Light breaking through my eyelids was the first sign that things had gone terribly wrong. I'd set my alarm clock for 6, so unless this was a repeat of me accidentally setting it for 6 pm, rather than am, it should have already gone off. Instead of a noise that sounded akin of active construction vehicles, I was being woken up to the sound of, waves?

My eyes fully opened, taking in shimmering expanse water before me, glistening in the sun.

"What the?" I shout, looking around wildly. To my left? More water. To my right? More water. Behind me? Guess what! More water!

Wait? If I was surrounded by water, then how was I standing right now? What in the name of Jesus's mother was going on here? This had to be my brain playing tricks on me. I looked downwards towards my feet, hoping to find that, yes, this was, in fact, a dream.

And while I didn't get a good look at my feet, what I did see didn't, well, discourage the notion that this was just a dream. I mean, last I checked, reality didn't just decide to leave a person floating in a giant body of water. With their gender completely changed.

Very funny, brain. I mean, this was the type of shit I kept that dream journal for, but this was a bit too vivid for my tastes. Well, time to turn off the sun, it's way too bright for my tastes, anyway. I swung my hand in the air and nothing. Strange. Usually, I could snap myself out of a dream just by acting as if I'd turned off the lights.

But the sun still shone brightly, reflecting off the waves as I bobbed up and down in the water like a human buoy. I take a few more swipes at the imaginary lightswitch, before letting my hand return to my side.

Well. Shit.

I mean, this had to be a dream, but still. I didn't want to go to work after dreaming I'd been awake the whole time. That's just a really dumb type of tired when you know you shouldn't be tired, but it doesn't feel like you got any sleep at all.

But if this was going to be my once in a blue moon crazy dream, then what was I going to do? Standing here until my alarm clock started blaring wasn't all that appealing. So, did I just start walking or?

I swung my foot forward, only to lose my balance, falling forward, my face smacking against the waterline with a splat. Liquid flew upwards, getting into my hair with ease, but I pushed myself back up with my hands. It took a moment of flailing about to find my balance again, but I finally managed to steady myself.

Okay, so walking was out. Maybe there was some trick to this? Like ice skating? That wasn't an activity I'd partaken in since I was a lot longer. Never was quite good at it, either. Figuring to just go for it, I kicked off with my right foot, spending me speeding across the water. Sweet, I didn't even need to follow up. Like some sort of autopilot.

"YES!" I shouted to nobody in particular, as I felt the wind whip it's way through my hair.

Currently going North-Northeast at a speed of 20 knots. Current position unknown.

I blinked as the thought ran through my head. Where the hell did that come from?

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The novelty of skating over the waves kind of lost its appeal quickly. Sure, I mean, it was something, but normally my dreams quickly devolved into what would likely be the closest I'd ever get to being on drugs.

Instead, it felt like I'd been out here for hours. I even had the sun to prove it. It started on my starboard, no, right side, in the East. Now, it had risen to its apex position, meaning it was sometime around noon.

Was this a dream? This just felt far too bright, far too real. Heck, I could even smell, well, I honestly couldn't describe what I smelled. Ocean, maybe? What did the ocean smell like, anyway? I've pretty much spent most of my life landlocked in the continental US, how would I know what an ocean is supposed to smell like!

If this was the ocean though, an actual ocean, not a dream ocean, that would explain why I hadn't seen any hint of land yet.

But that raised a few questions. Firstly, what the hell was I doing in the middle of some God-forsaken ocean? Secondly, why in the name of Satan's left ass cheek was I a girl! I mean, why I was skating across the water like a rocket and why I had what looked like naval turrets attached to my back were probably tied to those two questions, but if not, those were my third and fourth.

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Do not panic. Nothing good comes from panicking. Just breath. In and out. In and out. Inhale and exhale. No, screw that. Now was the time to panic!

I was out in the open ocean. At night. See the problem here? This had gone on for too long to be considered a dream! I was lost, it was night time, and I was still a girl!

How did I end up here! I fall asleep, in my bed, safe at home, then BAM! Wake up in the back ass middle of nowhere, and I mean, nowhere, with not even a single landmark to give me any damn idea of where my ass was!

God damn-it! I just wanted to be at home, in bed, about to fall asleep after an annoying day at work! Not to be stuck out here in the middle of the ocean as what could only be a cruel joke. I just wanted!

No! Stop! Just Stop! I smacked myself across the cheek, trying to bring my brain back into line. Instead of the slap of flesh against flesh, what rattled its way through my head was the dull thawk of metal against metal. That, no. I pulled my hand back, twisting it back in the forth in the moon's light. That wasn't natural. A human person didn't sound like metal. What the hell did that mean? I was some type of robot now? I, that, no.

Stop. Everything, full stop, right now. I ignored the feeling of my deceleration as I slowly came to a halt. Brain, I know you want to focus on everything at once right now, but that's not possible. We're a girl, we're completely lost, and I may or may not be a robot or something else at this point, but put a pin in it. Now.

What we need is a plan to get us unlost.

Step 1. Find an island, find land, find something that helps me orient myself.

Step 2. See if said island has people, inhabitants, anything of the sort. If I could find a map, that would be a blessing. Some form of phone, radio, or other transmissions would be even better.

Step 3. Get food. My stomach's been grumbling at me for most of the day, and I've usually got something to eat well before this point.

Step 4. Repeat until I can get myself back to the US. Then I can start worrying about everything else.

Oh, and I had come to a complete stop. I mean, I did say stop, but that was aimed at my brain, not my, oh, forget it. Not the craziest thing that's happened to me so far today.

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I let out a short shuttered breath as I scanned the horizon for any stretch of land I could find. Being honest, I likely wouldn't be able to find dry land in the dark unless I ran right into it.

Still, this silence was creeping me out. It was just so dark, so alone. All I had was the lapping of waves at my shoes, my thoughts, and sometimes that weird voice that shows up from time to time. Great, I'm already going insane!

Land spotted, port side.

My head whips around to left, not my port side, my LEFT, trying to spot whatever the voice was telling me about now.

Okay, so what exactly was I supposed to be looking for, exactly? Oh, right a fat lot of nothing. What was I expecting, a star to blink into existence or something?

Well, that's actually what happened as looked out over the water, as a low lying star suddenly became visible. Right, superposition. There was something between me and that star, which meant some type of large structure. An island. It couldn't be anything else. I banked, changing course towards the unknown location.

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Land, sweet land! I don't care if you're aggravating sand! I missed you!

Water still lapped peacefully at my feet as I looked out across the beach and into the jungle. If I stayed but, I'd be exposed, too, well, whatever it was that was out there. At the very least, the jungle would provide me with cover, a possible food supply. But it was nighttime. And it was dark.

No. I was an adult. I had giant cannons coming out of my back. I could do this. I wasn't scared of the dark.

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Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope. Not going back into the jungle. Fuck it, the spiders can keep it until daytime! I'll just go find a tree to sleep under!

I glared down at my stomach as it grumbled in protest. Screw you too! I'm not fighting spiders the size of my face for a meal!

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Ow. Ow! Ow!

What the hell! Why did it feel like something was smacking my face? Ow! Damnit, there it was again! I crack open my eyes, only to find I couldn't see anything. Not even stars or the moon, just black.

So, I did what any person might do, waking up on a strange foreign island they knew nothing about, which may or may not have strange people who may or may not wish to do me harm. My fingers clutched at my face, gripping onto whatever I could, before tearing off whatever was obscuring my vision.

What I expected was to be holding some type of cloth in my hand. Not what had to be the world's largest crab.

Which properly became the world's largest baseball as I reared back and threw it as far as possible, shrieking all the while. After the giant spiders, any substantially sized arthropod was too soon.

A rumble from my stomach reminded me of something. Most people had no problem eating crabs. Please don't tell me I just threw my first source of food into the ocean!

Great, just great. Well, I don't know how to cook crab anyway, so take that, universe!

No, still hungry. I turned my head back into the jungle. Best to try and explore, see if I could find some food in the meantime.

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"Let go!" I shouted, struggling to tear off the vines that kept ensnaring the guns strapped to my back. With a final tug, the foliage gave way, finally freeing the emplacement, but this was starting to get on my nerves. This was the third time already! As cool and intimidating as they likely would be, these things attracted vines like a suit attracts cat hair.

I should know. Berry was a sweet girl, but she shed. A lot. Fluffy, may he rest in peace, was even worse.

Was there a way to detach it somehow? Safely, in a place that wouldn't get it gummed up with dirt and whatever other creepy crawlies infested this place.

And look, now it's gone. Ok, this was getting weird. Maybe I should run myself through the paces, see exactly what I could do like this. No, that was dumb. Wasting resources on experimentation, as much as I loved science, was counterproductive.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

So, did I just, think about how I wanted it back? That work? My head turned toward the masses of steel. Yes, that did work.

Alright, let's get a move on here. I have an island to explore, and food to find.

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A trail! Yes, this is exactly what I was looking for! Beaten into the jungle soil by thousands of steps, forming a surface resistant to erosion where no plants grew. Well, there was some greenery, so it likely hadn't been used for a bit. But still, that meant people! Maybe.

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That's. Well, that's not good. I finally managed to find civilization. Well, the ruins of it, at any rate. Parts were already being reclaimed by the jungle itself. But it hadn't been abandoned willingly. In some places, roofs were burned. In others, some houses were destroyed entirely, nothing more than a pile of rubble remaining.

While this was little more than a small village, it was apparent that some type of struggle occurred here. A building didn't explode without reason, let multiple ones. Broken glass crunched beneath my feet as I walked through the streets.

What wasn't completely obliterated showed signs of looting, broken down doors and shattered windows. And that was when massive holes weren't smashing into the sides of buildings. I shuttered as I passed one that looked strangely humanoid in shape.

What happened here? Whatever caused this disaster, it looked like it was fairly recent, yet not. Maybe one or two years ago, at most. Enough time for nature to deal with the remains of the people who lived here, but not enough for the jungle to reclaim the small settlement.

But who could cause such a thing? It wasn't natural, that much was obvious. Pirates? A military strike? No, that couldn't be it. I'd be seeing a lot more damage if it was something like that.

I shook my head, trying to clear my thoughts. This wasn't helping me get anywhere. I just hope the people who lived here don't come back because I was about to take everything that hadn't already been pilfered.

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Logically speaking, I should have known that scavenging from a raided village would be a waste of time. I mean, I found some canned food, which I had gathered in a small pile. I couldn't find anything to open them with, so I was a bit stuck. Rocks were aplenty, but that just seemed wasteful. Using my hands was another option, but trying to tear my way through the metal.

Then again, I had managed to throw that unholy abomination of a crab pretty far this morning. So maybe I can just tear off the lid?

The can crumpled in my grasp, spraying a tree in red tomato paste. Maybe a more gentle touch is required. A damn shame. Such a waste of perfectly good food.

And metal.

… What the hell is wrong with me!

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Alright, with the food problem temporarily solved, and the concerning fact the empty tin cans looked tasty, I decided to take another look through the rubble. What did I want? A map. Not the one from Dora, but a map of the local area. Not just this island, but the ones around it. If it could help me figure out where I was, then I wanted it.

Though I probably shouldn't spend too long on this. Staying in the ruins of a small village was not going to do my nerves any good right now. But traveling blind was going to be more trouble than it was worth.

What has my life become? I just wanted to be home! Was that too much to ask?

Yeah, it probably was. Given how this year was going, it was a miracle the Death Star hadn't shown up.

I swung my leg lazily as if to kick a rock, only to fall on my ass. Instead of lightly tapping the wall, it instead exploded, inward, showering the room on the other side with mortar and fragments of pulverized brick.

Ops. Well, I didn't think I explored this room anyway, given the door was blocked by part of the roof. Getting through was a bit of tight fit, but I managed to squeeze through, coughing on the layers of dust I kicked up.

Slowly, but surely, I made my way towards the center of the room. Could it? Could it be? I ran my hand along the flat surface, before lowering it along the side, finding a handle. YES! A desk!

Please let it have a map, please let it have a map! Papers flew I tossed them into the air, desperate to find what I was looking for. Drawer after drawer was left empty by my relentless search. But at last, I found what I was searching for, a small pile of maps that I held aloft as if I had just found the holy grail.

It wasn't much, but it was something. I laid each one down, trying to keep them properly spaced out. The map of the island itself was useless to me, so I ignored it, pushing the piece of paper off to the side.

Out of the three remaining maps, I started with the largest. A map of the Pacific Ocean? At least I know my general location now, but the Pacific was the world's largest ocean. That by itself didn't do me a lot of good.

The second-largest of the three was much more localized, and it was with the help of the third I managed to pinpoint my location. Give or take, I was somewhere in South-Western Caroline Islands. That was the best I could figure, given how bad I am with maps.

Which meant I was within spitting distance, relatively speaking, of the Philippines. Yeah, no. Not going there unless completely necessary. And thankfully, I didn't! Australia was a straight shot south, though I would have to skirt around Papua New Guinea to get there.

I wasn't too keen on going North-East to Hawaii. Even if I hoped along the island chain until I made it to the Marshall Islands, I'd still be out on the open ocean for quite a while. That just seemed far too risky, given how little food I would have available to me.

Focus on getting to Australia for now. Then I can plan what to do next. I don't need to focus on anything else.

Gazing up through the hole in the roof, I only just began to notice that night was beginning to set in. Had I spent that much time here? Alright, I'll try to find something to hold the maps in to prevent them from getting soaked by the ocean for a bit, while looking for better nightly lodgings.

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It was by some holy miracle that I dug up one of those green shopping bags. One of the reusable ones. Sure, it was dirty, but it was better than nothing. Add that to my list of things to do when I finally make my way back to land.

Buy pants! With actual pockets! Because I was NOT going to keep wearing this pocketless skirt!

I was shouting at myself. That wasn't something I was supposed to be doing.

I had to be tired. I had no clue when I finally made landfall last night, probably some forsaken hour, and a tree doesn't exactly make for a good pillow. Yeah, that's what I needed. A proper night's rest.

Ultimately, I decided on a small room on a building that somehow had most of its roof intact. My little post nightfall search found me nothing in the way of proper bedding. Given how difficult it was to find food, this town had been completely picked over.

There was another reason I chose this room. A large cloth draped over, well, I wasn't sure, but it was time to find out. But it would serve as a suitable blanket. Having a room over my head was better than nothing.

With a tug, I yanked the improve blanket off sending up another cloud of dust, but once it cleared, I could see what it was covering. A mirror? How'd that managed to survive for so long?

I really shouldn't. Just find a corner to hunker down in, and leave in the morning. But I couldn't help myself. I just needed to get one good look at myself.

The face staring back at me wasn't my own. Yeah, no shit. Having one's gender changed tended to do that. But I expected some part of my old appearance remained. My hair. My eyes.

Even that had changed drastically. My knees gave way, sliding out from underneath me as I crashed to the ground. As if the full weight of everything just came crashing down onto my shoulders.

I wasn't going back home, was I? I looked completely different! There was no way in hell my parents would think I was their son! And even if I could convince them, how could I even start to reclaim any part of my old life? Classes, college, my degree. Friends and family. All of it, gone like dust on the wind.

I fell asleep watching tears crawl down my new face.

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When I finally stirred in the early hours of the morning, it was with great reluctance. What was the point? Everything in my old life was out of my hands. I certainly didn't have an ID either, or records. I was up hell creek without a paddle on this one.

Still staying put didn't have much appeal either, so I pushed myself up onto my feet. I could figure something out.

A faint sound reached my ears from outside. It sounded like the soft footfalls on dirt. A person? Another human being! I kept low, hoping to gauge the situation first. Something happened to this town, and I wasn't sure what. Sure, this could be a friendly person willing to help. But they could also be an unsavory individual.

Granted, I probably wasn't on a much better note right now, creeping around like this. So, I went for it, taking a quick peek through a broken window. Just as quickly I hopped my head down, covering my hands to prevent my mouth from letting a squeak of terror.

It looked like a ten-year-old girl. Pale as an actual corpse, if not somehow even more so. But it lacked any sign of decay or even damage in the slightest. Well, I couldn't say that. Its head was beyond fucked up, like one of those fungus zombies. And that wasn't touching the massive arms locked to its side.

Ok, maybe the whole, looking like a ten-year-old was inaccurate. But I recognized it. Well, not it, specifically. But it's head and arms were a dead give way to what it was. An Abyssal.

I spent enough time in internet circles to know of Kancolle. Even if I had more connections to Azur Lane, I had like the Abyssal's from an esthetics standpoint. A perfect blend of interesting and absolute nightmare fuel.

But Kancolle was a game. Abyssals weren't real, they were a work of fiction! There is no way that could be real. This had to be some type of elaborate joke.

Then again, it wasn't normal for someone to turn into a girl. Or skate across the water. Or have massive guns that could appear and disappear on command.

… Oh. I'm a shipgirl.

That makes more sense.

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Nobody ever accused me of being the brightest bulb on the chandelier.