“JILL.”

Jack woke up screaming and clutched his head in his hands as waves of pain shuddered across his body. His entire body felt like it had a joint migraine, washing his skin on fire and setting his nerves into overdrive. He barely registered the bed before his eyes scrunched closed because of the pain.

“What the hell was that?” He rubbed his palms against his temple and the pain died down as quickly as it had begun.

It felt as though a white-hot flash of pain had passed through his entire body, both inside and out. But soon he could move about and he lowered his palms back down. He laid back for a few calm minutes and took a deep breath. His body was feeling incredibly relaxed.

That flash of pain had filled him with more vitality than he’d had in years, and he felt as though he could jog a mile easily. He was beginning to panic that he was getting sick. But he didn’t know any sicknesses that could make him feel as though he was healthy.

'What the heck? I feel great.' Jack stretched out his arms and smiled. Then he stared at them in confusion. "Eh?"

They were tiny.

“Oh my god!” He threw the blankets off of his body and jumped off the bed. “Nurse!”

‘Wait.’ He looked around. ‘This isn’t my room.’

He wasn’t in the GodSworn complex anymore. He felt like he vaguely recognised this place, but what he saw convinced him he’d never been here before. Pillows covered the bed, more than he’d ever had before, and the walls seemed larger than his room at the complex. But more conclusively, it was pink and red everywhere.

This was a room he had never been in before.

Jack looked around the strange room and realised that everything seemed bigger than it had only a few minutes ago. The windows were huge, and the bed even more so. He looked back down at his hands and his heart sank. He quickly scanned his surroundings and spotted a mirror and made his way towards it. He suspected that something drastic had changed in his body.

He turned the mirror towards him and staring back at him was a pale-faced little boy in blue pajamas. They even had little roaring lions stitched into them. But that wasn’t the issue.

The issue was that the little boy was him.

“What is happening right now?” Jack tugged at his skin and poked his flabby cheeks.

It was easy enough to recognise the face complexion and the golden-brown hair, after all, he’d worn it all his life. But now he looked like he had when he was a child. He always remembered his adorable little chubby-cheeked phase, it wasn’t something he could forget. But that was impossible.

“Right? It’s impossible,” Jack said to no one in particular. “Oh god.”

Even his voice sounded like it had when he was a kid.

‘Maybe I’ve finally gone insane.’ Jack mused to himself as he wandered through the door.

Heaven looked a lot more pink and colourful than he'd imagined.

He came out of the room and found himself at the end of a small corridor leading to various rooms and ending at a white kitchen area. “Hello! Anybody home? Nurse?”

‘I know this place.’ Jack moved through it quickly.

Even though his legs were smaller, this was clearly a house and not a huge one at that. But as he passed by the bedroom, the laundry room and what looked like a study he was suddenly beginning to get a severe case of deja vu.

Then he froze as he exited the corridor and entered the kitchen area. It was exactly as he remembered it, with a small crooked table and lunch in the side where he’d set up his computer to play on all day. Except that now there wasn’t a computer on his table and instead there was a stack of papers.

‘My table?’

Jack swiveled around in surprise and took in his surroundings. “Hang on. This is my house!”

It wasn’t the GodSworn complex, he’d never called that place home. And it wasn’t even the unit that his parents had allowed him to move into after he graduated.

This was the house he lived in as a child.

Before he could take in the sudden revelation, a bolt of bright light shot out from the space in front of him and startled him. A small silhouette outlined within the light, but it was too bright for Jack to see what was inside.

“AHH.” A girl's voice shrieked out of the bright light as it disappeared.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

“AHH,” Jack screamed as the girl appeared in front of him.

“What-the-hell-is-going-on.” The girl was talking a mile a minute, stamping her foot into the ground and wincing as pain shot up from her toes. “Ouch-what-Jack?! OH MY GOD.”

Jack took a step back in fright as the girl saw him. With no warning she lifted her arms and jumped at him, wrapping him in a giant hug and knocking him onto the ground. Jack watched with wide eyes as the kitchen suddenly shifted and he was facing the ceiling, his head cracking loudly on the marble floor.

The girl shot up as she heard the crack and she looked down in horror. “OH god. Oh-my-god I killed my brother. ”

“Ouch…?” Jack rubbed his head where it had smacked against the ground but there wasn’t any pain. “Wait. What? Jill?”

He tried to get a grasp of what was going on.

“Holy crap you’re okay!” Jill’s expression transformed into a grin as she saw Jack looking confused but unhurt. “Sorry, I was just so excited to see you. I still don’t know how much pressure I’m using when touching things too. Having a body is so confusing. Oh man, did you hear that crack though?”

“I did.” Jack lifted his head up and was happy that his fingers couldn’t feel anything leaking out.

Then he looked down and saw that it hadn’t been his head that had broken. The impact had cracked the floor, which now looked like a spiderweb was spreading out of it. His head had completely destroyed the marble tile that it had hit.

“Huh. That’s new.”

“Wow.” Jill’s eyes were wide as she saw the cracks. “I always knew you were hard-headed but I didn’t think it was literal.” She helped him up and started bouncing around the kitchen as she explored it. “So much stuff is happening. I thought it was all over for us when that strange black stuff killed us. I thought I was in hell for a second.”

“When what killed us?” Jack looked at her in confusion.

“You know, the thing with Tink?” Jill prodded the utensils near the sink carefully as she tested that they were real, and what she could physically interact with them. “Where he was all like, ‘It’s the end of the world!’ and we just straight-up died.”

“What are you talking about?” Jack shook his head, but then the memories came rushing back into his head.

Tink, that strange darkness, and then suddenly being consumed by it as he stood helpless in his room. After that, he’d woken up in that strange bed.

Jack fell to his knees as the flood of events entered his mind. But then he felt a pair of hands holding him and he looked up to see Jill’s worried face looking down at him.

“Why are we kids?” Jack asked her.

“How the hell am I supposed to know that?” Jill let go of him and gestured at her surroundings. “I’m still getting used to being able to touch things. Actually, I don’t even know how I got here...” She looked around in surprise. “Is this our old house?”

“Yeah, it is,” Jack confirmed. “What do you mean you don’t know how you got here? Where were you before?”

“In a hospital I think. Then there was this bright flash of light and-” Jill tilted her head and looked down the corridor that was behind Jack. “-Oh my god is that your old bedroom through there?”

“A hospital? Are you okay?” Jack followed her as she ignored his concerns and rushed towards the bedroom at the far end of the house. The one he’d originally woken up in. “Jill!”

“Wow, it's a lot pinker than I remember.” Jill’s voice floated towards him as she reached the bedroom. “I didn’t know you were such a huge fan of pillows. There are tons in here. I like your style.”

“Hey, the hospital, remember?” Jack prodded her for information as she skipped through the rooms and explored every inch of them.

“Oh yeah, I remember this place.” Jill entered the study room and sniffed in disdain as dust assaulted her nose. “Something like that. I woke up in one of those sick beds. Apparently they think I collapsed, so they sent me there, but I don’t remember any of that. I think mum and dad were there too.”

“Mum and dad?” Jack almost couldn’t believe his ears.

He hadn’t seen them in years.

"Yeappp. I was mostly freaking out that I could touch stuff so I didn’t hear most of it." Jill dragged out the words as they finally looped back into the kitchen. "Then a few minutes later there was a bright light and I poofed into the kitchen."

Jack sighed. He should have been used to this behaviour after spending every waking moment of his life with Jill inside his head, but now that she was actually here in the flesh she was a big ball of energy and destruction. After being stuck in his head for so long, it was no wonder she wanted to mess with everything she could.

It was like unleashing a kid on a petting zoo.

A very hyperactive kid that wanted to squash everything as hard as she could.

“How are you here?” Jack frowned as the thought hit him. “I mean, physically. How is that possible?”

Before she could respond to him her ears perked up as she heard a scratching sound came from the door. “Hey. Do you hear that?”

“Huh?” Jack looked at the door and through the opaque glass saw a tall silhouette outside the entrance.

It was using a key to open the door.

The door finally stopped rattling and then it slowly opened, revealing a middle-aged woman with bags under her eyes. The woman took one look at the kitchen and let out a squeak of glee.

“Honey. She’s here.” The woman turned towards Jill and Jack with a huge grin plastered on her face. “Thank god you’re okay. Gerald get in here!”

The woman strode through the doorway, closely followed by a tall man in a suit, and rushed over towards Jack.

“Mum! Dad!” Jack’s eyes welled up with tears as he saw the two figures enter the house.

He hadn’t seen the two of them in years, the complex just hadn’t allowed him to visit them. But here they were.

The two of them stopped in their tracks as they heard him, and they turned to face him with confused expressions on their faces. They looked from Jack to Jill and then back to Jack and their confusion seemed to grow even more as they took in the similarities between the two. Jack couldn’t blame them, he and Jill had always shared a lot of similarities, and now that they were both children that looked like identical twins. Except that Jill had long hair and no pajamas. It was probably confusing to see that their kid had somehow multiplied into two.

"Gerald..." Jack's mother hesitated as she spotted Jack.

“Hello there, little fella.”

Jack's dad knelt down and held him in a steady gaze.

“Who are you?”