I looked at the face of a blandly handsome, dark-haired youth before me and despaired. My feeble attempt to break “The Lands of Avaria” by applying reason, logic and common sense had instead yeeted me to this… place. I could see the generic blurry background out of the windows behind him and the textures literally cutting off to either side of the corridor.

At least in the previous one, the world was rendered convincingly enough that I had no clue I was in a cheap reel!

As I was looking around, getting my sea legs, as they say, the jock pulled my collar and rotated me to the other side of the corridor. I was momentarily afraid he was going to throw me out the window, but instead I felt the cold, hard metal of the lockers behind me once again. 

“What the hell are you doing here, Liam!”

For a second, I thought in my discombobulated state that the dude in front of me had an American accent. 

“I told you not to follow me around, you freak! I don’t care if we are on the same team, and I don’t care what my dad says…”

It appeared I was wrong. He was an Aussie.

“Our parents may be married now, but I’m never calling you my brother.”

Apparently this gentleman’s father was an army man, because switching three accents in a span of thirty seconds was a proper talent. Or a really shitty voice simulator.

Did this NPC seriously just repeat his lines word for word straight after saying them? I was too afraid to find out if that was on purpose or another glitch in the system, so I slapped his hands away and pushed him off me. I didn’t want to bear the cringe the third time around.

“Stay away from me!” came unbidden out of my mouth as my eyes glazed over. I wiped them furiously to clear my vision and belatedly realised, while passing a hallway mirror, that I was full on weeping. Huge bulbous teardrops dropped down a pretty red-haired boy’s face.

It was the first time I saw myself in another body. I knew in “The Lands of Avaria” I was an elf named Ethan (for God’s sake), but I sort of imagined I’d have my own face, only with extra elf bits.

I paused momentarily, spellbound by the uncanny valley effect of shifting pupils and odd body movements. It felt so wrong to be standing there, being forced to shed tears I didn’t want and words coming out of my mouth I didn’t mean.

I backed away in horror, a sense of nausea threatening to make me hurl on the spot. And then I saw it.

A student NPC was cheerfully talking to someone without making any sound, naturally, and began to turn to walk away.

Believe me when I tell you, I have seen some body horror in my life. In the recent decade, horror films were one of the only decent things to go to a movie theatre for, and who doesn’t love the return of ‘28 Years Later ’, knockout hits with ‘Barbarian’ and ‘Weapons’, or even the classic ‘Nosferatu’.

This. Shit. Though.

The body of the student NPC kept moving, but his head continued talking silently to his friend. Until the cursed appendage did a full 180 in a smooth, nonchalant motion and then reverted back to normal. Blink, and you’d miss it.

To this day I hoped and prayed I fucking blinked, to spare my mind from ever viewing this imagery.

Unfortunately, at this moment in time, my stepbrother from hell caught up to me, shoulders as wide as the freaking hallway and a jawline one could cut onions with. He stood there, huffing and puffing like an ox, fists clenching so hard I could hear his knuckles pop.

Dude was going to give himself an aneurysm.

I tripped, because of fucking course, and landed bodily on the floor. The jolt shook something in me, making the tears stop and that ugly, weepy expression slip off my face like a mask. I tried mouthing ‘She sells sea shells on the sea shore,’ and praise be to whatever deities gave me the power over my own damn mouth, it worked.

I was back in control.

I turned towards the hulking mammoth, now ridiculous in his proportions, staring at me with bloodshot eyes.

And they really were bloodshot. The whites and the irises were pure red. Maybe he really did get an aneurysm?

“Why do you keep running away?! Damn it!”

“‘Cause you fucking told me to, moron.” 

First thing I said in this new body. And boy, did it feel good.