Note: This... is not my best work. I was a little rushed, and I finished it in the midle of the night when I was exhausted, but I'm still proud of it, and I hope you enjoy it!
Savior_ofunsafespirits - Category #1 - Prose - Vicious Circle
“Just drink it already!” I hissed impatiently after my target raised her glass to her lips and lowered it without drinking yet again. It almost seemed to me that she was deliberately trying to infuriate me, but she couldn’t possibly know that I had dropped a quick-dissolve pill in her drink a minute before. I kept my eyes trained on her determinedly, until all of a sudden someone stepped into my line of sight, right between me and my target.
“Hey, baby, can I get you a drink?” the guy asked flirtatiously. I gave him my best “you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me” glare.
“Take a hike, buddy,” I replied curtly before leaning back against the bar behind me, trying to find a position where I could discreetly look around him and keep an eye on my target.
“Oh, come on, sweetheart, don’t be like that,” he insisted in the same cocky tone, leaning down and blocking my view once more, “You don’t really feel that way. Besides, I kinda made a bet with my friends that I could get the phone number of the prettiest single lady in the bar, and, uh… that’s you, babe.”
“Well, I’m not single,” I lied irritably, “I’m taken. Back off.”
He snorted.
“Whatever, baby; you were just my warm-up,” he replied, his injured pride quite evident, “There are plenty of hotter girls in here than you.”
With that he stormed off to harass some other unfortunate girl, and I trained my eyes on my target once more. Despite the fact that I had hardly done anything but sleep the previous day, I was thoroughly exhausted and my thoughts were foggy. My mind was blurred and there was only one thought that was coherently going through my head:
replacement. It had to happen, and it had to happen quickly, so, despite how tired I was, I wouldn’t take my eyes off my target.
Much to my relief, she finally brought the drink to her lips and took a sip merely seconds after I had returned my watchful gaze to her. I checked my watch and resumed watching her. Suddenly, a friend of hers leaned over and whispered something urgently. My target checked her watch and gasped before pushing her chair away from her table. She took one last swig of her drink—thankfully a big one—before standing up and turning to rush out of the crowded club.
I stood up from my seat at the bar and nodded to a guy across the room. He sighed impatiently and stood from where he had been sitting, following my lead and walking out of the bar. As soon as we exited the building, the guy began staggering and lurching, donning the persona of a drunkard. I stepped around him and continued on my path to my dark red Ford F-250 pickup. I pulled open the door and hopped into the driver’s seat, starting the truck and leaning back to watch my plans unfold. I rested my hand on the steering wheel fondly, saying a silent farewell to my 1980s-era truck; after that night, I was never going to see it again.
I flexed my fingers crossly as I looked up at my target; it was getting harder and harder to do things as simple as moving my fingers and toes. My target was on her cell phone, talking agitatedly, possibly arguing. Finally, she flipped her phone shut and pulled open her car door, sliding into the driver’s seat of her sedan. I smirked tiredly as she tried to start her car, an effort that only resulted in a strange spluttering from her engine; I’d disabled the car shortly after she’d entered the bar.
She frantically hopped out of her car, looking panicked; she was obviously late for something. Right on cue, the minute she had stepped out of the car, she was approached by the guy from inside, who I had paid earlier to harass her. I quickly put my car into drive and drove over to where she was attempting to fend off her “drunken” suitor. Of course, it was all just an act; he was neither drunk nor interested in her over any other girl at the club, but he
was interested in the hundred dollars I had given him.
“Hey, back off!” I called after I had rolled down my window. He stumbled back a little, squinting at me, and I nearly smiled; I’d obviously picked a good actor—he was very convincing.
“What’s it to you?” he replied, his words slurred but not overly so. He was either a very good actor, or very experienced at being drunk.
“Just leave the girl alone. Go harass someone else.”
He shrugged indifferently and stumbled back towards the club, waiting for me to leave so he could drop the act and head back inside.
“Thanks,” the girl replied, looking flustered.
“No problem,” I replied, my voice adopting a sweeter tone than the one I had used to address the guy harassing her, “Need a ride?”
She looked reluctant for a moment before replying, “Yeah. Yeah, I really do.”
I smiled.
“Hop in.”
She smiled gratefully and hurried around the car to hop into the passenger seat. She quickly clicked her seatbelt and turned to me.
“Thank you so much,” she said appreciatively, “You’re sure I won’t be a bother?”
“Of course not,” I smiled, looking her over. Earlier I’d thought she’d been at least twenty, but closer examination revealed her to be closer to seventeen—
not old enough to be out clubbing. She looked like she was in shape, and she was pretty good-looking. Overall, not a bad candidate.
She told me where she needed to go and we set off, pulling out of the parking lot. I checked the clock on my radio. It read 10:17. It had been over five minutes since she’d taken her first sip of the spiked drink, and since she hadn’t had the whole thing I estimated that I only had ten minutes before the mixture was out of her system.
“So what are you in such a hurry for?” I asked casually, “Got a hot date or something?”
“No,” she laughed, “I’m just late for curfew. My mom says I have an hour to get home before she locks the doors. She’s, um—she’s really paranoid that some crazy killer’s gonna get us if she doesn’t lock the doors obsessively.”
I laughed at that. It seemed completely absurd to me; this was the smallest town I’d ever been to, and crime was pretty much unheard of—especially murder. Still, I suppose it never hurt to be cautious.
“I’m Yuki Nakamura, by the way,” I informed her amiably. I reached out to shake her hand, but she shook her head.
“I’m Paige Williams. But—you should probably keep your hands on the wheel,” she replied, much to my annoyance. Besides, I was a good enough driver that I could handle one-handed driving—I
had been driving since my father first bought a Model T, after all.
“Funny how a girl can be so concerned with driving procedure, and yet so carefree about drinking laws,” I said drily, returning both hands to their proper perches at ten and two on the steering wheel. Except that had changed, hadn’t it? Wasn’t hand placement supposed to be nine and three now? I reminded myself that that was not really important at the moment as Paige blushed furiously and looked down.
“I’m older than I look,” she replied in the most convincing manner she could, but I saw right through it.
“Mm-hm,” I retorted wryly, “So that would make you, what, nineteen, tops?”
She sighed and sat back, crossing her arms irritably. I chuckled and shook my head at her antics, before glancing at the clock. My smile faded as I realized that I had less than five minutes before the mixture was out of her system. If the effects of the mixture wore off, things might end badly for me.
And what are the effects of the mixture, you ask? After a target ingests it, which takes less than five minutes, the mixture makes its way through the bloodstream, affecting the cells. It makes no physical change to the cells other than making them so that they interacted with mine.
“Paige, relax,” I smiled, reaching over and resting my hand on her arm, “Look at me. I’m not gonna blow the whistle on you.”
After a moment, she relaxed and turned to look at me. A smile barely had time to begin forming on her face before she gasped; if she hadn’t noticed the fact that she was starting to vanish, then she had
definitely noticed that I was unmistakably beginning to take on her appearance.
“What—” she started, cutting herself off and jerking her arm away from me, “What
are you?”
I sighed impatiently; evidently she was going to fight back. I pressed down on the gas pedal, accelerating so that she wouldn’t try jumping out of the cab. I couldn’t help but feel glad that we were on a deserted back street as the speedometer climbed to over ninety miles per hour. I gritted my teeth and lunged over, wrapping my hand around her arm tightly and digging my nails in for grip. What happened next took a matter of seconds: Paige tried to jerk her arm away, and then, when she realized my grip wouldn’t loosen any time soon, reached over and grabbed the steering wheel, pulling it over as far as she could.
My eyes widened as the truck careened off the road—and headed straight for a large tree. I tried to swerve away with my free hand, but it was too late. Not even a whole second later the truck crashed into the trunk and Paige and I were thrown forward. Unfortunately, my truck had been built before airbags were standard issue, and even with the seatbelts, Paige’s head smacked painfully against the dashboard, mine following suit and smacking the steering wheel. My vision exploded into thousands of bright colors before fading to black.
∂ — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — ∂
My eyes flickered and I groaned. I flexed my fingers, noticing that there was no resistance in their movement, and then my eyes snapped open.
Paige!
I shot up in my seat, gasping as my head pounded unbearably. I looked over at the seat beside me, finding it devoid of everything but a pile of clothes. Long honey blonde hair cascaded over my shoulders where short black hair had been before.
“
No…” I moaned, my voice thick, “How many times are you going to do this?”
I dropped my head into my hands and then let out a sharp cry of pain; I quite obviously had a severe head injury. I threw open the door and lurched out of the cab, stumbling around to look in the driver’s side mirror. Much to my horror, the bloody face staring back at me was Paige’s, not the one I had grown used to over ten years. I felt so much guilt at the sight of it that my stomach felt nauseous—or was that the concussion’s fault? I groaned and turned around, sinking into a seated position beside the truck.
“Every time,” I whispered hoarsely, “Every time it just repeats the same way. Over and over…”
It always started with a theft. Not the usual kind of theft—not a theft of jewelry or money—but the theft of a body. Then came the guilt—in a way, I had killed a person, after all. After that I sucked it up, adopted the stolen body’s identity, and tried to live my new life. But then, after a decade or so passed, the weakness would return. So would the stiffness, the exhaustion—the desire for another body. And so I would find one—
and I would take it.
I knew I needed to get up—to don the clothes and the identity of Paige Williams and to prepare my cover story—but for the moment I just wanted to sit and ride out my guilt-ridden nausea, resting my eyes and hoping I didn’t pass out.
“And so the cycle begins again…” I sighed wearily, leaning my head against the tire behind me.
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