A woman sat in front of a vanity, her eyes focused on her phone as a hairstylist stood behind her. The stylist was meticulously brushing her hair into a tight low bun, careful to catch each stray hair. The stylist alternated between brushing and spraying holding spray, turning her head and trying to examine the half-formed bun from every angle. The woman couldn’t help but feel slightly annoyed, but she pushed those emotions down and kept her face neutral. Instead of voicing her annoyance, she scrolled on her phone, carefully browsing a wholesale site for new fabrics. She planned on completing some half-finished products when she finally finished this film.
“Okay, I think we’re good.” the hairstylist said, taking a step back and admiring her work, “Yeah, this looks good. Is this okay?” she asked.
The woman put her phone in her lap and straightened up, examining herself in the vanity’s mirror. “Yeah, looks great Katie. Thanks!” She said lightly, before rising from her seat. She packed her phone in her bookbag and stepped up to a full length mirror off to the side. She was currently dressed in combat boots, military style cargo pants, and a black tank top. Her makeup had already been done, as her character's signature bun needed to be perfect for this last shot. She was filming her last scene in an action movie about a squad of former soldiers discovering and fighting against domestic terrorism. She managed to land a role as the second female lead, mostly due to her appearance. She had a strong jawline, high cheekbones, and intense green eyes. Most would describe her as handsome, despite being a woman, and this led to her popularity when it came to action films with strong female characters.
She hated it, but she loved acting, so there wasn’t much she could say about it. Her manager even liked to remind her to be grateful, as most child stars never even make it big. Her appearance and skilled acting gave her a leg up when it came to roles like this, and she had managed to gather a pretty solid fanbase. Her fanbase was the only thing keeping her afloat at this point, as she didn’t have any backers and her management company was lacking. Hopefully, that would change with this film. It was a big one, with quite a few heavy hitters in the industry acting in it. This film would give her the exposure she needed to finally start to branch out.
She couldn’t help but let out a small sigh of relief. She had done well so far, and now she just had one more scene before she was done. She did a slow spin one last time before leaving the dressing room and heading out to the set. The stage crew were putting the final touches on the fake walls. Soon, she would be engaging in a fight scene with the villain. At a critical part of the fight, right when she would start to win the fight, the villain would attempt to set her on fire. He would miss of course, but the building would catch fire and throw off her momentum. It was decided that this would be one of the last scenes shot because of how hard it would be to get the timing right. Acting out a fight scene during an actual fire would be difficult, especially since it was inevitable that they would end up getting burned a few times. Although she would mostly be jumping in and out, as some of the more rigorous parts would require a stunt double, her demise at the end would be up to her. The less takes it took, the better.
The director called for them to start, and as she got into place with her fellow actors she felt a tinge of dread. She took a deep breath and brushed it off, but as the scene progressed the feeling grew heavier. She had an unshakable feeling that something was going to go wrong. However, take after take, nothing happened. She ended up ruining a few good shots when the feeling got too intense, reacting a half step too slow or stuttering over her lines. She had to take a five minute break and collect herself before starting her death scene. It would have to be taken in one go, so messing up too much would delay their filming schedule.
Finally, on the third take they progressed through the death scene with little issues. She was flung against the false wall for the third time today, however this time it didn’t hold. She felt the plaster give way and her upper body became lodged in the wall. This normally would’ve been a minor issue, except the other side of the wall was on fire. On the other side of the wall was a burning hallway, which the villain was supposed to escape down after he killed her. The moment she came through the other side she felt her hair go up in flames. She immediately started screaming, thrashing, and frantically patting her head, trying to put out the fire. Unfortunately, her erratic movements caused the already weakened wall to further collapse. The wall came crumbling down on her, along with the ceiling that was also on fire. She found herself trapped underneath the burning debris, and her screams of fear transformed into shrieks of pain that drowned out the sounds of the director’s shouting and the stage crew’s frantic footsteps.
Although the false walls were made with material that burned slowly, making it hard for the fire to spread, they had all been coated in a highly flammable liquid in order to create the appearance of a burning building. The fire burned fiercely, and the crew’s efforts to douse it with fire extinguishers failed. By the time the fire department arrived on scene, the woman trapped underneath the burning debris had already lost her life.
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The woman slowly awakened, however as she returned to consciousness she became painfully aware that something was wrong. She felt an intense burning sensation all over her body, and her head throbbed painfully with every heartbeat. Her heart began beating faster and faster as she began to feel overwhelmed by pain. She breathed in shakily, and regretted it immediately as her nose burned fiercely and her throat felt scorched. She started to remember that she had been trapped in a fire on set, realizing why she was in so much pain. However, she had been sure she was going to die. The false walls were heavy, and she doubted anyone would be able to dig her out in time, even if they risked their own lives to do so. Surprisingly, she survived. She continued to take shaky, painful breaths even though she didn’t want to. Her will to live won out though, and she determined it was best to get used to the pain as it would likely take weeks to heal.
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She slowly adjusted to her current state, breathing slowly until the pain faded to a sort of numb throbbing, and her heart started beating at a more normal rate. She carefully opened her eyes, and her heart immediately began beating rapidly again. Her vision was slightly blurry, but she had been in the hospital before and she could tell she definitely wasn’t in one now. Instead, she was in a small twin sized bed, covered by a thin brown blanket. She could just barely make out a rough looking wardrobe at the end of the bed. She tilted her head slightly, trying to get a good look at her body. Her lower body was concealed by the blanket, and her arms were wrapped tightly in bandages. She imagined the bandages had been white at some point, but they were now a sickly brown color, with some spots being a rusty red. She looked further down, and immediately became confused. Her hands were bandage-free, but they had become a weird gray color. There were small blisters here and there, but they were also gray, just lighter in color as the skin was stretched. She frowned, and regretted it instantly as the movement tugged on a wound on her face, resulting in a sharp tingling pain. Her breathing became rapid as she turned to look at her other hand, noting that not only was it gray as well, but she could see some skin in between the bandages on this arm. The skin on her arm was also gray, and her budding fear and confusion turned to suspicion as she looked at her body once again.
She was almost sure.
Almost positive, that this was not her body.
It was too small, too thin, and definitely too gray. Had she been kidnapped by mad scientists? Had they implanted her consciousness into the body of another burn victim? Why? What could they learn from that? That burn victims all felt the same pain?
Just as she started to hyperventilate, she suddenly heard raised voices. She looked to the right and saw a door a few feet from the wardrobe. Her vision had yet to clear up, so all she could see was a door-shape in the color brown, set against off-white walls. Before she could start to wonder if mad scientists would really have such dirty looking walls, the loud voices started rapidly approaching her location. She thought of acting like she was still unconscious, but decided against it. Although she was managing to ignore it, acting while in such pain would make it too easy to make mistakes. She was also too scared, and desperately wanted to know who was approaching. It was better to just see what was going on, rather than getting caught in an act. Getting caught would make it harder to act out any scenes later, as her captors would already be suspicious towards her after an obvious failure.
Her fear rose rapidly to the point of nausea as the voices approached. Luckily, there was no moment of suspense. The door was flung open, slamming against the wall as a slim figure entered aggressively before pointing at her.
“Do you see what they’ve done! Your precious little troublemakers ruined a perfectly good girl! And now what? You want to shirk responsibility and blame my boy? Are you mad!” the figure shouted, their chest heaving as they took heavy, loud breaths. “Do you really think I won’t dare go to the judge and demand justice? My niece is the daughter of martyrs! Do you think this will end just because you want it to?” she questioned angrily, staring at two figures that had stopped at the door, seemingly unwilling to enter the room.
“Delvira, please be calm. No one said that we wouldn’t take responsibility. Sybil just said that you were asking for too much compensation, and I agree. The amount you're asking for is enough to hire five mid-level healers, and yet you're still trying to act righteous.” The smaller of the two figures said. “Are you even planning to call a healer for her? She’s still wrapped head to toe in bandages two days later, while your son is prancing about like nothing happened.”
The figure in the room, Delvira, snorted before replying “Of course I am, but do you think everyone is as wealthy as you? How can I afford her treatment when she’s like this?”
“Do you think our wealth grows on trees!” the smaller figure said, her tone angry. She stuttered out another word before being interrupted by the taller figure to her side. The taller figure pulled the smaller one to the side, and a whispered discussion was started. Delvira shook their head before turning to the woman, approaching the bed as they looked at her carefully.
“Emrys, dear, how are you feeling?” Delvira asked gently. As they got closer the woman could vaguely make out some feminine features. A woman? However, the woman noticed her face seemed to be expressionless. Did she really care? And she was calling her Emrys? Was that the name of the body she was inhabiting? Delvira turned without waiting for the woman to answer, stepping off to the side briefly before coming back with what appeared to be a rag in her hand. She then approached the woman on the bed, leaning down slightly and using the rag to wipe at the woman's eyes.
The woman flinched slightly as she felt the rag lightly brush over eyes, noting that the rag was wet. She could feel what seemed to be a sticky substance being wiped off, most likely the culprit of her blurry vision. She didn’t move as Delvira wiped her eyes gently before moving back and looking down at her again. She looked back, finally able to clearly make out Delvira’s facial features. She blinked once, twice, and then again as she was dumbfounded by what she saw. Delvira had gray skin, same as this body, with dark brown hair and brown eyes. Most notably, she could see two long, sharp ears sticking out of her brown hair.