I woke up choking on air that smelled like chicory coffee and wet iron.
I bolted upright with a sharp gasp, one hand flying to my throat—then froze.
The ceiling above me wasn't mine.
It was too high. Too ornate. Faded plaster roses bloomed where water stains should have been, curling along the edges like something once loved and long neglected. A ceiling fan creaked as it turned, lazy and rhythmic, its thick wooden blades moving with the patience of something that had existed long before electricity was ever promised.
Light pressed through tall shutters, pale and warm, slicing the room into narrow bands of gold.
This is wrong.
The thought came before fear, clean and absolute.
Panic followed immediately after.
"No," I whispered, my voice hoarse. "No, no, no."
I swung my legs off the bed too fast, and the world lurched sideways. I expected bare thighs, cotton shorts, the familiar weight of my own body settling back into gravity.
Instead, stiff fabric pulled tight at my hips.
I looked down.
Boy's clothes.
A white shirt buttoned too high at the collar, starched and unfamiliar against my throat. Dark trousers. Suspenders folded neatly over the back of a wooden chair like an accusation waiting patiently for me to look again.
I swallowed hard.
"This is a dream," I said aloud, because saying it felt like the first step toward control.
I pinched my arm.
Hard.
Pain flared—sharp, immediate, undeniable.
I hissed and jerked my hand back, my heart slamming against my ribs. "...Okay," I breathed. "Okay. Fine. Lucid dreams hurt sometimes."
That had to be it.
I crawled back onto the bed, shoved my face into the pillow, and squeezed my eyes shut. It smelled faintly of soap and something older—linen, maybe. Not detergent. Not home.
Sleep again. Reset. Wake up properly.
I counted to ten.
Then twenty.
Then a full minute.
When I opened my eyes, the ceiling was still there.
The fan still creaked.
The light hadn't changed.
My breath came out uneven.
"No," I said again, louder this time, as if the room might hear me and correct itself. "That's not—this isn't—"
My hands—not my hands—trembled as I pushed myself upright. They were smaller than I remembered. Paler. The knuckles faintly scarred, like they'd known scraped stone and careless falls.
I slid off the bed. The floor was cold under my bare feet, grounding in the worst possible way.
The mirror across the room caught my movement.
I froze.
The face staring back at me wasn't mine.
Young. Soft-mouthed. Dark-eyed. Pretty in a way that felt... managed. Suppressed. A girl doing her absolute best not to be one.
I staggered closer, gripping the edge of the washstand like it might vanish if I let go.
My reflection copied me perfectly.
"No," I whispered. "No, no—this isn't funny. I was working."
Memory crashed in—not gently, but sharp and modern and unmistakably mine.
My laptop humming at two in the morning.
A half-finished paragraph blinking accusingly.
Footnotes. Citations.
My college thesis spread across too many tabs, too many theories, too little sleep.
I remembered rubbing my eyes.
Remembered thinking, I'll just close them for a second.
That was it.
That was the last thing.
"I didn't—" My voice broke. "I didn't go anywhere."
My palms pressed flat to the washstand.
Breathe. Breathe. You don't believe in this. You don't do this.
But something else stirred beneath the panic.
Not my memory.
Someone else's.
It didn't arrive all at once. It crept in, like a draft through a door I hadn't noticed was open.
A name spoken with indulgent warmth.
A father's laugh when I wore trousers instead of dresses.
A hand heavy on my shoulder—That's my boy.
I squeezed my eyes shut, shaking my head hard, like I could dislodge the thoughts by force.
"Nope. No. Absolutely not."
When I opened them again, my reflection looked just as unconvinced.
A bell rang somewhere below—sharp, commanding, cutting clean through my spiral.
Breakfast.
The word didn't come from my mind.
It came from habit.
My feet moved before I decided to.
Before I believed.
Before I was ready to accept anything at all.
🩸
I lingered at the bedroom door longer than necessary.
My hand hovered over the brass knob, fingers stiff, unfamiliar in their certainty. It felt used to this handle. Knew its weight. Its temperature.
I yanked my hand back.
"No," I muttered. "Don't do that."
My pulse hammered in my ears. I pressed two fingers to my wrist—his wrist—and counted.
Still beating.
Still real.
The memories tried again.
Not as images this time, but as instructions.
Turn left. Mind the loose step. Don't be late.
"Stop," I whispered, my jaw clenching. "You don't get to—"
My throat tightened abruptly.
Not fear.
Anticipation.
I froze.
The sensation came from nowhere I recognized—sharp, electric, low in my chest. My breath caught, shallow and automatic, like my body had noticed something before I had.
I leaned against the wall, my heart racing.
"What was that?" I demanded aloud.
No answer.
Just a faint tightening behind my ribs, a warning I couldn't translate.
My hand slid down the wall without permission, steadying my balance the way muscle memory always did.
Always.
"That's not mine," I said firmly. "You're not mine."
But my body didn't listen.
I stepped into the hallway.
The floorboards groaned softly beneath my feet, each sound landing like a gunshot in my nerves. The house smelled lived-in—coffee, old wood, soap, and something faintly metallic I didn't want to think about too hard.
The staircase waited at the end of the hall.
Too narrow.
Too steep.
Too... familiar.
My foot paused over the first step.
A flash—not a memory, not really—pressed at the back of my skull.
Morning light.
A hand sliding down the banister.
Someone calling from below, their voice sharp with impatience.
Hurry up.
I recoiled.
"No. That didn't happen to me."
I took another step anyway.
The banister fit my palm perfectly.
I hated that most of all.
With each step downward, the house revealed itself in pieces I hadn't earned.
A crack in the third step from the top—avoid it.
The way the light shifted near the landing—always brightest in the morning.
The smell of chicory coffee growing stronger—he hates it bitter, adds sugar when no one's looking.
My stomach twisted.
"I don't drink coffee," I whispered fiercely. "I hate it. I drink tea. I always drink tea."
My body did not care.
It swallowed reflexively as the scent deepened, my mouth watering faintly.
I stopped dead.
"No," I said, louder now, panic cracking my voice. "No, don't you dare."
My heart thudded harder, my breath coming quicker—not from fear alone now, but something else threaded through it.
Awareness.
Readiness.
Like my body was bracing.
For someone.
My fingers curled instinctively, nails biting into my palm. I forced them open.
"You don't get to remember things I didn't live," I argued under my breath, halfway down the stairs. "You don't get to react like this. Whoever you are—this isn't your story anymore."
The words rang hollow even to my own ears.
Because the clarity was brutal.
These memories weren't mine.
I could tell the difference.
They didn't sit right. Didn't echo. They came with weight but no emotion I recognized, like reading someone else's diary and suddenly knowing how their house smelled.
The last few steps felt like walking into a held breath.
The bell rang again—closer now. Louder.
Breakfast.
The word slid into place without permission, and this time my body straightened.
Prepared.
I reached the bottom of the stairs and stopped, my heart pounding.
I stood there, in borrowed skin, surrounded by a life already moving without my consent.
And for the first time since waking—
I understood, with terrifying clarity—
That pretending this wasn't real would not save me.