You see, what they don't tell you about transmigrating is that, well, you change bodies. No, really, a completely different body, all of a sudden. Think about it.
The first thing I noticed (once the head splitting headache subsided) was the colours. I mean, first I noticed I was in a room that wasn't mine, but that wasn't all. The room was weird, every object having been “painted” a strange tone of their own colour. Took me a few hours until I got it that it wasn't the room, it was my new pair of eyes.
It wasn't as serious as “my red is your green” kind of thing, but it was disorienting. Best I can describe is like, you know that illusion where they put a grey square surrounded by dark squares and the grey looks lighter, and then surrounded by lighter squares the grey looks darker. Kind of like that, only it's like every colour is surrounded by a completely new colour you’ve never seen before, so every square looks like the opposite of whatever the new-colour looks (still, completely new). Like, if every colour we know was on a line, you would be taking the line up in the Y axis to whatever was above. Mind numbing and impossible to describe.
After a while, someone came to look after me. Apparently I’d been struggling with the headache for a while before my mind came, and they had a nurse on call. The nurse was a pretty french girl with an over the top nurse outfit, full of frills and stuff.
I'd later learn that every (or the vast majority of) girls around me would be French girls, and that would throw a spin at me - I had a soft spot for the French girls, even if we British were supposed to have a rivalry with the french.
That being said, my French was near non-existent, thanks to years of England's superb public school system (and a bit of a lack of care on my part, but nevermind that). Communications were quickly noted to be a problem, and they brought someone that could speak English, altho with a heavy accent that I'd never heard before. It was so thick that even communicating in English was hard for the first few weeks.
After a while, though, we established the basics: I was not in the suburbs of London, – because, apparently, there was no London suburbs for a while now: gone in a nuclear blast during “the Greatest War”, they said. I wish I could believe it was a joke, an elaborate TV Show prank or something, but having a new body is such a grounding feeling that I was brought back to reality in no time. I was definitely in a different body – colour vision alone proved as much, but was not the only clue – and by what these people were talking, I was in a different (albeit similar) world as well.
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I had seen a few transmigrated anime before, but it wasn't really my thing. I couldn't even be mad at myself for not reading this kind of story in order to prepare, as you would have to be completely crazy to actually believe you would be transmigrated to such a point as to do research.
But here I was, in a world where my home country had been blown to smithereens, years before I would be born.
Before I could get used to the idea, the nurse brought a couple I could guess were this body's actual parents. A very tall, elegant french woman with dark hair and sharp features came holding the arm of a stout, worried looking middle aged man. I could see their eyes, looking for recognition, and though that, to them, my eyes probably looked icy and distant. No way I could fake being their son, without even knowing him. Just better to accept that I wasn't going to fit in.
Very quickly their words pulled me out from my first misconception:
> “Marie? Comment sentez-vous?”
My “mother” said in a pained tone looking at me. Marie. A girl's name.
Shit.
I looked at my hands. I hadn't noticed before, with all the new and unfamiliar feelings, but they looked more delicate than the previous ones, and my fingernails, altho not painted any colour, were well manicured.
Yep, girlish all right.
Shit.
I guess I've been trans'd. Trans-ed? The transmigration transitioned me. I was now a Transmigrator. Stupid puns aside, I could only say … I Don't even know what to say!
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In my previous life I was a guy.
A bloke.
A dude.
One of'em pals.
Not that I particularly cared about gender and stuff, I was friends with a bunch of queer folk, even dated some of them bisexual girls, but I never really cared for my gender, – never had any desire to wear girly clothes, nor did I cared if someone thought I was a girl (tho that became hard once I started growing a beard).
I was a boy because I had a dick, lots of hair in my chest, a middleing beard and was tall and somewhat strong. So most people read me as a male, no matter what I did. And I didn’t care about it, one way or the other.
But now, I am a girl. And no matter what I did, unless people on this world were way more progressive than back home, people would read me as a girl. And, to be frank, if I in fact had a couchie, I guess I would be inhabiting a girl’s body.
Well, that would be new. I guess I would have the chance to try what the other gender was like - It is a thought that I think everybody has had at some point, ‘what's it like on the other side’. Tho, to be frank, I was still geting used to the more general experience of having a new body, so the more subtle differences brought by a uterus and a (very small) pair of tits floated right back to the back of my mind for now.
Maybe in the future I could try to transition back to man, but I knew these things took a while and a lot of times were quite tough on the health of the person.
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Right, the parents! I should settle that first - when I came back from my internal musings, I could see a devastated "mother” starting to sob from my lack of answer and dead eyes, while my new “dad” tried to be strong by her side.
> “Sorry” I said, still unsure of how to proceed, “I guess I need some time for myself, still”.
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For the next few weeks, nothing major happened. I was taken to see multiple doctors, even did a strange kinda MRI I guess, only for them to confirm that I had some weird brain activity, stuff they hadn't seen before, but given the context they could probably guess it was a stroke induced by high fever.
That was a bit of a weight off my back, when I heard that this body had been gravely ill weeks before I – the real me – arrived. My guess is I occupied an already dead body, so no guilt there.
The rest of the time I wasn't meeting doctors or going to hospitals, I was at my new home, in my new room.
The home was in one of those parisian 6 stories tall buildings (though I wasn't in Paris, I heard) on the 4th floor, and my room was very run of the mill. A closet full of what felt to me like slightly old fashioned clothing, a dressing table full of makeup that I had no idea how to use and a few jewellery, a writing table with a few books and papers, a large window opposite my single bed, and in the wall opposite the window a painting of a natural landscape.
As far as I've seen, in this world PCs and smartphones are not a thing. The time I went to the doctor for the MRI the image was processed by a monster of a machine, not as big as a room but kinda like table-sized. So they were probably still evolving in the computer sciences.
As for the rest of the technology, That left me super confused. We had electricity, with lighting and AC, even having a big radio in the living room (no TV tho, at least in my house). At the same time, there were no cars in the streets. The streets weren't really that wide, somewhere between the small and labyrinthine streets of the old cities, remains of the middle ages, and the modern 6 Lanes highways, but about half of the space of most streets was separated as sidewalks, for people to walk in. The other half was divided between electric Trams (connected to power cords just above) and carriages. At one point I saw something that looked like a horseless carriage (not really a car, as it still had all the shapes of a carriage, only it had no horse, but a big square bulge in front connected do the front wheels).
I guess this society was somewhere between the second and third Industrial revolution, but there were some things I simply didn’t get yet, like the complete absence of cars. Oh, and the atomic bomb existed, something I learned from the fact that England was no more.
Shit, that still hurt to think about.
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Just outside my bedroom door was the bathroom (my bathroom, but set up in such a way so that it could function as a guest's bathroom as well).
The first time I went there was a thrilling experience.
You know, first time peeing out of a vagina and all, new experiences.
The first few times I went there the nurse went with me, and I was not sure how to feel about that - the new body still didn't feel mine enough to cause me shame, but it was weird to pee with someone looking at you. Still, it was good to get someone to show me some female personal hygiene - I was sure that in time I would get it all by myself, but I did understand that female anatomy takes more work in order to keep clean.
Before you freaks say anything: No, I did not get horny looking at myself! I was in a body way too young for that, – prepubescent, I guessed – and besides, that felt weird in a way I can't really explain. The bathroom had a floor to ceiling mirror, where I could truly look at myself. I was a beautiful little young girl, if somewhat plain looking. I had some of my mothers sharp features, but I wasn’t as thin as her, so they were more subtle, and I had my fathers hazel hair.
It is quite the experience to look in the mirror and not recognize yourself.
It wasn't a completely unknown feeling, like some of the others I'd been having though. In my last life, I had some self image problems – mostly to do with my fatness and general lack of self care – and looking at myself naked in a mirror could feel quite alien and bad. This feeling wasn't really that bad. It was alien alright, but not bad. I was very pretty, and being girl-pretty still better than below-average man, I caught myself thinking.
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Well, that was most of the week after I woke up. Talking to doctors, getting to know the world around me, getting used to my body. To moving in it. To my bellie’s different motion. To how cold I could get on a relatively normal day.
Breakfasts with the family were the strangest thing about the routine I was just starting to get used to. They would talk to me expectantly, looking to see if some of “my” memories would return.
Food also tastes different in my new mouth, and that was also weird I guess, but the main thing that rubbed me the wrong way was feeling like I was constantly disappointing this couple of strangers. Around a week in, I started to hear murmurs around the workers (the people that were hired to take care of me mostly, my new family was well enough, but didn't seem like ‘butler and chefs kinda rich) about “putting her to professional care if I didn't get better”. I wasn't sure what that meant (and was pretty sure I wasn’t meant to have heard that conversation), but I started to fear being institutionalised.
That would be the worst, being under constant supervision, being treated as a crazo, not having any freedom. I didn't quite know yet what I wanted to do with this new life, but I definitely didn't want that.
So, during the next breakfast, I decided I should take measures to prevent it.
> “Mother” – I wasn’t sure if I would ever feel comfortable calling the woman across from me in the table that, but I did manage to get her attention
>
> “Hm?”
>
> “I've been thinking. I know that I made you and Father worried these last few days, especially because of my lack of memory and me not being able to speak french.”
>
> “Oh Honey, it will come back to you, don't feel bad about it, we are going to do everything in our power to help you get back to yourself, my little Cherry” – she spoke a mix of french and her weak english, and my father help translate the parts I didn't get
>
> “That is just the thing I've been thinking about. I now know my name is Marie de L’Aberdeen, and that the dream of having lived in London was just made up from my mind” i lied, “but I am not getting anywhere close to getting my memories or my language back by sitting here in my room all day”
>
> “My little cherry, we have to take our time with this sort of thing, you can't hurry the body through healing”
>
> “I get it, mom, but I'vee been getting a bit anxious just sitting there in my room all day. I was thinking, if I couldn't try to hurry things up, work to get better myself!”
>
> “And how do you think of doing that?”
>
> “I was thinking of trying to learn the language first, maybe that would help exercise my brain and that could bring back some memories. Besides, it is the one way I know I can get back what I lost. I might have to get started in the same way that children and foreigners learn a second language, but at least I would be making progress”
>
> “That might actually work. It actually is a great idea, dear” – it was my father who interjected in the conversation to say – since waking up I've got to known that he was a doctor himself, and that was half the reason I could be treated in my own home instead of a hospital.
>
> “Maybe you guys could put me in a bilingual school?” I said in the spur of the moment. I hadn't thought deeply about it, but there was some truth to the statement that being locked up all day was taking its toll on me. Especially without a phone – in the first few days I figured out just how addicted I really was, and to live the boredom was quite something. Not all that bad, a few years latter I would come to prefer things this way even, but at that point I was still pretty bored.
>
> “Well honey, I was thinking that you going back to your own school might be good. You know, getting to see your friends might bring some memories ass well.”
Well, that would be awkward. To talk to people that knew the previous owner of this body – children that knew the previous owner of this body! O God, was I really going back to school? Back to maths, back to bullying, back to gossip. I was, for all intents and purposes, an adult, and only now did it click to me what having to go to school once more actually meant. Shit. Well, I needed an answer, so I decided to just spin a bit my actual feeling:
> “I don’t know, won’t it be weird, me not remembering them?”
>
> “O my little Cherry!” My mother exhaled, worried. “This must be so hard for you. But you got to be strong”
My mother looked worried, she seemed like she didn't want to get far away from me, but my father looked excited with the idea of me taking steps in my recovery journey – "we'll think about it, give some time. If you really feel like you can’t fit back in with your old friends, we might put you in a different school”, was the answer I was given.
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And that is how in a few years, I would end up in a bilingual school, in the English (the ex-spanish) neighbourhood of Marseille. And how I would come to meet Hector.
About how I would befriend Bill, that is a different and sort of long story that I shall latter.