Transplant

Light filters though my eyes. The colors seem different, somehow. Like someone sewed a Snapchat filter onto my corneas. But a couple blinks and the feeling’s gone. 

Wait. Feeling? 

A memory passes through me. The operation. 

I should feel something, right? Arms, legs? I try to wiggle my toes, fingers, anything that will take the command.

No response. 

They must have failed.

I move my head to the side, and a lock of hair falls in my face. Blonde. 

No, they didn’t fail at all. At least, not completely.

This is not my body. 

I try to speak. “H-hello…?” The sound that hits my ears and reverberates through my skull is faint, foreign. Female.

This is not my body.

And yet, it’s supposed to be, right? That was the whole idea. The girl was irrevocably brain dead. No cure for that in this day and age. And yet, somehow we’ve now mastered the art of brain transplantation.

If I survive, that is. 

“Sarah Grant?” A pause, followed by, “I’m sorry. You must be Oliver Lovett now.” A nurse, judging by his cluelessness. Is he apologizing because I look like a girl? 

Shit, I guess I am a girl.

“It was either this, or staying trapped inside that useless prison of a body.” A fate worse than death, and I’m not ready to die if I can help it. Especially not if I can get the chance to move my limbs again. Wouldn’t that be nice? “Speaking of which, why can’t I fucking move?” My tone sounds too harsh for the feathery voice delivering it. Had this girl ever cursed before in her life?

The nurse finally comes over to my bedside. I glare up at him as he pauses to look at his clipboard. “The doctor says that’s completely normal. Your nerve tissue is still healing from the procedure.” 

Hah. Normal? Nothing about any of this is “normal.” I can’t even refer to my body parts as mine anymore.

Sarah. That was this body’s original owner. Its only designated occupant. 

I’m an intruder. 

And Sarah is dead. I am living inside a hollowed-out human husk. Like some sort of parasite, or abominable hermit crab. I’d be sure a shiver just passed through my body—sorry, her body—if I could feel it. Instead, I feel it creep up her neck and through her skull. 

Get out, it seems to whisper into the very crevices of my brain. I suffer a shudder of my own. Jesus fucking Christ.

“How are you feeling?” The nurse asks uselessly. “Any headaches, or nausea? Do you need me to turn up the thermostat?”

“Feeling anything right now would be great.”

No, that wasn’t entirely true. If my fear could reach her heart right now, it’d likely stop.

To be continued....