Chapter 1: Waking Up in a Body That's Not Mine

It was a typical afternoon at UX Academy High School. A young red haired girl, about the age of 14, is continuing her daily routine of chasing down her classmate Gary Gray.

“Why do you keep doing this to me, Felicia Forge?!”.

Gary kept screaming while tears gushed from his eyes. Forge responded with a malicious grin.

“Keep running or I’ll kick your ass! And don’t drop that backpack I gave you either!”

This went on for quite some time as they made laps around the school track. Forge eventually caught up to her and yanked the backpack off. Gary continued running, but suddenly started going twice as fast as before. A look of shock formed on his face.

“Is this my speed? How am I going so fast?!”

He noticed Forge giving him a wicked grin and a thumbs up. “I heard you complaining about not being good enough to join the track team, so I gave you some weight training every day. Now you should be able to run laps around most of them!”

Her classmate let out a chuckle.

“You’re so weird! How’d you know something so crazy would work?!”

Forge reached into her shirt and pulled out a bra without damaging her clothing. It made a loud thud and cracked the ground on contact.

“Is that a freakin, weighted bra?!”

Forge cracked her back then made a determined look before shooting across the field and going past her classmate. She left him standing with a dumbfounded expression. “How does her brain work?!”

Forge let out a loud cheer as she made it back to the finish line.

“Ah, hell yeah!”

As soon as Felicia crossed the finish line she noticed the world around her change for a brief moment. She saw an audience of shadowy figures surrounding a single one that looked like the silhouette of a young girl about her age. The girl was on her knees with tears streaming down her face. Something about the desperation of the sight made it seem as if she was begging for her life. A single booming voice echoed in Felicia's mind.

“Alright, welcome to the game. We don't expect much, but you should at least be entertaining”

Felicia felt something touch her shoulder and snapped back to reality. The normal sight of the school track around her and her classmate’s hand on her shoulder. A look of concern made her realize that something was off.

“Are you ok? I've been calling you.”

Felicia gave him a look of confusion before regaining her composure.

“Guess the blood rushed to my head or something, I'm good.”

Her classmate tugged her along.

“I'll walk you home. You should try to take it easy”

Felicia grinned “Thanks.”

***

Felicia and Gary made their way down the sidewalk. They came across some other students from the same school holding down one guy while taking turns punching him.

“This is what you get you piece of crap!” Bam! Another punch landed.

Felicia’s impulsive nature made her charge ahead before Gary could even comment on the severity of the situation. She caught the fist of the next attacker and glared at him.

“The hell do you think you're doing!” Felicia snarled.

All the attackers gave her an uneasy look, but one stepped forward and spoke up. “This guy has been bullying us for months! We realized after all this time that he can't take all of us on!”

The bully lifted his head and gave them all dirty looks. “You guys are weak as hell! It was fun making you all do what I wanted!”

Felicia held on to the hand of the attacker. “I was right to stop you. This isn't right…”

They all started to give her a guilty look, but their expressions suddenly changed when she adjusted the attacker’s hand. “Keep your thumb outside your hand to deal more damage and put your back into it.”

She gave the bully a mischievous smile along with the rest of the group of attackers.

“You're a freaking psycho!” The bully wailed.

For a brief moment, Felicia saw a silhouette of that same shadowy figure representing the girl from the vision she experienced before. The silhouette gazed around at the students. Almost as if it was trying to single one of them out.

She seemed confused yet also somewhat disturbed by the sight of what was going on right in front of her. Felicia looked around just to make sure she wasn't the only one who could see the silhouette of the girl.

The boys continued getting revenge on their bully and no one else was reacting to the presence of the mysterious girl. The strange girl looked reluctant as she made her way towards the group of people.

One by one she passed by each of them and made gestures in front of their faces to try and get their attention to see if they would react. She finally stopped when she noticed Felicia watching her the whole time with a bewildered look on her face.

She approached her and stopped in front of Felicia while holding up a hand. Felicia raised her own hand and slowly but hesitantly began to reach out.

The fingertips of their hands just inches away from each other just a moment longer and they would have connected, but once again Felicia was snapped out of her daze and brought back to reality by her Gary.

“This can't wait any longer," he said to her. “Something is really off about you. More than usual, and I think you really need to go home.”

***

The two students had made their way into the city and were now heading towards the train station. The pair just had one more crosswalk to make their way through before reaching the station.

Suddenly a truck emerged in the distance charging down the road. It had the pair in its sights for a potential roadkill target.

Felicia once again saw the silhouette of the girl on the other side of the sidewalk. This time she was frantically gesturing for them to come over to her.

The truck was just a few seconds away when Felicia finally noticed the danger they were in.

She quickly pulled her classmate along towards the strange silhouette girl in order to get to safety but the truck did not stop. Instead, it swerved along the road and followed them.

Gary let out a loud scream as the truck suddenly started chasing after them. Felicia noticed the silhouette trying to lead them down another path.

“This way!” Felicia yelled out as she guided Gary towards the invisible girl.

They made their way through an alley while Felicia continued chasing after the strange girl. The entire time Gary had tears going down his face and was just sobbing loudly as the truck hunted them down.

It repeatedly smashed against garbage cans and broken nearby building structures along the way, but still relentlessly pursued them as if it was out for blood.

The silhouette girl continued to lead the two of them to safety despite Felicia technically being the only one who could really see/follow it.

The silhouette finally stopped at a crossroad with two signs. One of them read “Survive Game”. The other sign read “Prison Game”. Felicia gave the silhouette a confused look as it gestured towards both signs.

“I don't want to die” wailed Gary who had now finally snapped.

The truck turned a corner and set its sights on the two students. Felicia could feel her heart racing as she knew she did not have too much time to choose which path to go through.

Gary broke into a run towards the Prison Game path. Felicia ran towards the Survive Game path. She figured if they split up maybe at least one of them would be able to go for help. Or maybe it was Gary trying to save himself. Wishful thinking she guessed.

Felicia didn't have much time to really stop and think about it as she was continuing to run for her life. The truck decided to chase after her classmate and she watched in horror from the corner of her eyes as it ran over him.

She saw energy particles and splatters of blood shooting into the air. She continued running and didn't stop to look back once again. She knew if she focused on anything else then her legs would stop working.

She saw a large window down the one and only pathway she could take right now. As she got closer she saw the reflection. The real complete appearance of the strange girl from the other world. She only caught a glimpse before making contact with the glass and shattering it.

She felt herself entering darkness falling through an endless void but it also felt as if she was watching it through someone else's eyes. That window seemed almost like a portal and this endless descent into darkness was like traveling to some far away place.

She didn't know what was going on, or where she was going, but one thing she knew was how frightened she truly felt about the whole thing.

She just wanted to go home right now and cry. But she knew no one back there at the one place that she was supposed to consider her home would really care about her feelings. She had always strived to be a pillar of support for others, since no one was for, but found that when it came to her own feelings, no one back at home really cared.

She was on her own and it felt even worse now knowing that Gary…The closest thing to a friend she had…Suddenly just died before her eyes.

She suddenly woke up in a grassy field in the middle of a forest. She saw a display screen in front of her that read welcome other worlder.

She Tried to reach out and touch it but found herself unable to. Instead she found her hands being raised and her self-examining it, but at the same time it was not her doing.

She felt her body standing up on its own and walking over towards a nearby pond to stare at its reflection. She saw the face of a completely different person but she saw traits of it that looked similar to her own.

She let loose a scream by the sudden appearance of a stranger before her, but was silenced by another voice calling out to her saying “Please calm down! I'm sorry!”.

She blinked and suddenly found herself sitting on a small patch of land on a pond. In another nearby pond she noticed that there was the same girl she had seen before in her visions.

The other girl was sitting on her own patch of land in the other pond right across from her. The two bodies of water did not connect but they did share the same general space. The girl gave her a nervous smile and waved awkwardly at her.

“H-Hi…Um…Can we please just have a normal conversation?”

Felicia glared at the strange girl. “Who the hell are you?!”