Chapter 2 – Holy F***ING S***! What happened to me!?
2.4k 0 26
X
Reading Options
Font Size
A- 15px A+
Width
Reset
X
Table of Contents
Loading... please wait.

Chapter 2

Brianna

It had been almost two years since that night. A year since I’d joined the enclave. But for some reason, I couldn’t resist. I had to come back.

And now that I was here, I had an inkling as to why.

Blood.

The smell of blood with the veracity of which I’d not felt since that night.

It wasn’t coming from downtown. Further east. Quantities of blood like that deserved investigation.

 

Kiran

I ignored my alarms as per usual, and awkwardly made my way down the path to the floor like I had a million times. I almost lost my balance a little bit on that last step. Blinking slowly and not focusing on anything, I closed the bathroom door and turned on the shower.

Something about the dark felt… weird.

The warm water rained down on me, but I was still feeling off. I decided to kneel and eventually sit as the shower continued to pour down, wetting my hair so much I could feel it sticking to my face and chest. I’d sat down in the shower before, but it was more comfortable than usual today, I wondered why.

Most times I showered, I let the water do all the work. Having to soap down and touch my whole body made me uncomfortable. I only did so after workouts, when I was especially sweaty. It's likely not a shock, that I didn't do much in the way of haircare either. Showering was more of a morning ritual than a cleaning operation.

Enough time passed with me just sitting that I realized I was going to be late to my class, and sighed. I picked myself up and grabbed a towel to dry off.

I always started by drying off my face and then swung the towel around my shoulders to start drying off my arms. Throughout the shower, things had felt weird, but I had been unable to place what or why. I tried to put the feeling of unease behind me and zone out into thoughtlessness.

My routine was so consistent that slight variations were clear to me. The towel covered more of my arms than I was used to, and I worried I had grabbed my roommate's by mistake. But it smelled like mine. So I continued the routine, still cloaked in humid darkness.

I pulled the towel around my shoulders and tucked it under my arms to dry my sides. Something was very off. I felt my chest squish a little between my upper arms.

“Huh?”

I threw the towel back over my shoulders to free up my hands. I pressed into the squishiness on my chest and to my disbelief felt my own flesh jiggling around under my touch. I could feel it from both ends, like it was part of me. Like it was me.

I was freaking out, and spun to turn on the lights. I turned around, but my body was so different that the motion slid me across the wet floor and my feet went out from under me.

I stifled in a breath, desperate to breathe after the wind was so violently knocked out of me. The wet floor continued to be my greatest enemy. After I was breathing I felt too unsteady to stand and crawled instead. I found the trim around the door and dug my fingers into the handle as I stood up and finally found the switch.

Lights on. Moment of truth.

Fuck it was too bright. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Normally I kept my eyes closed after dark showers for a moment when the lights came on. It gave me time to adjust, but in the rush, I’d forgotten to do that. I went back down to one knee, hands over my eyes. I waited impatiently for my eyes to dilate. Every second I waited I noticed another sensation that was new and wrong. Panic cut into my heart as I finally opened my eyes.

We had a mirror hanging on the inside door of the bathroom, but steam had fogged it up. All I could see were rough shapes and colors. Even with only my silhouette visible, I could tell that I was different.

Looking down, I could tell just how much.

I was walking around as the girl of my dreams.

Literally.

I felt drowsy, and so the similarity I felt to my dreams was further offputting. In my dreams, especially the recent ones with Audry, I’d been me but not the same me. I was a girl me.

My knees kind of gave out and I slumped against the toilet staring at my reflection in the fogged mirror.

My heart was racing like a mother fucker. As prescient as this body fuckery was, I was remembering everything that happened before I woke up.

I died. Holy fuck I died.

Through the normal morning process, I’d completely forgotten everything leading up to now. The game, my actual murder, waking up in my own bed completely fine, well… not completely fine… waking up totally different.

I felt around my throat and head and back, searching fervently for any marks that would be left by mortal knife wounds. Nothing. Perfectly smooth skin and silky dark hair were the only things I could find.

But it happened. I knew it happened.

Flashes of last night. Sharp shooting pain. Chanting. Fire. A hiss of my skin burning alive, or possibly burning after death. The hiss getting louder, like a pipe filled so tight, it's about to explode.

Shit!

Water was pouring out of the shower and onto the floor. I could’ve sworn I turned it off.

What the hell was happening to me!?

Liquid started streaming down my face in a confusion of tears, wet hair, and shower water. I curled into myself, hugging my knees close. But that only reminded me of how different I was. How fucking odd it was that all of this had happened.

Eventually, my tightly tucked human ball of sobs turned into a loosely splayed flop of apathy. I didn’t know how to process any of this. So I shut down and tried my best to turn my emotions off.

Then the bathroom door opened.

“Fuck!” I shouted as I attempted to cover my sprawled form.

“Huh… Oh, Kira!? Shit!” It was my roommate, Matt. He’d accidentally walked into the bathroom without knocking. A hand flew over his eyes and he stepped back, knocking over the broom in the corner nook of the bathroom. It landed on my head sending me reeling, and onto the bathroom floor with the loud crack that plastic brooms always seem to make. “Fuck!”

Next thing I know there’s a towel over my front and Matt is holding my head.

“What the hell, give me some space dude.” I batted him away from my head, before touching the point of contact ever so gently. It was like I hit a replay button and I remembered knives driving into my skull so vividly it was like it was happening again. I shrieked.

“Wow! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to—” Matt started.

“Just, leave me alone!”

“Are you sure you don’t need like a bandaid or I can get you some ice or… I’m really sorry Kira.”

I was panicking so intensely it took several seconds before his words registered. He called me Kira. The first time he said it I was so startled and assumed I’d missed the last letter. People do that, especially when they’re surprised. But this seemed intentional.

“Ahshhh…” I exclaimed as I pulled my hand away as gently as I put it there and could tell it was going to bruise.

Matt was still standing in the doorway looking down at me. “I’m gonna go get ice.” And before he could even finish his sentence he was back out the door, leaving me alone with a throbbing head.

“What… the… fuuuuuuuuck…” I groaned as I cradled my bumped head and attempted to stand up.

Matt had turned the lights on and I could now see how different the room looked. Well, to be honest, it was pretty much the same. But the pile of clothes on the floor now had slightly different clothes and undergarments. Most of the posters were the same, but there was an extra one or two on the walls I hadn't seen before.

I hobbled over to the comfy chair underneath my lofted bed and started going through the clothes trying to find something loose-fitting enough that I could slip it on while still completely soaked in cold shower water.

In a daze, I haphazardly toweled off and shimmied into some sweats. By then, Matt was back.

“Oh good,” he sighed, “You’ve got clothes on. I got you the ice.”

He walked up and tilted my head ever so slightly to get a better angle at viewing my injury, but I batted him away.

“Relax, I took a first aid class a few months ago.”

I let out a humph through my nose to let him know I was displeased, but as he was already putting the ice on. The pressure on what I assumed would be a nasty bruise hurt for a split second, but then the cold of the ice began to numb the pain. I stayed still and allowed my roommate to continue. Although there wasn’t really much to continue. He stayed standing over me, silently holding the ice in place, and I stayed sitting in my chair, silently wondering just how my life took such a turn.

“You’re not hurt anywhere else are you?”

Was I? No, I didn’t think I was. I shook my head in the negative and instantly regretted it as it exacerbated my increasing headache.

“Hey, stay still.” Matt moved from standing to sit on the arm of the chair, so he could hold the ice more comfortably. “Aren’t you… supposed to be in class. You’re never here when I get back.”

Why the hell was this boy talking so much? He’d said more in the past three minutes than the entire time I’d known him.

“I uh… It’s canceled today.”

“So you decided to have a VIP spa day in the bathroom.”

“That’s not—! Ever learn to knock?”

“You ever lock the door?”

I reached up to grab the ice from him. “Okay give me that. I think I can hold a damn bag.”

“No it’s fine I got it, I’ll—”

“Just—” I reached up, trying to grab the bag of ice out of his grasp and push him away at the same time. Unfortunately, it seemed I pushed him a little too well and he started falling back, flailing his arms around looking for anything to grab and slow his descent. Also, unfortunately, I was the closest thing to grab.

His hand found purchase on the collar of my sweatshirt and suddenly I was being pulled down with him.

Matt landed on his back, one hand still on my sweatshirt. I landed on top of him, with both my hands outstretched to break my fall.

My face was maybe six inches from his. I was frozen and stared at him in awe for a split second. Then I felt a warm pressure and realized his other hand had been put up to brace me as I fell. I felt it pressed into my left boob.

I looked down at his hand and then back to him, ever so close to my face. His touch nullified all the cold and discomfort I felt. It felt like my soul was being enveloped by a warm hug. I would never have guessed just how nice it was to have someone mess with my boobs, even on accident. And with him so close… something in me couldn’t resist.

My eyes closed on autopilot as I leaned down and pressed my lips into his. I expected him to be surprised, but he welcomed my kiss. I parted my lips as his tongue found its way into my mouth and I shivered. His hand on my breast began to grope me outright while his other hand pulled me further into him. In the few chaste kisses I’d had in my life, none of them had ever felt this good. I welcomed his advances generously and even though my eyes were closed I could feel my eyes rolling back as my back arched. I took in breath only through the nose, not wanting my mouth to be off his for a second longer than it had to. Then Matt’s attention shifted from my mouth he bit and pulled at my lower lip. I couldn’t help but whimper, trying to stay as quiet as I could. Then he migrated even lower, his grip on my collar tightening ever so slightly as he kissed down my jaw and onto my neck. That time I couldn’t keep the whimper in.

Then a banging sound from the other side of our wall snapped me back into my senses. It was our neighbors telling us to shut the fuck up.

I pushed off of Matt so fast I was worried I’d hit my head on the dresser behind me. What was going on? I’d never made out with anyone, much less like that, much much less with my aloof male roommate.

Matt to his credit made no attempt to stop me from getting up. He stayed on the floor with a blank look.

I grabbed my phone and just took off running down the hallway. I had to talk to someone because I was confident I was losing my mind. I clicked on the person at the top of my favorites.

Then I listened as the phone rang and mixed in with the ragged breathing of me sprinting downstairs.

Finally an answer, “Kira?”

I took a forward spill face-first down the last two stairs and into the dorm lobby.

“Audry… I…” I tried to say as I picked myself up and started limp-running out of the building. I needed to get out of here. Somewhere else.

“Kira are you okay? What’s going on?”

Good question, Audry. Wait… she called me Kira. Fuuuuuuuucking hell.

“Can you… come pick me up? I uh…”

For the second time that day, tears started streaming.

“Yeah. Of course. Where are you?”

I looked around, getting a few weird stares from people walking into the dorm building. “My place I just… I don’t know what’s going on and… I’m scared.”

“I’m on my way. Do I need to call 911?”

“What? NO! I mean… no, I just— I’m safe, I think, just get here… please.”

“I’m in the car now, girl. Do you want me to stay on the phone?”

“Yes. Please.”

I fell back, but the brick wall caught me. I slumped down with my elbows on my knees.

“Whatever is going on, it’ll be okay Kira. I’m coming.”

“Thank you.” That was all I could get out before sobs with the intensity to shake my body began and I lost the ability to get words out.

26