Chapter 1: Dying in the Driver's Seat
The first thing I taste is copper and gasoline.
It floods my mouth, thick and warm, and I choke, my body convulsing against something that’s holding me down. My eyes flutter open to a nightmare of twisted metal. The steering wheel is kissing my chest. The windshield is a spiderweb of cracks, and through it, I see the rain, each drop smearing the red and blue lights flashing in a nauseating rhythm.
A face swims into view above me, blurry at the edges. A paramedic. His gloves are smeared with something dark.
“Stay with us, sir!” His voice is tinny, far away, like I’m listening from the bottom of a well. “Can you tell me your name?”
I try. My lips are numb. “Jus…tin.” It comes out a wet gurgle.
“Okay, Justin. Help’s here. Don’t try to move.”
But I can feel it. Or rather, I can’t. From the waist down, there’s nothing. No pain, no pressure, just a vast, silent absence. The warmth spreading across my lap isn’t just the rain soaking my cargo shorts. It’s too hot, and it has a weight to it. I manage to tilt my head, just an inch. The console is gone. My legs are… rearranged.
Panic, cold and clean, cuts through the fog. It doesn’t hurt. Why doesn’t it hurt?
“My legs,” I slur.
The paramedic’s eyes dart down, then back to mine. He doesn’t answer. He shouts something about the Jaws of Life, his voice tight. Another face appears, a police officer, his expression grim under the brim of his hat. He looks at me with a pity that’s worse than the crashing metal.
The world started to dissolve into patches of sound and color. The scream of saws on metal. The cold kiss of scissors cutting away my “I Am The Senate” t-shirt. The paralyzing cold of a cervical collar being fastened around my neck. My thoughts were slow, syrupy. Andrea. I had to call Andrea. She’d be watching The Great British Bake-Off, wondering why I was late getting back from Comic Cave.
Darkness crept in from the edges, soft and inviting. The paramedic’s voice became an echo. “Justin! Justin, stay with me!”
But the silence was so much easier.
Consciousness returned as a sudden, violent assault of sound and light and feeling.
A monotone, high-pitched shriek filled my ears. It was mine. I was screaming. My throat burned with it. My body was arching, every nerve ending on fire, muscles seizing and trembling against cold, stiff sheets.
“Justin! Justin, honey, look at me! You’re in the hospital. You’re safe!”
The voice was familiar, laced with a panic that matched my own. I forced my eyes open, blinking against the sterile white fluorescence. Andrea’s face hovered above me, her eyes red-rimmed and wide with fear. My wife. Thank God.
“An…drea…” The word was wrong. My voice was too high, a stranger’s raspy, feminine sob. My tongue felt too small, yet it bumped against a new, unsettling softness in my mouth—fuller lips, different teeth.
“Shhh, it’s okay. The doctor says it’s the shock. You were in an accident.”
I tried to shake my head, but the movement sent a wave of vertigo through me. The sheets felt rough and alien against my skin. My skin. It felt… hyper-sensitive. Every thread was a scrape. And there was a terrible, overwhelming sense of weight on my chest, a soft, aching pressure that moved independently when I gasped for air.
I looked down.
Two rounded mounds strained against the thin, faded cotton of a hospital gown. They rose and fell with my ragged breathing. I stared, uncomprehending. A cold, deep dread began to pool in my gut, a place that felt… hollow. Empty in a way it should never be.
“No,” I whispered, the new voice cracking. “No, no, no.”
I flung the stiff sheet back. The movement made the weights on my chest jiggle, a bizarre, undeniable sensation. My legs were there, slender and pale, covered in fine dark hairs and a intricate sleeve of tattoos—flaming skulls, roses, a detailed owl that ended at the knee. They were unbroken. I could feel the cool air on them. I could wiggle the toes, tipped with chipped black polish.
But between them…
My hand shot down, clumsy and frantic, scrambling under the gown, over the thong. I felt the curve of a hip, a swell of soft flesh, a thatch of pubic hair. No familiar structure. No anything. Just a flat, wrong emptiness.
A raw, animal sound tore from my throat. This wasn’t my body.
“Justin?” Andrea whispered, her face draining of color. She’d heard me say my own name in this stranger’s voice. She stepped back from the bed, her hand flying to her mouth.
I pushed myself up, and the world swayed. My center of balance was off, way off, like I was perpetually leaning forward. The weight on my chest pulled. My hips felt wider, the bones sitting differently. Every shift sent a ripple through my body, a jiggle in the flesh of my thighs, an echo in the profound softness of my backside against the mattress.
I looked at my hands. Small. Delicate knuckles. Short, ragged nails painted a chipped black. A intricate web of tattoos covered my forearms, disappearing under the gown sleeves. I brought a hand to my face. My jaw was smaller. My cheekbones were higher. I felt my head, my hair—a coarse, thick mess, short on one side, longer on the other, the ends feeling brittle and dyed.
“I need a mirror,” I said, the voice trembling. “Now.”
Andrea just stared, paralyzed. A young nurse bustled in, her smile professional. “Sabrina! You’re awake. How are you feeling?”
“Mirror,” I demanded, the word a guttural command in the wrong vocal cords.
The nurse’s smile faltered. She glanced at Andrea, then back at me. “Honey, maybe just rest for a—”
“GIVE ME A FUCKING MIRROR!”
The scream shocked everyone, especially me. It was so loud in this new throat. The nurse jumped, then hurried out, returning with a small hand mirror from a supply cart. Her hands were shaking as she passed it to me.
I took it. The metal was cold. I took a shuddering breath, the movement causing another distracting, painful bounce on my chest. I lifted the mirror.
A stranger’s face, pale and sharp under smeared black eyeliner, stared back with my horror in her eyes.
She was young. Mid-twenties. Pretty in a harsh, defiant way. Thick black eyebrows. A silver hoop through her nose. More silver studs running up the curve of her right ear. Her lips were full and chapped. Her black hair was a chaotic mess, shaved close on the left side, longer on the right, the ends a faded, artificial pink.
I saw my own panic, my own utter incomprehension, reflected in her dark, kohl-rimmed eyes.
I dropped the mirror. It clattered on the tile floor, the sound final.
I looked from my wife’s ashen, terrified face down to the hands that weren’t mine, resting on the curves of a body that belonged to someone named Sabrina. The scent of antiseptic and blood was gone, replaced by the lingering ghost of cheap vanilla perfume and cigarettes.