“What's your name again?” the man behind the steering wheel asked. 

“I don’t think it matters much now, does it?” I rested my forehead against the window and watched the buildings we were passing by. 

He adjusted the rearview mirror and stole a covert glance at me. “I was just wondering how someone your age ends up in this mess.”

I sighed and looked down at the handcuffs on my wrist. The metal was cold against my skin. “Make a guess,” I said. 

We arrived at a red light. He slowed the car to a halt. “Hmm…” his fingers drummed against the steering. I looked into the mirror and showed him my half-rotten yellow teeth to give him a hint. 

“Heroin?” he said. 

“Meth,” I said. 

He went quiet. In the flash of passing lights, I caught a glimpse of his greying sideburns and a glint of dandruff on the shoulder of his blue uniform. I wondered if my answer had made him awkward. It was surprising. Usually cops who are much younger than him are a lot more jaded to meth-head teens.

Then the lights turned green, he fired the engine and hit the gas again. “Are you fifteen?” he asked. 

“Seventeen,” I said. 

“I had a daughter your age.”

I noticed the past tense and paused. I looked out the window again and caught a faint reflection of myself in the light and glass. My left eye was blackened and my right eye looked lifeless to myself. I was curious about the cop's daughter. He probably wanted me to be curious. Or else he wouldn't have worded it like that. 

I would've given in and asked him about it but I was feeling too hungry and my head throbbed. Even though I was being escorted in a police car to the juvie facility, I was eager to get there. At least, they'd give me something to eat. And I'd have a bed to sleep in. A real bed with a mattress and a blanket. Hadn't seen that in a while. 

“If you don't mind, can I ask you a question?” he said. 

I shrugged. I felt too lazy to speak. 

“If you got a chance to go back in time and stop yourself from doing meth for the first time, would you do it?”

I pondered for a second before shaking my head. “That's not how it works, old man,” I said. 

“I know you can't literally go back in time, but–”

“No no,” I interrupted him, “I'm talking about the ‘stopping myself’ part. I could've stopped myself when I was doing drugs in the first place. If I was a different person now than I was back then, maybe I would've made myself take a different route. But I know I'm still the same. Nothing has changed.”

“How can you say that?” the cop asked. 

I smirked. “This is the third time I'm in this seat with handcuffs on, going to the same place we are going now. Deja vu doesn't even begin to cover this feeling.” 

“And what about when you get out? Will you be doing meth again?” he asked. 

I shrugged, looking down at my hands again, this time my eyes lingered on the dark marks on my skin, the paleness of my complexion. “I won't wait until I get out. There are ways to get a fix while you are inside.”

The cop went quiet again, “That's not true,” he said. 

I scoffed. “The surprise in your voice makes you sound like a rookie, old man.”

“Well, that's cuz I'm just a volunteer,” he said. 

I nodded. That made a lot more sense now. 

“You are just messing with me, aren't you? There's no way you can get a hold of meth inside the juvie.”

I gave a sardonic grin in the mirror. “Believe someone who has taken this ride three times, old man. It's totally possible to get meth in juvie if you do the right things for the right people.”

“And how does that make you feel?” he said, the distaste in his voice a lot more obvious now. 

“Alive,” I said. “Or it feels like a more comfortable death, at least.”

We arrived at another red light. He killed the engine again. “Don't you regret it? Don't you regret any of it? It's slowly killing you, are you completely okay with that?”

I leaned against the window again. “Of course not,” I said, “But I'm not at a point where I can reverse any of it.”

The car started moving when the lights turned green again. 

“You're wrong,” he said, “you still have time to change this.”

“Beat it, old man. I'm done for. I'll need a shiny new body to change any of this. The one I'm in right now is too reliant on bad things for sustenance.” I looked at him from the corner of my eye. “Can you get me a new body?” 

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

He remained quiet for some time. Then he said, “What about rehab?” 

I clicked my tongue. “Been there done that, officer. Doesn't work. I've relapsed twice after rehab.” 

There was a long moment of silence before the man said, “If you keep thinking like that you'll never get better. I'm asking again, if you were given a second chance, would you just turn it down?”

“I told you, old man. The only second chance worth taking for me is when I’ll have a new body. How am I supposed to get myself a new–”

Crash!

I never got a chance to finish that sentence. The car window had blown up in my face when another car had run into ours at full speed. I heard the scream of bending metal and screeching tyres. 

There was a burst of pain before I went numb. I imagine that's what being struck by lightning feels like. There's a blast and then there's nothing. Oblivion. 

With my last bit of strength, I dragged myself out of the broken door and tumbled onto the tarmac. I watched the world fading away as I struggled to keep my eyes open. My breath was filled with the smell of blood before even my breath turned to nothing. Then my heartbeat was fading along with my vision. 

Then came the darkness. 

****

“Miss Elsa, open the door. We need to leave!” 

I groaned and shielded my face from the light. The knocking at the door grew more urgent, the voice more frantic. I sat up and rubbed my eyes. My head throbbed like it did after a heavy night at a rave. And a weird sensation was crawling up on my arms. 

I finally opened my eyes and looked at the room I was in. It wasn't like any room I'd been in before. The walls were just panels of wood, covered in hand woven tapestries, mirrors and pages filled with barely legible notes. Something told me the writing was mine, even though I couldn't remember picking up a quill the entire week. 

I paused. Why did I think of a quill instead of a pen? 

As I tried to think my head throbbed harder. I could feel memories swirling up there like half remembered dreams from a different world. All I could tell was I couldn't make much sense of them. 

Then I caught a glimpse of myself in one of the many mirrors on the wall. My eyes were a bright blue, my hair a luscious brown and my skin looked a lot healthier than I remembered. I looked at my teeth, perfect, pearly whites studded in soft pink gums. 

I stopped breathing for a second. “I am…pretty?” 

Next thing I knew, I was screaming at the top of my lungs. 

“Miss Elsa!” the voice outside yelled and something slammed heavily into the door, blowing the entire thing off its hinges. 

A girl rushed inside. “Are you okay, Miss Elsa?” she said, pushing her round rimmed glasses up on her freckled nose. She had green eyes and auburn hair pulled back in a tight bun. The sleeves of her plain white shirt were rolled up and a small black doll dangled by her hip, bouncing against the pleats of her long brown skirt. 

“Um, I'm okay…I just…saw a rat,” I said in a hurried voice. 

The girl named Lilian cocked her head. I don't know how I knew her name. Even though I had a feeling I was seeing her for the first time, I felt like I still knew her. “You are never afraid of rats, Miss Elsa.” she said. 

“I was today,” I said. “It startled me, Lilian.”

“Why are you calling me Lilian? You mostly call me Lily.” She frowned. 

“I'm not in my right mind right now,” I said, trying to give a casual shrug. My head was still spinning. 

“You are hardly ever in your wrong mind, Miss Elsa.” 

“I am today, Lilia–Lily, I'm not feeling too well.” I waved my hands, trying to make myself look dismissive. I really was a bundle of nerves, actually. 

“Is it because of the Inquisition?” she said.

“Inquisition?” I frowned. Then I quickly recovered. “Yes, the inquisition! Right, they are coming here, aren't they? Right, we need to prepare. Right, I’ll get right to it!” I rushed over to my desk, pretending to clean up the mess of papers on the desk. 

“Miss Elsa, all your bags are over there.” Lily pointed at the two suitcases sitting atop a chair in the corner. A broom stood leaning by the wall behind it. 

I felt like an idiot. I was sure Lily thought the same. 

“Why are you acting like this all of a sudden?” she said, cocking her head again. 

Feeling too embarrassed at my clumsiness, I quickly herded her out of the room and hauled the broken door off the floor and put it back into the frame. It was less of a door now and more of a loose curtain that could collapse at any given moment. But I needed whatever privacy I could get right now. 

“I'll be with you, Lily,” I said. “I just need a moment.”

The girl outside was quiet for a moment and then she said, “So, are you coming out now?” 

I groaned. “I need several moments, Lily. I said I'll be with you!” 

“Okay, but do make haste, Miss Elsa. We need to–”

“Get going, yeah, yeah I get it.” I rolled my eyes. 

“I'm going to go and check on Madam Smokewell,” she said. 

There was a sound of footsteps moving away from my room and then there was silence. 

I stepped towards the wall and leaned against it. I got a weird feeling as I moved around. It was a foreign feeling of otherness that’s similar to wearing someone else's clothes. 

I looked down at myself. I was lithe and a foot taller than I remembered being. My arms were slender and my legs were slim and I could feel a strength I had never felt before. I didn't feel like I could knock down a tree with a single kick. But I certainly felt stronger than I used to when my limbs were slender, pale and covered in marks. I also didn't sweat excessively nor did I feel the need to keep picking at my own skin. 

But the most pleasant sensation of all was the feeling of content. There wasn't a feeling of emptiness constantly gnawing at me from the inside. I didn’t feel any compulsion to consume something that made my head lighter and turned my body into smoke. 

I simply felt…

“Alive,” I said the word aloud and it sounded like magic. 

****

My name was Elsa Grimly and I was a witch. The information seemed to surface as the fog in my head cleared up. Then I remembered what had happened last night. I had been in a car. A police car, on my way to the juvie. I was talking to the guy who was driving. 

I couldn't remember much of our conversation. The only detail that remained distinct in my memory was the thing he said about a second chance. The question he had asked me. 

That brought another question to my mind. “How did I even get here? And in this body?” I pondered aloud. I couldn't think of any answer that science could answer. 

But another answer reared its head in my mind. The liberation ritual. 

It seemed like a part of my memory or more like it was a part of the real Elsa's memories. 

I looked down at my hands. Numerous flecks of red caked my palm. It was dried blood but it was peculiar since I didn't have any wounds on my skin. When I washed off the coagulated blood, I saw a marking on my palm--a five headed star with an eye at the center. 

The word “liberation ritual” came to my mind again but I couldn't connect any dots. It was still just a word that I knew but it meant nothing. What I did know was that it probably had something to do with how I got here. 

I filed the thoughts away for the moment and decided to step outside. Lilian and Miss Smokewell were probably waiting for me. I donned my long pointed cap and hurried to gather my bags when I heard something. 

Lilian was screaming.