Body Swap Sequel: Remember me

Evanescence

Music video is working now :) you can listen to the song on the right whilst reading this chapter xx

I opened my eyes and sat up quickly. I was surrounded by hundreds of trees. It was all I could see for miles and miles. My heart beat picked up as I tried to remember where the hell I was.

Images of Hailey began trickling into my mind – pretending to be Jack and Rose with her, feeling her body slip from underneath me, falling into the black body of the ocean, finding her on the shore, climbing up the rocky surface, trekking across a cliff and ending up here in the forest. I scrambled up quickly, wondering how I could see the colour of the trees. Why was it not dark?

My blood began pounding in my ears as I broke into a fast run, realising that I had been knocked out overnight. I’d spent a good few hours on the floor of a forest whilst Hailey may be dying on the shore. How could I be so selfish? I felt angry at myself for wasting precious time.

My jogging only slowed as I located a light further to my left, and changed course to follow that. I prayed to God for the light to be my escape route from the forest. I just needed to get back to Hailey. I needed to help her. I broke out from the forest, relishing in the feeling of my body being bathed in rich sunlight. The sight in front of me caused my heart beat to pick up erratically, and I grabbed onto a nearby branch to prevent myself from taking another step. As luck would have it – I had reached the edge of another cliff upon which a forest had grown. Except this time, there was no stone edge to barricade me. This time – when the forest ended, so did the ground. All that was left was a steep drop back into the ocean. It was a clear blue colour, shimmering and sparkling with gentle waves. I waited for my heartbeat to slow, before looking around. There was a path leading to the left so small that I had to turn sideways and edge slowly foot by foot. Even then, my toes still hung over the edge of the cliff, and if I leaned slightly forward, I would surely fall. Which would be taking the piss, in all honesty. I’d already fallen once, twice, three times if you count the rock that I had to climb. I wasn’t ready to fall one more time. The first time I fell – Hailey became unconscious. I didn’t want to know what would happen if I fell again.

I continued to shuffle across the slim foot path, seeing a round hut nearby. My heart leaped at the opportunity of coming face to face with other humans – people that could actually help me get back to Hailey and make sure she was ok. I started moving quicker towards the hut, and leaped the last few steps before grabbing onto the straw roof and hanging onto it tightly. I swung myself around so that my feet left the footpath and I was now walking on a thicker path intended for people to walk on. I ran to the front of the hut and noticed others surrounding the hut, like a small village.

I knocked on the door loudly, before opening it and finding it empty. My heart hammered in my ribcage as I ran through the hut towards the other end and into the back garden– still no sign of other humans. I decided to investigate beyond the fence encasing the house, and climbed over it before coming face to face with another cliff edge that was as slim as the one near the edge of the forest. I cursed and hung onto the fence as I continued to shuffle across the edge, aiming for the hut near the end of the cliff edge. I felt my palms become clammy as my heart accelerated at the prospect of finding help, and felt the ground give way underneath me. I shouted as I lost my grip on the fence and felt my body topple over the edge. My arm reached out instinctively and I grabbed onto something. Looking up, I felt my heart sputter as my hand clutched tightly to the edge of the cliff, whilst my body hung off of it dangerously. I took a second to calm myself, before reaching up and grabbing onto the cliff with my other hand, and then slowly lifted myself up. I grabbed onto the fence again and continued to shuffle across the edge carefully until I saw another village.

My feet sprinted towards the first hut I saw and opened the door brashly, to see a family of locals sitting around a table. They looked up at me with confused expressions on their face, rice still piled onto the spoonfuls that they were about to eat before I walked in.