St. Marian's Hospital and Center for the Elderly

[Weremouse]

Katrina Summerfield felt really, really sick.

It was understandable. She had leukemia, but she felt sicker than usual. It took time to sink in. The thoughts she had. She was once so carefree! Happy even! She wished she'd cherished every moment as if it were a golden drop of pure happiness. As if she were going to die the next day.

I'm dying. she thought. It wasn't a miserable thought. It was just a statement. After about a week of living in her new body, she was almost used to the feeling of helplessness. She wondered where the original owner of this body was.
She must be happy... Katrina thought. She escaped cancer and maybe she'll get to die a natural death...even though she was pushed, it was a good thing. She wins. I lose. The End.

The thought echoed through the empty chasm of her brain.

I lose. The End.

She'd never felt suicidal before. She had a good life. But she knew she was going to die soon. Any second, maybe. She wheeled towards a window. Staring outside. Trying to rid herself of the will to die early before she had to endure any more pain. Everywhere she looked, she could see something she could kill herself with.

Without any warning, she leaped out of her wheelchair and out the window, onto the porch.

It was a short drop, she found herself lying there, conscious. She could tell she was bleeding. She heard people running to see what had caused the crash. Nurses ran around to her, asking her questions. Katrina didn't feel like answering. She didn't feel like living and she didn't feel like having cancer. So instead of doing any of those things, she hollered.

"I WAS PUSHED!"

The nurses tried to shush her, but she kept yelling it over and over and over again.

"I WAS PUSHED I WAS PUSHED I WAS PUSHED!"

It resounded across the courtyard. The whole hospital could probably hear her. She didn't give a damn. Really.

As she slipped from consciousness, her shouting grew to saying grew to muttering. Slowly, that grew to one word she quietly repeated:

"pushed. pushed. pushed. pushed."

[juliecakess]

"Wake up, Holly. Wake up!"

A sudden wave of nausea overwhelmed Raquel Hayes, as she woke from her exhaustion. The sound of a voice was barely audible underneath the horrible dizziness she began to feel. Keeping her eyes shut tightly, she curled up into a ball, mentally willing the pain to pass. "Ugh," she groaned, involuntarily.

A rough hand touched Raquel's arm, shaking her into conciseness. Her eyes flickered open and she uncurled her body, working past the gnawing feeling in her stomach, and focused in on her surroundings. The first thing she noticed was the hairy hand that was gently rested right underneath her shoulder. This was not as alarming as it should have been. It took another glance around the room she was in to have the fear sink in. When she did not find the familiar brick walls of her apartment and her favorite embroidered hemp sheets, Raquel froze.

"What are you doing?!" inquired an angry voice. The voice did no help to Raquel's frozen state. If anything, it scared her more.

"What?" she finally choked out, hearing an unfamiliar croaky voice replace her usually smooth one. Confused as hell, Raquel had to make sure that it was indeed she who just spoken. "What is wrong with my VOICE?" she asked rhetorically, playing with the inflection in her voice. It was the same raspy sound from before. And it was painful.

By this time, the nausea had subsided, giving Raquel a bit more room to breath. She rolled over in what she assumed was a bed, and was stunned when she saw a man's face glaring back. The first instinct was to scream and run. In a split second, without another thought, Raquel used all of her energy to lunge forward, only to find that she apparently did not have enough strength to accomplish this. Her body flailed backwards, bouncing onto the strange mattress. All the while, the stranger watched with a mixture of annoyance and confusion. Raquel felt quite tired after throwing herself up, so she rolled over, and dropped to the floor beneath her.

"I don't know who you are, but-" Raquel said as bravely as she could, before the deep gasps escaped her lips. Breathing heavily, she pushed herself to her feet. The man lost all looks of confusion, leaving pure annoyance in it's wake.

"Okay, Holly. I'll just do it. Thanks for being such a freaking help." With that, the man walked out of the bedroom door.

A bewildered Raquel could do nothing but watch. What the hell? After a whole minute passed, Raquel decided that it would be wise to escape... whatever the hell it was she was in. She pushed past the door, into a living room where she saw a huge mirror hung above a leather couch. Pausing for a moment, Raquel noticed a movement in the mirror. She looked up, unsure of what to expect. What she saw in the reflection terrified her into another frozen state.

Instead of Raquel's usual round face and thick, wavy reddish hair stood a small, wrinkly woman. The woman was sickly pale, and looked so fragile that any movement she made could inevitably brake her. The bags under her eyes were so pronounced that she could detect them from across the room. The worse thing was that when Raquel moved, so did the reflection. It only took a few seconds to realize that the reflection was indeed Raquel.

Raquel went blank.

OOC: If this was wrong, or anything, please tell me. I'll be happy to fix it.

[helen]

Melissa woke up staring at her hands. She breathed a sigh of relief.

"It was all just a dream," she thought excitedly to herself.
"I'm still Melissa Dugar, I still have my blonde hair, my boyfriend, my friends, my thing body, my family, everything! I'm not some old lady! I'm in my bedroom, and my fingernails are painted red!"

She was looking at her red nails, but upon closer inspection she saw that not only was it not red nail polish that was on them, but it was blood. She shut her eyes tight, and then opened them again quickly, hoping she hadn't really seen blood on her fingers. No such luck, the blood was still there. And the fingers weren't hers, they looked as though they had been soaked in water for hours because of all the wrinkles on them.

She struggled to sit up, but she couldn't, so she just lay in the bed that wasn't hers, staring at the wall across from her. She looked around the room, she knew where she was. She was in some hospital, one that was filled with only old people. All of who seemed just as confused and scared as her. They were all dying though, she realized, being scared and confused wasn't exactly out of the ordinary.

It had been the day before when Melissa had walked outside with her boyfriend, then said she'd be all right walking home alone when he had to go. All of a sudden, she woke up in a hospital bed with nurses looming over her. She thought she'd been hit by a bus and was almost dying or something, but then she tried to sit up, and couldn't. The nurses called her "Marie," and when she tried to explain to them that she was Melissa, her voice came out sounding dry and throaty. Her throat hurt when she talked. Then, one of the nurses handed her a mirror, and she saw her new self.

She had wiry, gray hair. It looked like a wig almost it was so thin, but she found out that it actually was attached to her scalp when she tried to pull it off. Her skin was wrinkly and soft, like the skin of a fruit gone overripe. Her body was extremely short, yet plump.

"What has happened to me? My name is Melissa DuGar, I'm seventeen, this isn't me!" She had exclaimed to the nurses, but they just whispered to each other.

"Poor Marie, the illness has almost turned her mad," one nurse murmured to the other. Surprisingly, Melissa could hear them clearly. How she had such good, sharp, defined hearing was unknown to her, but it didn't make up for the fact that her eyesight was so blurry that she could barely see the nurses in front of her.

"I don't have any illness, and you must have heard me wrong. My name is not Marie, it's Melissa."

"All right, 'Melissa,'" the nurse said while giving the other nurse a wink, "Why don't you just get back to sleep while we administer your shots?"

Melissa had no choice, she was forced down, and something was shot into her arm. She'd immediately fallen asleep, telling herself that everything would be okay in the morning.

But it wasn't, and when she'd gotten up everything had been just as awful.

"Good morning Marie, it's time for your medication," a brunette nurse said, walking over pushing a cart that was loaded with needles and liquids of various sorts. Melissa could barely see any of the medications, she'd found that she couldn't see anything that was up close.

"Thank you," Melissa said, playing along. She figured that if she was going to figure this out, she might as well have them fooled that she was fooled.

All of a sudden, Melissa heard a screeching sound. She looked up and saw a thrity-something woman, slowly wheeling herself toward the window.

"Maybe she wants to get a better view of everything we're missing out on by being locked in here," Melissa thought to herself as she continued to watch her.

The woman continued to wheel herself toward the window, then suddenly, she jumped.

Melissa jolted up, only to feel pain run through her arm as the nurse missed with the needle. All of the nurses seemed to move at once, running outside to get to the woman, dying on the ground below.

"I WAS PUSHED! PUSHED PUSHED PUSHED!" Melissa heard the woman call.

"No you weren't," Melissa thought to herself, "I saw you. You jumped."

Why had the woman screamed she was "pushed" then?

[Weremouse]

((OOC: Great post - couple minor details: Katrina 'aint old. She's maybe 35 at the oldest. The reason she got stuck in this young body is because it has cancer.
Another detail that's a note to you both is that usually a pusher explains the whole pushing thing.
There are exceptions and of course, there is the post-push hangoverlike feeling, so it may take you a while to recollect.))

[helen]

OOC: Okay, sorry! I'll try to fix things up in the next post

[juliecakess]

Raquel lifted her fingers to the unfamiliar face, staring in utter disbelief, and gently pressed against the sagging cheeks. She could not shake off the perplexity that was growing with every movement. This was not her body in any way, and the last time Raquel checked time traveling was impossible - this was not she, twenty years later. She was a whole new person. Plus, the strange man had referred to her as "Holly." Raquel was desperately trying to piece together this mess, but was hopelessly helpless. Nothing would ever explain how she fell snugly asleep in her bed, and woke up a forty-year old woman.

"I must be dreaming," Raquel concluded, urging herself to believe just that. Yes, I will wake up any minute now, and laugh off this crazy dream. Gazing into the mirror, she knew that this was no nightmare. To prove that this was in fact reality, as if on cue, another round of nausea kicked in, crippling Raquel. Throwing her hands around her stomach, she fell to her knees and cried out in horror. The pain was so strong, that there was no way someone could conjure it up in a mere dream.

With the new shock of pain currently overtaking her, all thoughts of figuring out what had happened vanished. Now only one clear thought presented itself in Raquel's brain: Hospital. She needed medical attention, pronto. Crawling towards a phone resting on a side table, Raquel used all the energy she had to grab the phone. With shaking hands she pressed the three numbers she needed. It was the last thing she remembered before she blacked out.

--------------------------

"Mrs. Donaldson? Are you awake?" asked a soft voice.

"Mmm," murmured Raquel. She opened her eyes and silently took in a small hospital room. Before anything else, a clear wave of disappointment washed over her. She was hoping that the past few hours were merely a dream. At least the pain subsided.

"Your husband stopped by earlier - he seemed worried," the nurse comforted. It was obviously a lie, and they both knew it was. But whoever the man was, it wasn't her husband. Raquel just nodded silently, as the nurse began checking over her new body. Her thoughts were unstoppable, coming as quickly as they were going. If this wasn't a dream, then what the hell is going on? I changed bodies. No one would believe that. Maybe the nurse... maybe she can help me. Anyone. I have to try.

"Listen, I need your help," Raquel said in a quiet, but urgent tone.

The nurse's head perked up, and a helpful smile spread across her face. "What can I do for you, ma'am?"

"I - I'm not sure how to explain this, but... Well, have you ever had an out of body experience?"

The nurse wrinkled her brows, and stopped. Raquel had her undivided attention. "I, um, suppose?"

"I am in a similar predicament, you see. Except I am actually out of my body. This isn't me - I do not know who this body belongs to, but it is not mine. I am twenty. I go to college. I am not middle aged. And I don't have a husband," she said, the words flying out of her mouth at a mile a minute. It felt oddly relieving telling this to someone. It gave her a sense of hope that she could be helped.

The nurse's confused face transformed into that of a concerned face. "Mrs. Donaldson, I think you are very tired. Maybe you should take a nap," the nurse soothed. She watched as the nurse pull out a needle and began to prepare it.

In a panic, Raquel began to yell. "No! Don't you understand? I need HELP! " Tears began rolling down her face, as the nurse held her down. Her tangent was not quieted until the nurse left the room, and the liquid began to numb her body.

She hoped against hopes, that there was a doctor in the hospital or just anyone who could help her.

OOC: Sorry, this isn't very good, but I thought it would be wise to have my character be within the same vicinity of the other victims?

[helen]

OOC: I know this has nothing to do with it, but I love how we can edit our posts, how they show up the second we post them, and how while we're typing new posts we can see what's already been posted.

IC:That night, as Melissa fell asleep, the missing piece came back to her. While dreaming she remembered what had happened in between walking away from her boyfriend in the park and waking up in the hospital surrounded by nurses.

She had woken up on the cement of the sidewalk with her body looming over her. At first, she had thought it was a mirror, but when she'd tried to stand up, she'd found that her arms would not support her. She knew she wasn't that weak, but when she looked down at her arms, she saw that they were covered in wrinkles and blemishes. As she looked down the rest of her body, she became frightened and curious, instead of her hourglass figure she was now more pear-shaped, and wearing clothes that weren't hers.

"Hello, you seem to have fallen," Melissa heard her voice say. She looked up, and saw that it wasn't a mirror in front of her, it was her.

"Wh-wh-who, who are you?" Melissa asked in a choked whisper.

"I'm you...well, what you used to be," Melissa's body replied.

"No, I'm me, I'm Melissa..."

"Thank you, I needed to know my new name."

"Your new name?"

She cackled, she cackled a cackle that Melissa had not know her body was capable of when she had been in it. But there was the body in front of her, of what used to be her, cackling cruelly.

"I should probably explain. You see, yes, this was your body. I simply 'pushed' you out of it. Now, this body belongs to me, and that one," here the pusher smirked, "Belongs to you."

"Uh, no. How about you give me my body back?"

"Why would I want to live in a body that's terminally ill?" The pusher in Melissa's body started to walk away.

"Wait, how am I supposed to get up?"

"Don't worry, the ambulance will come to take you to the hospital Marie," she said turning back around. Then she broke off into a run. I could barely keep my neck up it hurt so much, so I just continued to lie down on the cement until I fell asleep, then re-awoke in the hospital.

Melissa woke up from her flashback dream, but it was more like a nightmare.

"That woman in the wheelchair earlier today...she said she was pushed...isn't that what the thing in my body said to me? That she had 'pushed' me out?" Mellisa's mind went off into a whirl, and she was suddenly grateful that at least she kept her smarts.

"And if that woman who was pushed was in this hospital," Melissa continued to think to herself, "Isn't there a chance that there are more people here who are living in someone else's body? Maybe one of them knows how I can get my body back!" But then Melissa's hopes fell as she realized that anyone who knew how to get their body back wouldn't be in these ones right now.

Still, it would've been nice to find people that knew what she was going through. She made a mental note to keep an eye out for people who the doctors thought were making insane claims.

[juliecakess]

As the drowsiness wore off, Raquel awoke to an empty room. This time, sadly, she knew where and who she was. Well, not exactly who she was. Rubbing her eyes, Raquel tried to shake the sleep off. Whatever the nurse gave her was damn strong. Raquel figured she must have sounded insane, in that case.

It was then the nurse entered the room, cautiously, as if not to wake a sleeping her. Raquel looked at the opening door by instinct, and then regretted so. Now the nurse would know she was awake and possibly question her. The last thing Raquel wanted was to be questioned - she had so many questions herself. How in the world she could successfully explain what was going on was a mystery. It was proven fruitless to try and tell someone to provoke help. Raquel would be thoroughly pleased to avoid the insane asylum, come to think of it. Asking for help again would probably just ruin those chances.

"Oh, Mrs. Donaldson, you're awake," the nurse cooed.

Raquel held her tongue, deciding in a split second to act like she did not remember a thing. Not her plead of help, not her outburst, nothing to do with her situation.

"How are you feeling, ma'am?"

Raquel thought for a moment, before answering. "I am fine, thank you. I must have been really tired."

"Ma'am, I think you should know what is currently happening..." the nurse looked very uncomfortable, as if she wished she was elsewhere at the moment. Raquel knew the feeling.

"What?" Raquel asked, more alert than she would have liked to let on.

"After your... story," the nurse was looking at her feet. She didn't want to bring it up either, Raquel supposed. "Well, it was learned that another woman had a similar outburst. She was telling the nurses she was someone else, after being medicated. And earlier today a lady was fell out of a window."

The last part was lost on Raquel. Only one thing was on her mind, and it was urgent. She did not know what it meant, but deep down she knew it was important. Another woman had a similar outburst... she told the nurses she was someone else, too. That was no coincidence - there was no way. This was to eerie for Raquel, as her thoughts began to race.

"I am so sorry! I did not mean to upset you!" the nurse said, watching Raquel take in the information. Raquel must have been a sight to see then, but who could blame her?

Quickly, Raquel composed herself. If she was going to convince this lady that she was unaware of her claiming to be someone else, then she better pick herself back up. "I - I have no idea what you are talking about -" the nurse cut her off.

"Well, the doctors are checking the medication now. They think that maybe some chemical is reacting with patient's blood and leading them to behave in strange ways. Do not worry, though. Everything will be fine. I will be back soon, ma'am." And with that, the nurse left Raquel alone again.

Being alone was fine by Raquel, though. It gave her time to consider what the nurse implied. Someone, right here in the hospital, had a different body and life too. Someone that maybe knew what was going on. Someone who Raquel needed to find, right away...