The Theft of a Lifetime (Kay Faraday TF)

Karl stared at the mansion which sat just outside of town. Most people said it was haunted, but all he could think was how rich the people who used to live here must have been.

Karl was broke, and was willing to go to any lengths to get some money, so when he found out about an abandoned mansion, he figured it might be worth checking out in case the previous owners had left some valuables behind or something. Most people would probably think this was a ridiculously stupid plan, but it wasn’t like Karl had anything better to do. It wasn’t like he was going to find a job anytime soon with his rather lacking resume.

He had heard some strange things about this mansion. He’d heard that it had supposedly burnt down, but had suddenly sprung back up in near perfect condition. He’d heard that it had been scheduled for demolition several times, but the demolition crew would always mysteriously disappear. To Karl, this just seemed like a bunch of dumb ghost story designed to scare people away, which would hopefully mean that the mansion didn’t have any proper protection, and no one had been inside to look whatever valuables had remained.

Deciding he had wasted enough time, Karl pushed open the large wooden door, pleased to find it was unlocked. Somehow, the mansion almost looked even bigger on the inside than it did on the outside. The entrance seemed to be some sort of big hall, with two hallways leading off to different parts of the house, and a pair of staircases leading up to a second floor. There seemed to be a few paintings decorating the walls, very old ones, but aside from that, there seemed to be a severe lack of anything valuable. Not to mention, with Karl not being much of an art person, he wasn’t able to evaluate whether the paintings would actually be worth much. He’d have to look elsewhere for his get-rich-quick scheme.

Deciding to head down the left hallway, Karl peeked inside the various doorways that lined the hallway, trying to decide which room to snoop around in. He couldn’t help but notice that along with the dust and cobwebs that would be expected from the years of neglect the mansion had undergone, a lot of rooms seemed to be a bit damaged and burned. Perhaps there had been some truth to that rumour about the house burning down. Maybe there had actually been a fire in the mansion, but hadn’t been as extreme as people claimed it was.

The first room he came across seemed to be a reading room. The walls were lined with bookshelves, save for the far wall which instead held a fireplace, which was filled with ashes. The bookshelves were all completely filled from top to bottom with books, although most of them were too dusty for Karl to tell what they were about at a glance. Aside from that, all that seemed to be in the room was a reading chair, facing the fireplace, and a small table next to it. Unless there was some sort of secret passage to be found by pulling out one of the books like in a spy movie, Karl doubted he’d find anything worth selling in here. If he’d gone in and taken a better look, he might have noticed a book missing from the shelves, which was currently place on the seat of the reading chair, but instead, he just left and headed towards the next room.

The next room was some sort of study, with a desk and a couple more bookcases up against the back wall. Some books were scattered about the desk, along with some strange diagrams. Walking up to the desk to check it out, Karl found the handwriting to be practically illegible. The ink on some of them seemed strangely fresh, though. Not to mention, none of the paper on the desk seemed to be burnt at all, despite the evidence of fire around the rest of the room. However, once again, there didn’t seem to be anything valuable here in the room, so, ignoring his suspicions about why the stuff on the desk seemed to be unharmed, Karl left the study, heading down the hallway again.

Crossing his fingers and hoping he’d find something valuable, all the while starting to realise how stupid this plan was, Karl opened the door to the next room. This one seemed to be some sort of master bedroom, giving Karl hope that he’d finally find what he was looking for. A large bed sat in the middle of the room, fairly plain-looking considering some of the other things he’d seen. A chest of drawers and a wardrobe sat against one wall, and a painting of a blonde woman wearing some sort of robe hung on the opposite wall, above another desk, smaller than the one from the study. What caught Karl’s eye, though, was what was on the desk; a book, a small mirror, and what seemed to be a jewellery box. A grin on his face, Karl quickly ran up to the desk, reaching for the box. To his surprise, despite the key hole on the box, it wasn’t actually locked. Inside was a simple gold necklace; just a gold chain without any sort of pendant.

“Yeah!” Karl cheered, finally finding something of value. It was a shame it was so plain, but the chain should still be worth something. As he was taking it out of the box, though, he suddenly heard a voice behind him.

“Who are you?” the voice asked. It sounded like the voice of a child, but it had a rather eerie tone to it.

“Ah!” Karl shouted, not expecting there to be anyone else here in the mansion. He yelled even louder when he turned and saw who the voice belonged to. It was a young girl, probably about eight years old, but she clearly wasn’t human. Her skin was a pale blue colour, and translucent, and she had a wispy tail where her legs should be. Majority of people would probably say she was a ghost, and Karl was part of that majority.

“What are you doing in Mrs Stratford’s room?” the girl asked, starting at him with her blank, pupil-less eyes.

Karl could only assume that this “Mrs Stratford” was someone who used to live in this house, in this room in particular, and this girl probably used to live here too. With that in mind, and not knowing exactly what ghosts were really capable of, he didn’t really want this girl to find out that he had been here to take any valuables he could find. “I, um, w-well, you see,” he stuttered, doing his best to hide the gold chain behind his back.

His suspicious behaviour did not go unnoticed by the girl, however, who saw the open jewellery box on the desk. She held out her arm in front of her, and suddenly the chain shot out of Karl’s hand, landing right in the girl’s grasp. “You shouldn’t steal from dead people,” she said, her expression seemingly unchanging, “It’s disrespectful.”

“It’s not what it looks like, I swear!” Karl yelled, trying to convince her that he wasn’t doing anything wrong.

“You can steal from the living all you like, but for this, maybe a little punishment is in order.” The girl tossed the chain into the air again, and this time it landed right back in the jewellery box, which closed itself up again. While Karl was distracted by that, the girl suddenly flew right towards him, but instead of colliding with his chest, she phased right through, disappearing inside of him.

“What? Where did you-“ Karl yelled, looking around the room for the ghost girl, when he suddenly lost all control over his body. He was unable to move, talk, anything. He just stuck standing there in the room. “What’s going on?!” he wanted to yell, but instead ended up screaming through his thoughts.

The girl’s voice echoed inside his head. “I can’t have you walking around while I make a few changes, can I? Now be a good boy and stand still while I work my magic, not that you have a choice in the matter.”

“Changes? What are you doing to me?” he asked. This time, though, he received no reply. Instead, he noticed the room seemed to be getting larger, accompanied by an aching all over his body. Since he couldn’t move, not even his eyes, it took Karl longer than it should have for him to realise that the room wasn’t getting bigger, he was shrinking! It stopped fairly quickly though, leaving him at about the height of someone in their late teens. This was followed by all the hair on his body, save for his eyebrows and the hair on top of his head, receded back into his body, leaving his skin completely smooth. “What was that about?” There was still no reply.

Next, his feet seemed to shrink down a little, as his legs slimmed down. Of course, Karl couldn’t see any of this happening; he could only feel it and assume what was going on. His shoes hardened into a pair of black, leather boots, shrinking to fit his smaller feet, before growing all the way up to just below his knees. For some reason, part of the front of each boot caved inwards, dividing his big toes from the rest of his toes. His socks changed similarly, turning dark pink and climbing up just above the tops of his boots. A loud crack could be heard as his hips suddenly jutted outwards painfully, his thighs and butt growing a bit to match the proportions. Had he not been held in place by the ghost girl, Karl would have probably collapsed to the ground from the pain in his hips, but instead was confined to suffering in silence.

Karl’s pants felt a bit tight due to his expanded hips and rear, but that was about to change. They receded upwards, the pant legs merging together into a single opening. It stopped at his upper thigh level, becoming a short, black skirt. His boxers tightened around him, the legs receding back up like his pants had while the material changed, turning his underwear into a pair of black panties. They fit him pretty well, but they were pretty tight on his crotch. Karl really didn’t like where this was going. The discomfort from the tightness was nothing compared to the pain that followed though. He felt his genitals painfully compress down on his crotch being crushed into oblivion, until suddenly, the pain just sort of stopped. His panties fit perfectly right now, and Karl could feel a void between his legs, along with a squirming feeling inside of him as his insides rearranged to make room for his new parts that were forming in his pelvis.

“You’re… you’re turning me into…” Karl was growing increasingly afraid of what this ghost girl was doing to him, to the point of finding it difficult to form coherent thoughts in the hope of getting a reply. It certainly didn’t help that he was unable to move, meaning he couldn’t actually see the changes, only feel them.

“Can you stop that? You’re distracting me,” the girl’s voice said to him. “You don’t want me to make this even more painful, do you?” Karl dared not reply. “Good.”

Karl let out a yelp out surprise, or at least he would have if he could use his voice, as his waist suddenly collapsed inwards. His belt tightened a few notches to compensate, turning pink in the process. A small brown pouch attached itself to the back of his belt. His shoulders suffered a similar fate to his waist, although this collapse was instead met with a loud cracking sound, like his hips. Karl wanted to scream, but his fear of the girl making it even more painful silenced his mental cries. His arms and hands shrunk down just like his legs and feet had, becoming much slimmer and, as far as he could tell, more feminine. He hadn’t noticed before, but despite losing much of their mass, his arms and legs still felt fairly strong, possibly even stronger than his old ones, although that wasn’t saying much, considering he wasn’t really in the best shape.

He felt his nails grow slightly longer and neater, but they were quickly covered up as a pair of brown gloves formed on his hands, the cuffs of which folded up past his wrists for some reason. His shirt changed similarly, with the sleeves growing a bit longer, only the fold back up to his elbows. The folded parts turned white, while the rest of the sleeves turned the same dark pink colour as his socks. The front of his shirt slip open, but quickly folded itself over before anything underneath could be revealed. It turned bright pink, a similar shade to his belt, and a bunch of swirly, white patterns stitched themselves into it. The chest area felt a bit loose, and Karl knew exactly why, although he wasn’t happy about it. What little fat was left on his stomach migrated up to his chest and began to expand, ultimately forming a moderately sized pair of breasts, and a simple black bra seemed to appear out of nowhere holding them secure. They didn’t seem too large for the age/height Karl now was, but the fact that he had them at all was what was freaking him out.

Before his panic could escalate further, the ghost girl’s voice returned, reminding him of her earlier threat. “Just a little more,” she said, seemingly talking to herself rather than to him. His face seemed to become rounder, as his jawline softened. His lips paled to the point where they were practically indistinguishable from the rest of his skin, and his nose shrunk and slimmed down. His eyes grew larger, his irises turning dark green in the process, and his eyelashes grew longer. His hair turned black, his eyebrows thinned down, and his hair grew out, flowing down his back and forming bangs down the left side of his face. His hair was quickly tied up by some sort of pink and white thing, forming some sort of ponytail that sat up above his head, so it now only reached down just past his shoulders. A large gold key stuck itself through the pink and white thing, practically guaranteeing he’d stand out as much as possible. As a final touch, his throat began to burn as his adams apple faded away and his vocal chords rearranged themselves. A long, dark blue scarf wrapped itself around his, a strange golden badge pinned to it.

“All done,” the ghost girl said, sounding much more cheerful than before, as she exited Karl’s body, and he suddenly found himself able to move again. “A thief inside and out. Now, off you go.”

Karl was ignoring her, however, as now that he had regained control over his body, he was busy checking out what he looked like. He seemed to be a teenage girl, although as he had noticed while frozen, his new body did seem a bit stronger than average for some reason. He vaguely recognised the outfit he was wearing, the strange hairstyle too, but he couldn’t quite remember where from. Despite his fear during the transformation, he was also a bit curious, and he slowly reached his hands up towards his breasts. Before he could touch them, however, his wrists were grabbed by a pair of small, spectral hands.

The hands obviously belonged to the ghost girl, who was now looking him in the eyes. “You’re in the presence of a minor, do you really want to do that?” It seemed she didn’t approve of him trying to feel himself up.

Try to summon what courage he still had left, Karl asked, “Why did you do this to me? I just tried to steal something. Why turn me into a girl over that?”

“You steal from the dead, expect to pay the price,” the girl replied, malice dripping from her voice, before shifting to a much lighter tone. “You wanted to be a thief, so I turned you into the best thief I know about.”

“This girl’s supposed to be a thief?” Karl wasn’t sure if he really believed that claim, although he supposed it did explain why he felt strong for his age. “Aren’t thieves supposed to blend in and not be spotted or something? I’d be recognised instantly looking like this.”

“Well, maybe once you’re as good as she is, you won’t need to worry about how you look, because no one will see you.” Karl had a feeling she was just making things up. She let of his hands, and floated back a bit. “Now, as I said, off you go.”

Regardless of how curious he might have been, Karl did not want to have to spend the rest of his life as this random girl the ghost had turned him into. Briefly forgetting that he was talking to a girl that could possess him and do all sorts of painful things inside of him, he shouted, “I’m not leaving until you turn me back!”

The girl simply rolled her eyes. “Do I really have to do everything around here?”

She flew at him again, but this time, instead of possessing him, she pushed Karl out the door and onto his behind. Somehow, despite the bedroom door previously leading into the hallway, Karl found himself outside the mansion, the door slamming shut in his face. He quickly scrambled to his feet and reached for the door, only to find that it was now locked. Karl was stuck outside the mansion, and stuck in the body the girl had given him.

“Great, what now?” he sarcastically asked aloud. He looked down at himself, his pink and black outfit, and the female body underneath it taunting him. That was the body he’d be stuck with now. He’d be stuck as a teenage girl for the rest of his life. Well, not a teenage girl, but he’d still be stuck as a girl now. Unless…

“Maybe there’s a way back in,” he mumbled. He started to formulate a plan in his head. Even if that ghost girl kept the door locked forever, there must be another way to get into the mansion. He’d just need to do some surveillance, some practice, maybe buy some new equipment, and… “Oh yeah, I’m broke.” He’d never be able to get the sort of equipment he needed for a braking-and-entering job like this. It barely even registered in his mind that he was already thinking like a real thief, and somehow knew exactly what he needed.

“Well, if I can’t buy what I need, I guess I’ll just have to see if this girl is as good of a thief as that ghost said she is.” Karl walked away from the mansion and back into town, a smirk on his face as he thought about who his first target should be.