(Fair warning - this is one of the darkest things I've written in a while...)
"Promise me you'll look after her...promise me..." Nick recalled his sister, Sharon, saying soon before she died of cancer. The "her" in this case was his 18 year-old niece Gracie.
"I promise," Nick replied. He'd do anything for his big sister...and he had long been suspicious of his brother-in-law/Gracie's step-dad, Chad. He always hovered around when anyone else talked to Sharon or Gracie, listened in on phone calls, kept track of their online activity... It was very suspicious, but Nick couldn't prove that Chad was doing anything malicious.
He called Gracie a few times a week and visited every weekend, but she was always under the watchful glare of Chad. One weekend, while sitting in their living room, Chad saw a kid on a bike scrape his truck parked int he driveway. "HEY YOU LITTLE SHIT! GET THE FUCK BACK HERE! ..." he shouted as he ran out of the room after the kid.
"Uncle Nick, you have to help...help me please...get me out of here..." Gracie took the chance to beg Nick.
"What's happening? What's he doing? Of course I'll help, just tell me..." Nick began to ask, leaning toward Gracie. She quickly pulled a syringe from her sleeve - a powerful painkiller Nick recognized as being Sharon's from when she went on hospice. Gracie must have nicked it from the nurse. "What is..." he began to ask, but she quickly stuck him in the thigh and injected half of it. "Gracie! Wh...what...wuhhh..." He collapsed back, the last thing he could remember seeing was Gracie standing over him, saying something in a language he didn't recognize, making odd motions with her hands similar to sign language. Just before everything went black, he saw her inject herself with the rest of the syringe...
"Oh my sweet baby, are you ok?" he awoke to Chad talking to him. "That druggie uncle of yours...stealing your mom's medicine...we'll never see him again, that's for sure. Shooting you up with that stuff... I enjoyed literally tossing him out on his ass..."
Nick blinked a few times as the haze lifted. He was in Gracie's room...in Gracie's bed...then he looked down to see that he was in Gracie's body. The lingering effects of the drug dulled his panic, but he still tried to kick away from Chad and get up.
"Shh, shh, let it pass," Chad consoled him. "Here, I'll get you some water."
As Chad left the room, Nick jumped up, heart racing and head pounding. On the night stand he saw a partially hidden piece of paper with "Nick" written on it. With a trembling hand, he picked up to read it:
"Uncle Nick - I'm so sorry I have to do this. Chad has been abusing my mom for years. She couldn't leave, because he threatened to hurt me if she did. Now that she's gone, he's been doing it to me. I can't take it. After he took my phone, I started reading mom's old books to pass the time. She had one on the occult and it had this spell in it... I'm sorry I had to do it, but I had to get out. You said you'd do anything for me. Maybe you can find a way to get away from him... Gracie"
Nick, in shock for several reasons, dropped the note to the floor moments before Chad returned. "Get away...get away..." he said as he jumped up, pressing himself to the wall as he thought about a way to escape.
"Baby girl, I thought we were past this..." Chad said as he set the drink down. He walked right up to Nick, towering over him in Gracie's petite body. "You owe me. For taking care of you. For taking care of your mom. And with your lousy uncle out of your life, you have nowhere else to go..." He pressed right up against a terrified Nick, trembling in Gracie's body. He kissed Nick's cheek as he reached up and gave one of Nick's sensitive new breasts a hard squeeze...
This was far worse than Nick ever imagined...
