"Come on everyone, ten minutes till showtime!" I heard a teacher say. Tonight is the talent show; the night I've been waiting for! Finally, my chance to start my career in music! I just have to make sure I look flawless. I looked in the mirror just to make sure my makeup and bright pink hair matched my crop top and skirt. Just as I thought my high ponytail matched just as it always did with my outfits.
"So are you guys ready?" I heard Bridget call from across the room.
"You know it!" Ellen shouted in reply.
"Alright, hands in everyone!" I said as we all walked into the middle of the room. I've known both of them since we were kids finally, this is where my career starts!
"On the count of three! Three! Two! One!" Ellen called out. As we all lifted our hands from the pile we were ready.
"Be ready to go on stage in two!" I hear the teacher call from the hallway.
"Let's go!" Bridget said, now waiting at the door.
"Sure, let me grab my microphone first! It was super cheap at a garage sale!" I replied. Once I saw it I knew I had to have it. The microphone was sitting right next to an Ouija board and some other weird items, I don't know why it was next to stuff like that, and despite being told never to go near things of that nature I ignored my instincts since it was such a good deal. I grabbed my mic and headed to the stage. While I was trying to catch up with the others my mic randomly started to glow, thinking it was nothing. I ran up to the stage, but when I was climbing the stairs I fell back.
"Bianca!" I heard Bridget call as I started to fall back, is this it? The end of my career, before it even starts! As I fell my mic only glowed more, and then we hit the floor.
"Are yall ok?" I heard from someone who had a similar voice to mine. Wait, that IS my voice. What's going on? I look over to Ellen to see her unconscious; she doesn't look like she'll wake up anytime soon.
"HUH!" I screamed as I looked over to see my body. "Am I dead? I can't be dead. I'm supposed to have my music career and whole life ahead of me!" I said as I stood up suddenly.
"No one's dead, relax. Wait, what the heck, how am I standing over there and here at the same time?" a voice from my body said. I went to pull out a phone from my pocket and I pulled out Bridget's phone with its bunny-themed case, despite all my questions I kept going and went to the camera, when I looked at the screen the face I saw was not my own, it was Bridget's! I looked up once more and pointed to my body.
"Bridget?" As I said this my body nodded confirming that we actually had switched bodies. "What kind of freaky Friday is this?!" I said as I looked up to the stage.
"Next up Bianca Southside!" As the teacher called this from the stage and turned to Bridget.
"I can't go on stage like this! Bridget! You have to go on stage and pretend to be me! This is the last chance I have to get my career off the ground!" I pleaded with Bridget as my name was called once again to go on stage.
"How? You know I can't sing!" Bridget told me in response.
"Please! Bridget, you'll be fine. You've wanted to sing ever since we were kids. Now's your chance! Besides, you have my voice right now. This is my only chance to get my music career off the ground. After I graduate, if my career hasn't started I have to go to medical school, and you know I can't stand needles!" I said hoping to convince her.
"Fine, give this to the DJ. No way I can perform your song, I don't know the lyrics." She said to me as she finally agreed. I grabbed the iPod shuffle and looked at it as she said.
"By the way, what's this?" Wondering what she was going to sing with my voice.
"Another song in the same genre, you should remember it from when we were little." As she said this a wave of relief ran over me. Then she went on stage with my body, I was so nervous regardless of if she has my voice it may be hard for her to use it. The last time she sang was at our elementary school talent show where she was bullied for her dream. Despite my worries when she went up there she looked so happy, she was dancing all over the place nearly pitch-perfect. Once she came off stage she looked like she was glowing and the crowd was cheering loud enough for the entire town to hear.
"Thank you." Was all I could manage to say.
"Yeah, it's a chill dog." She replied trying to hold back her ear-to-ear grin.
"Next up is Bridget with her magic act!" I heard the teacher yell from on stage. Maybe I could repay her by performing her act like she did mine.
"Oh, Don't worry about going up there." Bridget told me as she grabbed my arm.
"No, I got this!" I replied, determined to return the favor.
"How come you don't know any magic tricks?" she said as she gave me this confused look.
"With this!" I said as I held up the magic mic. If this can make us swap bodies, it should be able to do other stuff right?
"I guess, well good luck, and it's fine as long as you have fun." She said as she patted my back onto stage.
"I will. I wish I could just poof on stage though." As I said this I flipped the switch on the microphone and shook it around. I wish I could just teleport there. Now how does this... And then with a poof of smoke, I was on stage.
"Welcome everyone!" I said, trying not to show how startled I was. "Are you ready to see some magic!" The crowd's reply to this was fantastic so I continued with the act. "I will now teleport someone from the audience to the stage with just one phrase! Poof!" and with that word an audience member was teleported onto the stage. I think it's safe to assume that you just say what you want to happen and it'll happen. "And now that you have seen my power in action I will teleport you back to your seat with a poof!" and like that they were back in their seats. So that is how this works! "and with that I'll end the first part of my act with a boom!"
As I said this, explosions happened behind me starting to singe the curtain I quickly follow up with. "and with another poof of smoke be assured that no matter what I do you are all safe. And now! For my grand finale I will teleport Ms. Bianca Southside herself up to the stage with a big poof of an explosion!" as I say this Babbs is transported up to the stage and I swiftly prompt her by saying. "and now you will be in your own gorgeous princess dress with a Bibbity Bobbity Boo!" and suddenly she was in a beautiful blue gown that went down to the floor with blue diamonds sparkled all over. The crowd cheered so loud I felt like my eardrums were going to burst! "As we take our final bow I will now teleport us back off stage with one last poof. You all were a great crowd good night!" I said as we appeared backstage.
"Good stuff man, you pulled it off!" Bridget told me as she patted my shoulder.
"Thanks! Wait, where's Ellen!" I screeched as I noticed she was missing.
"No worries, she's in the dressing room sleeping whatever this is off." As Bridget said this I felt relieved, though it didn't last long. When we went to the dressing room she was gone without a trace.
"Where is she? You said you moved her in here!" I said as I tried not to imagine the worst.
"I did! She was still out cold there's no way she could've moved!" As Bridget told me this I started to look around the room.
"Traceback your day, was there anything strange going on with Ellen? You have more classes with her than I do." I told Bridget. When looking around the room my eyes met Ellen's dark navy blue bag so I grabbed it and opened it up, inside was her phone, some makeup, chapstick, some snacks, and lastly the picture we took when she came back our freshman year right before she cut her long blonde hair into a pixie cut. nothing out of the ordinary. "Have you thought of anything?" I asked, worried about where Ellen could have ended up.
"Nope nothing, well there was that weird occult kid in the class we all share, the one who gave me and you coffee, specifically excluding Ellen. Wait, did you say nothing in her bag?" Bridget asked me out of the blue.
"Yeah, why?" I asked back.
"She was doing her comedy routine right?" Bridget responded.
"Yeah?" I asked once more, still confused.
"She always uses props when she performs, does that mean she knew this was gonna happen?" Babbs made a point here, not once has Ellen forgotten her props. This one time we went to the beach for a day and she even brought them there.
"That doesn't mean she knew this was going to happen, it may mean that she was planning to blow off the talent show. It wouldn't be the first time she skipped out on something like this." I said in response not wanting to believe it was true.
"I guess so, you go to that person you got the microphone from and I'll go to the police to put out a missing person's report." I could tell Bridget was trying to reassure me though it didn't quite work since I could hear the fear in her voice.
"Sounds like a plan, let me try to switch us back first." I said. I can hear the worry in Bridget's or I guess my voice, this must be what Bridget hears when I feel scared and try to play it off. "And with a shining beam of light Bridget and Bianca were returned to their proper bodies!" As I said this nothing happened so I tried again. "Bianca and Bridget were back in their proper bodies! Why isn't it working!" I said as Bridget soon replied.
"Come on we should get a move on, the longer Ellen is missing the harder it's going to be to get her back. We can worry about getting back into our proper bodies later." Bridget was right we had to focus on getting Ellen back, but first we have to figure out what this microphone is. It might be the cause of this mess.
"You're right, let's get going, we can split up to make the trip easier. Also, I'm changing into something, into something... more comfortable." I said as I looked in a mirror at what Bridget was wearing beforehand, a red long sleeve t-shirt and jean shorts along with a top hat and converse high-tops. This doesn't feel like my style at all.
"My style isn't that bad, is it? If you change your clothes I get to change mine, your style is too revealing, and this dress you put me in is really itchy." Bridget responded.
"Just don't put my body in anything ugly." I told her back. We both soon changed outfits, myself into a sleeveless white dress shirt and a pleated black skirt with slightly transparent leggings and plain black flats, while Babbs changed into sweats at first but I soon convinced her to change into something a little more stylish, jeans with an oversized hoodie and the converse I was wearing beforehand. Now that we were changed we spit up so we could save time.
After a short drive I made it to the place the garage sale was but where the house once stood is now an empty lot, in its stead two oddly shaped craters. Where could it have gone? I went further into one of the craters and as I did my mic started to glow so I took it out and it only glowed more. Right when I reached the center of the crater I was in, the mic didn't glow but when I stepped out it would. So I moved the mic around more and it seemed to work like hot and cold, when I was going in a certain direction the mic would glow more and if I would switch directions it would glow less.
I followed suit and soon the mic was the brightest it had ever glowed. There was nothing where the mic led me, or so I thought at first. I decided to look a little closer and dug down and about two feet deep there was a box that looked to be from the early Victorian era. When I opened it up the mic stopped glowing, inside the box there was a manual of sorts that seemed to go to the mic though most of the pages were missing. There was also a pendant with a similar style to the mic. I opened up what was left of the manual and found that the necklace and my microphone are totems also known as artifacts, two of four in existence once wielded by great warriors who traveled from a faraway place, it almost said where they were from though it was too scratched out to read. Along with that I learned that the totems can change form to better hide in plain sight, and lastly that you didn't have to say what you want to happen, all you need to do is think about it and it'll happen, but it does say the better the mental image the stronger the effect. Knowing this is almost as good as talking to the person who sold me the mic, satisfied for the time being I drive back to the school but as I get further away and look back I realize that the craters are in the shape of big rooster-like footprints.
Now that I've gotten back to the school I should go to look for Bridget, on the way I bumped into the occult kid.
"Sorry!" I quickly say.
"It's fine since it's you Bianca, anyone else and I think I would've run away." The occult kid promptly responded. Wait, did they just say Bianca? I'm still in Bridget's body, how did they know it was me? Before I could say anything else they were gone.
"Who are you looking for?" I heard Bridget call from behind me.
"That occult kid, they knew it was me even though we're still in each other's bodies." I responded. That was weird. "How did it go at the police office?" I asked Bridget.
"Not well, the policewoman said that they'd be on the case but when was the last time the police found a missing person. How about you? Did you talk to who sold you the mic thing?" Bridget responded.
"No, the house that I bought it from was completely gone. All that was left was two weird rooster-like footprint craters." When I said this Bridget's eyes lit up.
"What did the person who sold you the mic look like?" Babbs said as she made an expression like she was edging with anticipation.
"She was a short old woman with wrinkly pale white skin and medium-length white hair and a long nose, honestly she was quite ugly." As I said this Bridget looked as if she had a revelation. "What?" I asked really confused.
"What you described is similar to the description of an old woman from a folk tale, one of my favorites actually. Baba Yaga, a witch with crazy powers, often tells kids that she'll eat them if they go to her house which sits on two chicken-like legs and has a mind of its own. You went to a magic garage sale!" As Bridget said this I couldn't believe her, but what she said seemed to align with what I had found so I guess this is the closest to the truth we can get for now.
"Let's say this is true, how does this help us find Ellen?" I asked in response.
"If Baba Yaga sold you that magic mic then all we have to do is find her and she should be able to explain what happened and how to fix it, she might even know where Ellen is!" When Bridget told me this for the first time it felt like we were actually getting somewhere.
"But the house is gone now, how would we find Baba Yaga?" I asked.
"Dude, you're literally magic now just use a tracker spell, while you're at it try one on Ellen too. Is there anything we could use?" Bridget responded.
"There was this box that looked like it was from the early Victorian era, inside there was an instruction manual which told me how to better use the mic. As for Ellen, there's no use trying to use a tracker spell if she's still knocked out. We should wait until we know how to wake her up." I thought about telling Bridget about the pendant but decided that one magical item is already a lot to handle and another one could only make it worse.
"You're right I guess, use that box then we'll be on our way!" Bridget said.
"Sure but first!" As I said this I pictured the mic being turned into a silver hairpin with a blue jewel in the middle of one end. "This will be more discreet than a glowing microphone." I said while Babbs gave me a mesmerized look. "Enchant, tracker." While I said these words I taped the box and thought about the words I said and how the spell would look visually.
"It worked!" Bridget said as a compass appeared on top of the box. We scurried to the car to go find the house. In the car ride with the windows down I could feel the cold autumn air brush against my skin, making me melon coly for when we were kids. Back when we were little it was just me and Ellen, friends to the end we told ourselves. That didn't last as long as we thought, during the first grade Ellen had to move away and I felt so alone, it didn't help that my mother had just passed and my father was pushing me away. I think it was because he only sees my mother when he looks at me. Then a year later Bridget joined my class, I started to feel like myself again. Finally, in our freshman year Ellen came back and I felt like I could have it all, and I was so close to getting it all until now. "So what's up? You're oddly quiet." Bridget said as she glanced from the road to look at me.
"Nothing just thinking of the good old days, I almost had it all you know. Both you, Ellen, and my music career, and if I finally get my music career off the ground maybe my father would finally look me in the eye after all these years. I would actually have it all." I responded still gazing out the window.
"Hey you still can have it all, well maybe not all of it, but at least you have me! Ellen too when we get her back! So don't look so sad." Bridget said, comforting me.
"Yeah, I guess you're right, we're almost at the edge of town, where's that house?" I responded.
"Well The Weeping Willow Forest is at the edge of town she could've gone there." Bridget brought up what she said seemed viable. In fact, I think further in the forest there's a clearing that would be the perfect place for Baba Yaga to be set up. "Make sure you're ready with your fancy magic in hand, she might try to fight us." Bridget said as we approached the end of the road.
"I'll be ready!" I said as we got out of the car. From the car, we traveled across this un-kept path with the branches flowing in the now strong winds.
"We should hurry, we don't want to get caught in this storm." As Bridget said this I looked up to see stormy-looking clouds heading our way, though as we continued on our way the path looked quite surreal to me, calming almost. Finally, we started to reach the clearing and there we found the house I bought my magic mic from.
"This is it, ready?" I said as we approached the house.
"Ready as I'll ever be." Bridget said as we finally reached the door.
"So, do we just knock or?" I wondered what to do.
"I figured you'd be coming when the potions didn't work, welcome, welcome! Please come in!" The lady who sold me the mic said. "I'm sure you have questions, first things first I'm Baba Yaga which I'm sure you've figured out by now! Want a cookie?" Baba Yaga said as she ushered us into her house. Now in the daunting house I looked around, right in front of us a staircase to the upstairs and to the right a den which was connected to the dining room and through said room the kitchen, overall it looked surprisingly normal.
"So Baba Yaga, why were you selling magical items in a garage sale like that, and how do we swap bodies back?" Bridget said while I was still baffled by how normal everything looked.
"Oh well that simple my dear, as for your bodies I did that with the help of my apprentice in hopes of just teleporting both of you to me but something must have gone wrong, though you should switch back any moment now, as for the magic item I wasn't selling my magic items to just anyone. I only sold a magic item to her." Baba Yaga said while pointing at me. "She is the only one who can stop what's coming." As she told us that someone started to yell from outside, the voice sounded familiar.
"You can't prevent Baba Yaga! You'll only end up getting hurt!" Wait, I know this voice.
"Quickly you must go, find my apprentice, they can help you further I'll hold her off." Baba Yaga said as she went to battle.
"Let's go!" Bridget said as she took my hand and we ran out the back door.
"Ah, so you finally decided to show yourself." As the familiar voice said this the storm clouds closed in and cold heavy rain started in.
"Well I can't leave my guests without entertainment can I?" Baba Yaga said in the distance.
"Why thank you, now prepare to perish!" The familiar voice responded.
"Ellen?" Babbs questioned. Wait, Bridget was right. That is Ellen's voice. What is Ellen doing here? I thought she was incapacitated; how can she be awake? Why is she talking like that? We stayed behind for a little bit so we could get a better look at the person who was fighting Baba Yaga. I looked over to Baba Yaga's opponent and their face was covered with a mask but they had short blonde hair in a pixie cut. Then suddenly, with a boom, Baba Yaga fired the first shot. They soared through the air at high speeds. Attack after attack, both were taking damage, it seemed that it would go on forever.
"I underestimated you! I won't make that mistake twice." Baba Yaga said as she started to partially heal her wounds.
"And that is what you will fail to understand! I'm holding back!" Baba Yaga's opponent declared.
"Impossible! Nobody from this realm has ever had that much magic!" Baba Yaga said back.
"Bet I can disprove that theory!" The opponent said as they shot off a powerful magic spell towards Baba Yaga.
"Come on we can't stay here; we need to go regardless of if that's Ellen or not." I said still in disbelief. We headed off and into the forest, we made it somehow undetected, I caught a glance of the battle Baba Yaga was having, I don't think she avoided that spell. Is that really Ellen, did she know about the body swap? For now, I guess we'll just have to find Baba Yaga's apprentice. We ended up running the entire way through the forest, it started to rain sometime on our way back and made it to the car finally now soaking wet.
"What are we gonna do?" Bridget said as we started to get in the car.
"We need to find Baba Yaga's apprentice, once we find him he can answer our questions. I hope he's hot." I responded looking away from the road for a moment trying to lighten the mood.
"Seriously! That's what you're thinking about right now? I can't believe you. Ellen is somehow involved in this whole situation, Baba Yaga is MIA and possibly even dead! Not to mention we have no idea where to find the apprentice." Bridget said. I think I only made her more stressed.
"Relax, everything's going to be fine." I said as I looked over to Bridget for a split second.
"Watch out!" Bridget screamed. I looked back to the road to see a short girl with long dark blue almost black hair, black jean shorts, fishnet leggings, and a dark purple hoodie in the middle of the road. I swerved around the girl and we were run off the road by an oncoming truck, both of us got knocked unconscious when we crashed. When I came to I sat up and looked around, I was in a dark room with dimly lit candles for lighting. Are we in a dungeon? Wait, why would we be in a dungeon if we aren't in the dark ages, though the candles beg to differ. I looked next to me and Bridget was laying still asleep, wait Bridget was lying next to me! We swapped back! But where are we? I stood up from where we had been laying and reached for my phone to use its flashlight but it was missing, it must've been in the center console of the car when we crashed. I grabbed one of the candles on the table then went to try and find a door or window, anything to get more light, I can barely see around me with only this candle lighting, I can't even see my feet. As I reached the wall I scurried to one side looking for the door and bumped into something, it was cold and oddly shaped almost like a metal letter L. I continued on my way and made it to what felt like a door handle.
"What are you doing?" A voice said as I started to turn the handle. I was so startled by it I dropped the candle and it went out. "Oh great." The same voice said as I heard a clap of a hand, and suddenly lights were turned on.
"You're kidding me." I said as I finally got a good look at the room I was in, it was one of the clubrooms at school, I walked into a desk. I looked over and the person who spoke was the occult kid. "What are you doing here? Bridget wake up, the occult kid kidnapped us!" I screamed as I looked over at Bridget who was only now waking up.
"What?" Bridget said still half asleep.
"I have a name you know, and that name happens to be Kim. I am Ms. Baba Yaga's faithful apprentice!" Kim said. Wait so the weird occult kid is the apprentice?
"Wait, you were the person in the middle of the road. Hold on a minute, where's my truck!" I screamed at Kim.
"Oh, your truck? Yeah, it's totaled. I brought you guys back here and healed you with some magic." Kim said with a straight face.
"Totaled! My car is totaled! My dad is gonna kill me! How will I get to and from school! What about my music career, I'll never be able to make it to gigs without a car!" I screeched as I was wondering how I could replace it.
"Wait so you're the apprentice we were supposed to look for." Bridget said as she got up.
"I'll never be able to get married! I can't go to any of the dances now, and there's no way I'm having my date drive me!" I continued on.
"Yep! Pleased to make your acquaintance, now if you could show me your magic items." Kim said as she put her hands out.
"Sure but only Bianca..." Bridget started to say as I cut her off.
"And if I don't go to prom then I can never make it in the music industry let alone life!" I said.
"Dude love ya, but like chill." Bridget said.
"Sorry." I responded.
"Now as I was saying, your magic items please." Kim said as she once again placed her hands out. I put mine in her hand and she inspected it closely. "Very nice, I like the form you chose for it. I'll be taking the limiter off of this, you shouldn't notice much of a difference but I can guarantee that once I remove the limiter that it will be bonded to you for as long as your soul roams the earth." Kim said as she put the magic hairpin in my hair.
"There was a limiter on it?" I responded.
"Yes, there was. You're telling me that you never noticed it?" Kim said with a confusing look now standing in front of me.
"No, was I supposed to?" I said while giving a puzzled look to Kim.
"Not exactly, if you didn't feel the limiter on the item that means your mana is either extremely high so it didn't matter or so low that you couldn't even feel it, and I'd bet on the ladder." Kim said in response. "Now, Bridget, where's your magical item?" Kim said. Did Bridget have a magic item and not tell me? Wait, was I supposed to give the pendant to Bridget?
"Oh, I don't have one." Bridget said.
"Wait, then where's the pendant?" Kim said with a distrusting tone as she looked towards me.
"Relax, it's in my pocket." I responded as I reached into my pocket, only to find that it was missing. "Uh-oh, it must've fallen out of my pocket when we were running through the woods. Why do we need an old thing like that anyway?" I continued.
"You lost it! That old thing gives the wearer the ability to access all the knowledge of the previous users! BOUNDLESS knowledge from beyond the barrier" Kim screamed. "It was the only way to figure out how to stop what's happening, and Bridget was supposed to be the next bearer!" Kim said with an upset tone.
"Don't worry about it, I'll just use my hairpin to poof it back." As I said this I pictured the pendant in my mind. Nothing happened though. "Why didn't it work! Is the magic broken! Did you do this!" I asked in a panicked tone.
"No, that's just not how It works." Kim said with a sigh. "You can't manipulate a magic artifact unless your mana is imprinted on it, which it's not, Mistress Baba Yaga's mana is. It's all thanks to you now Baba Yaga's gone!" Kim screeched. Her voice clawed into my heart reminding me of the pain I felt when my mother passed.
"Don't worry everything is going to be ok." I said in reply.
"Ok! Ok, everything is not going to be ok! I had no one! I was on the streets until Baba Yaga found me! Without that pendant I'll never kno... We'll never know what she wanted to tell us." Kim said, screaming, now looking on the verge of tears.
"Kim..." Bridget said as she knocked me upside the head. "Look, even without that pendant we still have each other, and the internet. I'm sure we can pull something off!" Babbs said reassuring me and seemingly Kim. "Now, what's coming?" She continued.
"You're right, sorry." Kim said with a sigh. "As I'm sure you know by now Ellen isn't exactly as nice as you remember, she's been manipulated into trying to take the barrier between the magic realm and our own down." Kim said. "In the magic realm there are people and monsters who want to invade and destroy our realm. One of them who we've Identified as Justin the Grand Mage found a way to talk to people in our realm from his. Other than that all we know is that he's bad and can lend people in this realm magic he can likely do this through the thin spots in the barrier that keeps this realm and the next separate." Kim continued.
"Well, we're done for." I said jokingly.
"Bianca!" Bridget screamed in an equally joking way.
"I mean, we got this! What evil villain is called Justin anyway?" I said in response.
"Well apparently according to Baba Yaga he is her teacher and she's ancient so this guy has more knowledge and experience than her." Kim said with a blatant look on her face. "I'm sure we'll be fine though, Baba Yaga wouldn't have led us to each other if she didn't think we could pull it off."
"That's the spirit." Bridget said. "Now all we have to do is get Ellen back and stop the end of the world!" Babbs said enthusiastically.