Bright sunlight poured through the glass window onto a heap of clothes lying atop the grey leather couch. The sunlight ventured inside more, revealing a messy room after a couple’s fight, an intense one. Only that the person who was sleeping on the twin-size bed of the room didn’t have a girlfriend.

The person’s body was sprawled on the bed, like a starfish on a sandy beach. His brown hair shone glossy chocolate as sunlight began playing hide-and-seek with his long eyelashes. The brows above his hero nose frowned inward as the persistent sunlight refused to let him sleep anymore. Smacking his lips in irritation, the person opened his eyes, almost in a daze.

For half a minute, he stared at the ceiling, at the rapidly spinning fan above his head. His mind seemed to be processing some deep forgotten memory, as if he had fallen asleep only to wake up in someone else’s bed.

Then he blinked, once, twice, before rubbing his eyes and staring back at the ceiling. His frown deepened as he slowly moved his head and took in the messy room stretching before him.

The room was an absolute mess, with boxes of take-out pizza and burgers littered around. A few bottles of coke decorating one corner, while a heap of laundry proudly displayed itself on the sofa. Apart from these, there were shirts, t-shirts, shorts, pants and even underwear scattered throughout the whole room.

In an instant, he jumped up, frantically looking everywhere at the room. His gaze landed on the messy heap of laundry, on the brown, almost black blotches on the expensive blue silk rug, and on the takeout boxes around the room before gazing up at the ceiling. He seemed like a prisoner waking up in the jail for the first time, one who didn’t even know why he was taken to jail.

‘This is not my room.’

That was the first thought that flashed through his mind as he slipped off the bed like a frog jumping out of hot water. His panicked gaze going back-and-forth around the room like a lost child searching for his mama. He almost slipped on the banana peel lying just beside the bed like some decorations.

‘Where the hell am I? I was just sleeping in my room then–’

And that’s when he noticed. He felt different. Not the kind of difference you feel after recovering from a fever, he felt entirely different, like this wasn’t his body.

His eyes slowly trailed down, and that’s when he noticed, albeit belatedly. This body, wearing a light blue t-shirt and a grey baggie trouser were definitely not his body. Because he, no she, was not a man.

Ann’s eyes trembled as she looked up. She felt like she was still dreaming, like a vivid lucid dream, one that is borderline a nightmare, but not exactly a nightmare because she wasn’t being chased by a giant smelly radish. She hated radish.

Slap!

‘Wake up, wake up!’

Ann gave herself, no, the body she was currently occupying, a harsh slap on the cheek. But surprisingly, she felt the pain. Like it wasn’t a dream but actually her own body. She looked around frantically, trying to find a mirror to see if it was just a feeling that this wasn’t her body or if it was just her broken brain hallucinating for the accumulated stress.

‘Where’s the bathroom?’

She shouldn’t have known where it was, as it was not her body and certainly, not her apartment. But she did, surprisingly, find the bathroom door to be just at the other end of the room, just opposite of the bed.

Navigating through the messy room as if avoiding stepping on a ground littered with dynamites, she frantically reached for the bathroom door. With one swift tug, too forceful than she intended, she stumbled into the space, only to come face-to-face with a face she didn’t recognize.

The mirror was small, only reaching down to her shoulders. But even so, she could clearly see that the person on the other side of the mirror wasn’t her. Instead of her vibrant blue eyes, a pair of dark brown orbs stared back at her. Her once straight jet black hair reaching past her waist was replaced by short and thick, fluffy locks of brown. Her once creamy white skin had turned a dull shade of tan, and her oval face with soft features had completely undergone a change with a sculptured face.

Ann patted her body in panic. Her hands brushed through her stomach that seemed to have become harder than a rock, then at the thighs that seemed as thick as tree trunks, then at the broad shoulders that seemed to have become twice the size of hers. She lifted her arms and stared at the bulging muscle bursting out from her sleeves. As she clenched her fist, veins bulged, as if they wanted to burst through her clothes and spray a vibrant color of crimson on her face.

She put down her arms, then slowly lifted her t-shirt and stared at the series of pectoral muscles arrogantly staring back at her. Her eyes bulged as a low curse almost burst through her mouth.

“Holy shi–”

Ann froze, not daring to finish the word. It’s not because she has set a taboo at herself to not curse. Just like any functional human being, she would also curse whenever she found herself in a shitty situation. She stopped because the velvety thick voice that just entered her ears wasn’t hers either. It sent a shiver through her spine, and not the good kind.

She lowered her t-shirt and took a deep breath. Staring at the completely unfamiliar but familiar face, she tried to calm herself.

“Okay, don’t panic.”

Ann frowned at the unfamiliar voice, but figuring she should better get used to it, she continued.

“There must be a reason. Something, maybe something happened. What was I doing before I fell asleep? I went back home and then….?”

Ann scratched her messy head, making them look almost like a bird’s nest. She couldn’t remember what exactly she did before she fell asleep. Where was she? Was she even at her home? She just had quite a big accident the week before. Was she still at the hospital or was she discharged and went home?

A frustrated sigh almost left her mouth. Her eyes again landed at the face staring back at her from the mirror. The face was good-looking, but not the kind of overly handsome look that would send girls swoon over it. It may stand out among ordinary people, but it was easily ignorable amidst a crowd of handsome and beautiful people. And what was most important….. Ann knew that face.

She has clearly seen it somewhere, but she couldn’t remember it no matter how much she tried. It couldn’t have been her friends because Ann was very good at remembering people’s faces and names, courtesy of her job as a PA, especially if it was someone she had a good impression of. But this face gave her a familiar feeling, like she had definitely talked with it before, but couldn’t just remember where and why.

‘Who the hell have I become….?’

* * *

In the midst of scattered trash, Ann sat motionlessly, clutching her now fluffy almost curly hair with a look of utter bewilderment. Her back leaning against the foot of the bed while her eyes stared at the blue rug beneath her.

‘What do I do, what do I do…..’

Ann agonized. She has read her fair share of fantasy novels, so she knew what kind of situation she was in. But what she couldn’t understand was why she was in this situation. People cross bodies when they get into an accident, or fall asleep after reading an interesting novel and cursing the author, or suddenly lose consciousness because of accumulated stress. However, none of that was true for Ann.

Although Ann indeed got into an accident, that was a week ago. She was about to be discharged from the hospital this morning, but found herself in this heap of trash instead. She hasn’t read any books while recuperating, and her mom has taken excellent care of her during her stay in the hospital. And despite all that, she still got into a predicament she had no idea of where, how, and why.

“Okay Ann. You aren’t dead. At least that’s a plus, right?”

Ann mumbled to herself, her ears already getting used to the thick male voice despite her inner self being a woman.

“Mom says whenever I’m confused about something, cleaning the place can help….”

Ann looked around the trash-littered room again. Yeah, this room definitely can do with a thorough cleaning.

And thus, Ann set off to cleaning.

She picked up the empty boxes and cans and threw them into the bin. Picked up the heap of laundry and shoved them into the washing machine. Then got the cleaning tools and started dusting, moping, washing the floor with rigorous scouring.

An hour and half later, the floor was shining, and the whole room seemed like it just went through a Cinderella transformation.

Ann wiped her sweat and looked at the room with satisfaction. Now there was only one thing left to clean: herself.

Whether it was the effect of the cleaning or something else, Ann completely forgot about her predicament. It was only when she took off the t-shirt clinging to her body because of the sweat did realization struck her again.

Ann stared at the half-naked body resembling a Greek sculpture, then at the trousers hugging her lower body, and showed an expression of ponder and hesitation. She should take off her clothes as she needed to take a bath, but considering it wasn’t her own body….. she was scared thinking she might see something that she shouldn’t see.

‘Well….’ she thought. ‘This isn’t my body so I shouldn’t get so comfortable with it. I guess I’ll just take a shower.’

With a self-assuring nod, she folded the t-shirt and gently placed it on the cabinet before turning on the shower. She decided to keep the trousers on because she didn’t want to disrespect the privacy of this body she was unknowingly possessing.

Throughout the whole ordeal (shower), she had to remind herself every time that she was currently occupying someone else’s body. She even had her eyes closed when changing, fearing ‘seeing something she shouldn’t see’, and got through the whole process as quickly as possible.

After finishing the much needed but tedious shower, she plopped onto the bed. Droplets of water dripped down her hair, and she thought of grabbing the towel to dry it off but decided against it realizing it had become short and would dry quickly.

Now what?

Ann questioned herself. She has cleaned the room and even cleaned herself, but no solution poked its head in her vicinity. According to most of the fantasy novels, she was supposed to have the memory of this body she came to, but to her utter dismay, no memory greeted her either. Her head felt like a big block of ice, with nothing but hollow space inside. Except for her own memories as Ann, she couldn’t even find the name of this body from its memory.

Letting out a sigh, she turned to the side, toward the big window where sunlight was flooding through, and that’s when something caught her eyes.

The desk was set at the corner of the bed, just beside the window. Unlike the room which looked like it went through a storm a moment ago, the desk was surprisingly tidy. Thick books with titles harder to pronounce than ancient texts were neatly standing in a row above the desk. A few books were also lying atop each other, accompanied by a pen holder with two pens in it, a table clock, a table calendar, and what seemed to be a journal. A slender wooden bookmark was poking through the journal, seemingly placed there by the previous occupant of the body.

Ann approached the desk before picking up the journal. On the front with big blue letters were written words in cursive that sent Ann’s now thick eyebrows shot upwards.

‘Criminal records?’

Of whom?

Ann questioned herself as she opened the page of the journal with the bookmark. What entered her eyes the first thing was the picture of a woman’s worn-out face, with bulging eyes and a torn lower lips. Beneath the image, a name was written with the same cursive letters as the journal’s front.

“Maggy Green….”

Ann muttered the name below the picture. A detailed information, likely of the said woman, was neatly listed below it.

‘Age 32. Height, 157 meters. Weight, 68 pounds. Weapon, swiss knife?’

Ann thought she read it wrong. She read through the rest of the information and felt her head spinning.

“First spotted at the surveillance cameras of the Lakeview apartment complex. Has a knack of stomping feet when frustrated. Her first victim was a 12 year old boy of Lakeview Middle School. The boy was….”

Ann felt her blood run cold at the passage that followed. Maggy Green was considered a notorious serial killer 10 years ago, when she was 13 years old. This particular murderer sent the parents over the countries into a frenzy with her brutal slaughter of teenagers. Although the police confirmed multiple times her primary victims were mostly teenage boys, that didn’t stop parents of both genders guarding their children day and night.

Luckily for her, Ann was homeschooled. But her mom still behaved like a tiger with its whiskers standing high whenever they went grocery shopping together. Her mom was so paranoid that she didn’t even trust her daughter being alone at home and took her to the grocery every time she went. Ann thought it was too much but never questioned it because she could understand her mom’s fear.

Fortunately, Maggy Green was soon arrested when Ann turned 15. According to the police, she hated young boys. She had a son, whom she birthed when she herself was in her late teenage years, with the name of the father unknown. Her crazy-self didn’t let her care for her own son, who later escaped unable to bear her daily physical, sexual, and mental abuse. After that, her anger and frustration was poured onto the young children of other parents.

There was a lot of insider information that people thought the authorities weren’t revealing. But soon they forgot about it when things went down a bit. To think that such an infamous name suddenly appear before her in a journal of a random guy she was currently possessing—

Ring!

“Ah….!”

Ann almost jumped from the chair. She put a hand on her thumping heart and looked around. The phone, which was placed on the night stand beside the desk, was blaring loudly. With a sigh, she picked it up and looked at the caller ID.

“Byron…”

Ann read the name as she answered the call. She put it near her ears, and from the other end came the frantic call of a guy.

“Rayan!”