“Rayan, my man. Where are you at? Come quickly.”

‘Who’s Rayan again?’

Before Ann could begin pondering who and why they had called her, and who the hell was this Rayan, a voice with thick accent interrupted her from the other side of the phone. For the second time that day, Ann thought she knew the voice, but couldn’t remember where she heard it.

“I’m at home?”

Ann replied, as if unsure to herself. She wasn’t ready to meet the people who were acquainted with this body. She still hadn’t figured out where she was and who she had become, which was more necessary at the situation, rather than meeting people whom she probably wouldn’t even recognize.

“Home or whatever. Come to Autumn Apartment Complex. We’ve got a situation here.”

Ann thought she heard wrong. The Autumn Apartment Complex was where she lived! Even the night before, she was soundly asleep in one of the rooms, oblivious to what was going to happen the next day. Now to hear the name of the place she lived for five years from someone she didn’t even know threw her in a bigger whirlpool of confusion than she was.

“Okay….. I’ll get there in a few minutes.”

“Come early. The other cops are chewing my ears.”

‘Cops?’

Ann wanted to question what he meant, but the call was cut off. She blinked and stared at the screen of the phone for a long time. She debated calling back but decided against it the next moment. Asking through the phone wouldn’t answer her questions, she had to go there and see by herself what was happening.

Getting ready was much easier and quicker than she thought. If it was the previous her, a female, it would have taken at least two hours to get ready. From bathing to applying lotions and creams then choosing her outfit. It wasn’t like she paid extra attention to her appearance. It’s just that her job as a PA required her to meet a variety of people, and she didn’t want to talk business with them looking like a mess. First impressions are always important.

But now, all she needed was to grab a random shirt and a pair of trousers and throw them over her. The guy had a minimal choice of clothing to begin with. Plus, she wanted to hurry.

A big overcoat peeked through her eyes when she was about to close the closet door. She stared at it for a moment, wondering if she should throw that over her as well, but shook her head the next second and started searching for a pair of socks. Once fully ready, she stepped out of the room, only to turn back and open the closet door, snatched the overcoat from the hanger, and threw it over her now muscular frame.

From the moment she woke up, Ann didn’t leave the room. But now that she did, she realized the space she found herself in wasn’t very special. It was a two-room apartment, with the outer room turned into a living room and the inner one bedroom. There seemed to be another door at the opposite end of the living room, but Ann didn’t have time to go and inspect it.

She glanced at the cramped living room with miscellaneous things scattered around; a tea table, another couch, this one blue, a corner hanger and a shoe cabinet, then made her way toward the show cabinet.

Opening it, surprisingly, she found a few choices this time. Not as varied as her own shoe cabinet with high heels and Mary Janes, but still enough to raise her now thick eyebrows. The cabinet held a pair of loafers, a male flip-flop, two leather boots, and one hiking boot. Ann grabbed the brown leather boot, strapped it on, and left the apartment.

The apartment was on the third floor, which she didn’t realize when she was inside. Ann took the elevator and reached straight to the underground garage, where her black sedan was waiting amidst the crowd of other cars. Without missing a beat, Ann made her way to the black sedan, opened the door and seated herself inside. It was only then realization dawned over her for the umpteenth time. 

She was not supposed to know where the car keys were, let alone which one among the five or so cars were hers. Hell, she couldn’t even remember when she picked up the car keys, which were lying inside the overcoat’s pocket.

“This is so strange……”

Ann muttered to herself, leaning her head on the steering wheel. She was starting to feel afraid. Afraid that with how much she was getting accustomed to the habits of this body, one day she might forget herself, forget who she was, forget about her family, and just be a trapped soul in an unfamiliar body.

Ann took a deep breath. She wanted, no, needed information. Information about this body, about what kind of person he is, and what his connection to her real self was that brought her here. And for that, she needed to reach the Autumn Apartment Complex as soon as possible.

Ann started the ignition with that resolve and soon left the apartment area.

* * *

Reaching the Autumn Apartment Complex was far easier than Ann thought it would be. With her own memory, mingling with the habits of her current self, she realized the Autumn Apartment Complex was just a few streets away from where she woke up. However, upon arriving, the crowd of police, reporters, and special force team was what threw her into another whirlpool of confusion.

“What the hell is going on here?”

Ann left the car, feeling her confusion growing ten fold each second. She looked around and noticed a few of her neighbors among the crowd. She wanted to approach them and ask, but remembering she wasn’t herself anymore, rather a random guy they probably haven’t met, she pushed that thought aside and stepped forward.

Whether people knew who she was or not, many respectfully made way for her, while many gave her a polite bow. Ann couldn’t understand what she was supposed to do, so she just walked forward toward the entrance of her apartment building, ignoring the crowd of gazes thrown at her.

“Rayan, my man. You’re finally here!”

Before she could enter, a male voice with a noticeable thick accent, which she presumed belonged to the person who called her earlier, suddenly called to her. When she looked over, she saw a man rushing to her with an expression of utter relief.

The man appeared to be in his late twenties, with a bushy beard and round eyes. He had dark features and a head full of thick curly hair. He appeared to be at least a head shorter than herself, no, the body she was possessing, and overall gave a friendly vibe.

The moment the man reached her, he gave a big smile and held out his palm.

“Man, I’ve been waiting for ya for ages.”

Ann obviously didn’t recognize the man, although he seemed to be acquainted with her current body. She stared at the man, then at the hand he raised, and began pondering what reaction she should show now. She wasn’t ignorant of handshakes, but when shaking hands, people offered their hand, whereas this man raised his hand in what appeared to be a ‘bro-handshake’.

The man seemed to realize something was wrong, and the smile slowly vanished from his face. He stared at Ann, at Rayan, who Ann currently has become, then at his hand, and finally back at Rayan.

“Bro, are ya still upset ‘bout what I said last night? C’mon now, I was only teasin’ ya.”

The man exclaimed before grabbing her, Rayan’s, hand and shaking their hands by himself. He then made a fist, folded her, Rayan’s fingers, by himself, then bumped their fists.

“C’mon now, don’t be upset. We’ve got a situation here and urgently need yer help.”

The man grabbed Ann’s, now Royan’s arm, and began dragging her inside. Ann showed a confused look around before following the man inside. No one seemed to question or stop them from entering the building, even though she could see cops stopping a few children from running around the perimeter.

“What happened?”

Ann couldn’t help but question as they made their way inside. Entering the apartment building she lived just the night before, that too with an unfamiliar man, and that too inside another unfamiliar man’s body was certainly not something she could overlook. As they entered the elevator, she questioned the man, who should be named Byron according to Rayan’s call book, and asked.

“Ann Mackenzie got killed.”

Ann froze. For a moment, she felt she was hearing things. The words that left the man’s mouth began ringing in her ears, his ears, again and again. Surely, it wasn’t that Ann Mackenzie she was thinking….. surely, this man wasn’t talking about herself, Ann Mackenzie, and just said she was killed, right?

“Which Ann Mackenzie?”

Ann suppressed the tremor in her, his voice, and asked. She wanted to know, but at the same time she didn’t. She wanted to know who he was talking about, but at the same time cover her ears. She didn’t want to know the inevitable, but she knew she had to. If she could, she would have turned back and rushed out of this place, but she was so damn curious.

“Ann Mackenzie? The girl you had….. why are you even asking, man? It’s not like you didn’t know this would happen.”

‘I knew?’

Or more like, Rayan knew that she, Ann Mackenzie, was about to die, but she herself didn’t?

It was only then Ann realized that the man named Byron was wearing a police uniform. No wonder he could so effortlessly venture inside a building, which apparently held a murder scene, while her neighbors, neighbors she knew as Ann, were standing outside.

‘What the hell is going on? It can’t be me, the real me, right?’

While Ann was agonizing to herself, the man threw a confused look at her, before quickly shaking his head. As the elevator reached the tenth floor, exactly the floor where Ann used to leave, the man hurriedly got off and began urging her.

“Come now, quickly. We don’t have much time. The body has already turned stiff, so we gotta hurry.”

Ann also got off the elevator, her steps felt as heavy as lead. It was the same apartment hallway she passed through so many times. The same white walls and tiles, the same red doors at each entrance.

Ann felt like she was floating, as if time had slowed down and everything was moving backward. The walls seemed to close around her. She wanted to turn around and run, but her feet, despite her unwillingness, took her forward, as if they had a mind of their own. The door at the very front, her door, was decorated with a ‘no entry’ tape. Despite it resembling the same red door she had seen and passed through countless times before, it felt different to her at the moment.

Ann took slow, deliberate steps toward the familiar but now unfamiliar door and stared at it with wide eyes. Even the movement of the man, Byron, seemed to have slowed down to her as he pulled one side of the tape and made way for them to enter. Ann gulped, before finally planting her shaky feet inside.

‘It can’t be me, it can’t be me…..’

There were more cops inside, wandering through the apartment, her apartment, as if searching for pirate treasure. One cop was going through her TV cabinet, one through her corner table, one through the big black sofa, and two through her shoe cabinet. Ann glanced at each of them once as she blankly followed the man, Byron, toward another room, her bedroom, where she was supposed to be soundly asleep.

As the brown door, the door of her own room, opened, Ann saw something that sent a shock of 420 volts from the top of her head to the tip of her toes.

Right in the middle of the room, just beside the queen-size bed, on where the white bedsheet and green blanket lay untouched, on the cold white tiled floor, lay the body of a woman.

A woman who had rich black hair flowing down to her waist, now matted with her own blood, whose once smooth creamy skin now as pale as a sheet of paper, and whose once vibrant blue eyes now as still as a blue gem.

There lay Ann Mackenzie, her original self, now turned into a corpse.