Young Writers Society

Bo turned his head over to Boris, propping himself up on the bed on his elbows. He still couldn't move his legs.

"Well, all things considering, being in a clone body and fighting a bunch of wraith and almost dying but being saved by Nadira and not knowing when, how, or if ever, I will get home, I think I'm doing pretty alright if I do say so myself," Bo said with a little grin and a nod. "You need help with that?" he asked, looking at the nasty wound on Boris's chest. "I'm sure they've got some high-tech healing stuff in this place that might help more'n just the usual stuff. Not that I can, uh, get it for you or anything just yet..." he looked at his useless legs in mild disappointment, attempting to move them but finding feeling coming to them achingly slow.

"So what about you two?" Leo asked, accidentally pushing the bed Aegeas was laying on back a little towards the wall. He gave a sheepish smile and easily pulled it back to its original position, despite it having the weight of a giant otter on it. The brief action only made him seem more incredible in the eyes of both Codix and Nadira.

"Well," Codix said, pointing at himself, "I'm part of a race called the Sixen, and Nadira is a robot."

Leo pushed his sunglasses up so they nestled in his hair. He looked over at Nadira with wide, excited eyes - it was only a moment later that he realized why. "She's a robot?" he repeated. "I couldn't even tell! That level of technology is incredible - I've never met any robot that's their own person before, and she looks so human! Who made her?"

Codix blushed in embarrassment. "I did, actually."

"You have to tell me everything," Leo said.

Behind them, Kartiel had now finished bandaging his wounds and was in the middle of looking through the medical supply bin for other things he could use to help his injuries. As he was currently stuck in the body of a wraith, most of the technology was useless on him. At least the blue stones didn't look like they required the same - or similar - biology to work. What they did appear to need was somewhere to plug in their platform, which he guessed was either a charging thing or something to heat them up, so he began to search for the Alteran equivalent of an outlet.

Aegeas, though still out cold, tightened his grip on the stone and began to shuffle in the bed. When he felt comfortable enough, he started to snore.

"Oh, I should be alright with what I've got. Thank you."
I told him, smiling weakly. It was a comforting thing to hear his concern.

"That said... I could use a little assistance with the bandages. I'd thoroughly appreciate it if you could lean over and hold the back in place while I fasten it at the front."

Bo nodded. “Oh, yeah, sure,” he said as he grabbed his immobile legs and swung them over the side of the bed one by one. He shuffled around for a moment, using his arms to reposition himself on the bed so he could easily lean over to help. He reached around to Boris’s back and held said bandages in place. “I’ve got your back, man,” he says with a small grin at his pun.

After he finally found the perfect place to plug the platform into the city's electrical grid, Kartiel noticed the lack of a stone - which he quickly found in Aegeas' hand when the otter rolled over in his sleep. He snatched it from him and returned it to where the other stones were.

Then he plugged it in.


Her body didn't feel right in the slightest.

It was a disorientating feeling; it was as if she had blacked out and had ended up somewhere else in the room, though she had no idea why that would have happened in the first place. Her vision wasn't as good as it should have been - had she damaged one of her eyes or something? Maybe the connection was severed? That wasn't the only problem. No matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't move her legs.

What had happened to her?

"Codix-" she started to say, but the combination of how wrong her voice sounded and her attempts to get her legs moving made her - and the bandages she was apparently holding - go tumbling to the ground of the infirmary.

"Ow," she said, her voice far deeper and more masculine than it should have been. (It was strangely familiar, too, but she had a couple more pressing concerns at the moment. Namely how she still couldn't move her stupid legs.) "That hurt-"

She was cut off by the sound of Leo screaming as he stumbled back into the bed that Aegeas was in, which caused the otter to give a startled cry in surprise as he, the bed and Leo all went crashing to the ground. "Nadira?" Leo asked, his voice high with terror as he struggled to get to his feet. Why was Leo trying to talk to her? "Nadira, I'm scared and I don't know what's going but my body isn't right-"

"Why am I furry?" Aegeas interrupted. He popped his head up, only to put it back down a second later with a groan. "My head feels like it's about to explode-"

"Why am I stuck in this meat suit?" Codix said, which was the one of the oddest and most terrifying things Nadira had ever heard come out out of his mouth. He gave a startled cry after he spoke and covered his mouth with hands. "That's not the voice I was using-Wait, wasn't I standing next to this bed and not sitting on it? How did I even-"

He fell silent as he stared at Leo. In turn, Leo stared back at him. That was the most that Nadira paid attention to - she was too busying staring at herself. It should have been impossible, but she could clearly see her body sitting on the bed she had been on moments before.

She looked down.

And then promptly screamed, because she suddenly understand just why the voice had sounded so familiar.

She was in Bo's body.

And if she wasn't in her own body, then who - or what - was?

Aegeas's eyes shot open when he heard the screaming.

He found himself sprawled out on the floor. Had the others left him there? Were they being attacked by the wraiths? What had happened to the wraiths, anyhow? Grabbing the nearest platform, he pulled himself up, supported by whatever adrenaline he had left. Aegeas didn't pay much attention to how much his legs hurt or how gray his skin was or how tall he was or how strange his hands felt until he saw the pedestal with blue stones scattered across it, not far from where his body rested on a bed.

Someone else was in his body.

"Kartiel?" Aegeas said slowly, looking down at his gray hands and the strange growths on them. He started to hyperventilate. "What did you do?"

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he ran towards the other side of the room. A couple steps later, he winced and shouted as one of his legs buckled, then the other. Collapsing in front of one of the hospital beds, Aegeas used his feet to push himself under the bed, then curled up in a ball.

He wanted to believe this was a dream. It reminded him way too much of his nightmares - now he was his worst enemy. But that wouldn't explain how he'd just woken up, or why he was still in this city. So this was real.

Great.

Raiden had been standing around a table, examining the tools laid upon it when the screaming started.
Things immediately began feeling disorientating. He was not in the same position he was a second ago. Maybe this was Kartiel? Maybe the Wraiths had gotten to Kartiel's room and messed with something there - or perhaps something entirely different happened. He heard voices, but the pain and disorientation caused him to miss them. He looked over and saw Bo lying on the ground.
Wait, that was wrong. He wasn't near Bo. He was on the other side of the room! How'd he end up here? He looked down. Bandages? When did he get bandages? Also, when did he take off his shirt?

He frantically took another sweep of the room. Nadira, Codix, Kartiel (why is he hiding under a bed?) , Aegeas (why was he actually under a bed?), Bo (why was he on the floor again?), that Leo guy and finally Raiden, standing in the corner. Now that he had taken count of everyone- wait.
He looked down. He recognised his pants. They were Boris' pants. And if he was here, and those were on his legs, and his Raiden body was over there...
It was time to troll.

"Art thou...art thou goodeth, my fellow male companion?" he asked Bo, as he leaned over slightly. He ignored his voice. It would take some getting used to, having this deeper, more suave voice that he controlled.

One moment I was trying to stifle a reaction to Bo's infectiously inane pun, and the next thing I knew I was watching the scene from the other side of the room, at an unfamiliar height. I looked down to survey my body, and recognised it as Raiden's.

''Goodness bloody gracious.'' I muttered. I was taken aback by the youthful pipes I now possessed.

''Art thou...art thou goodeth, my fellow male companion?" said the body I had left across the room.

I strode over to it with a deliberate pace.
''What in the blessed, everloving bowels of hell did you just say?'' I said, incredulous.

Raiden looked at Boris in his body dead in the eyes.
"I hath ask-inquired if my good friend Boseph here was goodeth. Calm thy breasts, young one," he said, his voice unwavering.

It was him. Sweet Christ, it was him.

''My breasts are bleeding, you churlish lout. Now hold still and let me fix them.''
I said to Raiden, and finished fastening the bandages on...his? My. My chest.
Good bloody God.

"I would have thought thy parentals would have taughtst thou some manners. As it seems, I am wrongeth. Thou shouldeth respect thy elders," he said, although he let him fix the bandages on his-Boris' chest.

Bo was pleasantly surprised when he could feel his legs again, though it was sudden and surprising. But it only took him a second of looking around, and seeing that he was looking at the room from an entirely different perspective, that he looked down and realized he was in someone else’s body. Or, particularly, Nadira’s body. In a brief moment of panic, he froze, apart from slowly moving his hand towards his face. Or Nadira’s face.

But it was when he heard himself scream that he jumped.

It was one thing to know what his voice sounded like and hear it played back in like, a recording. But it was a literal out-of-body experience to see his body fall to the floor and hear himself scream. And at that moment he knew, if he wasn’t in his body, then someone else was. And based on Codix’s outburst beside him along with Leo’s, and everyone else’s, they’d all gotten switched around.

For a second, in dumbfounded confusion, he muttered “Uhhhhhh” to himself before ue put a hand of Codix’s - or whoever was really in his clone body - shoulder.

“Stay calm, my dude,” he said in Nadira’s voice, thrown off by how high it was. “We’ll get this uh, figured out,” he said as calmly as he could manage, though he sounded very unsure.

He then hurried over to his own body, and looked down at his frame on the floor. It was... very jarring to be looking at and interacting with himself, even though someone else’s mind was behind his clone’s brain this time, piloting his half-functioning body.

He picked himself - or whoever was in himself - up with surprising ease for feeling as small as he did. As he hoisted his former body up back onto the bed he paused, looking down at himself.

Did he really... look like that? Was he really that... big? It had been so long since he felt so small compared to others. He almost felt like he was a child again.

“I’m Bo,” he announced. “Inside uh... Nadira’s body? Who are you?” he asked, again trying his best to remain calm - fully aware that whatever or however this happened, it was Kartiel’s fault. He was the only one who could switch souls around anyway, right?

She looked down at herself - Bo - and tried to get over the bizarre sight of hearing her own voice while knowing that it was someone else using it. It wasn't the first time such a thing had happened. There had been a couple of times in the past where Codix had to pretend to be her, and he had always forget to turn back by the time he arrived home. After the first time, it hadn't been quite as terrifying.

But this was different.

Back then, she had been in her own body - or, at least, one that she was used to using. The body itself was made of wires and electricity and everything she was supposed to be made of. Not flesh and blood. And she had always just been a fabrication on their part, an identity that simply didn't exist. Bo...Bo was a person, and it just felt wrong to be him.

"I'm Nadira," she said. She gave a small, hesitant smile - even that felt wrong. "Inside your body-"

"What did you do to me!?" Leo suddenly exclaimed, taking a step towards Codix. Or, maybe, it was the other way around - the way they had spoken earlier suggested that it was Codix who had been shouting her name, and that it was Leo who was currently sitting on the bed. Even though the face was different, she started to recognize the expression - it was something she had learned to do after seeing her best friend use so many different forms.

Codix - that was who it had to be - was trying to act intimidating, but he was absolutely terrified.

But why?

"I didn't do anything," Leo protested, getting to his - Codix's - feet. His actions seemed hesitant and unsteady. Given that he was in someone else's body, she wasn't particularly surprised.

"You're an eldritch monstrosity! Of course you had something to do with this!"

Leo stiffened. "I'm not-"

"Yes, you are! I have tentacles and you can't tell me that your fins are normal and this entire room suddenly looks really, really weird!"

Considering that she had no idea what Codix was talking about, but also that Leo was growing noticeably uncomfortable by the accusations, she added, "You called his body a meat suit earlier."

Leo stared down at the ground.

"A meat suit?" Codix repeated. "A meat suit?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "I've been watching a lot of sci-fi and fantasy lately?"

Codix threw his hands in the air in frustration and started to storm over to where Bo and Nadira were - Nadira wasn't quite sure if he had figured out that they had switched bodies, but she was still glad he was heading their way. Then he spun around and gave Leo a withering, betrayed look.

"I bet your name isn't even Leo," he said.

Leo looked up, only to stare at the ground again when he saw the look. "It's not..." he admitted. "It's Maahes."

Before either Nadira or Codix could come up with a suitable response to that comment, the bed that had pinned Aegeas - or whoever was in his body - to the ground was suddenly thrown off of him by said person. "Really? Maahes?" Aegeas said, holding his hand to his forehead as he spoke. "You're an Egyptian god and you said that I wasn't a god? Now, that's rich-Oh, s***. That hurts. Jesus Christ, why is my head hurting so badly-"

He stared at Kartiel, who was currently curled up in a ball underneath one of the beds. And then the most terrified look passed over his face, one that she had never quite seen before. "I'm not-I'm not in my body," he said. "The fur-F***. I'm in Aegeas' body."

"What's your problem with the fur?" Aegeas said, voice shaking. "At least you're warm and comfortable. I'm freezing, and I have these horrible things on my hands." He glared at who he was certain was Kartiel - nobody else here could be that obnoxious, much less think of himself as a god - in what was supposed to be Aegeas's body. The nerve. If he wasn't terrified of his new body, and wasn't afraid of damage to the original, he'd run out and strangle Kartiel.

As it stood, however, he couldn't muster the energy to pull himself out from under the bed. His legs ached; his head ached; his stomach churned. Also, he could see the blood over his original body. He could guess what had happened since he'd...fallen asleep? blacked out?

And he didn't want to be around anyone else, in case it happened again.