The Change

A piece I wrote for my degree which had to be about transformation. Very different from what I usually write so it was a challenge but I enjoyed writing it. I'm sorry if it sucks for you guys!

 I remember how peaceful it was in the beginning. There was noise and there was movement. There was a quiet stillness though. The rapid change I felt from desperation to fulfillment urged my lips to curve into a smile despite not knowing if I was feeling happiness or certainty that the time was mine. I had time. I had places, people and time.

  What I didn’t have was a plan or direction. I was in a state of mind which allowed me to be without either of them, but still, it would have felt nice to not have been so lost. And what I didn’t know was how hard it would be to find the exit from my mind.

  The tenderness of The Change was not the problem. The Change was slow and calm, it was almost relaxing. Waking up from The Change, that was the problem. It’s all sudden yet peaceful until you’re jolted into a body that isn’t your own. You can bet on your heart that time stands still for a fair few seconds and the silence you find yourself surrounded by becomes all that you feel.           Feeling the fabric of my new clothes for the first time, I became insane with confusion. I began to beg my own mind for answers until I realised what had happened.

  Once The Change has happened, you’re pretty much as free as you’ll ever be. There are no barriers of class or gender or judgement. You are you, you’re the you you’ve always wanted to be. You’re the you you’ve always wanted to be in a place you’ve always wanted to be in.

  Playing in the balance of insanity, The Change was developed for people, very much like myself, who needed that extra escape. It was developed for people who had lost the escape with alcohol, drugs or anything else you can lose yourself. I suppose the longer you take something, like a drug, the less likely you are to be able to find the line between reality and fantasy.

  The Change was created by The Putere, with the idea that the subject experiencing The Change would always have the ability to find the line, that the subject would be able to switch from one world to another. Though, if your mind wasn’t completely sound in the first place, is it an impossibility that the line between the two worlds you had would eventually become nonexistent?

  The two worlds in which I live were once exceedingly different. Different people, different places, different identities. Five years out of the way, the differences started to merge. I could have woken up and not known which world I was in, which identity I had or which set of rules I had to follow. As you could imagine, my insanity was holding me more than ever at this point.

  The first time I noticed that I no longer had the skill to find the exit of my second world, I had been next to a lake. The Change had been normal and I was feeling like I usually did once I had transformed, until I had a the feeling of a hand on my shoulder. In my second world, my own personal, private world, there was only me. But on this day, that rule didn’t apply. My worlds had started to merge.

  The Change was different from then on. It lasted longer than usual. I could feel each aspect of my world changing as I went from one to another. I could feel my face change its features, moulding new eyes and a new lips. I could feel the scene change.

  I would begin to close my eyes when it would start but halfway through, I would open them. The scenery had become blurred, as though someone had smudged the entire place. Everything was slower. I could feel myself changing, I could feel myself becoming better. I could feel everything. Every nerve in my body became more sensitive. Every touch became magnified and every breath was deeper than my last.

  Before the merging had began, the process was more relaxing. You could feel less, you become numb and at rest.

  When The Change is complete, everything comes back to real time. After sitting in what feels like slow motion however, real time doesn’t feel so real, only as though you’re on fast forward.

  The fact that my reality and fantasy had become one started off as a faint feel of panic, a feeling of uncertainty. Now, as I have become familiar with the feeling, it feels like a bigger trap than the one I was in to start with.

  I am  trapped in my own mind, with constant reminders that I have no escape. My fantasy soon became my reality as The Change took on its own life. I was able to slip into The Change at any given moment, without warning, without being provoked.

  This was not meant to happen. This was not in the blueprint when The Change was merely an incomprehensible idea. Everything between the two worlds was intended to stay separate and The Change was not intended to become its own life form.

  

  I am sat at the lake, the feeling of a hand on my shoulder becomes apparent. As though time had been set into slow motion, I turn my head to find a figure. The figure towers tall above me, as though they hold a form of dominance. I lower the light of the sun, enabling myself to see the face of the figure. The eyes are mine, though I wear them differently here. The lips are mine, though I speak differently here.

  Just as the situation I am stuck in becomes apparent in my mind, I feel myself fading into reversal. I am leaving my fantasy to return to reality without my own consent. It’s quicker this time, everything is quicker.

  It stops, everything stops. I am in my real bedroom, in very real shock. I start to scream exceptionally real screams.

Author's Note

I'd really like to know what you guys think of this one. A lot of it is kinda messy and very first draft but I'd still like to know. It would mean a lot!