What the Hell Happened to...? (Over My Dead Body)

  The original caption is here

She found me after the funeral. I’d been pretending to mourn beside people who would never guess the truth, when I felt her hand — dry, soft, and deliberate — rest on my shoulder. “You wear it well,” she said, her breath faintly sweet, like decayed fruit. I dumbly looked down at my black latex dress – Dana's black latex dress.

I wanted to run, but Dana’s legs betrayed me, rooted to the spot as if they remembered her better than I did. “You did this to me,” I hissed.

The old woman smiled. “I saved you. You were dying without purpose, so I gave you a new home. You should be thanking me.”

I almost laughed, but the sound caught in my throat. “You put me in her. She murdered me.”

Her eyes glittered. “And yet here you stand, breathing through the hands that ended your life. A perfect circle. A second chance. But the circle must close again, when the time comes.”

Before I could ask what she meant, she turned and slipped into the mist like a wisp of ash, leaving the scent of damp earth behind her.

That night I dreamt of my body — or rather, the one that used to be mine — clawing at the inside of its coffin. The sound was muffled, desperate, rhythmic, like fingernails on wet wood. When I woke, the sheets were torn and my hands bled. The soft curves of my new body were wet with perspiration under a pair of Dana's silk pyjamas. How could I possibly go on like this?

I didn’t dare sleep again. I padded into the bathroom where I had removed the mirror, as I had done with every other reflective surface in the apartment. I couldn't bear to catch sight of myself from the corner of my eye. Every time I had, that moment where Dana had bore down on me knife in hand flashed in the back of my skull. However, I did have a sliver of silver that I kept handy for when the curiosity got too much. Such as now.

Dana’s reflection looked back, a face full of makeup that I had not bothered to wash off after the funeral, her features twitching as if she were trying to wake up beneath my skin. I whispered, “Are you still in there?” The glossy red lips in the mirror curled into a smile that wasn’t mine.

Now I understand what the old woman meant. Salvation was never about saving the soul. It was about recycling it.

And I can feel her coming back — clawing her way up to finish what she started – but not from the dirt, from inside of me...