The bathroom was right where I expected it to be and, so far, was the only room in the building that actually looked like it had had any recent occupants.
The bath wasn’t large, but it was long enough for me to completely lay down in. A half used bar of soap had been left sitting along its side with a bottle of shampoo. The label from the shampoo gave me another headache when I looked at it, but did nothing to jog my memories. Just a brand name I didn’t recognize, and a list of flowers that it was supposed to smell like. A set of towels hung on the wall between the bath and the toilet, and a full length mirror stood next to the sink.
I paused upon noticing the mirror. I had been in too much of a rush to spend much time thinking about what I looked like, but the bra incident had quickly bumped it up my list of priorities. I couldn’t remember what I had looked like, and didn’t even know my name. I had been hoping that they would come back to me eventually, but at this point, would it make a difference?
Approaching the mirror, I was greeted with the unfamiliar sight of myself. I was a girl. Or maybe a short woman? Late teens? It couldn’t tell how much of it was from my height or my actual age. Did my age before this count, or was I only zero days old?
I seemed to be a bit on the short side, probably. My hair was black, came down to my shoulders, and had just enough wave to it that it couldn’t be called straight. My eyes looked slightly too large, and made my angular face look smaller than it actually was. I had to check from different angles to make sure that it wasn’t just an illusion created by a warping of the glass.
Above my eyes though, were… horns? A pair of small, gently curved horns extended upwards from each side of my forehead. They were about a finger length long, two finger widths wide at the base, and tapered off to small rounded tips at the ends. They were also the same matte black that my bones had been and smooth to the touch. They were kind of cute actually, and as far as todays surprises went, they were the first ones that I liked.
“How did I miss these,” I wondered. They were pretty obvious, now that I was aware of them, but then again, it’s not too often that people actually pay attention to their foreheads in the first place.
I wasn’t sure if having horns was common in… wherever I was, but I was sure that anyone with even half a sense for aesthetics would agree that mine were very nice.
Returning to my inspection, the next thing I noticed was my ears. They weren’t particularly long, but they still had a slight point to the tips that gave me a distinctively elfin appearance. Although I was fairly sure I had never heard of an elf with horns before. So what was I?
“I’m sure I had been human before," I thought, “but I’m obviously not human now.”
I wasn’t an elf or a human for sure. The horns made me think “demon,” but I didn’t feel particularly evil.
“A succubus maybe? No. Even that crazy witch wouldn’t be that crazy.”
I had already seen my feet, but double checked them just to make sure that they weren’t hooves. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t come to any real conclusion as to what I was. I felt like I should have known, but nothing I could think of seemed to fit.
“Maybe that notebook from the first room will have some answers.”
I glanced towards the door, but whether I was too stubborn or was genuinely content to put it off for later, I stayed at the mirror and continued to look at myself.
I was definitely short. Again it was something I was only aware of now that I thought about it, but my point of view was a lot lower that I felt it should have been. I was thin too. Too thin probably. I was little more than skin and bones, but that could be fixed with a few proper meals. I was reminded of the fact that I hadn’t eaten since I woke up. Again I was tempted to leave, but my stubbornness kept me in place. I had come for a bath, and a bath I would have. At least one thing that day would go as I decided.
In contrast to my dark hair and eyes, my skin was white as porcelain. Usually when skin is described like that, people simply mean that it’s pale and doesn’t have any freckles or moles. Mine however, was a complete and unchanging pale white. Even the parts of me that should have had some difference in shading, like my palms, were the same pale color as everything else. As far as I could see, only my lips and nipples had any natural color to them. Compared to the horns, this was actually a little unsettling. If I had clothes on nobody would notice, but naked in the mirror, I was starting to look a little less cute, and a little more creepy.
I would like to say that I wasn’t nervous about looking at the rest of me, but I was. It was a big mirror, and I could see my entire body in it, but I was doing my best to only focus at one part at a time. I had gone through most of the day thinking of myself as female, and I clearly was, but the knowledge that I had once been a man was in direct conflict with the feeling of weight on my chest, and the lack of feeling between my legs. It was my own body now, and I shouldn’t have felt guilty just for looking at it, but I did. I didn’t know why I should. I had been aware of my different parts and lack thereof for the better part of the day and had hardly thought about them once.
Mustering my determination I stared directly at my chest.
“Yah, those are tits.”
I had breasts. Rather nice ones actually. Perhaps they were on the small size, but they had a nice shape that more than met my standards. After staring at them head on, the calamity that was my mammaries didn’t seem like such a big deal.
“I wonder how they’ll look once I’m not a walking stick figure?”
Searching below the waist proved to be equally un-life changing. I had a vagina. I had the opposite of a penis, and I wasn’t stricken with insatiable lust at the sight of my own body. I still had to figure out how the damn thing worked of course, but I was far from feeling horny at the moment, and that could wait for another day.
Giving my body a rating of “Two thumbs up if you can get some meat on your bones,” I lay down in the tub, turned on the hot water, and took a much needed and highly relaxing bath. An hour later when the water had cooled down, I drained the water and took another one. Because I could. My problems could wait.
* * * * *
I didn’t get out of the bath until I was so wrinkled and pruney that it felt like my skin was constricting around me. Even though I hadn’t napped in the tub, the relaxation had definitely helped me, and I again felt like my mind was a little bit more organized than it had been before. It was strange being able to actively feel my brain working so hard, and I was curious to see how far it would go.
I still hadn’t gotten any concrete memories back, but my mind felt so much fuller and more aware. My current clarity of mind made me concious of just how linearly I had been thinking when I first woke up, but maybe that had been for the best. Tomorrow, would I look back on myself with the same idea?
By the time I returned to what I now considered to be my room, I had even remembered a trick for getting a bra on. Put it on backwards, and do up the clasps. Then turn it around and put on the shoulder straps.
My thoughts were a flurry, and getting dressed did little to distract me from wondering just how the witch had known what size clothes to get for me. The underwear was a bit conservative, and I would hesitate to call them panties. The bra was a bit thick, in my opinion, but seemed to do its job well enough. It was a bit loose though, and I tried not to think that I had been expected to grow into it. The dresses I liked. They were simple and plain, and a dark blue that reminded me of denim, though they were much lighter weight and had a nice airy feel to them.
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At this point, I could see the sun beginning to set through the window and, having taken care of my other bodily functions while still in the bathroom, decided that it was time to have something to eat. Walking down the stairs, I wondered if I was a good cook. I hoped I was.
As predicted, the stairs leading from the kitchen went down to a cellar. As I should have predicted, it was generally lacking in supply. There was food, but not much of it. The witch definitely hadn’t planned on us staying here for long, and she had packed accordingly. My options for dinner were limited to a pair of plucked chickens from an icebox, a small pile of potatoes and a dozen or so eggs. There was also a bowl of apples, a wheel of cheese, a couple loaves of bread and a few other minor ingredients, but nothing that indicated I’d be able to feed myself for long.
It was more than enough food for a few days, a little over a week maybe, but it meant that my time here was limited. I knew that I’d have to locate a city or town eventually, but this made it a matter of sooner, rather than later. I highly doubted that anyone would be coming along to check on me and, like it or not, I’d have to start providing for myself.
After gathering up some of what was available, I went back upstairs and began my first attempt at cooking. My only difficulty was getting the stove to work. It was more of a hot plate than a proper stove, and seemed to work more from buttons rather than the dials and knobs I had expected.
I found some butter on the counter and some herbs in a cupboard, and the rest was fairly easy. Chicken and potatoes go well with almost anything, and the bread and cheese go well with each other. I would have made tea, but in my search for cups I also found an only slightly dusty bottle of unopened wine that the witch seemed to have forgotten about. I started on that before the food was even done. After everything that had happened today, I felt like I deserved it. A crazy witch she may have been, but she had good taste in wine.
The meal itself didn’t turn out as well as I had hoped, but it was better than I expected.
“At least I’m not one of those people who think they’re great chefs while serving food that makes poison seem edible.”
People wouldn’t be lining up for my cooking, but I probably wouldn’t get any complaints. At least with a bit of practice.
It wasn’t a fancy meal by any means. The chicken was a little dry, and the potatoes were a more than a little burned, but it was filling, and enough butter can fix anything. The wine also helped. The half bottle of wine I drank probably helped more than the butter, actually.
When evening came I left the dishes where they were and went back up to my room with a full belly and a tipsy head. The day had started badly, and it hadn’t ended much better, but it hadn’t ended up worse.
It took a while before I was finally able to fall asleep for the night. My mind was using the period of inactivity to raise questions that I still wasn’t able to answer. I doubted that I’d be able to answer them tomorrow either, but when I closed my eyes, I was confident that I’d manage.
Everything had happened so fast. This wasn’t something you could adjust to in a single day. But after a week? Or a Month? How long would it be before I would have a day that I could say was normal?
* * * * *
The second day started much as the first had, with a sudden bout of panic as I woke up in a strange bed and a room I didn’t recognize. Remembering yesterday’s events didn’t help much, and I spent a good deal of time hiding under the covers before my need to use the toilet overpowered my desire to deny the reality around me.
After getting dressed, I went downstairs, took care of my bathroom needs, and made myself a breakfast of fried eggs and toast. This turned out much better than dinner the night before had, and pleased my success, I decided to go outside to eat and enjoy the morning sun. Apparently I had slept quite a bit the night before though, and by the time I made it out the door, the sun was well above the horizon.
Sitting on the steps of the small porch, I got my first good look at the building. It was painted white with grey trim, but looked more than a little flaked and chipped in most places. I was surprised to see that the weird not-house section merged perfectly with the normal-house section. Aside from the dome of the observatory and general lack of windows on that side, it didn’t look that odd.
The garden itself seemed to stretch around the inner circumference of the yard and was even more unkempt than my initial glance had indicated. Row after row of weedy planting space met row after row of uncut grass. Even the path from the front porch to the trees was overgrown and hardly visible.
The forest surrounding the yard was just as misty as it had been the day before, and didn’t seem to care that the sun was high in the sky. It, more than anything, gave the place a stereotypical “creepy witch’s house” vibe, and from time to time I even thought I saw shapes moving around, just beyond my sight. Knowing that a witch used the place, and that it was only an illusion was probably the only reason I was able to enjoy my breakfast peacefully.
I took a bite of my eggs and wondered why the witch had come all the way out here to make me. Even if I wasn’t far from a town, I couldn’t be very close to one either. The storeroom had looked like a few things had been moved around, but other than that I couldn’t think of anything that made this place worthwhile. Aside from being vaguely spooky, it wasn’t even remotely noteworthy. The witch obviously hadn’t been here in a long time, so why did she come back just to make me?
“I wish I had a computer or even just a phone with internet, but I doubt there’s any wiki that would cover even a bit of this crap.”
I set down my plate and walked around the house, scrutinizing it closely. When I made it back to the front porch, I again left my plate where it was and ran inside. Something I had missed yesterday was now so blatant in hindsight that I wanted to hit myself. No. I hadn’t missed it. There was just so much going on that I didn’t have time to think about it.
Where are the power outlets? Why wasn’t there a water heater in the basement? She’s old, so I can kinda understand not having a TV but…”
The house’s level of strangeness, which I had nonchalantly overlooked before, couldn’t be ignored any longer. The things that were as I expected and the things that weren’t, now stood out in blinding contrast to each other. The lights, the stove, the ice box, the entire damn room I woke up in, and probably even the bathtub... and me. They were all magic. Magic exists and I hadn’t even given it a second thought.
“I died. Magic is real. Languages that I’ve never seen before… and a witch of all things.”
I checked the back collar of my dress and, finding no tag to indicate its size, added that to the list of oddities.
“This definitely isn’t… Wherever I was when I was alive.”
This was definitely a different world, but would knowing that I was in my old world actually help? Did it really matter which world I was in? Both were equally unknown to me, and I was lost either way.
Even more than yesterday I felt like things were coming back to me. Television and computers. Movies and video games. Books and the internet. I could remember places I had been, and some things I had done, but nothing personal. There were no names attached to any of it. Aside from the fact that I had been male, I still couldn’t remember the first thing about who I had been?
“Did death take the me out of me?”
A name. I needed a name. I needed a new name. As much as I wanted to remember my old name, it wasn’t mine any more. Even if it was a gender neutral one, I could tell that it wouldn’t sound right. Whoever I was had died. He lived with that name, and he died with that name, but now I was alive, and I needed a name for me.
At some point I had lain down on the sofa. That was probably for the best, because I wouldn’t have been able to remain standing at that point anyway.
How does someone go about naming themselves? Names are important. They’re a symbol of who we are. What do I name myself if I don’t know who I am? I don’t even know what I am.
Putting some strength into my legs, I headed towards the bathroom, and sat down in front of the mirror. Looking back at me through slightly too big eyes were horns, pointy ears, wavy black hair, and a thin body in a blue dress. Somewhere under that dress was an entirely superfluous belly button.
Monsters and creatures from fantasy and sci-fi jumped through my imagination, but still none of them fit what I was looking at or how I felt.
Names both masculine and feminine and everything in between followed after, but I rejected them just as quickly.
“What would you have named me,” I asked my reflection, but received no answer. His life was over, and mine was beginning. I was no longer him, but he was still part of me, and I didn’t want to forget that. Not really.
I stared at my reflection for another few minutes, and a finally the stream of conciousness gave me something I liked. Something that I thought we both would have liked. In my reflection, I could see myself fingering the blue material of my dress. It wasn’t exactly the same as the word I had in mind, but it was close.
“I will be Indigo,” I told the me in the mirror, and the me that I used to be.
“I am Indigo,” I said again, and felt the word roll off my tongue.
“I am Indigo, and I am me. You are dead, and I am alive… but thank you for what you have given me.”
I stood, dusted off the back of my dress, and without looking back at the mirror, strode to the door.
It was time to read that crazy witch’s notebook.