Parahuman

Parahuman Chapter Three: Passed Out

     Lindsay opened her eyes. She was lying on her back in the hospital room she had first woken up in. It was dark, the only light coming from the covered window near the bed. The horror of waking up in a body that was not her own weighed heavily on her mind. She held still and breathed in deeply, closing her eyes. She knew that had not simply been a dream, yet she almost hoped it had just been the product of some mental break.

     She moved one of the hands at her side, making a fist. She felt calluses on the palm; calluses that were most definitely not her own. She took another deep breath, feeling sick.

     Lindsay wanted to lay there forever, never acknowledging the wrongness of her new body, but the urge to move comes all too quickly. She wonders if it won’t be as bad as it seems.

     She planted both hands on the bed and tried shifting backward, a motion that would make sitting up easier. However, she misjudged the weight of her new body and simply kicked helplessly for a moment, as though she were a turtle on its back. After a moment, she tried the motion again, shifting her weight to compensate for the extra body weight she has seemingly gained overnight.

     This time she overshot her goal and slammed her head against the thick wood paneling behind the bed. Robin’s thick skull prevented any real damage, but the new occupant of his body was surprised enough to let loose a torrent of profanity.

     “Son of a bitch!” Lindsay yelped, rubbing her head with a heavy hand. The sudden surprise of realizing she had short hair was almost enough to make her forget the surprise of having bulky muscles lining her arms. Robin’s wasn’t abnormally muscular or anything, but she felt as though her body was suddenly twice as thick as it used to be.

     Forgetting about the head wound for a second, Lindsay smoothed her hand over her hair in wonder. Her hair had always been long and silky, something she liked to take pride in. Chopping off a good 12 inches at the end of middle school had been nerve wracking enough, but she had never had it shorter than her shoulders.

     As she brought her hand around to her face, she got another glimpse of the blonde hair covering the back of her new forearm. She followed it up her arm, examining the elbow and tracing the vein that popped up there. The vein traveled around her arm, crossing her bicep. There she stopped noticing the vein, instead focusing on the large muscle protruding from her new arm.

     It’s almost like a tumor really, a large growth on her body that she consciously knew was normal to have, but cannot identify with in any way. It’s hard, like a rock someone had placed under her skin.

     Lindsay realized she was hyperventilating, breathing in shallow, rapid breaths. She tore her eyes away from Robin’s bicep and pushed herself up even further, trying to catch her breath.

     Where was Robin? She had been so preoccupied with being in his body that she had almost forgotten about him. Why was she in his body? What could have possibly happened that ended up like this? She could vaguely recall something violent happening, but what, she couldn’t remember. Nothing came to mind.

     She groped around the side of the the bed, searching for the call button that would bring somebody who could tell her what was going on. Sitting around examining herself was going to do no good.

     Lindsay found the small, beige remote and pressed the red button in the center. She dropped it and hung her head, struggling to calm her rapid breathing.

     Only a minute later she lifted her head quickly at the sound of the door opening. Walking through it was a nurse, followed closely by Robin’s mother, and…. Was that…? Her parents?