"This cannot be happening," Jacob thought, then nearly wailed, "You're lying. He does live there."
The voice on the other end demanding, "Who is this?" Jacob thought best how to answer such a question, certain it wouldn't go over to well to say he was Jacob and that he did live there, at one time.
After a moment, he whispered, "His name is Jacob. Jacob Smith. He's fifteen years old and, and," floundering a bit, trying to remember anything, he eventually blurted out, "And he goes to high school with Emily, who's had a crush on since, well, forever and ever," and gasping, he cried out, "Please, please, put him on, Ashley. I need to talk to him."
A longer pause and, at first, Jacob was certain she'd hung up. Then, the voice of Mrs Smith came on the line, demanding, "Who is this?" and before he could respond, she crisply stated, "I don't know if this is a prank or if you have the wrong number or what, but there is no Jacob her. There never has been. Don't ring round here again."
The line abruptly going dead, Jacob stared mutely at the receiver before placing it back on the cradle. Horrified by what happened, figuring Ashley might pull a stupid prank like saying what he'd heard, he knew Mrs Smith wouldn't. Suddenly aware that he stopped thinking of the Mrs Smith as his mom and Ashley as his sister, he at first wondered why he would, as he was certain his mom was Mrs Johnson and his sister was Emily. But then it hit him that, somehow, the people he'd spoken to had been, at some point, his family, before he'd become Kaitlyn, youngest daughter of Mr and Mrs Johnson and Emily's baby sister.
Numb, unable to believe or even begin to fathom what just happened, Jacob trudged back upstairs on tiptoes, slipped into his room and crawled under the covers. There, he curled into as much of a fetal position as he could and began to whisper, "It's not true. It's simply not true. It's all a big misunderstanding. Jacob, me, Kaitlyn, whoever, is really there, in my life. If I look out the window, I'll see him walking home from school, like I normally do. Probably with his friend," and stopping in midsentence, he suddenly came to the understanding that another part of his old life had been taken, the name of his best mate. Racking his brains, trying to recall his friend's name, he found the only thing that made sense was that nobody really like being friends with what most people thought as a little weirdo.
Tears starting to slip from his eyes, Jacob silently began to cry as he tried to sort out the mess his life had become and to decide if this was what he wanted or if it was too much. Eventually crying himself back into another uneasy sleep, he found himself chased by events he was not more than positive were memories.
***
She dug slowly down into the earth, certain the Toroid of Transformation was here. Her thoughts on all that it could do and what she believed she might try with it, she stopped when she had a moment where it was like she was in two places at once. Looking about, seeing only her sister, dressed up to go out with some icky guy, she shrugged and turned back to the hole she was excavating. About to start again, everything shifted and suddenly her mom was dragging her inside, telling her to do her homework and that, until she had it done, she was grounded.
In front of her, she could see out the window. Leaning forward, she looked out and watched her sister talk to the boy next door. Wanting to be outside, conducting some experiments on the wind velocity she'd planned or attempting to find the Toroid, certain she'd been close to finding, it, she sighed and thought how unfair her life was. Her thoughts straying from the things she felt were more pressing the simplistic paperwork the teachers at school demanded she lower herself to doing to how nice it would be anything but herself, she sighed.
It was like everything went sideways and suddenly she was celebrating her fifth birthday again. Her mother had gotten her a doll, which she found uninteresting. The kite daddy got her was more what she like and all that she might do danced about her head. Another change and she was in the changing room at the lake. She really didn't want to be there, as the lake water had a nasty smell. "Probably from the large collective mass of humans all gathering in one place," she reasoned to herself.
Then there was her bathing suit, a revolting, pastel shaded thing that covered the majority of her torso, some of her back and her lower half, like her underwear. She'd rather wear shorts to swim in, but mommy said it wasn't appropriate. Pulling on the swimsuit, disliking the way it hugged her body and spelled out for everyone to see that she was of the feminine half of the human species, she grimaced. Turning toward the exit, she was surprised to find herself standing not in the changing room, but the department store mommy continuously dragged her to when she needed new clothes.
Everything blended and she was sitting at the desk, watching Emily wait for her boyfriend, the yard empty, watching Emily talk to the boy next door as she waited for her boyfriend, and her mother holding up a frilly white dress with a pastel purple bow. Her head felt like it was spinning as she listened to her mother gush, "You'd look so cute in this one," as Emily floated across the yard toward her waiting boyfriend's car, whilst the boy next door continued to talk to her sister.
Not for the first time, unhappy with her life, she thought how great it would be not to be. To have someone else be her. Something she was believed only the Toroid of Transformation could help her sort out and arrive, conclusively, at an appropriate answer on how to solve her dilemma. Below, things seemed to blur together and suddenly she had the feeling she was two people coalesced into one person. Running a self diagnosis on herself, she determined that there was another presence within her body who also wished for something near the same as she wanted. Mind working fast as it could, she arrived at the most logic solution and allowed the other presence take over, assimilating what made up her original consciousness into it.
Another being formed and she understood there would be some resistance. But, in time, she also figured an acquiescence would also be arrived at and achieved, and the two could learn to live as one. There would still be traces of who she'd been, but the now dominant form would, she hoped, form a new identity and take her life in a more satisfying direction. Pleased with this, she didn't fight, even when she became aware that, somehow, the other presence was the boy next door.
***
Abruptly Jacob came awake. A series of gasps escaped him and he flung away the covers as he thrashed about for a moment. Sitting up, the dream still fresh, understanding coming to him that it wasn't so, but something more, he brushed a lock of hair out of his face and wondered what it was. A knocking noise on his bedroom door and he thought it might not have been him finishing the dream. Wondering if there was more, he listened as his mom said, "Kaitlyn, honey. If you would like some, dinner's ready," from the other side of the door as his stomach growled to announce that something to eat, albeit light, could be a good thing.