Chapter 2

Japan, 1990

Evelyn Mortimer was no longer standing in the drawing room of her home, but on a street. On one side of her was a pier, on the other side were some gray, dull-looking buildings that had an unfamiliarity to them. There was a strange machine next to her. It had two wheels like a bicycle, but it was much more bulky, with more mechanical parts, and she had never seen anything like it before. Then, she noticed something else was strange. She felt… higher off the ground than usual. She looked down, wondering if she was wearing heels, and was shocked to see that she had long legs in trousers! She never wore trousers. Except for that one time when she was small and her dad had her wear them when riding a pony so that she could straddle it more securely. And why on Earth were her legs so long?

“There you are, Keiichiro!” An unfamiliar voice broke her out of her trance. “You okay?”

There was an oddly dressed Asian man approaching her. The weirdest part was, she could’ve sworn he had spoken a foreign language, yet she understood it perfectly… except for the “Keiichiro” part. Was that someone’s name? She looked behind her, and there was no one else on the street. “Do you perhaps mean me?” Was what she asked. But her voice came out very deep and very strange. Not only that, but she asked the question in a different language than she had thought it.

The blonde Asian man chuckled. “Yes, I mean you,” he confirmed. “What’s up with you? You’ve been actin’ strange lately.” As he said this, he put an arm around her shoulder in an overly friendly fashion, making the young lady feel quite warm in the face. She noticed, as he did that, that even her shoulders and chest felt different. Her shoulders felt broader and her chest flat. And she wore a strange jacket that looked like a military uniform. She noticed this friend was wearing the same thing. It was open with a white shirt underneath that had no buttons. It looked especially strange with the young man’s orangey blonde hair. She wasn’t even aware that Asians could be blonde, but she supposed it was possible.

“Hello?” The blonde said, as he waved a hand in front of her face. “Earth to Keiichiro!”

She snapped out of it and pulled away from his arm. “Um… who are you, and why are you calling me that?”

“No way,” the man’s dark eyes opened wide. “I thought you were acting strange, but… do you have amnesia? Did you hit your head?”

She pursed her lips, wondering how to answer. Even her lips felt different somehow. Did she have amnesia? But that wouldn’t explain why this man was calling her by a different name, or why she was in such a strange costume, would it? She put her hand to her head. Her eyes opened wide and her expression became grim as she felt such a strange puff of hair on her head. The worst part wasn’t the pompadour in the front. She’s had numerous elevated hair styles. The problem was the back. Her hair was gone. Cut down to the nub against her neck. Her neck? Was it hers? She felt the back of her neck. Now, she often had hair or a dress collar covering it, but she was pretty sure it felt wider. Not even swollen. Just… thicker. As she brought her hand back to her front, she looked at it in shock. It was large and bony. Her plump little fingers were replaced with long skeletal digits. She felt faint.

“Um, may we… Continue this conversation indoors?” She offered, in that very strange voice. She looked around at the dark, desolate pier to her right and the alleys to her left that reminded her of the forbidden parts of London. “I feel quite unsafe here.”

“Well, we did just get our asses handed to us by the neighborhood gang, so I don’t blame ya,” the friend said.

Evelyn had a hard time piecing together this young man’s slang, but she asked “did we get beat up?”

“Wow, they really must’ve pummeled you good,” the boy acknowledged. “You forgot about your black eye?”

Black eye? She lifted those bizarre hands up to her face and felt a swollen left eye that made her shudder. But that wasn’t the weirdest part. She felt her other eye as well, and the shape felt completely different! Her brow protruded more, and her eyes were less deep-set. Her lids had a different shape to them as well, with less distinct creases. Her eyes felt more narrow and not as round. She moved to her nose. It was straighter and shorter and came to a little point at the end. Her lips felt, not thicker, but more rounded. Her cheeks were not their usual round selves. Her cheek bones were more noticable. Her cheeks weren’t sunken in, but they were like straight planes leading to her chin. And her jaw. She shuddered when she felt it. She had always thought herself lucky to have a softly rounded jaw. Now, the edges of her jaw, beneath her ears, were sharp, almost at a right angle. A straight line led from that to a slightly squared chin.

She didn’t understand. Even if someone beat her up, they couldn’t have literally rearranged her face to look like an entirely different person. She felt sick. Dizzy. She started losing her balance, and as she fainted, the blonde boy ran over and caught her before she hit the pavement.