Old Shame- Part One of a very wacky short story (Patreon)

This one's for all the anime fans, DeviantArt Kids, and struggling writers. I figured I'd release it on here in chunks to motivate me to finish it (been working on it for a while). I hope it's fun and you enjoy it. Part One!

Old Shame

Caitlin Donovan

The day I died wasn’t the worst day of my life. That was the day after.

I woke up with fuzzy memories. I’d been on the way home from my book signing, glorying in the ecstasy of finally having fans line up for me. I’d had drinks afterwards with some of the fellow authors at the event and I was honestly a bit tipsy. But can you blame me? I’d finally hit the big time after twenty years of struggling. And I was actually proud of my work for once. My book was good, and that’s why it was selling well - it stood out from the other schlock on the market. I was in a pink haze of success and alcohol, nothing else mattered.

Which was probably why I wandered into an active construction site.

When I heard the cry of, “look out!” and saw the steel girder hurtling down from the sky, my first thought was, “What kind of Looney Toons-ass death is this? It’s like something I would have written in my first—”

Then it all went white.

And now here I was. Still alive somehow.

At first, I thought this must be a hospital, but nothing hurt. I felt my chest and stomach. No holes. Maybe I’d avoided it somehow? With a groan, I sat up. As I swung my feet over the side of my bed, I noticed they looked surprisingly…dainty. I’d always had big hairy feet. I’d been deeply ashamed of them when I was younger, though as a woman in my late 30s, I’d learned to accept them. But now, I had the internet’s platonic ideal of feet, almost Barbie-like in their smoothness.

My hands were dainty too, with red, well-shaped nails on slender fingers. My skin was pale and smooth. I was wearing a flowing nightgown I’d never seen before.

Okay, no need to panic. I was a different person, but that could have any number of cool explanations. Maybe after being hit with the girder, my brain was transplanted to a weird clone body, and I was about to go on a cool sci-fi adventure. Or I’d swapped bodies with a glamorous princess just before my death. Or I was secretly an immortal shapeshifter. It could be any number of things! So why did I have a sinking feeling of dread?

The room I was in was certainly nice and fancy, not dreadful at all. It had palatial windows with lacy curtains, a sprawling canopy bed, high ceilings and gold trimmed wallpaper - but no real distinguishing features. It didn’t feel lived in. It was like a room in dollhouse. And there were no mirrors. I had no idea what my new body looked like. My shoulders felt weird, and something was bumping my back.

I stumbled up and made my way to the door. But before I could open it—

A man burst into the room, his flowing black cape whipping in the wind despite the fact we were inside.

“Why weren’t you outside in the garden as usual? I have been bereft without you, my darling!” He seized me by the shoulders and pulled me close, his husky breath on my neck.

I instinctively kneed him in the balls.

As he sank to his knees and keened, I got a better look at him. His hair was bizarre-- fluffy white with black bangs. The hairstyle was super outdated too; it looked like David Bowie’s character in Labyrinth. On top of the multi-colored hair, he also had heterochromia—one eye was blue and the other was golden. His cheeks were hollow and starved looking, but his lips were full and pink, which didn’t make sense at all. He had a barrel chest and he wore a vest that barely covered his well-toned pecs - a fashion statement that clashed with the cloak. He also had on tight leather pants like David Bowie’s. Was he cosplaying or something?

I was overcome with deep sense of shame. My cheeks heated up. I wanted to hide my face behind my hands. Was it second-hand embarrassment because of how dumb he looked?

“Who are you?” I demanded as he wheezed, backing away.

“My sweet, have you forgotten me?” His voice was silky-smooth, despite all the coughing and groans of pain. “It is I, Tarquin St. John!”

Tarquin.

Tarquin.

I screamed, vaulting over him. As I raced down the endless hall, I looked desperately for some sort of mirror. I raced by window after window, looked in identical fancy room after identical fancy room, but nothing reflected me. Finally, in one of the rooms, I found a full-length burnished gold mirror. It was sparkling strangely. Conveniently, the label “enchanted looking glass” was engraved into the mirror’s frame. I peered into the glass tentatively.

Immediately, I was assaulted with the horrible truth. My long black hair with purple streaks. My red eyes, a black heart tattooed under the left and a drop of blood tattooed under the right. My long willowy body. And the most telltale sign of all- the weightless, translucent wings coming out of my back.

My worst nightmare had come true.

I’d died and been reborn as the half-vampire, half-fairy protagonist of the novel I’d self-published in high school.