Turn 2 of 19

Adds shiny leggings and the red stilettos. Wobbles at first. Starts playing with the dark foundation and lip gloss “just to see.” Skin tone deepens slightly while she watches. Hair feels thicker under her fingers. Laughs nervously at the reflection, tells herself it’s only makeup.

The thrill in Jess's chest sent another jolt of recklessness through her, pushing her back toward the pile. She yanked out a pair of sheer red leggings—more like tights—and a pair of impossibly high red plastic stilettos. Giggling at the absurdity of it, she wriggled into the leggings before stepping carefully into the shoes. She wobbled violently, grabbing at the doorframe, but after a moment she found her balance. The mirror reflected a cartoonish figure—too much leg, too much cleavage—but her heart hammered with a wild, unfamiliar energy. Just to see, she told herself. Just to see what the whole look was meant to be.

She found the dark foundation, unscrewing the lid with shaking hands. As she clumsily smeared it over her skin she swore she could see it changing—her face and chest darkening subtly, the makeup settling into a richer brown as if it belonged there. The pink blush of her old skin tone at her neck and wrists looked jarringly pale, even faintly freckled, against the new darkness spreading up from her jaw. Her fingers, trembling, brushed a strand of hair away from her cheek and she swore she felt it thicker, springier, against her skin.

A nervous laugh escaped her as she smeared on the sticky lip gloss, her reflection swimming into focus as a stranger—but a stranger whose body was becoming unsettlingly familiar.

"It's, uh… it's just makeup," she muttered to the girl in the glass, whose full lips curved in a knowing smile Jess didn't recognise. "Just… seeing what it's like." But the thrill humming under her skin told a different story. The clothes and makeup were becoming more than a game—they were turning into armor. And armor, Jess was beginning to realise, was exactly what she needed here.