[Thin Ice V2] Chapter 2
Of course, it was not a dream. That would have been too easy.
Cale looked around the room from where he sat on the bed. Crosslegged, his finger tapped on his knee in time with the rapid beating of his heart. It was now evening and lit candles cast soft shadows throughout the room. The fireplace in the corner was lit up, burning with flames that cast both light and eerie shadows to the surrounding area.
He needed to pee.
Slowly pushing himself off the bed, Cale stumbled slightly when his feet his the floor, still not used to the height-difference. He cautiously made his way to the door on his tiptoes and twisted the lock—vaguely, he wondered who had a key to be able to light all those candles, but didn't think more on it presently. He had other, more pressing, concerns.
A few candles sitting snuggly on the walls lit up the dark hallway, and Cale resolutely ignored the unsettling feeling they gave him. Apparently, the people who lived here didn't use electricity.
He closed the door to the bedroom as he left and started to walk down the narrow hallway. The sound of his footsteps echoed oddly in the silence, the night laying heavily in the air. The candlelight flickered as he walked passed them, the shadows shifting restlessly on the floor.
The first door he tried was locked, the brass handle rattling uselessly in the door. So was the second and the third. The fourth was another bedroom, though a smaller one with a very Spartan decorating. It appeared unused. The fifth finally led to a bathroom that he could use. A small candle stood already lit on the sink and he carefully used it to light the others in the room so that he would see what he was doing.
Once he was finished with his business at the toilet, he turned back to the sink to wash his hands. To his gratefulness there was running water, if cold.
The gleaming brass faucet let out a flood of water when he turned the round handle. Cale shoved his hands under the rushing water and scrubbed mercilessly, watching with heavy-lidded eyes as his hands slowly reddened from the force and heat. He poked and prodded the pale skin, the feeling just the same as always.
But when he looked up at the mirror he’d studiously avoided, his suspicions were confirmed.
That was not his face.
Cale was a brown-eyed twenty-year-old with brown hair and freckles. His skin was darker, more olive-colored. He knew every flaw on his skin, every slightly too large freckle, every old scar he’d ever collected—like the scars he still had from the first time he’d shaved without supervision.
That was not the face looking back at him.
This face was fair-skinned with no visible blemishes, a pair of large almond-shaped grey eyes sitting above a thinner nose; long hair trapped in a braid with a color he couldn't quite make out in the weak light, though it was unmistakably paler than his own. The nose was delicate and straight, a pair of full lips with a proper cubits bow on the upper one beneath it. The entire image gave off a decidedly more androgynous impression than he was used to as the face, even in the pale light, would be described as pretty rather than handsome.
Even plastic surgery couldn't do that in just three months. And there was no way he would ever have agreed with it.
Something was seriously wrong.
For a long, silent moment, he simply stared at the unfamiliar face in the mirror. He started heaving, his breaths shuddering as they forced their way out through pale lips. His fingers clenched down on the sink’s edges so harshly he caught a quick glimpse of the whitened fingertips. Leaning closer to the mirror, he watched—horrified—as the mirror’s image followed his every move.
(What the actual hell was going on here? How the hell had he ended up in what was most likely someone else's body?! Things like that didn't happen! It belonged in books and mangas and movies, not... not in real life! What the hell was he supposed to do in a situation like this?!
Scream and cry for help? They'd think he was insane!)
Cale's hands (they weren't his hands) clenched tighter on the sink until his knuckles were white from the strain. He bent slowly forward above it, resting his head on the mirror and staring wide-eyed at the brass faucet. He desperately sucked in a scream, holding his breath until his chest hurt. His lips trembled as he bit down on them to keep from letting out noise.
Cale’s body—it was _not his body—_trembled as his eyes shut tightly. He bit down harder on his bottom lip as he hunched in on himself as much as possible, pulling his shoulders up and curling further over the sink, like he could hide from this. His bare toes dug into the floor beneath them, his knees locking tightly.
(He wanted to scream, shout, hit something, yell his anger to the heavens. But… there was no way he could actually do that. What would happen, if he was discovered?)
He inhaled sharply as his heartbeat finally began to slow down, the shuddering receding to a much more manageable level. He pressed his head harshly against the cold mirror, his eyelids fluttering, trying to force his thoughts into the much less panic-y directions they needed to go. One by one, his fingers released the sink and he spread them out, pulling them up to his chest and clenching them on the sleeping-gown’s fabric.
His breaths slowed as he inhaled one deep breath after another. He needed to compartmentalize. This was too much; he couldn’t do this all at once, couldn’t think when there was a constant scream at the back of his throat. He had to narrow it down to one problem at a time.
Figure out where he was; how he got here; whose body he was in; how to keep anyone else from finding out. Doubtlessly, the best case scenario was that he'd be locked up if it came out that he was essentially possessing this body. Or locked away in a mental asylum, for that matter. Maybe exorcisms were a thing here; in which case, he couldn’t imagine how horrific they might be.
He shuddered violently.
Blowing out the extra candles he'd lit, Cale carefully opened the bathroom door, before closing it softly behind himself. He began to make his way back to the room he’d woken up in, shivering as he stepped. He glanced every which way as he walked, dragging his feet and trying to spot anything suspicious. But he didn’t even know what he was looking for.
Hearing footsteps nearing, he stopped walking and spun around on his heel. He bit down on the sharp inhale he’d dragged in, keeping the air locked in his chest longer than was optimal. From the darkness at the other end of the hallway came a figure into view. The held a light in front of them and as they came closer, Cale breathed out and his shoulders sagged down.
The maid's eyes grew wide with surprise when she noticed him. She quickly schooled her features back into one of servitude though, and said, ”Young Master, you’re up. Is your headache better now?"
Cale was still too stunned by his newest revelation to speak, the words catching in his throat and making him scowl, so he only nodded in response. The maid didn't seem to take that badly because she looked him over, frowning slightly, and continued with, "Would you like your dinner now? You've missed it, but we set some aside if you're hungry."
"Ah... yes. Thank you. In my room, please,” Cale muttered quietly to the maid, unable to look at her face as he tried to hide his trembling. Keeping his hands behind his back, he locked his fingers tightly together and squeezed harshly.
"Of course, Young Master. I am glad you're feeling better now." The maid bowed to him and walked around him, presumably heading to the kitchen.
Cale stared silently as she went around the corner before he pressed his hands over his face and forced his shaky legs to continue back to what he assumed was his room. His shoulders shook slightly as he stepped through the door and softly closed it after him. Then he dropped to his knees and leaned forward, resting his head on the floor.
Rattling breaths shook his frame as he forcefully dragged them in on a count of ten. He clenched his eyes tightly shut and curled into a ball as small he could. Biting down the scream that itched through his throat, he swallowed heavily and simply waited. In his head, the lyrics to an old song he liked played on repeat.
The room was as he left it when he finally lifted his face up. Lit candles were placed along the walls, the fireplace in the corner sparking from the flames. Warmth permeated the air and though it was summer he supposed it must be very late at night indeed, if it was so cold that the floor was freezing anyway.
He pushed himself up on shaking arms and started to pace throughout the room while he waited for the maid to return. He worried his bottom lip, tasting vague hints of blood on it, and trailed his fingers over the books’ spines. The symbols on the spines weren’t anything he recognized, the golden letters just as faded as the worn-out leather.
He grabbed one from the shelf and held the leather-bound book in his hands, turning it over and weighing it with a thoughtful frown. It was relatively thick, the pages thicker than he was used to and sitting unevenly agains the spine.
Opening the book, he glanced between the yellow, scratchy pages and the unfamiliar half-faded letters in black ink.
There was no dizziness, no strange feeling coursing through his bones. His eyes simply skipped over the letters and he read them in normal English. There were no dancing letters, no haziness; his brain seemed to just bypass the unfamiliar language altogether.
It was a singularly strand feeling.
Knocks on the door dragged him out of his stupor. He twitched and blinked quietly to himself, recalling that he'd automatically locked it when he entered earlier. Gently, he placed the book down on the imposing desk next to a lit candle, his hands lingering slightly too long on its cover, before he ambled over to the door and unlocked it. The same maid as earlier stood on the other side and she was once again carrying a tray of food; with what this time looked like rice and something else that he couldn’t quite make out in the weak light.
Hopefully, it tasted as good as it smelled.
"Thank you," Cale weakly said after a minute’s staring.
She smiled at him and glanced at his room over his shoulder as she passed the tray to him. When she saw the open book on the desk, an exasperated look crossed her face. "Are you reading again? You know you are not supposed to read late at night with candles, it isn't good for your eyes. You are going to need glasses one of these days if you keep this up."
Cale stared at her, startled that she would go on like it was some big burden with a glint of mirth in her dark eyes. And it unfortunately reminded him of the fact that he did need glasses, but hadn't since he'd woken up here. Licking his lips, he made a vague attempt at holding a conversation, ”Ah, I suppose you're right. The book is just very... fascinating. I couldn't put it down."
"I understand, Young Master, but you know that Madam is very worried about your health,” the maid stated, her voice strong. Not at all as subservient as the maids he’d seen in the historical dramas he’d watched with his mother.
He nodded. She didn’t stay much longer, simply said, ”I’ll be back in a bit to collect the dishes,” and he smiled politely (the motion feeling like painting a crack on his face) at her before he closed at the door after she’d left. Turning around, he leaned his back against it with the tray still in his hands. The tray shook in time with his shivers, the goosebumps on his arms visible even in the weak light. He forced in a shuddering breath, his chest heaving with the motion.
(When she said madam, did she mean this body's mother? For that matter, what did this body's mother even look like? Hell, what was the body's name? What if someone was speaking to him and he didn't realize because they were using a different name?)
Cale groaned at the many different worries threatening to drown his mind and carried the tray over to the desk, carelessly putting it down next to the still open book. Staring down at the food, his eyes glazed over as he tried to force his trembling under control. Then he flopped down on the chair, his body nearly bouncing from the momentum, listlessly picking up the fork and twirling it in his fingers.
The last meal hadn't killed him, so chances were this one wasn't going to either. Hopefully.
Probably.
But, chances were that if he 'died' he would simply wake up in his own body. And that thought gave rise to unsettling suspicions; like was the soul that belonged to this body in his own body? Were they experiencing the same terror and fear that he was? Were they going to ruin his life?
Damnit. Cale wasn't cut out for things like this.
He mechanically ate the tasteless food on the tray and drank the thankfully cold milk. To Cale it almost seemed like he was in another era, if the lack of technology was any indication, and there was no saying what the current popular dishes were. Moreover, some popular ones of the past contained things that were akin to (or straight up actually was) poison and were really not good to eat often. Or ever.
He needed information. Desperately. About everything.
And he meant absolutely everything.
Cale pushed the tray now empty of food out of the way and dragged the candle closer to the book. It was as good a place to start as any.