It was like a bad movie cliche. My car had broken down in a remote area with no cell phone service and the only house for miles was a creepy castle on a hill. The warning signs were all there, and I probably should’ve turned around the other way, but who would’ve thought any of those cliches were real? The omens got worse when it started to rain. All of this should’ve caused red alerts in my brain -- which it sort of did. But then I noticed another car that had gotten into a small fender bender just a little up the road; I figured this driver had also come up to the castle on the hill. I told myself it would be safer with someone else; I was wrong.
I was somewhat relieved that the man answering the door was young and not some creepy old man. Yet he did seem unnaturally pleased by the fact that he now had a second visitor. He brought me to a room he told me was for gaming with two odd-looking chairs. He introduced me to the woman named Linzi sitting in one of the chairs, and told me he’d bring his cordless phone to call a tow truck.
I sat down in the chair next to her. She wore red heels on her feet and a short silver dress with a good figure and legs I found it hard not to stare at. As a bit of a dork, I rarely talked to women s beautiful as Linzi. I asked her if she had been driving the car that had driven into the tree. She nodded. It seemed beautiful women like Linzi weren’t all that used to talking to dorks like me either.
We sat in silence for a moment, waiting for the man to return, but before he did, the chairs began to electrocute us with painful shocks. Neither Linzi nor I could seemingly move. The voltage became visible and started zapping between the two chairs. The man returned to the room wearing a lab coat; he mumbled something about how fortunate he was to have two guests and not have to postpone his experiment. The voice had a weird echo and I briefly had blurry double vision.
The first thing I was able to move was my fingers, but they weren’t MY fingers. They were thinner and manicured. There were red heels on my feet and I was wearing a short silver dress. Those legs I had couldn’t take my eyes off earlier were now MY legs. Linzi and I had swapped bodies! In my body, Linzi was understandably shouting and freaking out. The man in the background just laughed, with clearly no intention of swapping us back. I should’ve seen it all coming. The red flags were obvious, and I just walked right passed then. And, as a result, I was going to be stuck as Linzi for the rest of my life...
