Chapter 1: Treadmill Blackout, Stranger's Body
The last rep always tastes like iron. I grunted, pushing the barbell up, my world narrowing to the burn in my triceps and the solid press of my back against the bench. Six feet of muscle and beard, forty-five pounds on each side. Almost done. I locked my elbows, racked the weight with a satisfying clang, and closed my eyes for a second as the adrenaline receded.
Then, nothing. A vacuum. A blink of non-existence.
My eyes snapped open to a jarring, rhythmic thudding. My vision was wrong—higher, somehow, yet lower to the ground. A neon light streaked across my sight. I was moving. No, I was running. The belt of a treadmill hummed beneath feet that felt impossibly small, slapping down in a rapid, light patter that traveled up legs that weren’t mine.
A bounce. A heavy, rhythmic, alien bounce against my chest with every step. It was anchored, squeezed by something tight and damp. A sports bra. The thought arrived, detached and clinical, even as panic began a cold drip down my spine. My center of gravity was all wrong. My hips had a swing to them, a sideways sway I couldn’t control.
I fumbled for the stop button, my hand—small, delicate fingers tipped with chipped pink polish—flailing. I hit the rails and stumbled, the world tilting. I caught myself, the metal cool under my palm. I stood there, panting, but the sound was wrong.High. Breathy. A woman’s exhausted gasp.
I looked down.
Pink. Tight pink fabric hugged my hips, my thighs. A sweaty V-neck of a pink sports bra strained over a frankly alarming volume of curved flesh. Long, straight strands of blonde hair fell over my shoulders. I held up a hand. It was tiny. The nails were a mess.
“No,” I said. The word came out in a voice that was melodic and soft. A stranger’s voice.
I stumbled off the treadmill, my new body moving with a fragile, uncoordinated grace. Every step was a negotiation. My hips wanted to sway. My chest jiggled, a soft, weighty sensation that was somehow both internal and external, a constant, unsettling reminder. The yoga pants whispered against my thighs, and between them, I was acutely aware of an absence, a new, vulnerable configuration of flesh I didn’t want to think about. A thin strip of fabric—a thong—cut between my ass cheeks, a feeling so intimate and wrong it made my skin crawl.
I was five feet tall. The world had grown. The ceiling seemed farther away, the equipment monstrous. I felt insubstantial, like a strong breeze would knock me over.
A crowd was gathering by the free-weight racks. My racks.
I pushed through, my new small stature letting me slip between bodies. “Excuse me,” I heard myself say, that high, polite voice cutting through the gym’s drone.
And then I saw him. Me.
My body—my old, six-foot, bearded, tattooed body—was laid out on the stained rubber floor. Its eyes were closed. A guy in a tank-top was performing clumsy CPR, his hands pressing down on the broad, familiar chest. My chest. The beard I’d trimmed this morning was still neat. A trickle of saliva shone on its cheek.
“Call 911!” someone yelled.
“I think he’s gone,” another voice murmured.
He. They were talking about me. Justin Zygurski was dead on the floor.
But I was right here. Trapped in this… this doll. This petite, hyper-feminine prison. My mind raced, analytical even in sheer terror. The girl. The incredibly hot, ridiculously built blonde I’d seen doing hip thrusts by the mirror earlier. The one I’d politely, awkwardly avoided staring at. I was in her. Sabrina, I’d heard someone call her.
A full-body shudder wracked me, making the long hair swish against my back. I became aware of other things. The weight of small gold hoop earrings. The sticky feel of lip gloss. A dull, deep ache beginning to pulse in my lower abdomen, a foreign, gnawing signal my brain couldn’t decode. My taste buds felt different, a metallic sweetness in my mouth from a pre-workout drink I hadn’t consumed.
I needed to get out. I needed Mark.
I turned, bumping into a man’s shoulder. It was like hitting a wall. I recoiled, my arm buzzing with the impact. “Sorry,” I mumbled, the feminine apology automatic. He glanced down, his annoyed expression melting into a quick, appreciative once-over. A look I’d given a hundred times. It felt violating.
I hurried toward the locker room, then stopped. I couldn’t go in there. Not the women’s. The thought of the showers, the chatter… my stomach twisted. I beelined for the exit instead, the cool evening air hitting my sweaty skin. I was wearing only workout clothes. No phone, no wallet, no keys. They were in the locker with my dead body.
I had to get home. Mark had a key.
The walk was a nightmare. Every car headlight felt like a spotlight. My tiny sneakers slapped the pavement. The bounce of my chest was a relentless taunt. A group of guys in a pickup truck slowed down as they passed. “Hey sweetheart! Need a ride?” one yelled out the window.
I kept my head down, my heart hammering against my ribs—ribs that felt too close together, too fragile. The ten blocks to our apartment felt like a marathon. My new body was already tiring, muscles unfamiliar and weak. I was gasping by the time I stumbled up the front steps.
I pounded on the door of 4B. “Mark! Mark, open up, it’s an emergency!”
I heard shuffling inside. The peephole darkened. The door opened a crack, still on the chain.
Mark’s suspicious face appeared in the slit. He looked past me, scanning the hallway. “Can I help you?”
“Mark, it’s me. It’s Justin. Let me in. Please.”
He blinked. His gaze dragged over me—the blonde hair, the tight pink outfit, the clearly distressed, beautiful young woman. His expression hardened. “Look, I don’t know what you’re selling or what your deal is, but this isn’t funny. Get lost before I call the cops.”
“The bench press!” I hissed, desperation clawing my throat. “You spotted me on my last set! You called me a pussy for not adding another plate! You borrowed my Led Zeppelin IV vinyl and you scratched the B-side on ‘Going to California’ and you never told me! You’re terrified of your mom because she still asks why you and Lisa from sophomore year of college broke up!”
His eyes went wide. The color drained from his face. He just stared, his mouth slightly open.
“The combo to the safe where we keep the emergency cash,” I whispered, my new voice trembling. “It’s 10-36-18. Our football jersey numbers. Now let me the fuck in.”
The chain rattled. The door swung open. I stumbled past him into the familiar, messy living room. He closed the door and leaned back against it, as if to block out reality.
I stood in the middle of the room, hugging myself, trying to hold this foreign form together. The bra strap dug into my shoulder. The thong was a maddening wedge. I felt the ache in my abdomen intensify, a deep, squeezing threat.
Mark stared. “Justin?”
“It happened at the gym,” I said, the words tumbling out. “I was finishing my set. I blacked out. I woke up… like this. On a treadmill. My body… our body… the male one… it’s on the gym floor. They think it’s dead.”
“That’s… that’s impossible.” He took a step closer, not like a friend approaching another friend, but like a scientist approaching a bizarre specimen. “Prove it. What’s my middle name?”
“Arthur. After your granddad. You hate it.”
“What was the first concert we ever went to together?”
“Metallica, on the St. Anger tour. We got nosebleed seats and you puked from mixing Jägermeister and cheap beer.”
He ran a hand over his face. “Oh my god. Oh my god.” He finally looked at me, really looked, not at the body, but as if trying to see me inside it. “Whose… who is that?”
“I think her name is Sabrina. She’s a regular. Was a regular.” I looked down at my hands, turning them over. The pink polish was chipped on the thumb. “I don’t know how this happened. I don’t know what to do.”
Just then, a vibration buzzed against my hip. I jumped. It was coming from a tiny, hidden pocket in the yoga pants. I pulled out a slim, rose-gold iPhone. The screen flashed: MOM 💗.
My blood ran cold. Mark and I locked eyes.
“Don’t answer it,” he breathed.
But my thumb—her thumb—was already hovering. The buzzing was an insistent, terrifying tether to a life that wasn’t mine. The phone stopped, then immediately started buzzing again. MOM 💗.
The pressure was too much. The foreign body, the panicked friend, the ghost on the gym floor. I hit the green button and brought the phone to my ear.
“Sabrina Marie Parker, where are you?” The voice on the other end was sharp with worry, etched with an intimacy that felt like a physical violation. “Your Fitbit showed your heart rate spike and then go idle over an hour ago. I’ve called three times. Are you hurt?”
I opened my mouth. My unfamiliar tongue touched my unfamiliar teeth. I tried to find Sabrina’s voice, but only my own raw terror and Justin’s consciousness came out, in a ragged whisper that was neither fully mine nor hers.
“I… I need help.”