End

By the time I woke up, the last move of the marathon was just about coming to an end. I grumbled a little, disappointed that I had let myself sleep through a third of the event, but there was little point getting hung up on something like that.

‘Besides,’ I thought, ‘seems like Rachel’s body really needed the rest.’

A moment later, I stopped dead in my tracks.

’Wait. Rachel’s body?’

I looked down at myself and, sure enough, the body I was inhabiting was not my own. Despite having fallen asleep, which was supposedly the trigger for these events, I had not returned to my own form.

Surprise became confusion. Confusion became panic.

Why? Why had I not switched back? Every time I had fallen asleep in Rachel’s body, I had woken up in my own. Why would that change now? Was I stuck in this body now?

Then an even worse realisation set in: Rachel was still tied to the bed in my body.

One day without food or water was perhaps manageable, but two in a row? At this point rate my body would wither away. What would that even mean for me? Would I die? Would I be stuck in Rachel’s body forever? Either way, it was an eventuality I couldn’t accept.

I bolted out of the cinema in a blind panic. There was only one course of action open to me: I had to travel to my home and free my body from its restraints.

I stepped out of the complex to the world still dark, the sun not yet having risen over the horizon. A quick check of Rachel’s phone told me it was 4:13AM, which offered a possible explanation as to why Rachel and I hadn’t swapped back: perhaps our sleep hadn’t lined up? I slept only four hours, is it possible that she hadn’t slept at all in that time? In a fully black room, it’d be hard to tell what time it is at any point, so the likelihood of her sleeping at odd times was high. I was an idiot for not considering that possibility.

But there was little I could do about it at that moment. I had to figure out my next move.

Rachel and myself lived in different corners of the country, even by train it would be a long journey. I scrambled to look up the nearest train station and got moving as soon as I could.

As I was walking towards the station, I realised just how exhausted I felt. Considering how little rest Rachel’s body had been getting these past few days, the four hours I had slept weren’t nearly enough for me to feel rejuvenated. If anything, I felt even more tired now than I did before.

It was yet another reason I wanted to get out of that damn body. Rachel hadn’t exactly taken care of it, and I was now the one suffering because of it. Then again, it’s not like my body was in a much better condition.

Thankfully, the walk to the station was mercifully short. By the time I arrived it was only around 4:40am, and the first train towards my home wouldn’t arrive until 7:30, so I found myself with almost three hours to kill.

I considered whiling it away on Rachel’s phone, but it was already low on battery, so that idea went out the window. With little else to do, I found a long bench just outside the station and laid down to sleep, setting the phone to wake me up at 7:10.

I fell asleep almost immediately upon laying down, though it wasn’t a peaceful sleep. My anxieties over the situation caused me to wake up and go back to sleep a number of times, so much so that 7am rolled around and I hardly felt more rested than I had three hours prior.

Once again, I also failed to switch bodies with Rachel. It was beginning to set in in my mind that the change could very well have become permanent. It’s not like I understand a damn thing about the whole mess anyway.

I tried to push those worries out of my mind and wandered on into the station, buying a return-ticket to my home city. I sat down to gave Rachel’s weary body another moment’s rest, but before long the train had arrived.

I was lucky that the train was a direct line, but it would still be a few hours before I arrived. Despite my tired state, I hardly felt able to sleep with everything on my mind, so I settled for simply staring out the window as the scenery passed me by.

Up to this point, I had always had something to distract me, so to suddenly be completely alone with my thoughts was an uncomfortable change. I couldn’t get it out of my mind that all of this misfortune had befallen me, and I had no idea why. What could have possibly caused the body swapping to begin? Why did it have to be someone like Rachel? It was all beginning to feel more and more like some divine punishment. Some asshole god must have been fucking with me.

I tried to shake such thoughts out of my head. There was little use worrying about things I couldn’t control. All I could do was try and make the best of a bad situation. Though to even do that, I’d have to somehow get some level of cooperation out of Rachel. Considering how things had been going thus far, that seemed like a pipe dream at best.

A fact not helped by me immobilising her for a day and spending hundreds of pounds without her permission, I’m sure. Not my greatest move, in hindsight.

As I continued to gaze out of the window, it occurred to me that this would be the first time I’d ever actually met Rachel. In fact, I knew almost nothing about her outside of what I had gleaned from living her life.

I could expect her to freak the hell out when I appeared, that much was certain. Which likely meant both my body and hers were likely to get hurt in some way. But if it was to prevent my own death by dehydration, I supposed that was an acceptable price. Either way, I wasn’t expecting the interaction to be pleasant.

Before long, my stop was called and the train slowed to a halt. I stepped out onto the station, and into the city with which I was already so familiar. To come in a body that was not my own was strange, but the familiarity of the location was one small comfort in an otherwise stress-filled world.

My home was not too far from the station, and after a short work I found myself rounding the corner of my home street. There at the end of the terrace was my home, and inside was my body, in the hands of a stranger.

With anxiety in my heart, I came to my front door and retrieved the key I had left out a couple days prior. I let myself into the silent house, closing the door behind me, and quietly ascended the stairs. My nerves were wracked, but I had come this far.

Atop the stairs was the doorway to my room. The one thing separating myself from my reunion with my body. It felt an insurmountable obstacle, but I knew I had no choice. I breathed in deeply and steeled my nerves.

I gently opened the door.

Despair took me in an instant.

There in front of me, hanging from by the neck with the very ropes I had used to tie it up, was the body I had come to save.

And, in the very same paint I had used to cover my windows, there was four short words painted upon the wall.

“This is your fault.”