I told you mine. Only fair for you to do the same.”

  “You annoy me, get to walk around in my body and you want to talk about fair?”

  Corre shrugged. “If I knew you were such a bother. I would’ve avoided you like the plague.”

  The girl stopped, her face screaming in anger. “Cymble. There, happy now?”

  Corre looked at her. “Too easy to tick off, I swear.”

  “I am not-!” Cymble looked down, lowering her arms. “Just shut up.”

  “So now your life is in my hands huh. Well I guess you then hate it that you can’t stop me from doing this.” Corre pulled out a knife from his backpack and held it close to his neck.

  Cymble panicked, trying everything in her power to stop him, but she couldn't, her arms phasing through him as she tried to grab the knife.

  “Relax, geez. I was just playing with you. Seems you care more than you’re willing to admit.”

  “I do not! Just not a fan of getting banished by some idiot killing themself.”

  A loud thunk interrupted their conversation. The beast had returned.

  “Uh-oh.” Corre quickly grabbed the egg and put it back into his bag.

  “Like I said. Dangerous.” Cymble said with a dangerous smirk.

  “Shut it, demon.” Corre snapped as he looked up. The celestial was back, towering over the trees standing along the edge of the ravine. “Man, this is not my day. First I get caught on some of those weird rocky spikes in the cave, now I have this stupid bind I regret agreeing to, and- Wait, my wound is gone, right. Well, then I guess there is no harm in fighting that thing, especially not while I’m a guy.”

  “Coree, don’t you dare!”

  “Oh, I dare and I will. Try and stop me. Oh wait, right, you’re intangible.”

  He smirked one last time as he adjusted the strap of his bag and walked up to the edge of the ravine.

  “Now. How would I climb this?”

  “You don’t. Just step back and-”

  “Right, hands, stupid me.” Corre said, half-chuckling as he slammed his fingers into the ravine wall. With one hard tug and a jump, he started to move upward at high speed.