Chapter Text
It was a normal day when it happened.
I woke up, as normal, stretched and blinked the sleep out of my eyes. My vision was still blurry from a good night’s rest, but I managed to stumble to the bathroom.
At least, what should have been my bathroom.
When my face collided with a wall, I was completely awake.
“Jacob? What are you doing?” a tiny voice asked.
I snapped my head in the direction of the voice. I knew it. It was my best friend’s annoying younger brother, Kyle.
Eyes wide, I looked around. Panic settled into my stomach when I saw blue walls. Two beds on either side of the room whereas my room only had one. There were toys on one side and rock posters on the other. A gray curtain was pulled shut, blocking the morning sun. This wasn’t my room. These weren’t my white walls with few decorations.
“Jacob?” Kyle repeated, now getting out from under a quilt that looked well-loved.
I opened my mouth to say something, but the voice that came out wasn’t mine.
“What?”
Kyle gave me a confused look, and then laughed.
“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,”
I felt like a ghost.
I navigated my way through the room, almost tripping over a video game console that was left on the ground, and then I actually tripped. I looked down and saw a sleeping bag tangled under my feet.
Oh, right! I had a sleepover with Jacob. I must be in his room. But, that doesn’t…
I untangled the sleeping bag from my feet, feeling like I was floating somehow, with Kyle laughing at me in the background.
I made it out of the room and I was, in fact, in Jacob’s house.
Okay, I had a sleepover with him, right? It was Saturday, and there were other friends. I was downstairs in the living room with our other friends. I was downstairs, and since Jacob and our other guy friend, Oscar, were the only dudes, they went to Jacob’s room. I stayed up late chatting with Susie, Amanda, and Eagan, Jacob’s eldest sister. They were teasing me about Jacob because of how close we were and how we practically spent every second together. Then Eagan said Jacob had a crush on me. We’d been friends for years, so I had a heart attack. I knew I’d have to talk to him again and that I couldn’t ghost him, so I panicked and said I had to go to sleep. I actually decided to hide in the bathroom. I always get scared when people have a crush on me.
But all of that doesn’t explain anything. What was I doing in Jacob’s bedroom?
I walked through the hall and knocked on the bathroom. The door was closed, locked, and there were weird noises coming from it.
“Hello?” I asked, my voice coming out much deeper than I expected. I cleared my throat.
Weird, weird, weird.
“Y-yeah?” Someone replied.
The door then opened and my jaw physically dropped.
I was standing there, inside the bathroom. My body was inside the bathroom and I was outside of the bathroom.
What?
I was staring at myself, my brown eyes, my tangled brownish hair, my heart-shaped face, and my freckles. I’d heard of disassociating, how it was an out of body experience, but I don’t think this is what disassociating is supposed to feel like.
My body… um, she looked shocked. She went from joy to confusion to panic to terror. She yanked me into the bathroom, staring me down.
“W-who are you? What is going on?” I asked in my throaty voice. “I don’t understand,”
“Willow?” She asked, ignoring my questions and taking my hands in hers.
“Yeah,” I said, raising my eyebrow.
She looked at me like my skin was melting off.
I glanced at my reflection. My knotted stomach dropped to my feet. I poked my face and I jumped.
There’s no way.