*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

"Heat from fire, fire from heat. Heat from fire, fire from heat. Heat from fire, fire from heat."

The girl in the mirror repeats those six words over and over. Each word is spoken with careful deliberation, like the word of a morning prayer or mantra. Her voice is high, bright, and clear.

Exactly as she wants it.

"Heat from fire, fire from heat. Heat from-"

And then her control slips. The muscles of her throat falter and loosen. She feels the word died before they could her leave lips. And when she does force them out, they came out broken and croaky.

Mannish.

I glare at her, my jaw tightening and grinding, silently demanding an explanation for that moment of weakness, of betrayal, of insubordination!

She mirrors me, challenging me. That cheeky, bratty, little bitch.

That cute bitch.

And she is cute. Her round face—perfectly smooth from laser and chemical bombardment—straddles the line between boyish and feminine. Her black eyes, weighted down by perpetual bags that no amount of sleep seems to fix, glare at me from behind a pair of glasses so thick they may block bullets. Her crow nest-like bedhead of black hair is being combed into something presentable by her delicate hand. Her hair is a little too long for a boy, and a little too short for a girl.

She sets the comb aside and stands from her seat, taking a step back to let me admire the body she has built. She was tall and slender, with a pair of budding HRT-given breast sitting proudly on her chest, topped by two dark nubs that stand erect in the cold December air. Beneath that, her stomach is tout, with a hint of pronounced muscles.

Then she turns herself around. Her motion is slow and deliberate—practically a show. And when she looks back over her shoulder at me, her eyes are still defiant and challenging. They dare me to find any flaw in those long, toned legs that lead up to a round, shapely bubble butt.

She has worked for it. Ran and lunged and squatted and jogged, and she was rewarded with an amazing ass.

She sticks her tongue out to mock me, its bifurcated tips waving and dancing for twice the mischief. It was an expensive procedure, and it was awkward trying to explain it to the few nosy people at the office, but it was worth it.

"You are cute." I tell myself as I brush aside the few last stubborn strains of dark hair dangling over my eyes.

I can be better, certainly. Some pillowy DSLs and a pair of bolt-ons tits. Something nice and fake-looking; not too natural. Oh, and if only I could get the voice right!

But that wasn't now. Yes, I would be perfect if I were all Barbie'd up like a plastic fuckdoll, but right now I am a work in progress, and I still look good. In fact, I'd fuck me, so pretty privilege dictated I forgive myself for that little vocal slipup.

Unfortunately, there is only so much time for self-lust in our capitalistic modern hell. So, with one last longing look at the mirror, I breaks away to go through the morning routine. A handful of antiboyotics and a gulp of tea to wash them down, then I throw on the reliable boymodder camo of baggy shirt, tight jeans, and a jacket three sizes too big, before completing the ensemble with a medical mask.

And off to work I go. Another day in the office with Nightcore music blasting in my eardrums so I didn't have to hear any coworkers' opinions on anything that couldn't be said over Slack. One of the many hazards of working a sausage fest IT job, and a cross I must bear if I am to keep paying for my cute little pills and related girl-supplies.

Isn't that sad? All those poor little boys out there getting randomly force-femmed by stumbling into trans hypno porn and roaming packs of purple-haired liberal and here I am working my ass off to trans myself like a goddamn sucker.

Just one of the paradoxical tragedies of the 21st century.

Down the elevator shaft and around the corner of my building was my daily morning ride: a small freezer truck whose driver was standing with his back to its door, taking drags from his... ugh... vape.

He waves to me as I approach, and I answer with a nod and a wave in kind. Flavored nicotine addiction aside, he isn't too bad. I met him while I was scoping out the local food scene; his card declined, and I decided to be a good Samaritan. After a bit of awkwardness when he accidentally called me by the correct gender that I eventually deflected by claiming to be a K-pop fan, we hit it off afterward. It turns out he's a truck driver whose morning route passes a block away from my office building, and he's kind enough to offer me a ride every day.

Taking one last drag from his cancer pen, my bootleg chauffeur hops behind the wheel. I follow right behind.

"Hà Nội đang trở lạnh rồi nhỉ." The man comments as he steps on the gas and sets the truck in motion. I nod and grunt.

The December chill has been rolling in, yes. It's pleasant. I just don't see any point in commenting on it.

He has learned very early on that I'm not much of a conversationalist, especially in the early morning. It does not seem to dissuade him from making long-winded small talk on everything and nothing every ride as I half-heartedly grunt along while checking my phone. A morning like any other morning. I can't ask for more.

"Đấy bạn thấy không! Việt Nam mình thay vì hợp pháp hóa hôn nhân đồng tính, ta nên hộp pháp hóa hôn nhân cận huyết!"

"Uh huh. Ye...ah..."

My mindless agreement was momentarily interrupted by an out-of-place flash of red on the road at the corner of my vision.

There's a child. On the road. Chasing a ball.

Fuck I hate children.

"Bạn... Dừng bạn..."

"Mình nghiêm túc mà! Ít ra hôn nhân cận huyết còn giúp ít được cho xã hội!"

We're not slowing.

A would-be hero enters the scene then, diving for the child and pushing her back toward the pavement. They look young—a teenager, maybe. I can't catch much detail under the hoodie and tracksuit. But no kid is gonna get trucked today!

"Còn bọn đồng tính chúng chỉ làm xã hội khổ hơn thôi!"

But the hero is currently splayed out on the asphalt, and the driver next to me is off in his own world!

"Địt cặc má mày tao bảo dừng!" I screech and lunge for the wheel to wrench it from his hands. I knew nothing about how to control a car—nothing aside from the fact that it goes where the wheel turns. So I turn it as hard as I can.

The truck swerves.

No asphalt pancakes were made today.

And then comes the screeching of metal, glass, and concrete compressing, and then I'm falling-

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

-Here.

There was no transition, no lapse in consciousness.

A second ago, I was in a truck. I remember lunging for the wheel. I remember the sound, and then there was a flash. And now everything is white and powdery, and...

I got a VR headset a while back. This reminds me a bit of that—just your eyes telling you you're in one place and your brain saying you can't be there. But the seams aren't there; there is no ill-fitted gap at the corner of my eyes where reality shines through, no awkward weight on my face. It doesn't feel real, but it doesn't feel not real!

Just the most real unreality I've ever felt.

I'm... probably just passed out on the road, right? Probably in a coma or a hallucination from blood loss or something. That's... not great. I have a bunch of Jira tasks due for this Epic! My boss is going to be so disappointed in me! And I got DnD this weekend too! I've never missed a session! And mom! Oh god, what if she finds out? I don't even want to think about-

Then the cold hit. And it is a real cold. A deep cold.

It does get cold where I live, yes. But not like this. That cold is more refreshing than anything, most of the time. It's never cold enough for snow. This? This isn't that.

The cold that hit, it has tiny little icicle-fangs and knives to cut me to the bone. It coats the ground in this bed of cold teeth that scoured my flesh and skin, and I am face-down, ear-deep in it.

I bolt upward with a scream, sucking in air like a woman drowning as I do. The cold sears my nose, throat, and lungs like any flame would. But it does nothing for the stench.

There's piss and shit left to mellow, a delightful concoction any frequenter of public toilets would be intimate with. There's also the acrid, stinging smoke—the smell signature of crappy wet firewood. It reminds me of all the school-mandated "festivals" and "camps" and all the associated misery they'd always-

I'm looking at a head.

There's a decapitated head, siting on crimson snow. A woman, her face locked in deathly rictus with horror freshly preserved in wide-open eyes, and her long, dark hair drapes upon the ground like a tattered funeral shroud. Tattered, not cut, like someone or something has ripped it-

I rip my gaze away just as I feel the familiar throbbing of blood rushing to my brain, straining against my temple in the way they do whenever I see something that scares me on a level I have no words for.

I need to focus on something else. Anything else. Anything but-

It's not the only one.

There are other... not corpses. Corpse-chunks would be a more appropriate word. Shreds of limbs and torsos and viscera strewn upon red-stained snow amidst smoldering wreckages of log cabins torn asunder, like-

"Địt con Má-áááhhhh-" My favorite swear turns to a shriek as I finally really register the sounds coming from my own throat. It's different. Clearer. Like an orator's voice.

Mine is a scratchy, gravelly croak of an IT nerd. This isn't mine.

"No. Noooo… đéo… Đéo có thể…" I whisper, eyes roaming over the arms where my arms would be.

These aren't mine.

These are lean, wiry things. Strong in the same way vines and cables are. Each forearm is covered under a mat of curly hair, and underneath that, there is no surgical scar.

These weren't mine. Mine have been lasered to a state of perfect smoothness, with a pair of long scars on the left from when I broke my arm all those years ago.

Those scars have been with me for nearly a decade! How am I gonna tell my left hand from my right now!?

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This isn't happening.

This can't be happening.

My head throbs. The world spins. I heave. Nothing comes out. I heave again. Nothing physical comes out.

I see what is happening, but it can't be happening.

It just can't.

It's cold.

This is just a cold-induced hallucination. Yeah. That's a thing, right?

I push myself up on shaking, unfamiliar feet, ignoring the sensation of my foot sinking into powdered, bloodied snow where a thousand ice-needles bite into unfamiliar skin. I take one unsteady step, then another. I trip. I fall. There's something long and stiff caught on my feet, like a root.

I look down. It's not a root.

I don't care.

I need a mirror.

I need to see. I need to know this isn't happening. I need to know it's not all for nothing!

My brain throbs. I'm so slow. Everything is so slow. So clear but so so so slow! I try to go faster, but I keep tripping keep falling. There are so many of them buried beneath the snow.

I don't care.

I just need a mirror. A pond. Anything reflective. I need to see for myself. I must.

I see a glint beneath one of the burial mounds of toppled and blood-stained timber. Sunlight dancing on something reflective. I trudge for it, ignoring the child-sized red puddle of semi-frozen red goo. I don't have enough in me to care for that right now.

I see a shard of bronze in the snow. I lunge for it, gripping it like a man drowning gripping a lifeline as I bring it up and see for myself. The sharp bronze edge bites into my palm, and fresh blood flows freely, staining reflective metal.

And beneath that, I see a man.

He's quite handsome, with an angular face, a sharp chin, and a defined jawline. His thin, foxlike eyes and fuzzy shadow that comes to thin goatees give him a handsome, roguish charm.

Streams of tears are flowing freely down the side of his face.

That's not me. Mine is a round, thin, pretty face. It's smooth and soft! I worked for it! I paid for it! I am not handsome! I am cute and pretty! It is a step! It is part of the plan!

And now it's gone.

Did I steal this body? Did I devour this man's soul? Overridden and supplanted him? Why him? Why must it be him? Why couldn't it be a woman this time?

Why is it that you can pull me from death and across universes, but you can't Give. Me. The. Right. Body!?

If I drive this piece of metal into my skull now and just end this fucking mockery now, will third time be the charm?

No.

I push myself to my feet, still holding that shard in a death grip, heedless of the gashes in my hands. I want to say that at that moment, I am stricken by a burst of heroic willpower as I scream my gay wrath at the cold world and cruel gods making a comedy of me. But I was never that much of a Shounen protagonist.

I just really don't want to die.

I don't want to do this again, but I really don't want to die.

What choice do I have?

I...

...want to live.

I should probably do something about the cuts gushing blood in my hand then.

A voice calls to me in a language I do not understand, and I come crashing back in the moment. I whip around toward to sound to find a large, fur-wrapped mountain of man atop an equally massive horse, his long dark hair speckled with streaks of grey and braided beard flowing in the wind as he rides toward me.

He calls to me again, waving one paw-like hand in the air. He asks for my name in that strange language I did not understand. The words from his lips remind me of the Chinese I remember from period dramas I used to watch, but it's all off. Wrong. I remember those sounds so clearly now. These are not that.

I spin around and bolt before the rest of my brain can catch up to me. One step, two steps, three steps. I stumble forward only to catch my fall with my lacerated palms. I scramble like fucking Gollum. One pace, two pace. The cold seeps into my blood and feasts on my marrows. My arms give out.

Horse hooves fill my vision as I lay curled up in the snow. A hand grabs me, turns me over. It gently but firmly presses me down. A face like weathered stone filled my vision. Dark eyes fixed me with a fatherly gentleness.

How long have I been here?

He asks why I ran. He asks if I am okay. He asks for my name again. He asks if I know what happened. He says he is a ranger, and he can help. All in that language I do not understand

"[Do you speak English?]" My automated human interaction protocol interjects. I am met with an uncomprehending, quizzical stare.

"I don't know what you're saying..." He says again in that strange not-Chinese, confusion coloring every word. It is a speech I've never heard before in my life and have no right understanding.

But I do understand anyway. I understand every single word he's saying. I know the language as intimately as anyone would know their mother tongue.

"[I...]" I begin, then close my mouth and try again. My throat is hoarse. "[I... I don't... speak...]"

No. Again.

"I do speak..."

I guess this makes sense.

Yeah.

Things are getting blurry. Hazy. Everything is shrinking down to a point, like curtain-calling.

"I'll just... lie down."

I fall forward, my momentum caught by thick arms and warm fur.

I am tired.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Click-clack-click-clack-click-clack goes the sound of wooden wheels over paved stones.

...And hooves?

A horse neighs.

I've never really seen horses up close.

As the thought crosses my mind, I find myself slowly blinking my way back from unreality. It's not… a waking-up thing, not really. I am awake. I was just… away. Now I am coming back.

I am in a carriage of some sort, one with pre-rubber wheels bouncing its way down a pre-asphalt road with little more than a mat of fur and hide between me and the hard wood. And that pre-industrial-revolution pairing means I have accumulated a delightful vagary of bruises and sores all across my body that I am now present enough to process.

The thought of moving crosses my head, but that would involve contracting a non-zero number of muscles, so I swiftly discard it. I don't have the energy for it. I don't have the energy to do much more than blink and move my eyeballs around.

It reminds me of that time I woke up from surgery with the anesthesia still working through my system, or those really bad days. I even have a body pillow to curl up on again. It's delightfully soft, a bit furry, and has this… wonderful… musk…

Shit.

My eyes, so heavy just a second ago, suddenly shoot wide open as the world slows down and my heart pounds and-

I am still wearing clothes.

I don't feel sticky. And I'm not sore, not in that way.

I squeeze whatever I'm currently wrapped around. It gave. Not a person, more like a bundle of fur.

Okay. Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

I am awake now. Still tired, but no human could be sleepy after that delightful injection of adrenaline. It is like getting woken up by jackhammers. So, with all of my options robbed from me, I slowly, blearily, groggily pushed myself up to a seat, rubbing awareness into my eyes with one hand while the other blindly swiped around for my glasses.

Where the fuck's my glasses?

Oh.

Right.

My hand returns to my side.

Right. Okay. Breathe.

I'm on a wagon, merrily riding down a road amidst snow-topped pines. There's a pair of horses—each massive and covered in long, shaggy fur—pulling it along, but no one is at the rein.

They don't seem to care, though.

On the other side of the carriage, right behind the driver's seat, is a little mountain of fur with a human head on top. Long, dark hair with streaks of gray. I recognize him. The same man who had spoken to me in a language I didn't recognize but was also fully fluent in. The man who presumably saved me from frostbite.

He's old. And big. He's almost like the stereotypical depiction of a barbarian: big, burly, and Viking-coded, though his long hair is done up in a bun rather than braids. And the two seconds of interaction I have had with him would suggest he doesn't mean me harm. But if he does, I wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of surviving anyway.

A few moments of absolute silence pass by, then he stirs. His eyes flutter open to reveal two pieces of old, chipped flints that lock onto me.

"Oh! Hey, you." His voice has this rumbling timbre. The kind that sends little shivers up and down your back as it narrates tales of old wars and long-lost friends "You're finally awake?"

So, I am (was?) an April Fool baby.

I love saying that I was God's joke. My entire life is a huge jk. Just a little bit of good old self-deprecating humor, you know?

And here it is!

My life. My death. Sinh, lão, bệnh, tử. It was the set-up.

This is the punchline.

It starts with that big exhale through the nose, the kind you take when you scroll on a particularly funny meme, but you're so emotionally deadened that you're really only capable of expressing emotions when you're social mirroring. But then you think about it a little bit and you go, 'Wait, that was actually really funny' so you let out a little ehehehehe.

Because it is! It really is Really! Fucking! Funny!

It is, like, the best of inside jokes, delivered at the best of times. Tailored specifically to the audience.

And then you find the fact that you find it funny to be funny. And then the concerned look of the old man who saved you is also pretty fucking funny.

My entire body is shaking like a damn motor in a futile attempt to stem the tide as I start giggling away. The hot old man says something as he tentatively reaches out with one hand. I didn't hear him; I was too busy laughing.

I am still laughing.

My laughter is now the cackling and howling of a deranged monkey. My side is seizing!

That's funny too!

I collapse, wheezing and laughing. It doesn't hurt. It's too funny to hurt.

Familiar darkness is crawling in again at the edge of my vision. My lungs and throat are burning. It's too funny to stop laughing. My savior is saying something again as he grips onto me. And darkness.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*