With a start, Jamie woke up in a yellowed room that smelled musty. She could hear the sounds of children crying and her body felt heavy. She sat up abruptly, causing her head to go dizzy and she heard a child scream. Finally realizing the weirdness of the situation, Jamie saw the children at the foot of the bed in the clutter filled room and she asked, "Where am I?"

The child burrowed himself into her skirt half sobbing half laughing. He clutched her leg like it was his last lifeline.

"Jared is a LIAR. Mommy's not DEAD. SHE WOKED UP. LIES!" said the child between laughter and sobs.

Jamie looked at the other sobbing children wondering what the fuck was going on. Furrowing her brows, all she could remember was driving home from the bar. The alcohol had cleared out of her system by the time she left. Then she remembered the panic attack. Maybe she was in an accident and the kids brought her here. She immediately struck that idea out of her head. Then she looked down at her hand, and felt her body. Freaking out, she slowly pushed the kid off of the stinky clothes on her body and started out the door.

"Where's the bathroom? She asked the wide eyed children. The oldest boy was clutching a book with weird glowly writing on it and pointed down the hallway. through more crap piled up on both sides of the hallways. Books, toys, clothes and everything you could need was piled up as tall as she was, and as she got to the bathroom there were even more things stored in there. The mirror was covered in old toothpaste spit but she could still see clearly that the young pudgy face staring back at her in the mirror wasn't her own. Her fingers were as thick as sausages and her stomach was large enough to lift as it rolled over her pants. Her face and hair looked like they hadn't been washed in a month and her body smelled like death. Jamie sat there in shock. No wonder everything smelled so bad. This body had died. She put my fingers against her throat and felt for a pulse. Finding one, she sighed in relief. Poking about her face and body, Little Caleb grabbed her leg again. "Mommy? Are you okay?" he asked with his dirty tear streaked face.

"Yeah, why don't you know where the bathroom is?" Ten year old Katie asked aloud, then whispered to her brother, although Jamie could still hear them, "What's wrong with Mom, Jared? You said you fixed her?"

Pushing the sobbing five year old away, Jamie wiped his dirty face, calming him.

"Well aren't we a mess. Lets all get ourselves cleaned up. Any filthier and we could be worms!" she said as she tickled Caleb's armpits in an attempt to diffuse the situation. He rubbed his snotty nose and giggled. Looking up at the boy with the strange book named Jared, Jamie asked him quietly, "Jared. I assume you have something to do with me waking up like this?"

"Yes ma'am." he choked out as he looked up into the face of his mother, who was addressing him like he was a stranger. He had no idea what he had done. He found this book at the library, and it talked about rebirth. He found it a few days before his mother overdosed, and after he found her, the book showed up in his mother's room. His mother hadn't left the house in over a month so he was scared.

The shower was one of the only parts of the house that didn't have things stacked up inside of it. Jamie told the children she wouldn't talk with them until they all had bathed. They all shared one clean towel, something that was to be remedied once she waded through all the stacked up stuff. Although the body she was in currently smelled like a corpse, these poor child probably hadn't washed since his mother passed who knows when. Jamie turned the shower on only to find that there was no hot water. The shower really looked like it had never been cleaned and there were mouse droppings in the corner. This home was really gross. The whole place rank of ammonia and B.O. as well. Jamie pushed open the bathroom window to get a brief respite and began to scrub the tub until it was passable. Drawing a cold bath, she went to the kitchen and washed a pot to boil water. The kitchen looked like the dishes hadn't been washed, like, ever. Each room she passed seemed worse than the last. There was barely room to walk down the hallways. How this woman didn't lose these children to the state is beyond her knowledge. After boiling a few pots of water she tested the temperature and let the little boy get in.

While Caleb was in the tub, Jared hunted down a couple cleanish bedsheets that would have to work as a towels to dry off Caleb. Then it took another 30 minutes to find a cleanish outfit for the children to each change into. The whole house was just piled full of mess. Each new pile was another marathon. While he was soaking she checked out the state of the refrigerator and realized it needed cleaning as much as everything else. Half of the contents of the refrigerator was boxed wine and the other half was leftover take out food that had been picked over. I found a box of pancake mix that looked like it had been purchased years ago and a box of stashed chocolate above the fridge. These kids looked like they were starving to death and this woman had a stash of chocolate. Not wanting to put her gross hands on the food, she retreated to the bathroom to dry off the little one and get him dressed. All this running around was making her head spin and my lungs pant. It was trouble having to adapt to moving around in such a heavy body.

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After I took care of Caleb's bath, Katie began hers and Jamie shooed him down the hall to watch TV. Jared was still clutching the weird book while staring at his mother, trembling. Jamie wasn't sure why he was scared and she didn't want to frighten the small children so she waited to talk with the 13 year old alone, since the book he was clutching was glowing and that's not normal.

"Mom?" asked Jared, looking at her, part hopeful, part scared, and part sad. Jamie had pondered on how to approach the children to ask them questions about what her life is now without scaring them. This whole house seemed like a deathtrap. She felt like she woke up in a video game on hard mode. The only answers were with a 13 year old child and a book that is either supernaturally glowing or lit up with LED lights.

"I've lost my memory. We probably have to go to the hospital. Do I have a wallet?"

"Don't go to the hospital!" Jared panicked, "Your wallet is in your purse hanging by the door." he said as he started walking towards it.

"Wait, what's the book?" Jamie asked the boy. He was so startled that he dropped it, then picked it up only to drop it again. Jamie walked over and took it from him. As both hands touched the book, it flashed and a tattoo of a book appeared on her left wrist and Jared fainted at the sight.

As she woke him he asked, "What happened? Where's the book?" and looked everywhere for the book that woke his mom.

"What are you talking about? What book?" she tried to play it off like it wasn't bothering her that a random book tattooed itself to her wrist. The boy was only 13 and he didn't need this kid of burden on his shoulders. He looked at her like she was crazy, then he looked around and at his lap wondering if he was crazy.

"It's been a long day. I think I slept for too long. I really don't have any memory so I should go to a doctor to be safe." she explained to Jared again. Jared stood there in a daze wondering if he had imagined the past 48 hours. 'Maybe mom really was just sleeping?' he thought as he started boiling water for a change of bathwater.

Jamie finally let out the water and started the process of heating her own new bath. She got her new body into the tub and washed everything with vinegar and baking soda and cold water, just to make sure she didn't have the smell of death on her anymore. She checked her body for every line, every scar, every curve just so she would know her new self a little better. Then she scrubbed with some of the shampoo-water that was left in the bottle until she smelled human again. The amount of dirt that had gone down that drain was incredible. Wrapping herself in the bedsheet she began the next journey of finding clothes for herself, which was harder than it looked. Half of the clothes piled up around the house were in increasing sizes as the piles got higher. The ones the furthest to the top were the closest to fitting. Well now sheI had a goal. If she could just get this house cleaned up, she could probably fit into the smaller sizes again. The task seemed so monstrous. No wonder this lady took to drinking. Jamie still just couldn't condone what this mother had put these children through. After finding a sizable tshirt and sweatpants, she went to the kitchen and washed enough dishes to clean off the stove. After getting that area done she cooked the kids up some pancakes. Unfortunately the dining room table was covered in paperwork that she wasn't sure whether or not was important. Jamie spent the next ten minutes moving all of the paperwork into garbage bags just to make room for a meal. As she was moving things she saw a mouse run through the kitchen and she screamed. All the hair on her body stood on end. One thing at a time.

"I made chocolate chip pancakes. Come out if you're hungry!" she yelled down the hallway. Caleb had planned on cooking with me but when I started cleaning he made himself scarce. He came barreling down the hallway in glee. "PANCAKES MOMMY? YOU MADE THEM ALL BY YOURSELF?" he yelled happily as he sat at the table.

"KATIE YOU CAN SEE THE TABLE AAAAND THERES PANCAKES WITH CHOCOLATE IN THEM!" yelled Caleb from the table.

A hallway door cracked open and a little girls eye peeped through. "Are they poisoned?" she asked.

Caleb took a big bite of a pancake and yelled "NOPE!"

Katie crept out of her room and slunk into her seat at the table avoiding all contact with her. The table was quiet as the children scarfed down the first decent food they had in days. As the children ate, she poured them all glasses of kool aid with splenda because that was the only kind of sweetener she could find. She guessed at some point this lady tried to diet and it just sat in there. Blergh. Don't judge. Everyone has their own battle to fight. This one looks like stress and depression.

After the kids finished eating, Jamie sent the children to their bedrooms since it was getting late. Their beds were a little dirty, but they were all dragging their feet and they each had school in the morning. Since the bathroom was such a mess and the kids had no toothbrushes, she sent them straight to bed and began to make a list of things she had to get the children somehow. Jamie was feeling completely overwhelmed with the amount of things she had to organize in order to get this life together and not wind up jailed in this body for neglect. She hadn't even had a chance to have a full and complete mental breakdown she deserved. She had boiled another couple pots of water and had finished the dishes in the kitchen, Unfortunately she couldn't put them away because the cabinets needed to be wiped down. It had been a solid 6 hours of cleaning until she finally got everything scrubbed. As she began to work on a pile of junk that was in the corner of the kitchen, the book tattoo on her wrist flashed and the entire pile disappeared, only leaving he white patch of untouched tiles the things were sitting on.