Mother Earth

I died. Or I thought I did. Or, perhaps, more accurately, I was murdered. I’ll spare you the details, but it involved the mob and mistaken identity; and I found myself buried alive.

I wasn’t sure exactly how long I was dead, but I obviously didn’t know what it felt like. The thing I remember was the rebirth. The roots, themselves taking offense at my murder, were the ones to bring me back. They infused me with something, some sort of natural magic. It was this feeling in my veins that awoke me from death.

And while this magic brought me to the surface, it also changed me. It gave me the power to manipulate all plant life, but it also changed my form. I had gone from being male to female, the personification of Mother Earth itself. Nothing about this upset me. In fact, being a completely unrecognizable gender would allow me to get close enough to get revenge on those who had wronged me.

Great Escape

Harold had gotten into some deep debt with a lot of bad people. For the sake of his research, he knew it was worth it. If his experiment was a success, he’d be able to cheat death -- and given he wasn’t going to be able to repay many of those loans, this was something that was sure to come in handy.

He always knew it was possible that they’d come after him, but he still never saw it coming. Fortunately, his tech was rather passive; it just needed a warm body nearby, and it would automatically trigger by slipping his consciousness into that other body.

As his brain started to take hold in his new form, Harold guessed he’d end up in the body of the coroner or maybe a police officer. And while he was certainly in a coroner’s office, there was no way he was in the body of the coroner! Sure, it was possible this hot woman had that job, but she just wasn’t dressed for the part. They wore medical scrubs, and this woman wearing high heels and tight leather pants. He guessed she wasn’t an officer either.

But just what was she doing in here? He also wondered why his device hadn’t activated earlier. One thing was for sure, he was glad to escape from his debt...

Personal Demon

Death. I suppose it happens to us all sooner or later. For me, it just happened to be sooner; I was in a fatal car crash at 32 years old. And perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised that I went straight to hell (apparently most people do).

As you might imagine, the bureaucratic process in hell was long and painful before I was assigned my very own personal demon. And, as was probably intentional, she looked exactly like my most hated ex-girlfriend.

“Let me guess?” I asked, “My own personal hell is getting stuck with my overly needy ex, Kathryn, all the time? She’ll annoy me for all eternity, and I can never leave her?”

“Oh, no. No, no, no.” The demon responded with a grin, “Except the last part. You see, your torture isn’t going to be WITH Kathryn for all time; you’re going to BE Kathryn for all time. I’m just sort of previewing the form for you; we’ll be swapping bodies in a moment. And from that moment on, well...think about how much you hate her presently; now imagine how much you’ll hate BEING her. Everything that you hated about her and everything that annoy you, you won’t be able to stop yourself from doing. Oh, and in hell, you’ll get a period once a week. Have fun!”

Mourning

Gabriel placed flowers by the plain white cross that stood on the side of the road. He often came here to do this; it was never easy for him. After all, it was the spot where he had died.

He was walking back to the university campus along the side of the road that night when the driver of an SUV swerved and hit him. The moment of impact was an agonizing pain he would never forget, but the pain ended almost immediately as he soon found himself behind the wheel of a car in a comfortable heated seat.

He wondered if it was just sheer luck at first; perhaps he had crashed through the windshield and conveniently landed in this positions unharmed after the SUV plowed into him and landed in a ditch. But as he looked at the rear view mirrors, he saw a reflection that wasn’t his own. By some inexplicable means, he had swapped bodies with the driver when she hit him. Despite being shaken by the accident and the swap, he searched for the woman’s purse to find her phone and dial 9-1-1.

His voice was unnervingly feminine as he talked and he closely examined his now middle aged facial features move in the mirror as he spoke. When the ambulance arrived, Gabriel’s body was pronounced dead on the scene. The investigations began that night.

The fault for the accident was ultimately blamed on a manufacturing defect with the vehicle. Gabriel often wanted to tell his parents about what happened, but throughout the investigation they wouldn’t even look at him. He couldn’t blame them. He now had the face of the person who they thought killed their son. Trying to tell them the truth would likely only make them angrier and sadder.

And as tough as that was, it was harder for him to try to fit into the life of the body he now had, Olivia’s life. She was a middle aged mom with a loving husband and two beautiful daughters. He knew he was distant to all of them at first; they all believed it was due to trauma from accident. In a way, that was true, but certainly not in the way they suspected. And yet over time, Gabriel learned to love and appreciate his new life...

Nurse!

“Nurse Yumi!” The doctor shouted, “Please pull yourself together! We need your help or we’ll lose the patient!”

“He’s already gone,” She replied flatly.

“I’m telling you we can still save him. Are you questioning my medical expertise?”

“No, I’m saying...I AM him. His spirit is gone. If left his body, and its in...here.” She said as she gestured to her heart.

“Quit with the gibberish and get over here.”

And so she walked over and listened to what the doctor told her, but she knew it was hopeless. She knew she was even qualified to be a nurse; that she was actually just the old man dying in front of her but now in the body of this nurse instead. It would be easier for everyone if they simply let her former body pass on.

Playing Death

The withered skeleton known as Death looked down at the board. It was the first time he had lost a game in over a hundred years, and the first time ever he had lost two. Losing the first game meant that Death would have to grant this man’s life back. Of course, after the second game, calling him a “man” no longer seemed fitting, as he gained the ability to come back to life in perfect health as any recently deceased person. Death was surprised by the man’s selection of an attractive female.

But now the third game was on the line, and Death knew he couldn’t lose. The man was asking to stay alive forever, and Death knew the man had miscalculated. Being alive forever was not the same thing as staying young forever. The man’s newfound beauty would fade, and his body would still inevitably decay. It was the same deal Death had negotiated back when he was a mortal.

If this man won, Death knew it was only a matter of time until he’d have a replacement. He even thought about throwing the match to guarantee it, but it just wasn’t in Death’s nature. No, he knew he was going to try to win, but he was sincerely hoping he wouldn’t.

True Form

The last thing William remembered was a hospital. Doctors and nurses were in a panic, machines were beeping. They were faint figures and the memories were blurred. He remembered driving before as well, and the two sort of juxtaposed together. But he was now in a void, a vast nothingless surrounded him. He felt cold. He had no clothes on, and he also seemed to have a body he didn’t recognize; it was a woman’s body. Time felt like it had no meaning, but time clearly passed.

Eventally, a shadowy figure appeared, sort of like a black blur. It answered the questions William spoke aloud without saying a word.

“Where am I?” He asked before responding with his own answer after looking at the figure, “I’m dead, huh? This is where I await my next life. And what about this body? Whose is it? Mine. My true form. Who I really am. That makes sense, I suppose. My body back on Earth never felt right. Is my next life even on Earth again? If I want it to be. I think I do. I think I’d like a body like this next time. I’d like a body that matches my true form. How many times have I been back and forth? This is only my second time here. People generally take much longer to accept their true form, it seems. Please send me back. I am ready.”

Angel

As he laid in his hospital bed, Rodney believed he had been good in life, treated people well, and generally done the right thing. When he finally passed, he went straight to heaven. He was quickly funneled to a room where the afterlife was explained to him. Apparently, he was absolutely correct in thinking he had lead a good life, and he was to be rewarded by becoming an angel. He’d return to Earth from time to time to help people. The idea of this all made Rodney very happy, and he couldn’t wait to help. There was only one catch -- he needed to be in his true form.

To Rodney, this made sense. After all, how could he be an angel without any wings? Or maybe a halo? It turns out, Rodney’s true form wasn’t quite what he was expecting. Sure, he got the wings, but he also appeared to be decidedly female. He became instantly confused, but he was told it was naive to think his Earthly body was anything like his true form.

Before he could even process any of this, he was sent back to Earth for his first mission. He found himself in a hotel bathroom. A voice inside his head told him to focus to help him hide his wings. Then he was told all about a married couple going through a rocky patch, and how he had to help them. He sighed as he listened to the voice in his head -- he still couldn’t believe he was an angel and THIS was his new body.

Really...

Marvin didn’t know exactly what killed him. It was sudden and unexpected. He expected fluffy clouds and pearly gates; instead, he got something that resembled the DMV office. And much like the DMV office, he waited. It seemed like forever. When his number was finally called, he stepped up to a counter where a surly looking older woman was reviewing his paperwork. Marvin tried to speak, but the woman cut him off.

“Sir, I need to finish reviewing your paperwork. Please be patient.” She groaned.

After a long pause, she meandered, “Sir, why are you here? Your paperwork says you aren’t supposed to be dead yet.”

Marvin answered, “It’s not like I had a choice in the matter. If I’m supposed to be alive, couldn’t I just go back?”

“I’m not sure you noticed how long this line was. You’ve been up here for seventy years already. You weren’t supposed to die yet, but I can’t send you back to what is now almost certainly a rotting corpse. But we do have a form you can fill out to request transfer into the body of someone who should’ve died but lived.”

The woman handed Marvin a form. As he filled it out he asked, “Do I get to pick the body I end up in?”

The woman rolled her eyes as she took the filled out form from Marvin. With a monotone disgust she said, “You get what’s available.”

Suddenly, Marvin felt like he was dying in reverse. As the dull bureaucratic afterlife faded, he was back in the street in a location not far from where he died. Feeling a breeze rush up his legs, he noticed he was wearing a skirt. The next logical thing he noticed was that he was now a woman.

“Really?” He asked as he looked up to the sky as if the afterlife could hear him. “Really? A woman? Come on!”

Say a Little Prayer

Li Wei had been a powerful warlord. When he died, his spirit stayed connected to the temple built on his land. However, shortly after his death, a blight hit the land, killing everyone for miles. With no one visiting his temple, he was unable to possess a new host to be born again. The land became overgrown and the temple fell into disarray. Li Wei was sure his spirit would perish when the temple was finally destroyed by nature. Yet it stood for hundreds of years in its remote location until one day a woman arrived. Li Wei’s spirit sensed her, but still needed her to do one final thing in order to be free. Then the woman finally began to pray, and Li Wei took his opening to possess her body. Being a female was certain strange for the old male warlord, and he was sure he’d have a lot to learn about the modern world. However, he was happy to be alive again and couldn’t wait for a conquest.

Golddigger

Marcus remembered being old and sick in the hospital. He knew he was going to die; he was just waiting for when. What he didn’t expect was coming back after his death. He was in a graveyard, tripping over headstones in heels. He was certainly in someone else’s body -- the body of a young woman. But he wasn’t sure if she had been attending his funeral or someone else’s. He wondered if he was even buried in this cemetery, as he began to look around to see if he could figure it out. He didn’t get too far before an old man came by and asked Marcus where he had run off to. He still didn’t know much, but he soon came to learn his new body was a golddigger; the old man was her husband. At least he had someone to guide him through this new life, even though he felt like it may be an uncomfortable one for him.

Dead (Part 3)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

Once Brian decided to leave without calling for help, he lingered for just a little while longer. He wasn’t sure if he was hoping someone would come by and he’d be forced to fess up to everything or if he just thought he may wake up, as if this was a dream he could escape from. But nothing like that happened. He was a woman now; and technically he was the woman that killed him. He was beautiful, and (judging from the car) he was also probably rich. He figured this would be a god life. It’s not that he ever would’ve given up his own, but he found it hard to be upset about this at the same time. He put on a par of sunglasses he found in the car, waited a few more moments, then finally got in and drove off to start his new life.

Dead (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Brian struggled with his thoughts. Should he call the police? Or an ambulance? Would it do any good? After all, his body already seemed to be dead. And on top of that, he was in the body of the woman whose recklessness had killed it. Surely, the police wouldn’t believe who he really was, and he’d be arrested immediately for a crime he didn’t actually commit. He could just run away. She was planning to do that anyway. In all likelihood, she probably believed she wouldn’t be caught, and she was probably right. He could do that, couldn’t he? In fairness, he hadn’t been the one to commit a crime. He was innocent! Of course, if he was caught, it would just make things worse; and no one would probably believe his story about who he really was at that time either...

Dead (Part 1)

Brian had been on a relaxing walk on a nice day when he was struck in a terrible accident. He hadn’t even heard or seen the sleek, black car before it hit him. The only reason why he even realized what happened was because immediately afterward his spirit started floating above the scene. He saw his body lifeless on the ground, and he saw the woman behind the wheel. She didn’t seem to care about what she had done, as she was about to just pull away and leave the scene.

Brian was mad, but he couldn’t imagine he could do anything about it. Then fate stepping in for him. He no longer was in control of his own spirit form as it began racing toward the car -- no, not the car exactly, but he woman behind the wheel. His spirit started moving faster and faster until he impacted her with a flash.

The next thing he knew, he was no longer a spirit anymore. He was a living, breathing person again. And not just any person, but the woman who had just hit him with her car! He opened the door slowly, noting how odd he felt now that he was a woman. He checked on his body and was a little worried when he found it was, in fact, dead. What to do now?

Awoken

Fred didn’t remember dying. For him it had simply been like falling asleep, and death was like a sleep without dreams. It was peaceful until a woman set up some candles in his old house in an attempt to communicate with the dead. Her seance was like being awoken early on a Saturday morning after a late Friday night, and Fred was not in the mood to be awoken. He focused on her in the dark to seek his revenge. He decided to possess her body, become her for a bit, and make her do a series of humiliating things. Unfortunately, after doing these things, Fred wouldn’t be able to figure out how to de-possess the woman. He’d be stuck as her for quite some time before he finally figured it out.

Blank

The grave sat alone in the yard, unmarked. No one knew the man who had been buried there, and it was often a source of mystery in the town, even more so when a young woman came by to visit it from time to time to place a flower or other object by the grave. One day, one of the town residents finally asked the woman as she grieved who the tombstone belonged to.

“It’s mine,” The woman said rather flatly, “Or rather, that’s my body. I don’t know how or why, but while I sat in the hospital bed awaiting death, something happened. I don’t know if it was a weird electrical jolt in the hospital wiring that did it or maybe it was some sort of spiritual thing, but I found myself swapped into this body. A few hours later, my original body died. I didn’t have any family, so I made sure my body had a proper burial. I didn’t know whose name to put on the grave. Should I put my own? The woman who I swapped with? I didn’t even want to explain how I knew, so I allowed it to remain blank. But I come back here every now and again to remember who I was...”

Soul (Part 3)

Click here for Part 1.
Click here for Part 2.

Jason wasn’t sure what he was going to do now, but he didn’t want to stick around to see the police and paramedics examine his dead body. He began to walk away, stumbling at first on the heels. Why did this woman have to be wearing heels? He knew it was going to be something he’d have to get used to. He kept repeating in his head “heel, toe, heel, to,” hoping that he wouldn’t trip up. He didn’t know where he was going or what he was going to do, but he did know he had so much to learn.

Soul (Part 2)

Click here for Part 1.

Jason folded his arm over his stomach, feeling a churning in there after seeing his own body die. But the sickness in his belly coupled with the movement of his arms gave way to a basic realization; very real physical feelings must mean he was still very much physically there. And that’s when he really couldn’t believe it.

He had just seen him own body die because he was now in someone else’s body; the body of a woman who had been standing on the sidewalk.

The churning in his stomach got worse.

He couldn’t believe he was someone else now; he couldn’t believe he was a woman! Had his soul consciously picked this body when it jumped out of his own? What happened to her own soul? He tried to see if he could think real deep to find it inside his own head, but nothing came up. He couldn’t even think hard enough to know her name or where he lived. All he could think of was that he name was Jason, which he doubted anyone would believe if he told them that, and information about his life before being squashed by a bus.

Soul (Part 1)

Jason stood frozen at the sight he just witnessed. He had just seen his own body struck by a bus. It didn’t even seem possible. He wasn’t aware that the bus was there until he clearly saw what was his body getting hit. It almost seemed like his soul was fully aware of the danger and stepped out of the way without having his body follow. Of course, even if he managed to save his soul, his body had just died. In which case, how was his soul still hanging around?

Jason had been putting most of the pieces together pretty well. Just as he was about to get hit, his soul jumped from his body. What he hadn’t figured out yet was that his soul jumped from his body and into another one. His soul wasn’t just “hanging around,” it had found a new home.

Of course, one could forgive Jason for not realizing he was now a woman at first. After all, he had just seen his own body die, which is a lot to take in just by itself.

Hell

Just before his car accident, the only thing on Jim’s mind was the argument with his wife. He had been pressuring her to get a boob job, but she was offended by the mere suggestion and flat out refused. Jim was angry, so angry he didn’t see the stop sign resulting in a crash. He awoke in a strange room, but that wasn’t the worst part. He had awoken in what was clearly someone else’s body. He looked down to find that it was a woman’s body with rather enormous breasts. He was convinced he had died and that this was some sort of unique ironic hell after the argument he had with his wife. After a few hours of panic, he started to settle down. A different thought came over him. He realized he had exactly what he had desired right below him. He didn’t have to pressure his wife, and he could enjoy breasts any time he wanted now just by looking down. They were a bit larger and heavier than he expected, but he really wasn’t complaining. He started to think that this may not be hell at all; maybe this was heaven!