Episode 1: Am I This Girl? The sounds of birds were chirping outside, dancing on branches as they signaled for an early morning sky. As the sun rose, its light mercilessly ran through the window. As much as I wanted to sleep, it wasn‘t about to let me. Slowly opening my eyes, I pulled off the sheets with a yawn and sat up. I tried to think. What day is it…? I couldn‘t remember. My head was too scrambled to remember anything. In fact, I had to admit that nothing here seemed familiar. Not even my yawn. It sounded too high- pitched and girly. Oh well, it was probably unimportant. Lying back in bed, I stared at the ceiling for a bit before letting myself drift back off into a deeeeepp slleeeeeeeeepppp… Hold on. My eyes snapped open. WHERE AM I? Confused, I quickly jumped out of the bed and nearly lost my balance as my feet touched the ground. They were strangely small. I looked around to see a room that wasn‘t mine, and then down at myself to see two small lumps- I mean breasts, right there, on my chest. That was weird, but I was a girl, wasn‘t I? Right? Hadn‘t I always been a girl? But if so, had I always sounded so…airheaded? Had my 1 tone always been that light? I had no way of knowing. This body felt light, unfamiliar, and kinda hard to control. How late did I sleep last night? Come to think of it, what did I even do yesterday? My head continued to throb. Ugh… Something was wrong, but I couldn‘t quite grasp it. I looked around the room again. Was this my room? No, it was familiar, but it definitely wasn‘t my room. Or, uh, or was it? Maybe I was just having some sort of horrible hangover. If that were the case, I must‘ve had a really crazy night to give me amnesia. I turned to a nearby mirror, hoping it would clear my hazy mind. Wait…wait…just who is this? Standing in place of my reflection was a young girl with yellow pajamas and short pink hair. Staring back at me with equally pink eyes, her expression was mixed in both shock and confusion. I recognized her instantly, but that made it all the harder to believe. That girl was just a character from an anime—in other words, fictional. In other words she shouldn‘t exist. In other words, she shouldn‘t be here, physically, and especially not in my own reflection. ―Wha…wha……?‖ In a daze, I walked towards the mirror, extending out my hand. I tapped the mirror and the Madoka in my reflection tapped back, in perfect symmetry. 2 Something was really, really wrong here. The pink-haired girl standing in place of my reflection did not exist, especially not physically. And even if there was some alternate universe where she actually did exist, she wasn‘t me. If I were her, then I shouldn‘t know all of this, everything about the anime, about everyone‘s fates, about this universe as a whole. There was no way she could learn about that. But she was still in my reflection, mimicking every single movement I made. That was odd. I tried to make sense of everything. Maybe this was a dream? My hand absently moved up to my chest, and I poked my right breast. A strange sensation raced down my spine at the touch. Okay, I felt that, this was definitely reality. But that didn‘t make sense. Nothing made any sense. At the moment, there was only one reasonable explanation I could think of—I had become her. I had become Madoka Kaname. ―What…the hell?‖ I asked myself, in that exact same high- pitched voice. I stood there, dumfounded, when a voice suddenly called out from downstairs to break my trance, ―Madoka, don‘t be late for school!‖ That was the voice of, uh, what was her name again? Oh right, Junko, my would-be mother if I had been Madoka. I looked to the door, and then back down at the body of Madoka. I guess I should be calling it my own body now. Even though I wasn‘t Madoka, I‘d somehow replaced her in this 3 fictional anime universe. Madoka was the main character of a magical girl anime called Puella Magi Madoka Magica, of which I happened to be a fan of. It would‘ve been nice if that were all. That anime had been a depressing deconstruction of the ‗mahou shoujo‘ genre, with more than half of the main cast ending up dead before the final episode. But since I was here, I wondered if maybe, just maybe I could change everything that was set in stone. Just maybe, I could make a difference in this world! Did I even have the power to do such a thing? Being in Madoka‘s body, was it really that much of a stretch? I decided to figure it out later. For the time being, I would just try to act as normal as possible, and get ready for school. Therefore, first things first—getting dressed. Unbuttoning my pajamas, I let them fall to the floor, before opening my- I mean Madoka‘s closet, blushing the whole way through. I tried not to look down at the naked body with as much willpower as possible. Then I picked out a familiar school uniform, consisting of a classy white shirt, blackish skirt, high socks, and a red bowtie. But of course, I couldn‘t wear just that, right? …nervously, I also picked out pink underwear. It was a bit difficult trying to put it on without looking down, but I managed. After that, putting on the other clothes was pretty easy, even the bowtie. I had left out the bra though, but only because I didn‘t know how, plus it would‘ve felt too weird for me. Hell, I didn‘t 4 even know my own size. Remembering Madoka‘s mother, I ran over to the shower where she should be putting on her makeup. Just as I appeared, things starting playing as I remember them. She began to talk to me about work, the exact same way as I remembered it happening in the first episode. I just nodded here and there, not really caring, but I did try to act like Madoka had done in the anime to avoid as much suspicion as possible. This situation was dangerous. After a few minutes, I found myself holding up two differently-colored ribbons, and Junko suggested the red ones. ―Um, can you do it for me?‖ I asked her, trying to sound as polite as possible, like how Madoka might‘ve said it. With a sigh, she helped tie it into my hair. Afterwards, I looked into my reflection to see the familiar, puffy twin-tailed hair of Madoka take form. The mirror felt more like a television to me than an actual mirror. It was all just so, well, unreal. ―Hey, is something wrong?‖ Junko asked suddenly, turning me around to face her. ―You‘ve been a little distant. Don‘t you want to eat, Madoka?‖ Pay attention to your surroundings, idiot. Giving a nonspecific reply, we went on to have breakfast. While eating, I had the strange urge to shove the toddler – Madoka‘s little brother Tatsuya – into a microwave, and bury my fist into my would-be father‘s face, but I resisted both. As much as I‘d love to mess around, I didn‘t know anything yet. I had to stay cool. Finishing the toast, I ran out of the house before I could attract any more suspicion. 5 All that resolved, I began to think to myself again. I wasn‘t Madoka, but I might as well be due to the current situation. And as Madoka, I could easily influence the events around me. If I wanted to, I could even try and rape everyone in sight. I mean, I could just. Rape. Everyone. And make a harem out of it somehow. Should be pretty easy since this was a Japanese anime. My body shivered a bit, though whether in disgust or in excitement, I couldn‘t tell. In either case, I took it as a bad sign and pushed those thoughts away. Hmmm… Judging by Madoka‘s family, everything else should still be the same. In other words, this was reality, and I had to be realistic when it came to things like that. This wasn‘t like a fanfic, where the writer could just exaggerate a character‘s personality. What should I do then? Decisions, decisions~ Well, there was Sayaka. No matter what happened, she always turned into a witch, always, always, always, always causing despair for everyone and ruining everything. But maybe if I tried, I could save her from that fate. Puella Magi weren‘t the typical warriors fighting for hope and glittery stuff like one might presume. No, they were more like liches. Once a girl underwent a contract with that cute little bastard, their body would be reconstructed into something more suitable, more powerful and durable, yet their soul would then be moved into the Soul Gem. So, should it ever be moved too far away from the magical girl, 6 uh, let‘s just say bad things happen. Not only that, but whenever a magical girl ran out of magical power or gave in to despair, when their Soul Gems turn wholly black from corruption, it will then shatter into a needle- like Grief Seed that could hatch into a monster.