Sentinel Green 2.2

Wisteria 2.2

I wake up in terror, not knowing where I am, not knowing what I am. The covers of the small bed go flying as I kick them off, and as I scramble out of it I slip on a sheet I’d kicked off earlier and nearly careen to the floor. My heart is punching to get out of my chest and I crumple in on myself as I let my new body slide to the ground. It wasn’t a bad dream. This is all still real.

I have no idea how long I’ve been asleep. Three things occur to me through the hammering of my pulse. I’m thirsty and hungry like the dickens. I have to pee really, really bad.

… And I have a raging boner.

Oh, god. I am in no way prepared for this.

Getting up like one wrong move will detonate a bomb, I waddle-walk over to my tiny apartment’s bathroom and proceed to do a wiggle dance while I stand there, bow-legged, trying to work up the courage to drop trou. I can do this. I have to confront the thing at some point. It’s probably not a great sign that I’m referring to a part of my anatomy as “the thing.” Cue horror movie music.

I’m somewhat afraid I’ll find a way to accidentally hurt myself as I look down at my pants, and that’s when I realize. Huh. Sometime while I was asleep my magical outfit decided to retreat. I’m in green and brown, still, but it’s not anything fancy. I’ve got a green t-shirt made of soft, thin cotton and a pair of long brown cargo pants.

These, at least, are easier to handle than the buckles and straps that were all over my magical outfit. I carefully unbutton and unzip the pants, then extricate myself from them gingerly. Boxers, not briefs, I note dully.

I understand how men’s underwear works, and unbutton the little opening at the front, wiggling myself out. Yup. Yup, that’s a dick. A circumcised dick. Who decided this? Gaia? Awkward. Attempting to aim myself down causes a jolt of discomfort and I realize, infuriatingly, that my cock does not want to bend that way. How the fuck am I going to piss like this?

What follows is a pathetic few moments of attempt after attempt to angle myself in such a way that I won’t be painting the walls. I try to lean really far over the basin, try approaching from the side, shift into an awkward lunging position, and finally do what equates to a 45 degree angle pushup against the wall before I finally am able to pee.

Or. Try to pee. I’d been actively holding back the entire time while I positioned, but now it’s… not happening. I have to pee, really bad, that hasn’t changed, but the actual act is sure taking its sweet time. I’d seen things like this on TV before, usually cast in a comedic light, but I’m not in the mood to laugh now. When the stream finally establishes it’s awful. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to aim, even with a much better angle, and I wind up having to take a hand hastily off the wall to guide the stream better pretty much right away. Every second or so it interrupts itself for no goddamn reason and I grimace as I curl my spine over and try to go to my happy place while this ordeal works itself out.

With that horror finally over, I wait for the morning wood to subside, which doesn’t take long at all. I stare down at myself as I sorta… automatically begin to relax, and huff out a shaky breath before I flush, zip up and turn to leave the bathroom. I catch my reflection as I walk past the mirror, though, and pause.

That answers the question about my eyes. They’re greenish-blue, a very attractive shade so unlike the medium brown I’d left behind. My face has a mischievous, youthful air to it, and I realize as I squint at myself that, even though I’m pretty built, I’m definitely not in my late 20s anymore. I look more like a highschooler. A wave of nostalgia hits me as I study my nose. It’s turned up just a little at the end, the way my old nose was, a trait from the Caucasian side of my family. That’s… really the only familiar thing about the face in the mirror, other than the fact that my hair is dark.

Feeling glum, I make my way back outside to scoop up my phone. My shitty cell is about to die, and of course I don’t have a charger. Or money with which to buy a charger. I check the time--it’s well into the afternoon and my stomach flips. By now Victor must have gotten the authorities involved… I’ve been gone all night. My phone has no missed calls or texts, not that they would have woken me up anyway, as it was on vibrate and I was apparently in some kind of exhaustion coma. Actually--there’s no service in here at all, so the phone has become a glorified clock.

Tossing the phone onto the bed, I glance down at my feet and study the brown hiking boots that came with my outfit. No sense keeping them on in the house. I prefer being barefoot most of the time anyway, so the next thing I do is sit down and strip them, and my socks, off.

Padding through the apartment barefoot, the next thing I do is go to that window. I half-expect to see a completely new view, but no--it’s the same, just not night. It would be easy to stare out at the view in a stupor for the next hour or so, but I manage to tear myself away from the jewel-bright, fever-dream neighborhood my apartment is in.

My stomach snarls at me in an unfriendly reminder that I’ve been neglecting it. I head straight for the kitchenette, briefly noting that the carpet changes to hardwood floors there. The fridge is woefully bare, but the freezer has some cheap microwavable dinners in it. I have a sort of a crisis as I stare into it.

How am I going to feed myself? I no longer have a job, and Gaia neglected to tell me if this new one will pay or not. She seems matronly and kind--surely she won’t let me starve, right? I remove a frozen block of packaged macaroni and cheese and close the freezer, dismally staring at the dinner. Maybe I’ll have to make this stretch…

I put the food on the stovetop and pop open the cupboard instead. Instant ramen is stacked in there, but there are only six of them. Groaning, I take one out as well and put it next to the frozen dinner, then change my mind about the macaroni and cheese. I pop the freezer back open to put it back in and… pause. And do some basic math.

I’m pretty sure there were three dinners in the freezer when I checked, and I took one out, so there should be two left. Instead three sit there, lined up in a row. I remove another macaroni and cheese meal and actually inspect the remaining two this time--lasagna and enchiladas. Then I close the freezer and whip it back open quickly, feeling like an idiot playing an imaginary game.

But apparently I’m not an idiot, and I have a magical, self-replenishing freezer. The macaroni and cheese is back next to its frozen brethren, and now I have three of those meals total. I stuff the dinners all back into the freezer, close the door, and open it again experimentally. Then I curse. Back down to three. Evidently there are some stringent rations going on in magical freezer land.

The cup noodle has been replaced by a sixth one in the pantry, but I don’t bother trying to miser my kitchen into giving me more. I’m satisfied that I won’t starve, and fill the styrofoam cup up with water before tossing it in the microwave.

Five minutes and one slightly burnt tongue later, I’m at least not desperately hungry. My phone says it’s going on four in the afternoon now. I reluctantly turn to survey my new home, knowing I have to leave to deal with the real world. Already I feel so much safer here than anywhere else. I suppose that was well worth “spending” a coin on.

I almost forget to put on my shoes before I take my place in the middle of the room. I know I can probably “pop” out of this place from anywhere, but my “landing pad” makes me feel more secure. Closing my eyes and picturing my Dodge, I wait the usual ten or so seconds it takes to make the hop. The world shifts under me and I hold my breath, only opening my eyes when I’m sure I’m done. That’ll take some getting used to.

Thankfully no one was around to see me pop into existence out of nowhere. Is that a special perk of my new powers? I have no idea. I ease my bent door open and slide into my baking-hot car. I leave the door open to vent out some of the heat while I breathe through my mouth and wait.

My apartment doesn’t have a whole heck of a lot in it, and so I look around my car and take stock of what I have here. The answer is basically a shag rug made of old receipts, a few unopened cans of Dr. Pepper rolling around the passenger side, and random pieces of laundry. No one will ever accuse me of keeping a neat vehicle. I pop open my middle console and rummage through some old wrappers and a broken pair of headphones, then extricate the real prize. It’s a Swiss Army knife, though not a particularly impressive one. All I have by way of self defense is my unusually tough skin and a huge hammer I have to transform to access, so this seems wise to keep.

As I hold the little red tool in my palm, though, an itching starts up in my core. That’s the best way to describe it. I flip it over and over, then whip out the still-sharp, never used blade.

A minute later I’m outside my car, rifling through some scrapped two-by-fours on the curb outside a house. I select one at seeming random, watching myself as if from a great distance, and study it. Then I proceed to plant my boot against the middle of it and break it not quite in half. A jolt of shock blitzes through me as I discard the larger piece and turn the smaller bit over in my hands. Just how fucking strong am I?

I finally know what I’m up to, at least. I just have no idea why I’m doing it. Whittling wood is a heck of a lot easier with these big man hands. My little blade cuts into the wood, shaping and carving. I take a seat on the trunk of my car while my body pays homage to Idle Hands. Okay, so it’s not that intense. I get the feeling if I tried I could stop doing what I’m doing, but what’s the point? I have nowhere to go, nowhere to be. With that depressing thought I while away the time shaping little figures and creating a growing pile of wood shavings.

And that’s how I spent two hours carving wood on my car. It sure didn’t seem like that much time had gone by, but by the time I look up at the sun, it’s setting. I have no idea if people have been coming by this little side street or not, and I suddenly feel very exposed. Talk about losing yourself in a task.

I examine the two objects I’ve created. Both are crudely hewn, to say the least--I’m not that great with woodworking. One is a little house with uneven walls and a big chip taken out of the roof where my hand accidentally slipped. I’d nearly taken off my thumb with that blunder. The other is an even uglier heart, as smooth planes don’t lend themselves well to the jerky motions of carving.

I feel extraordinarily satisfied with my handiwork, for some bizarre reason, and flip my now-dull blade back into its slot. Sliding off my roof and dusting off my trunk, I pocket the two tokens and knife.

The car is definitely cool by now, and I clamber back into my driver’s seat before turning my engine over. The Dodge doesn’t sound well at all and I feel a surge of sympathy for it. It rattles a little as I pull away from the curb and head down the little side street, making a few turns to get me to the highway. There are a few accidents on the road, I guess, and I wind up locked in dead, unmoving traffic for a good long while. Past the accidents there’s construction, a norm for where I live. When I finally break free onto the less travelled highway that leads to mom’s it’s not a moment too soon.

It had occurred to me during one of the gridlocked stops to check my phone for messages, but sometime during my crafting fit it died. It’s probably for the better, anyway. I don’t want to really see what sort of texts are waiting for me.

After the disaster that was my attempt at convincing Victor, I know my next best bet is my mother. By now she probably knows I’m “missing,” and at the very least I want to put her mind at ease.

I don’t get any warning or a hint that anything is about to happen. One minute I’m driving and composing a speech to my mother in my head, and the next minute my car lurches to the side in an eruption of screaming metal and bursting glass.