“Perfect.” She grabbed it and started reading it. Apparently, a woman was visiting the park, trying to find potential stuff. A camera managed to catch her without her knowledge on the walk through. Then, the woman just vanished next to a hat and a syringe. “That’s… What happened to me…?” A photo was next to the text, from the camera. The woman was wearing the hat and looked awfully familiar. It looked like a familiar person. But it didn’t made sense, right? “F-Freya?” She checked the date. It was from a month ago. “No, no, no…” she said, almost like a whisper. Panic taking her, she checked the other newspapers very fast. None of the others were about the park.

Claire’s body suddenly felt a little pain everywhere. “I need to get home… I need to see Amy…” Running towards the exist, Claire was sure that the shadow lady had something to do with the situation. Going home, on a rush, after discovering that her best friend might be dead was painful. She could feel tears running down her cheeks the entire way. It just didn’t make sense; it didn’t seem fair to her. When she managed to arrive at her apartment, she busted the door open. “Amy?” Claire asked, almost aggressively. The lady had to be here; she was always there! Every day, every hour, every single minute. Why would she be gone the moment her ‘host’ needed her the most?

She began to search everywhere for her shadowy stalker. Claire could feel herself getting more and more concerned. Amy wasn’t in her bedroom, nor the living room, nowhere! Finally, Claire checked the bathroom. She looked in the mirror.

Amy was her reflection. It didn’t make sense. Claire looked at her hands, there were still normal. Not black and white, almost glitching, like Amy’s. She was still completely normal, but her reflection didn’t think the same. “What is going on…?” she said to herself, silently.

The reflected Amy was also different. Her face seemed to look more like Claire’s as well as her body shape. It was starting to be too much for Claire. “A-Amy…?” she asked the reflection. Nothing happened. A morbid thought ran over her head suddenly. It caught her off guard. “… F-Freya…?”

“Yes?” The reflection took a life on its own.

Claire unintentionally stepped back fast. “W-What’s happening?”

“I’m just doing my stuff.”

“N-No! I-I mean with me, my body, Freya!”

“My stuff.”

“Are you listening?!”

“Yes. I already answered your questions, Claire.” Amy responded.

“No, you didn’t. You didn’t… Where’s Freya…?” Anger took over Claire.

“Right there.” Amy said, without pointing anywhere.

“… Where?”

“I am Freya.”

“W-What?! N-No. That is a lie.”

“You asked me to answer your questions. I did. Honestly.” Freya said.

“… What the hell…?”

“Anything else?”

“What’s happening to me?!”

“My stuff.”

“Oh my god, STOP! And how the hell are you actually Freya, huh? How are you this… Thing?!”

“I wanted to visit you last month but got distracted by the park. I’ve explored and saw a syringe. Curious, I injected it into myself. It killed me and stuck the rest of me in my hat. You wore the hat, which made me haunt you. And, even though I like you, I want to live. Anything else?”

Claire was confused. Her friend was now confirmed dead and haunting her. She thought of one last question. With a worried face and disturbed mind, she asked: “What do you mean by ‘you want to live’?”

“I’m getting myself a body by transferring my shadow to a host. A ‘body swap’, you could say.” Freya answered.

Claire tried to make sense of everything. Different theories, horrifying or silly, flashed in her mind. Suddenly, she came up with one that stuck to her. My body is morphing to Freya and I’m becoming a shadow… She thought, horrified.

Before thinking of anything else, she saw her own body drop to the floor.

Her vision was still the same. She was still facing the mirror, but her body wasn’t. Claire looked at the body. “What the…” She then looked up. She saw herself, as she was before the whole ‘Amy’ situation, but black and white. Parts of her were glitching. Sometimes, parts of her appeared shadowy. Other times, they seemed real, no longer black and white. Claire looked at herself with terrorized, big eyes. “F-Freya?!”

Claire’s body suddenly stood up. It was like it had a life on its own. It looked at Claire. The body started to change even more. It was morphing itself, changing the face features’ placements, adjusting the size of her limbs, changing everything. Even her hair length. When the morph was done, it was no longer Claire’s body. It was Freya’s. An exact replica made with Claire’s body. “I got to admit that I feel bad for you, Claire.” The body, Freya, admitted.

“W-What?” Claire said.

Freya left the bathroom. She saw Minmin on the hallway. “That’s a cute cat you have.” She continued to the bedroom. “There it is.” Freya said to herself, staring at the hat. She approached it and picked it up. “You know, thanks for retrieving it for me. I missed it.”

“H-Huh, you’re welcome, but what’s up with me… What are you doing?”

Freya looked under the hat to see a syringe. The same syringe that was next to the same hat back at the abandoned park. “Look. You’re a nice and lovely girl. I love you; I truly do… But… I prefer my life. It matters more to me than you… I want to live, so I had to take manners. Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. Just find another host and you’ll be able to do just like me.” Freya smiled.

“Freya, what are you…” Claire stopped talking when Freya stabbed the syringe to herself. Freya inserted her own blood on it, with not much hesitation. “Freya?” Claire felt herself slowly vanishing. “F-Freya?”

“I already told you that you’ll be fine. Oh and, thanks for the body. Wouldn’t have gotten it without you.” She winked.

In a matter of seconds, Claire disappeared from the room. Freya left the bedroom and home and took a walk to the park. It felt sort of nostalgic seeing it again. She finally found the place where she first found the syringe and hat. She carefully placed the syringe and the hat where they were before. Freya smiled before going back to Claire’s – her new – apartment. She took off her clothes to find bigger ones. After doing so, she took a quick look at Claire’s laptop. The desktop background was a photo of both of them, smiling, at the beach from a summer vacation when they were fifteen years old. Freya smiled a little but then decided to change it. She looked at the ‘friend photos’ folder and searched. She found one of herself, alone, smiling again. Freya put it as the new background. Her smile was now slightly bigger.

Proud of herself, Freya closed the laptop. A phone vibrated. It was Claire’s. A message from her father, apologizing to her. The message was long but slightly heartbreaking. Freya deleted it and removed all of Claire’s contacts except her friends. Ready to continue her rebirthed life, Freya decided to rest. She finally got what she wanted, without regrets.