Three copper coins, a wooden slip, and a half-eaten pastry. These were the only things Olivia Chen could find in her pockets. She wasn’t sure where she was or whose clothes she was wearing outside of ‘a forest, probably,’ and ‘certainly not her own’, so these were her only clues as to what happened to her.

She examined each item carefully in turn. The copper coins, as large as quarters, weren’t any coin she’d ever seen before — each were pressed with the same visage of a sour looking man in heavy crown and on the tails side, a coat of arms. The coat of arms was in the shape of a shield, which had been divided into quadrants, which themselves each were decorated with different patterns of lines. Though she wasn’t any particular expert in medieval studies or genealogies, she guessed that it represented the family of the man —the king?— on the front. They could be props, she thought, but they’re definitely made of real metal. 

The wooden slip was just as odd, the same coat of arms was etched in at the top, but unlike the coins, it was painted yellow and black. Underneath was a smaller symbol of a deer surrounded by a wreath of leaves — she had no idea what it could represent. Words took up the rest of the space on the slip, “Ospirin Hart of Cervant”. The reverse side of the slip was blank. Perhaps Olivia’s clothes, the coins, and the pastry all belonged to this Ospirin — who clearly was some sort of Rennfaire enthusiast. 

Finally, Olivia examined the pastry: someone had only take a small bite or two off of one end but it was otherwise untouched. It had been folded up in a napkin at the bottom of Olivia’s pocket. It appeared to be a flaky croissant with an apple filling. Olivia’s stomach growled, she couldn’t remember the last time she had eaten either. Would it really be so bad if she ate the rest? It wasn’t like this Ospirin was around to eat it. She wolfed it down in a couple of bites. The apple filling wasn’t as sweet as she would expect but it was otherwise delicious, not even stale. That too is a clue, Olivia figured, This Ospirin and I couldn’t have switched clothes more than a few hours ago.

Her hunger sated for now, Olivia closed her eyes tight and pressed her fingers into her temples. What on earth could she have done last night? She went through what she remembered of the day before. She had woken up in her tiny apartment, taken the subway into midtown, had a coffee for breakfast. Yes, she could remember standing in the elevator, sipping her Americano. There hadn’t been anyone else with her, it was still too early for the rest of her coworkers to even think about clocking in. Then, her memory cut out. Olivia was still pretty new to the office and to office work in general. She’d been hired into Human Resources only a few months prior. Before, she had worked a near endless string of customer service, retail, and restaurant jobs. 

Had someone poisoned her coffee? Even if the St*rbucks employee had slipped her something, why? Maybe it was some kind of retrograde amnesia, where she’d gone out drinking the night before and she’d overdone it on her mojitos, leaving herself on the wrong side of brain damaged? She didn’t feel particularly hung over but maybe she’d forgotten that part too. If she had to guess, it was probably already afternoon based on the warmth of the sun filtering down through the leaves above her. 

Wouldn’t it be funny, she thought, if she’d somehow been ‘Twelve Kingdoms’-ed into another world? This could turn into a whole ‘Rayearth’ situation. How many of her favorite RPGs started with the main character waking up in this exact same situation? No memories, just destiny and a plucky animal companion. It had been a few years since Olivia had played one but she knew the basics, she could probably survive, rescue a princess and save a kingdom, or just get eaten by the first slime to attack her.

Olivia stood up, realizing there was no more to be learned sitting against a tree. Perhaps Ospirin, while out of sight, was still nearby. Hopefully the wooden slip wasn’t the woman’s only form of ID! “Oh fuck,” Olivia said, “my phone.” She patted down her pockets again, finding nothing new. “My wallet, my keys, my ID!” Even more frantic, she scanned the ground around where she had woken up, nothing but dirt and leaves. “Was I robbed and then left in the woods to die? How the hell am I supposed to call for help?” She started walking in circles around the tree, each larger than the last in an attempt to systematically search for any of her lost essentials. 

Olivia could feel the panic looming over her, threatening to overwhelm her senses. She tried to control her breathing, breathing in for a three count, then out for a five. Loosing her head here wouldn’t do a thing to help her. What she needed to do was find literally any other human being, borrow their phone, and call for help. The breathing helped as her heart rate returned to normal. There was nothing else for it, she decided, than to pick a direction and start walking.

A bird caught Olivia’s attention. It was hopping along among the undergrowth, pecking through the dirt in search of seeds or grubs or whatever else birds ate. Sure, Olivia was born and raised in a city, but she always thought she had a pretty good handle on what birds looked like. She was familiar with pigeons and sparrows, even less common birds like crows and hawks. The bird in front of her, however, was as large as a crow but with a drab grey-brown coloring. When she was only a foot or so away, the bird finally took notice of her, lifting its head and puffing out its chest. Olivia let out a strangled cry, the bird had three eyes all clustered together on the side of its face she could see. It blinked, the eyes all slightly unsynchronized which only added to the creep factor, before flapping away. 

Nuclear runoff, Olivia thought a little hysterically. If fish could grow extra eyes and fins, why couldn’t a bird? Didn’t all the boars at Chernobyl become like, super boars or something? If only she knew more about trees, then she’d be able to tell if they were suspicious as well. But to her untrained eye, they looked like regular trees, even the leaves were in the shapes that they were supposed to be in. 

She had the sinking sensation in the pit of her stomach that something bigger than she initially thought was going on. Was nuclear mutation that big of an issue in New England? Was she even still in New England? What was more likely, that someone swapped clothes with her and left her in a highly irradiated forest or that she’d woken up in a fantasy world? Well, maybe not a fantasy world, she could be on a different planet, or the apocalypse happened and she just didn’t remember, so many genres to chose from, if she wanted to even humor the possibility of traveling to a different world. 

Even if the bird had frightened her, she wished she could find some other creature to compare. She could have just imagined seeing the extra eyes on the bird, after all she was missing some pretty significant memories, and combined with the stress of phone and wallet being missing, it wouldn’t be odd for her eyes to play tricks on her.

Twenty or so minutes later, Olivia stumbled onto a dirt road. It was clearly well-used based on the deep ruts but by wheels, though thinner than would be left by cars. She looked both left and right, trying to decide which direction to start walking in when the decision was made on her behalf. A cloud of dirt rose up from her left and a moment or so later, a horse-drawn wagon appeared on the horizon. Really committing to the LARP, huh? she thought. 

She shook her head, even being from the city, she’d heard of Amish people before, and she’d certainly seen horse-drawn carriages driving tourists around the park. But even from a distance, the wagon wasn’t like any she’d associate with either group. It was unpainted wood with a perch for the rider, the back was filled with something, though it was covered with a tarp so Olivia couldn’t tell precisely what was inside. 

The rider must have seen her standing at the side of the road, staring like a fool because the wagon pulled to a stop in front of her. “Need any help, miss?” He asked. Olivia looked up at him and couldn’t contain her gasp, this man wasn’t human! The creature driving the carriage was some kind of lizard person, with a face not dissimilar to that of a gecko with big, golden eyes. Instead of skin, he had yellow and brown bumpy scales. When he moved, Olivia could tell that the scales continued underneath his clothes, which were somehow the most normal thing about the man, just a brown leather jacket and slacks. This wasn’t just makeup or a costume, outside of CGI in movies or hyper realistic art in video games, nothing could make a person look like that! 

It has to be an elaborate prank, Olivia reasoned. This whole thing is a set up or a TV set. Maybe special effect makeup was more realistic than she thought, the ‘Shape of Water’ had a pretty convincing fish man, why not a lizard man? Or it could be some sort of projection on glass or an animatronic? She glanced around, looking for cameras or technology of any sort. The horse, at least, was real from what she could see and smell. Perhaps the tarp hid all of the mechanisms that powered the lizard man. Again though, as far as she could tell, the two of them were alone in the middle of a dirt road that he had just driven up, robots weren’t that advanced, at least not ones outside of tightly controlled environments.

“Rude to just stare,” the man said. He made as though to urge the horse forward again but Olivia interrupted him before he could. 

“Wait, wait!”

The man let the reins slacken again in his grip. “Well?” He prompted. “I haven’t got all day.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve had a weird day,” Olivia apologized. “I could actually use some help. See, I’ve got no idea where I am, someone stole my clothes as well as my wallet and phone so I can’t exactly call for help. Could I borrow yours? Or could you at least point me towards the nearest town or house?”

The lizard man frowned down at her, clearly deliberating in his own head what to do. She assumed she made a pretty odd picture. The clothes she’d woken up in weren’t exactly suited to wandering the woods - she was wearing a pretty nice blouse with exposed shoulders and a long skirt, more suited to a nice get together than whatever the hell has currently happening to her. “Some of those words,” he said slowly. “Don’t make any sense to me. Are you sure you’re feeling alright?”

“Maybe it’s heat stroke,” Olivia offered faintly. 

The lizard man sighed. “You may as well climb aboard. Come sit up here next to me and I can drive you into town,” he said. “And let me take a look at your identity slip, maybe that’ll give me a hint as to how lost you are.”

Olivia circled around the wagon, before climbing up on the lizard man’s left side. She handed him the wooden slip. While he was looking over it, Olivia stared down at her own lap, nervously rubbing her fingers, and when a piece of hair fell in front of her eyes, she had another surprise. She’d always kept her black hair a little past her shoulders but that’s not what she saw now. Her hair was now down to her waist and more importantly, a sort of blue-green color that was not natural. Trying not to attract the attention of the lizard man, she yanked on her hair, hoping that it was a wig of some sort but the sharp pain in her scalp told her otherwise. 

Olivia had a horrible realization. This was not her body. She hadn’t just switched clothes with this Ospirin Hart, she had switched lives with her.