Disclaimer: The original characters and plot of this story are the property of the author. No infringement of pre-existing copyright is intended. This story is copyright (c) 2008 Scipio Africanus All rights reserved.
WARNING: This story contains descriptions of violence. It also isn't very good. It should probably not be read by anyone for any reason. You have been warned.
My grandfather was a wise man. In all the years I knew him, only once have I ever known him to be wrong.
Before he died, he used to take me fishing on the tiny pond behind his house. Even then, I was special. I’m not sure why, of all seven grandchildren, I alone was singled out for this honor. Maybe it was the fact that I was adopted, and grandfather felt a need to pass a bit of himself on to me in another way. Maybe I was just the only one who would listen to his rambling stories without interrupting. Whatever the reason, these private trips weren’t about fish—I don’t even think there were any in that tiny pond—but about lessons. My grandfather would speak in gravelly tones about life, love, pain and morality. He would teach me about science and history, math and language. It was to the rhythm of windswept ripples lapping against wooden hull that I first heard the tale of Gilgamesh, in that little boat that I learned of atoms and molecules. He would speak of ethics, challenges and perseverance. He spoke of what he’d learned, and of what he wished he’d known sooner. And over the last summer we spent together in that little boat, he spoke increasingly about death.
“You only get one life;” my grandfather told me, “so make damn sure it counts.”
But for once, just once, my grandfather was wrong.
Of course I didn’t know that yet, so as I climbed into the passenger seat of Sarah’s car I dutifully buckled my seatbelt tightly over my waist. Apart from Sarah herself, I was the only one in the car who had this luxury—the others were packed in with a proximity canned sardines would pity.
“Move your fat ass over, Greg, I can’t even close the fucking door!” said Lisa while attempting for the third time to pull the left rear door shut.
“Sorry we’re not all anorexic bitches like you,” shouted Tom over his shoulder from beside me on the armrest of the front seat.
Actually, both Greg and Lisa were quite thin, though neither was anorexic. It probably would have been nice if a few people in the group had been, though; the car was filled to almost twice the listed capacity and circulation to the legs was now but a fond memory for all involved. To make matters even more awkward, most of the people in the car didn’t know all the people against whom they were now bodily pressed. Tom, Greg, Lisa and I all knew each other previously, and were quite good friends. We also knew Sarah, who had organized this logistical nightmare. The other four people in the car also knew Sarah, but their quartet and ours had never come into contact before. Now we were all in Sarah’s car, on our way to some party being hosted by a guy none of us knew.
Trying to remain inconspicuous, I examined our new companions in the rear view mirror. They were all fairly attractive girls, and I looked forward to getting to know them over the course of the evening. One girl in particular caught my eye. Sitting in the far left corner with a skinny redhead on her lap was a petite, athletic brunette wearing a truckload of eye makeup. Unable to catch her name during Sarah’s hurried introductions, I mentally dubbed her “Earrings Girl” thanks to the elaborate, dazzlingly shiny ornaments that hung from her tiny lobes. Finding out Earrings’ actual name would definitely be on the top of my list of things to do tonight.
“Are you sure you know where the house is?” asked Greg
“Yeah,” said Sarah. “It’s just harder to find it in the dark. We just have to take Treeline down about two miles until--”
“So why are we driving toward I-54?” asked Greg
“We’re not,” said Sarah. “This is the way up Mill. See, we just go up to… wait, what’s this intersection?”
“You don’t know? Why are you driving, anyway?” said Greg.
“There!” Called Lisa form the backseat. ”That’s the bank on Treeline! We have to go back that way, turn here!”
Sarah obliged, cutting across two lanes of traffic and earning angry horn blasts from multiple drivers. Twisting the wheel, she turned left sharply, sending us bashing into one another as we jostled about from the momentum of the turn. That was the least of our worries, though, because as we passed the final lane of our turn, a pickup without its lights on smashed into the drivers’ side of the car, sending the civic careening into the middle of the intersection. Luckily, we’d nearly completed the turn, so the relative speed of impact wasn’t enormous, and I don’t think anyone was seriously injured at that point, but it was still extremely jarring. Screams and curses erupted from the backseat as the occupants realized what had happened. I didn’t really look to see if anyone was injured though, as my attention was fixed on the two bright spheres hurtling towards me with sickening speed. Time seemed to stand still as I stared into those orbs, the headlights of a massive moving van being driven by an inexperienced new homeowner, making a beeline for the passenger side of our little car; right where I was sitting. For one brief moment I pictured myself throwing the door open and diving to safety, but realized with sinking dread that I wouldn’t even be able to open the door before eighty thousand pounds of pure death slammed full force directly into my door. I cringed, pushing myself deeper into my seat, trying to get away from the deadly machine headed inexorably toward me. I had nowhere to go, but still I pushed, trying desperately to get myself away from that thing. I had to get away. Away. Away! I was focused so hard on my futile escape that I barely noticed the subtle change in the seat I pressed myself against in the split second before impact, and the heavy, distinctly human shaped pressure against my on my lap that slightly preceded the crash. And then the world imploded.
---------------------------------
I awoke in what I immediately realized was a hospital bed. Where else would I be after a crash like that? My memory was far from hazy; in fact, I remembered every detail of my previous few seconds of consciousness in a way I’ve never remembered anything else in my life. Surprisingly, I didn’t really hurt much, though I was extremely groggy. I managed to open my eyes a little, staring at the ceiling. The white foam ceiling tiles confirmed my suspicions about my location. I was either in a hospital or an office building, and as I had no reason to be in the latter, I assumed this was St. Bonaventure’s hospital downtown. All this seemed very simple, so I was really not very concerned about my location. As such, at no point did I think to utter the words ‘where am I?’ I was not destined to escape cliché entirely, though, as the question that came to my mind first was ‘How long have I been out?’
“How long have I been out?” I croaked, not considering that there might not be anyone around to hear. Fortunately, there was, in fact, a woman somewhere to my right, and she responded in a soft, calming voice,
“About 13 hours, honey. You’re in the hospital.”
Well, duh. Come on, lady, my location was the ONE thing I’d already figured out. Still, thirteen hours wasn’t bad; at least I wasn’t in a coma for years or anything.
Apparently Nurse Obvious was not alone in the hospital room, as another unfamiliar voice spoke from my right.
“Oh, oh! She’s awake, David, She’s awake!”
Now aware of multiple voices and curious as to their various sources, I endeavored to turn my head to the side. In doing so, I realized why I didn’t feel much pain; I didn’t feel much of anything. Turning my head wasn’t difficult, but I barely felt the pillow pressed against my cheek when I did so. My face felt numb. In fact, my whole body felt numb. I realized this must be a result of some sort of painkiller, and was immediately grateful for the lack of sensation, considering the obvious alternative.
My eyes now pointing towards my companions instead of the ceiling, I sought several answers. Who had called out to David, who was David, and who was the girl he was supposed to notice had awoken? Luckily, the answer was fairly obvious, as there were only three people to my right, seated in plastic chairs. One was a grown woman with long black hair and a look of excitement on her face, and was obviously the speaker. The short, dark-haired man next to her had to be David, who looked a little startled, and the little girl of 11 or so that sat on the floor at his feet had to be the recently woken girl. Clearly, this girl was a light sleeper, as she jumped to her feet at once and started to run across the room toward me with a speed uncommon of the recently awakened. David, presumably her father, extended an arm to hold her back, though, pinning her in place.
“Careful, you’ll disturb the bandages, princess,” he warned her, much to my relief. I was glad to have avoided major pain this far and didn’t want to change that anytime soon.
Still, thoughtful as he was, the man and his daughter did not seem to be hospital staff, and I wondered groggily what they were doing in my hospital room, and intended to get some answers.
“Who…wha….” I demanded, as sharply as I could manage.
“I… uhgg…mngg…” I explained apologetically.
I didn’t hear their responses though, as I drifted back into unconsciousness.
This time, when I awoke, it hurt. A lot. I groaned loudly, coughing up heavy mucus into my mouth as I did so. Nurse Obvious leaned over me and gently toughed my shoulder.
“Shh…” she urged, “It’s ok. You’re fine. Your family is here, everything is going to be alright.”
I again turned my head toward the chairs, and again saw David, his wife and his daughter sitting there.
“But…” I squeaked, embarrassingly high-pitched. “They aren’t… those people…” I stopped, puzzled at the strange sound of my own voice.
The woman rushed over and grabbed my uninjured hand.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said, “I’m here, everything is going to be fine.”
It was at this point that everything fell into place. I looked down at her hand clasping mine, and also saw several things wrong with my own body. Apart from the injuries, I had two large mounds pushing up from within my hospital gown. My arm, too, was totally wrong. While I had been very pale, with large amounts of dark hair on my arms and legs, my arm was now tanned and smooth. For some reason, I had breasts, and girl arms. The girl that the woman had been excited to see awake was me. Desperate and confused, I called out to the nurse.
“What’s going on? What’s wrong with me?”
My voice, while still alien to me, no longer seemed objectively strange. It was a girl’s voice, higher than most, but a normal one. It actually seemed slightly familiar.
“You were in an accident. You broke your arm and three ribs, but they’re set and healing. You’re going to be fine.”
This was, of course, while interesting and relevant, obviously not at all what I meant. I tried to explain.
“No… but… my chest. My arm!” I cried, referring to my recent discoveries.
“Yes, your arm was broken badly, but the doctor set it nicely, and it will heal,” explained the nurse, “Your ribs, too, probably hurt, but the pain will subside soon. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Frustrated, I abandoned questioning and decided to see for myself.
“A mirror! Get me a mirror,” I demanded of the nurse.
The black-haired woman squeezed my hand and answered “Don’t worry, honey, your face is as beautiful as ever. There aren’t any scars, I promise.”
“A mirror! I need a mirror!” I persisted, shaking my good hand free from the woman’s grip.
Looking startled and slightly hurt, she pulled away.
“Get her a mirror please, Nurse Cross.”
“Okay, if it will help you feel better, here,” Nurse Obvious said to me as she reached into a drawer and produced a simple hand mirror, handing it to me.
I snatched the mirror and held it to my face, staring angrily into the glass. With a frightening expression on her pretty features, that short girl from the car, Earrings, stared back, though without her namesake jewelry or the distinctive eye-makeup. Her expression morphed from rage to shock as I stared at her. That was me. I was Earrings.
Those people must be Earrings’ parents, and they are telling me I’m their daughter.
“What... what did you do to me?” I asked, receiving puzzled looks from the nurse and Earrings’ mother.
It was the nurse who answered me.
“We gave you something for the pain, we set your broken bones, and we stopped your bleeding. We saved your life. You could have died in that auto accident.”
“No!” I shouted” “Why do I look like Earrings?! What the fuck is going on here? Is this some medical experiment? A brain transplant? Some stem cell shit? I say again, what the fuck did you bastards do to me?”
“Earrings? We took out your earrings when you arrived. Please, calm down, everything will be alright.”
“Everything is NOT alright! I mean the girl in the car! Why do I look like that girl? What did you do to me?!”
“Please, honey, relax. We didn’t do any medical experiment on you. We fixed your broken bones and stopped your bleeding. That’s all.”
At this point, David stepped in to add his input “Janice, honey, calm down. You’ve been through a lot, just take it easy, everything is going to be fine.”
”Stop saying that! Stop it!” I yelled, “I am not Janice! I’m Jake Ligouri, and I am not a girl! I’m Jake! Jake!”
I thrashed in the bed, pulling out my IV and lunging for the door. I toppled out sideways and landed painfully on the floor. David moved to help me up and I kicked out at him. Nurse obvious hit a button on the wall above my bed and then moved to hold me. I turned and bit her hand, struggling to my feet. The pain was excruciating, and I collapsed again before I was even fully upright. One of my new breasts was smashed painfully against the leg of my IV stand, and I was unable to stand or even roll over. I flailed my legs and good arm, connecting once with someone’s head. Then I felt a needle punch into my backside and quickly lost consciousness.
Over the next few days I was restrained and was introduced to a few psychiatrists. The consensus seemed to be that the trauma of my accident had caused my “delusions” and I was told that that I had developed the disease creatively titled “Personality Disorder Not Otherwise Specified.” At first, I resisted, but I soon decided to play along in hopes of someday being released and finding out what had been done to me. I found out that I was the only survivor of the auto accident that day. Everyone in the front had died instantly, including ‘Jake Ligouri.’ In the rear, me, Boots, and Other Brunette had survived the crash, but Boots and Other Brunette died in the hospital hours later.
Occasionally I was brought newspaper clippings about my strange claims by ‘my’ family. It was heartbreaking to see how biased the reporting was. My situation was unbelievable enough without editorial bias, but what appeared in print was little more than a small article about the survivor of a car crash’s mental breakdown. No mention of the proof I attempted to provide, flimsy as it was, or even my claimed true identity, was made. I attempted to prove my story by telling secrets about my old self, but unfortunately I hadn’t been a very secretive person. All I managed to convince anyone of was that I’d been sleeping with Jake.
What’s worse was that Janice’s family insisted on taking shifts with me, never leaving me unaccompanied. Not that I could have been alone anyway, as my ‘mental condition’ forced a nurse or orderly to be with me at all times to prevent suicide. While the idea of me, someone who had apparently wanted to live so badly that I’d actually switched bodies to avoid death, wanting to commit suicide was laughable, what this meant was that I was never alone with myself. While I did a little surreptitious rubbing with my upper arms whenever the opportunity to reach across myself was presented, I didn’t even get any ‘alone’ time with my new body.
As such, I sat quietly in my room most of the time, wrestling with my own physiological demons. If I was alive, did that mean Janice was really dead? Was that fair? Then again, would it have been any fairer had she lived by virtue of her position in the car and I had died? Was my survival, while unnatural, any more unfair than hers would have been? Unfortunately, while I phrased the questions as favorably as possible, I kept answering yes. Yes, it really was more unfair that I had lived and she had died. No matter how much logic I applied to make it okay, I survived at her expense. What worried me more was that I didn’t really care.
I felt bad about her death, certainly, but not enough to wish the switch hadn’t happened. In fact, given the choice, I’d probably have done it deliberately if I’d had to. That I didn’t was small consolation. I realized something in those days without friends, real family, or hope. I was a monster. I’d discovered that, ultimately, my own survival was simply more important to me than that of another human being. I hated myself for that, and spent my days alternately condemning myself and cursing my captors.
I found some small relief in another line of thought, though. Like all teenagers, I’d long thought of myself as special and important. I valued my life more than a random stranger’s, yes. But perhaps, in my case, this was justified. After all, I had survived. She hadn’t. Not just by ordinary chance, either. That I had lived was clearly supernatural, a miracle even. Everyone believes, at least in some part, that the universe revolves around them. But I actually had evidence to support this, stronger evidence than anyone else had ever had. Maybe my life really was more valuable than Janice’s.
But, soon I came to hate myself for even considering such a thing, and my routine returned to simple self- loathing.
And that is how things continued, my present dismal and future bleak, until things got worse.
One day, a few weeks after the accident, I was sitting in my room chatting with Nurse Obvious. I’d gotten to know her a little better, and learned her real name was Kristina Cross. She was a slightly overweight black woman, and she was always smiling. While she wore a small gold cross on her necklace, she had confessed to me that she was a firm atheist. Apparently, patients had a tendency to label nurses with mental nicknames instead of reading the badges they wear, and used to call her “Nurse Locket” when she wore a large silver locket to work. She decided that rather than fight the trend, she’d just wear a cross so the patients would get her name right anyway. While I never admitted it to her or anyone, I felt a little less gloomy during her shifts. While I don’t think she actually believed my story, she would listen, and was happy to work through my moral dilemmas with me. She was intelligent and articulate, and our talks helped me feel better about myself. She was the only one to whom I revealed my real fears and doubts. The psychiatrists I told what they wanted to hear, but with her, I could be honest, and so I was.
Anyway, we were talking about her family when the door opened and a man stepped in. He looked like a psychiatrist, which should have been my first clue that he wasn’t one. The real psychiatrists all looked like overworked middle-school math teachers, but this guy walked in wearing a white lab coat, round, slightly tinted glasses, and was carrying a nice leather briefcase. He was very young and quite muscular for a shrink, but otherwise he looked fairly unremarkable. I watched passively as he set his briefcase on the counter and snapped open the twin latches.
“You know,” I said, “You guys really already got your point across. I’m crazy. There’s no drug that will fix me. I get it. I’m really getting sick of telling you guys my life story just so you can tell me you don’t believe me and advise therapy. I’m already getting therapy, against my will, so what more do you want?”
“Oh, don’t worry,” replied the man as he opened the lid of the case and reached inside, “I believe you.”
My mind stopped for a second, startled at this revelation, then again seconds later as the man calmly removed his hand from the briefcase and with it a black, silenced pistol. He calmly and efficiently pointed it at me and fired twice. I stumbled to the floor as the rounds slammed into my chest. I was distantly aware of Nurse Cross’s mouth opening to scream, but the sounds didn’t register as I collided with the cold white tile. There I lay in shock as he adjusted his aim and fired again and again, four more bullets punching through the bandages on my torso and into my chest. My first coherent thought was how unfair this all was. I was saved from certain death by some kind of miracle only to sit in a hospital for weeks, be labeled insane, and be gunned down by a lunatic in a lab coat for no apparent reason. How is that fair? Why me? Doesn’t the universe revolve around me? Why do I have to die? Maybe I’ll survive. This is a hospital, maybe they can save me. This in mind, I stared up at my attacker, vision blurring every second. My hopes were immediately dashed, though, and I watched helplessly as he shifted his aim to my head. I tried to move, to hide, to put something, anything between that terrible black tube and myself, but I couldn’t. Not only was there nothing to hide behind and no time to go there even if there were, but the other shots had damaged my body beyond any hope of movement anyway. Even lifting my arm to protect my face was impossible, and I stared up at my killer with hatred and fear. I had to get away! Even though I couldn’t move and the pain of trying was blinding, I desperately tried to anyway. I tried to roll, to writhe, and to twist even an inch out of the way, but I couldn’t. The barrel was lined up with my eyes now, and I stared into the black tunnel from whence my death was about to depart. With no other hope in sight, with every ounce of my being I tried one final time to lunge away. And I did. Suddenly I was across the room, back to the counter, staring at the man putting a bullet through the skull of the short, athletic girl lying crumpled against the wall. I had no time to think. Obviously, I’d done it again. I was Nurse Cross now, but I was as helpless as before. With a satisfied glance at the girl’s ventilated forehead, the man calmly removed his glasses and placed them in the pocket of his lab coat.
“I am truly sorry about this, nurse. Believe me, I had wanted to do this in private, but it appears the subject was under 24 hour guard, so a witness was quite unavoidable. Unfortunately, it is also quite unacceptable. Forgive me. Understand that my aim here is to protect innocent life, not to take it. Doing this pains me greatly, but please know your sacrifice is for the greater good.”
With that, he raised the pistol at me again, and in that instant I knew I had to escape, again, the same way. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, but I put every ounce of my will into lunging at the only safe haven left in the room; my attacker. As much to my surprise as to my relief, it worked. In an instant I was staring back at Nurse cross down the sights of a heavy black pistol.
The attacker, now Nurse Cross, blinked in surprise, then twisted the Nurse’s perpetually cheerful features into a mask of pure rage and hatred.
“You monster! You took the nurse, you evil little brat! How many more have to die for you?”
We stared into each others’ eyes with mutual loathing for a few seconds. This man had killed me, he’d killed nurse Cross, literally my only friend in the world, and still he wanted to kill me again. Coldly, I shifted my aim to his head.
“At least one, you son-of-a-bitch.”
Just as I was about to splatter his worthless brains across the zebra poster on the wall behind him, however, two orderlies slammed into me from behind and I tumbled to the ground. They pulled my arms behind my back and pulled the gun from my grasp, pinning me to the ground. Again I felt a needle punch into my hindquarters and felt the dizziness wash over me. Just as I drifted into unconsciousness, Nurse Cross’s face came next to mine and whispered “I know what you’re thinking, and I won’t let it happen. I won’t let you condemn some innocent guard to your life sentence. You’ll never make it to the holding cell. Rest assured, Sixty-Seven, you are not invincible. You will die for what you’ve done, and it will be I who does the killing.”
I tried in vain to escape into another body again, but I was too dizzy, too tired. He said something else, too, but I never heard it, as it was at that point I lost consciousness.
I awoke in the back of a squad car, my hands cuffed behind my back. I was much larger and stronger now, not to mention male again, but I probably couldn’t have escaped my captors, currently in the front of the car, even had I been free to fight them. Both male and very fit, they wore police uniforms and sunglasses. While I was fit too in this body, I didn’t have police training or a gun. They had both. I tried to will myself into the driver’s body, but to no avail. I was still groggy from the sedative, I supposed, even if what the orderly had been carrying was measured for my old 104 pound body instead of this 240 pound one. Desperately, I railed physically against the restraints, but even strong as I was I was no match for the steel of the handcuffs. I continued struggling until we came to a stop outside the police station. I glanced about nervously. The holding cell was just inside, and if the assassin had been earnest, I had minutes to live at most. Again I tried to will myself into a policeman, with no success.
As I was pulled out of the car, I saw Nurse Cross’s figure at the top of the stairs with a syringe partially tucked behind her palm. I also noticed she was also wearing those glasses my attacker had been wearing when he was in this body. startled at my appearance. Obviously, the assassin hadn’t expected the sedative to wear off as quickly as it had, and this had made his plan a little more difficult than jabbing me with some kind of poison as I was carried past. He began making his way toward me, however, clearly determined to do the job anyway.
Desperately I struggled against the police, trying to veer away from the assassin, but the police held me fast. I tried again to will myself into another body. First I tried the policemen, then the assassin. Nothing worked. The assassin came closer, a grin on his face, as I tried in vain to escape again. Anywhere! Come on, I had to do this! I’d escaped certain death so often recently; surely I could do so again! But The assassin’s words rang in my head: “Rest assured Sixty-Seven, you are not invincible.” That man knew what I could do, and seemed confident in his ability to kill me nonetheless. That calm assurance terrified me. In any case, it wasn’t working. I had tried to jump to another body, but for some reason, I couldn’t. I tried the only other person on the precinct stairs, a bespectacled old man with a cane, but I had no success. Then, just as I was about to be jabbed, I saw hope; a punkish girl dressed in black with short, bright pink was being led out of the front doors of the police station by her mother. Desperate, I lunged in their direction, both physically and mentally. It worked! From the top of the stairs, I saw my most recently abandoned body stumble and look around in confusion. I didn’t see what happened next, though, as the woman --apparently my new body’s mother-- yanked me quickly down the stairs and to the parking lot where she sternly ordered me into the waiting car.
Eager to be away from that place, I obliged.
When I awoke, my first thought was that I could really go for some chocolate pudding.
“Hey, Nurse Cross, coul—“ I began.
But, initially startled by the once again unfamiliar sound of my voice, I remembered.
Oh, God, I remembered.
How many more have to die for you?
The killer’s words had struck a chord, it seemed. The killer. I called him that, but who had he killed? He’d shot me, but I hadn’t died; no, I’d condemned my one and only friend to that fate. He’d poisoned the girl whose body I now possessed, but it was I who put her in the path of the needle. Not to mention Janice, in whose death he had no part. So while I called him ‘the killer,’ who was I to talk? I had quite a body count myself. But I was alive. I drew breath through lungs that were not my own, lungs stolen from an innocent bystander out of greed and fear, but draw breath I did. And try as I might, I could not regret that.
But whose lungs had I stolen? Whose body, whose life? Who was I now? Unfortunately, I didn’t know much. The ride ‘home’ form the police station had been decidedly unenlightening. The girl’s mother wasn’t exactly in the mood for banter and my attitude hadn’t helped matters at all. She obviously expected a show of remorse, but I was positively giddy just to be alive, and it showed. Eventually, after enduring a stern lecture on taking things seriously and a making a courageous effort to wipe “that damn smile” off my face, I did manage to mutter out an apology, but all I earned for my troubles was a dismissive grunt.
I might have learned more, but by the time we’d arrived at the dingy two-bedroom I was apparently privileged to call “home,” I was exhausted. I didn’t know if it was the result of my own harrowing afternoon, some kind of spiritual exertion from my multiple supernatural jumps or the just preexisting state of the body I’d taken, but I felt like I’d been up for days. Practically as soon as I found the room that was supposed to be mine—which I accomplished on my very second try—I was asleep.
So here I was, some hours later, sitting on an alien bed in a run-down apartment, and I didn’t even know my name.
No, that wasn’t right.
I knew my name. My name was Jake. Jake Ligouri. What I didn’t know was the name of my…my what? My host? My vessel? Those terms sounded pleasant, benign—inviting, even. But as I remembered staring out of the eyes of Nurse Cross at the bullet riddled corpse of pretty, young Janice Luray, I knew there was only one term to describe those with whom I traded lots—victims.
Such moralizing would have to wait, however, as it was at this point that my victim’s mother came barging through the door—and barge she did. She was not a slim woman, and striding across the pale blue carpet she resembled nothing so much as a wide, plodding riverboat piled high without regard for shape and form.
“Rose!” she shouted. “What in God’s name are you still doing in bed?“
Rose. Well, that was one question answered, at least.
“Um, I’m not feeling so good…” I began
“Are you serious?” she demanded. “You think you can do what you did yesterday and then stay home watching cartoons while Mommy makes you soup and crackers? You’re lucky I let you stay in my house at all after what you did! After all I’ve given up to put food in your foul little mouth, clothes on your ungrateful little back? After all I’ve sacrificed?”
“I…I just…” I stammered, caught off guard by her vehemence and flying spittle.
“Not another word!” she snapped. “You are going to school today. You are going to school tomorrow. And you are going to school every damn day after that. I don’t care if you’re bleeding out your ears. If you really need a doctor, call 9-1-1. Either way, you are getting hell out of my house.”
I nearly snapped. I knew she was really angry with the real Rose, not me. And for all I knew Rose deserved every last hate-filled sentence. But I didn’t think so, and even if she did, I didn’t care. I had effectively lost my own mother, my own family, and this was my substitute? This angry, bitter whale?
I wanted to scream, to shout, to teach her a lesson she’d never forget. I could, too, of that I was sure. It would be easy, really, with my newfound ability. I could make her pay…but I didn’t. Instead, I simply clenched my jaw and glared.
“Fine,” I said.
There was a long silence, and then the whale grunted.
“Hmph,” she said. “That’s what I thought.”
Striding over to the bed with a smug satisfaction that made me hate her even more, she picked up a pile of clothes and shoved them into my arms.
“Get dressed. There’s no time for a shower, so just wash your face and get back out here.”
I glanced warily at the bundle she’d handed me. The clothes smelled faintly of alcohol and cigarette smoke.
“I don’t think these clothes are clean,” I said as flatly as I could manage.
“Did you wash them?” said the whale. “Then no, Rose, I suppose they wouldn’t be clean, would they?”
With a heavy sigh she looked down, squeezed her eyes shut and pinched the bridge of her nose like she had a migraine.
“Just get dressed, Rose. Just get dressed, and go to school. I can’t take any more of this from you today. I really can’t.”
Smelly clothes in hand, I walked out of the tiny room, across the two by two square of carpet that served as a hallway and stepped into the bathroom.
Closing the door behind me, I turned my attention immediately to the bathroom mirror. This was the first time I’d actually been able to look at my new body in more a sneaking glance in than the car’s rear-view mirror, not to mention the first time I wasn’t distracted by extreme fatigue and immediate mortal peril.
The first thing I noticed was my hair. It was pink. Bright pink. I’d noticed it before, in the instant before the switch, but I’d forgotten over the course of the night. But there was no way anyone who saw it could miss that hair. That I noticed the hair first is particularly telling, given what took second on my list of discoveries: my figure.
Body awareness is something most people just take for granted. The knowledge of where all the bits of you are and the ability to navigate without using your vision to carefully guide each limb around obstacles are things most people just take for granted. But as I was about to discover, this ability does have some limitations the average person never encounters.
Because, as I found out, while the ability to identify the position of body parts relative to one another and feel pressure on the skin are both genuine, universal senses, the actual shape and size of one’s body is something that must be learned through practice.
So while I’d felt the pressure of the covers on my skin and the weight of breasts on my chest, I had simply assumed my body was generally similar in shape to Janice’s. None of the sensations were noticeably different; nothing I’d felt had indicated just how differently I was shaped. But a different I was.
Janice had been petite, toned, and athletic. Her breasts were small but perky, her body lithe and nimble. The reflection in the mirror was…not. Rose’s body was much more developed. While nothing like her mother, she also wasn’t fashion-model skinny. Now, to be clear, as Rose I wasn’t chubby—not even slightly overweight. What fat I did have was mostly concentrated in the ‘right’ places, and my figure still swept in and out without inappropriate blobs in-between. But I wasn’t fit. Gone was the muscle definition I’d known both as my male self and as Janice. Instead, my new body was soft and smooth, naturally curvy and—most alarmingly—full breasted. Rose’s bosom wasn’t nearly as large as her mother’s, but Rose—I—was also several hundred pounds lighter.
With a gulp, I hefted—hefted!—one of my breasts. This was new. My breasts as Janice could be squeezed—though not often, thanks to the twenty-four hour suicide watch—but they simply could not be hefted like this.
Before I could explore any further, however, my antics were cut short by a furious pounding on the bathroom door.
“Rose! What in the world are you doing in there? Get dressed, you’re going to be late!”
Oops. Right. For a moment I’d forgotten there was a world outside that bathroom. I wanted to ignore her, forget again and just—but the moment was lost.
“Uh, Sorry. I’ll be right out!” I called.
With that I regretfully turned my attention to the slightly-smelly clothing I’d been given. The pile contained a black tank-top with a pink skull on the front that looked far too small to fit anyone older than five, an almost-matching pink tartan skirt that didn’t look like it would reach even halfway to my knees, black panties and bra, a black and silver studded belt with bracelets and collar to match, and a pair of black fishnet stockings.
I was not thrilled.
As Janice I’d never worn the bras her family brought me, but the ridiculous tightness of the tank-top had convinced me that donning this one would be a good idea. It didn’t really bother me; my refusal at the hospital had been a matter of comfort, not principle, and in this case wearing the bra seemed like the more comfortable alternative. Besides, I was curious as to what size she—I—was. Picking up the garment, I examined the tag: 36-D. That was actually smaller than I expected, since I knew Janice was a “32-B” and by sight I’d have guessed more than two sizes separated her bosom from Rose’s.
The rest of the clothes went on easily enough, including the tiny tank top which possessed apparently supernatural stretching abilities and ended up fitting snugly but comfortably. I did dither over the issue of the fishnets for a time. On the one hand, they looked ridiculous, served no practical purpose, and were needlessly feminine. But after donning the tiny pink skirt my legs felt incredibly exposed. In the end, I opted to wear them, just so I wouldn’t feel quite so naked.
Once finished, I appraised the finished product in the mirror. I had to admit the whole outfit was actually pretty flattering, if you liked the whole “punk-rocker” look, but it hardly seemed like the sort of thing a mother would tell her daughter to wear. Are girls even allowed to wear such short skirts to school? And couldn’t the spiked accessories be qualified as weapons? I had some serious doubts about this outfit. Even with the fishnets, my nearly bare legs made me feel quite exposed. I reasoned that Rose obviously wore this kind of outfit all the time, so nobody at her school would give it a second thought, and assured myself that it was her body anyway, so why should I be embarrassed? Nevertheless, I walked out of the bathroom feeling extremely self-conscious.
The whale was standing there, looking like an extremely frustrated bean bag chair.
“Um,” I began, hoping I’d be ordered to change, “do you really want me to wear this?”
She laughed derisively.
“Do I want you to wear that? Now you suddenly care what I think, and about your wardrobe of all things? Well, fine, here’s what I think: no, Rose, you look like a hooligan and a slut. Once upon a time I’d have said ‘No daughter of mine is leaving this house looking like that, no sir.’ But frankly, at this point I wouldn’t care if you went to school naked just so long as you’re supervised and out of my house for a few hours. At least today your belly’s covered and you’re not wearing that god-awful makeup.”
“Fine. Great. Glad you’re pleased.” I said. What a caring little family Rose had. No wonder she wanted to rebel a little.
The whale paused, looking at me quizzically for a few seconds. Then she started to say something, but the hiss and pop of hydraulic brakes made her change the subject.
“The bus is here.” She said. “Go on, you know he won’t wait.”
With a grimace, I made my way toward the door. The bus? I hadn’t ridden the school bus since the seventh grade. Actually, come to it, what grade was Rose in? Just how old was she, anyway? How—
“Rose!”
I snapped around to see why the whale was shouting at me.
“Your bag?” she said, tossing it at me.
“Oh, right. Thanks.”
Again she looked at me oddly.
“Go on, then.” She said after a moment.
“Right,” I said, marching out the door.
The walk from the apartment to the bus was easy. I didn’t even think about it. The trouble started when I got to the bus door. Suddenly I was faced with parading this ridiculous outfit down a tiny isle past dozens of my new classmates, and convincing my legs to carry me onward became much more challenging. It wasn’t that there were thirty pairs of eyes following my every movement; for the most part the others weren’t paying me any attention at all. Some were sleeping on backpacks, some finishing last-minute homework assignments. Some just stared blankly out the window. But a few younger looking guys, probably freshmen, were stealing glances—at my chest.
In some ways I was relieved. After all, it was my legs that felt naked, and they about which I was most self conscious. That the boys seemed not to care about my practically naked legs was actually a very good thing for my confidence, though I realized afterward that given the position of the seats they probably couldn’t have seen below my waist anyway. Still, they were treating me just as socially awkward high school freshmen would any other person with breasts. I had no reason to feel uncomfortable. I wasn’t particularly worried for Rose’s modesty, and I certainly hadn’t come anywhere close to considering this new body to be “me” yet. And yet for some reason, uncomfortable I was.
As I took an empty seat near the back of the bus, I wondered why. Why did their stares make me so uneasy? Then I realized the answer; I was afraid they’d see through my disguise. On one level I knew the fear was silly. As Janice I’d outright shouted my true identity, even tried to provide proof and still no one would believe me. How could someone possibly figure it out from the way I walked onto a bus? But that’s not what it felt like. It felt like I was wearing a paper-thin disguise and at any moment everyone would see that Jake Ligouri was trying to impersonate the girl named Rose. The fact was, I’d never tried to hide myself before. Until now, I’d insisted to all who would listen that I was really Jake Ligouri and the fact that no one believed me was a sign of my failure, not my success. But now things were different. Now, I wanted people to believe that I was Rose; or—more precisely—not to realize that I wasn’t.
Because not everyone at the hospital had refused to believe my story, and a return visit from the lone exception was not something I wanted to invite.
The rest of the bus ride I spent gathering information. What I hadn’t been able to glean from conversations with the whale was easily found in the backpack she’d given me. Most helpful was Rose’s Student ID card. From this I learned that Rose apparently went to West Lowery Central High, a different school in the same district as my own West Lowery Western. I also learned that Rose’s last name was Cassidy and that she was a senior; one year older than I was. Personally, I didn’t think ‘Rose Cassidy’ rolled off the tongue the way a name properly should, but with a mother like the whale I supposed she was lucky not to have been named Mud. I also found her notebook, complete with a class schedule taped to the inside cover. I might not have any idea what was going on, but at least I could show up for the right classes.
So, as I stepped off the bus and toward the school, for about thirty seconds I was certain I had everything I needed to successfully impersonate Rose Cassidy. Then I met Liz.