I still can't put a name on what's happening to me, but it seems I'm not in my body anymore. The first thing that hit me wasn't the pain though that came back fast enough but how wrong everything felt around me. The clean hospital smells were gone, replaced by something earthier, Wood smoke, herbs, and an old musty smell that made me think of ancient stone.
An afterlife? Is that what they decided to give me after my prayer?
What a joke. Even after my death, life is still playing tricks on me. I had prayed for more time with Katty, for a chance to make things right. Instead, I'd been dumped into this strange situation like some kind of cruel prank.
I didn't realize this right away when I woke up. But I was sitting on something. It's strange that the position I'm in wasn't my first concern when I was so confused. Looking down at my legs, I was shocked by what I saw. Both legs were wrapped in bandages, and dark stains had soaked through the rough cloth.
Blood stains. Was this person tortured?
After my death, my fate brought me to this place? I need to escape if I really am being tortured. The room around me was dimly lit, with heavy wooden furniture that seemed to belong to a different time. Stone walls, tapestries, and actual torches instead of electric lights this wasn't any afterlife I'd imagined.
I pressed my hands against the armrests of the wooden chair, trying to push myself up. My muscles fought against a weakness that felt deep in my bones. One foot in front of the other that's how people walked, right? Instead, I crashed to the floor like a broken toy.
The noise was terrible. Pottery shattered, metal clinked against stone, and utensils scattered across the ground around me. The pain that shot through my legs was worse than anything I'd felt during my cancer treatments a burning agony that ate up every thought and left me gasping.
I was wondering how I couldn't realize such pain before. Maybe I'm still not used to this body.
The loud crash echoed through what seemed to be a much larger building than I'd first thought. Heavy footsteps approached from beyond the room, getting louder until they stopped just outside the door. The sound of wood scraping against stone filled the air, followed by the appearance of a man who made my blood run cold.
He was in his forties, broad-shouldered and weathered in a way that spoke of hard work. His face was lined with wrinkles, and his hands showed the rough skin of someone who worked with tools. What struck me most was his expression or rather, the complete lack of one. His eyes swept over the mess, taking in my body on the floor and the scattered debris, without showing even a hint of surprise.
Am I really trapped here? Is this my abuser?
Every instinct I had screamed at me to run, to fight, to do something other than lie there helplessly. But my body wouldn't cooperate, leaving me as vulnerable as a baby.
I think I'm screwed. He'll realize I tried to escape.
I got ready for violence, for the kind of brutal punishment that would explain the bandages and bloodstains. Instead, the man simply knelt beside me with movements that showed he'd done this many times before. His hands, rough but surprisingly gentle, slipped under my arms and lifted me with ease that showed just how small and weak this body had become.
The wheelchair he put me in was clearly handmade, its wooden frame worn smooth by countless hands. As he pushed me from the room, I noticed more details. The hallway was long and arched, with stone walls that gleamed with moisture and age. Torches cast dancing shadows that made the whole place feel like something from a history book.
His silence was the most unsettling part. No words of comfort, no explanations, no acknowledgment of what had just happened. Just the steady rhythm of wheels on stone. When I tried to catch his eye, I found something there that might have been pity.
Could the one who put me in this situation actually pity me?
But if he was my captor, why the care? Why the gentle handling and the wheelchair instead of chains?
I say 'me' but I don't know the person who used to live in this body. They must have suffered a lot to be in such bad shape.
The thought carried guilt I hadn't expected. Whoever had originally lived in this body had gone through something terrible enough to leave them barely able to walk, wrapped in bandages, and dependent on others for basic care.
We entered what was clearly the main room of the building. It was huge, with a high ceiling supported by massive wooden beams and a fireplace large enough to cook an entire animal. The furniture was heavy and practical, and everywhere there were signs of life being lived half finished needlework, leather bound books, the lingering smell of bread and herbs.
The man finally spoke, his voice carrying authority. "Maria, get her to the bath. She fell down."
Her.
The word hit me like a physical blow, though it explained so much about the strange sensations and unfamiliar proportions I'd been experiencing. I watched as a woman turned from where she'd been tending to something near the fireplace.
She was beautiful, with red hair that caught the firelight and threw it back in shades of copper and gold. Her figure was the kind that would have made me stammer and blush in my previous life, and she appeared to be close to my age. But her expression shifted from casual interest to visible annoyance when she heard the man's request.
"Seriously?" she said, her tone carrying frustration that suggested this was a recurring problem.
What kind of situation have I put myself in?
She was a woman, I was a man or had been but he had called me 'she' and asked her to give me a bath.
Could it be I've reincarnated as a woman? On top of that, while being tortured?
The possibility sent my mind racing. I had read stories about reincarnation, about souls finding new bodies after death, but those had always been fiction. The kind of impossible thing that happened in books, not to real people with real problems and real cancer.
I know I didn't use it that much, but that doesn't mean I don't need it.
The thought was both absurd and devastating. All the insecurities and fears I'd carried about my masculinity, the things I'd never experienced with Katty all of that was apparently gone now, replaced by challenges I couldn't even begin to imagine.
I lowered my face, not wanting either of them to see my expression. The weight of this new reality was crushing, more overwhelming than any diagnosis I'd received in my previous life. At least then I had known who I was, even if I was dying.
Maria approached and peered at me with clinical interest that reminded me uncomfortably of hospital nurses.
"Are you trying to act interesting?" she asked, her tone suggesting that whatever expression I was wearing was familiar to her.
The man's voice cut through the moment with surprising sharpness.
"Just take her already. No need to be mean toward her."
"Okay, Dad," Maria replied with barely hidden disinterest, but she began pushing my wheelchair toward what I assumed was their bathing area.
If that man is her dad, am I their slave?
The thought was followed immediately by doubt. No, they wouldn't take care of me if that was the case. Slaves weren't given wheelchairs and gentle handling.
As we moved through the building, I couldn't help but notice the architecture around me. Everything seemed to belong to a much earlier era not just old, but authentically ancient. The stonework required skilled craftsmen and years of labor. The wooden beams showed marks of hand tools rather than machines.
Am I in some sort of medieval era?
The possibility should have been impossible to accept, but given everything else that had happened, it felt almost reasonable. If I could be reincarnated into a different body, why not into a different time period as well?
The bathroom confirmed my suspicions about the time period. There was no running water, no electric lights, no modern conveniences of any kind. Instead, there was a large wooden tub that had clearly been filled by hand, heated by stones that had been warmed in a fire.
Maria began undressing without ceremony, her movements casual and unselfconscious in a way that suggested this was routine. When she stood before me completely naked, I found myself caught between admiration and guilt admiration for her obvious beauty, guilt for the betrayal it represented.
This feeling helped me realize I've lost something precious. But that would be bad toward Katty... Oh, I'm dead. Why would she care now?
The internal conflict was almost worse than the physical pain. Part of me wanted to look away, to maintain some semblance of the fidelity I had promised to Katty in what I'd thought were my final moments. But another part, a part that felt fundamentally male regardless of what body I now inhabited couldn't help but appreciate the sight before me.
I was so lost in this internal struggle that I barely noticed Maria beginning to undress me until cool air hit skin that should have been familiar but felt alien.
"What are you doing?!" I managed to gasp out, the words coming out in a voice that was definitely not my own.
"Oh, you can talk," she said with a mocking tone that suggested my silence up until this point had been noteworthy.
"I'm obviously undressing you to give you a bath. Is your condition making you dumber than you already are?"
My condition?
I looked at her with obvious confusion, and she returned the expression with interest. For a moment, we simply stared at each other, two people clearly operating with different sets of information.
The awkwardness was broken when she shrugged and proceeded to lift me from the wheelchair, her movements efficient and practiced.
"Stay still, don't move," she said, but her tone had shifted from mocking to something softer, almost comforting.
I obeyed, partly because I didn't have much choice and partly because the gentleness in her voice reminded me of the nurses who had cared for me during my illness. As she lowered me into the warm water, I was struck by how small I felt, how vulnerable and dependent I had become.
Of course, the realization that I have nothing left as a man and that now I have to live like a woman made me uncomfortable.
As Maria began washing me with the kind of thorough attention usually reserved for small children, I felt every last bit of my adult dignity slipping away. This wasn't just a change of circumstance it was a complete reconstruction of identity.
But I needed to understand my position, to grasp at least the basics of whatever situation I had been thrust into. As she worked, I gathered my courage and asked.
"What am I to you?"
She stopped mid motion, her hand frozen with a cloth halfway to my shoulder. The surprise on her face was genuine, as if the question had caught her completely off-guard. When she finally answered, her voice carried a smile that I couldn't quite interpret.
"I'm your sister, of course."
The words should have been reassuring, but something about her expression the way her smile didn't quite reach her eyes, the slight pause before she spoke made me wonder what other things do I ignore?