“You’re in deep shit, you know that?”

“Huh?”

I turned around and looked across the room. There she was. A woman I’d never seen before, sitting on the edge of my bed. Dressed all in black and white, staring at me through her glasses with a tired and annoyed expression.

“Seriously…” she sighed. “I come to check on you after you’ve been out for so long, and this is what you’re busy with? Drawing? I expected something a bit more fun. You disappoint me, Ash.”

Drawing? Oh, right. Now that she mentioned it, I guess I was drawing just now. What was I drawing, again?

This woman… I didn’t even hear her arrive. How did she get here? How long had she been sitting there? What business did an adult woman have in a teenager’s bedroom? I had a million questions, but I tried to keep my calm — there had to be a simple, rational explanation to this unexpected visitor.

Was she a distant relative? Or a friend of my mother’s, perhaps? No, she couldn’t have been. She clearly seemed to know me — she even called me by my name — but this was my first time ever seeing her; and I’m sure my mother would have at least introduced her to me before letting her come in here. Yet it was just us in this bedroom. This strange woman on my bed, observing with an icy stare this young child, sitting at his desk, pencil in hand, drawing unperturbed in one of his many sketchbooks.

My odd visitor got up from the bed and started walking around the room, quietly inspecting every piece of furniture, every book, every toy. She seemed to be looking for something.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got any food in this room?” she asked. “Biscuits, snacks, anything? I’m starting to be hungry.”

Food. What a strange woman. Well, she certainly wasn’t going to find any here.

“Snacks? No way! It’s almost dinner time. Mom would kill me if she saw me eating snacks before dinner!”

“Really? You don’t even have a box of cookies hidden under your bed or something? Dang, what a model child you are. Careful not to starve yourself.”

“With how good Mom’s cooking is? There’s no way I’d ever starve!”

“Right…”

Snacks were definitely a no-go in this house, and my mother was very strict about it. Although, I did occasionally buy cookies with friends on my way home from school. Maybe there were a few left in my backpack?

“A-ha!” she shouted triumphantly, taking an already opened, half-empty box of cookies out of my backpack. “I knew I could count on you, Ash. That’s not much, but that will do for now.”

She found them before I even had the chance to tell her. What amazing instincts. What a strange woman.

“Say, what are you even drawing anyway, kid?” she asked, her mouth full of cookies.

“Oh, that? She’s my newest character. She’s going to be the protagonist of my next story, my best one yet!”

“You don’t say…”

She was clearly unimpressed. Or uninterested. Or both.

“Wanna see? Her name is Athena, and—”

“No thanks. Anyway, we gotta move.”

“Move? Where?”

Before I could react, she had reached for the tiny hand that was holding a pencil just moments ago and grabbed it firmly. She pulled. The chair fell loudly on the floor. There wasn’t much this weak child’s body could do against the strength of an adult.

“Outside,” she replied coldly. “This place isn’t safe.”

“What do you mean it isn’t safe?” I yelled. “That’s my bedroom!”

“Describe it to me.”

“Huh?”

She got closer to me and leaned down. Having her this close to me made me realise how surprisingly tall she was. Her face was now so close to mine it completely obstructed my field of view.

“Describe this room to me. Don’t look around, just tell me what’s in it. It’s your room, so you should know what’s in it, right? Don’t overthink it.”

“Uh… I have… A bed, some bookshelves, a desk…"

"Anything more specific than 'my room looks like a room', maybe?"

"Well, there’s a poster on the wall…”

“What’s on the poster?”

“One Piece?” I answered without thinking.

She stepped aside. There, on the wall to my left, was indeed a One Piece poster. Like I just said. Why was she being so insistent all of a sudden?

“Interesting. Are you a fan of that show?”

“Not really, I just started watching it for the first time the other day, but —”

“And yet you already got a poster in your room. That was quick.”

Wait, she made a good point. When did I even get this poster?

“It’s funny…” she continued. “I could be wrong, mind, but I seem to remember a different poster… A 'Star Wars' one, maybe? Does that ring a bell?”

I stopped to think about it. Why did the words “Star Wars poster” sound so familiar? Wait, actually, they weren’t just familiar. They were true. I could picture it. A poster of General Grievous, my favourite villain — I had simple tastes, it's a robot, I like — that my father had bought me around the time Episode III was out in theatres. That, without a doubt, was a poster I had in my bedroom. The only one I could remember ever having on my wall, in fact.

So why was I convinced I had a poster of One Piece just now? Was it because I had just recently watched that show, it was fresh in my mind, and that was the first answer I came up with? No, that’s not it. The real mystery wasn’t why I thought I had that poster. It was why, after thinking I did, the poster suddenly turned out to be there.

I remained silent. I was too confused to give her an answer, but she was able to read it on my face.

“How sad,” she said with a smirk. “So young, and you’re already going senile. Luckily for you, I remember this kind of stuff.”

“Wait, how did you even know this? And, more importantly, where did this One Piece poster come from —”

Star Wars. The poster I was looking at just a few seconds prior had changed. It was now a Star Wars poster; my Star Wars poster, just as I had remembered it. A chill went down my spine. I turned to look at the woman, who now had a large, satisfied grin on her face.

“This…” I stuttered. “This isn’t my bedroom, is it?”

“Oh hey, you put two and two together. We're getting somewhere.”

She walked up to the poster and examined it for a moment. Then, in one fell swoop, she tore a piece of it off, crumpled it into a ball, and shoved it into her mouth.

“Hm… So this is what Star Wars tastes like,” she thought out loud while chewing the crumpled scrap, before swallowing it whole. “Kinda tastes like paper, to be honest.”

“W… What…?”

“Now, as I was saying earlier… You’re in deep shit, Ash.”