Freeze Frame: One-Shots

The Body Swap

This is like an old ass one shot from Patreon and I posted it on discord and then sorta forgot to put it on wattpad but here we go. It's super old and sorta ass but

What if Harper and Lillian switched bodies, quirks, and dimensions? Thank you Kaitlyn for this amazing request! And who knows, maybe they aren't the only ones who swapped (;

PSA: Harper Rye is a my hero OC from my book, Mind Boggled! If you haven't read that, this won't make sense.

This is two chapters mashed into one part so it's sorta long but whatever fuck it we ball

Chapter 1:

Third person pov

Harper wakes up and immediately can't breathe.

Her heart beats too loud in her ears, a resounding echo that thuds like a drum. Her breaths, coming out harsh wheezes, are deafening. Her mind races through the silence, panic overwhelming her like a tidal wave would a small fishing boat. It crashes down over her in the most harsh and unforgiving way you could ever even begin to imagine. It's all encompassing, a natural disaster in its own right. Harper has felt fear like this very few times in her life. And only-- and she means only-- when she's been trapped in Mr. Compress' marbles.

This type of fear is stifling. It's not erratic, or out of control. It is tightly controlled in its own, poisonously composed way. This isn't too much. It's too little, and Harper feels like she's been blinded.

In Atsuhiro's quirk, there are no thoughts. Minds cannot penetrate the marbles he places people into. Harper lives her life surrounded by the sounds of others, their minds singing into hers. People are always around, always thinking. No matter where she is or what she's doing, there's always whispers. Even when she'd venture out alone into the woods, the minds of wildlife would whisper wants. A bird feeling hungry, a squirrel feeling wary, a fox trotting back to its den. Harper's life is noisy. It's never not been noisy.

Right now, though? There's nothing. Not even a murmur. Harper feels paralyzed, unable to move as her brain tries to cope. She's not in a marble, she knows. It's too warm, and there are other things she can hear around her. But not thoughts. There's no thoughts. Why are there no thoughts? Why isn't her quirk working? She can't feel it. She's always been able to feel it. It has a life of its own, and even the marbles have never been able to rip it from her. She doesn't always get along with it, but its hers and it loves her and is a part of her and it's-- it's fucking gone. It's gone!

Her head pounds from the lack of sensation. It's foreign and empty, and everything about it screams 'WRONG' in flashing, red letters. She doesn't feel like herself. Harper feels like she's choking to death, her body unresponsive to her attempts to move. It's hard to think in such silence, her thoughts so loud now that there's nothing else there. Nothing is coming in. There used to be channels-- dozens of them that opened up to the outside to let thoughts through. They're not there. She can't feel them, can't even probe around to check for certain. It's all just--gone.

"Lillian?" A voice asks softly, but it's so loud. Harper lets out a low groan, clenching her eyes shut tighter as tears well in her eyes. It hurts. It hurts, it hurts, it's too quiet. Harper can't. She can't. Where is it? Where is her quirk? Harper can't even reach out and search for thoughts anymore. Something that used to come so naturally to her, and she just... lost the ability. There is nothing there. Where has it all gone? It's painful, and Harper feels the sudden urge to bang her head against the nearest hard surface until she's out cold, just so she doesn't have to suffer the sensation any longer. "Did you have another nightmare?"

Harper gasps for air a bit belatedly, and hears a faint curse come from above her. There's shuffling, and her brain latches onto the noise as fast as it can. It takes in the ticking of a clock, the rustle of curtains by the window, footsteps on the floor, the way the boards creak, the way their clothing brushes when they move. How many people are in here? She can hear people breathing, her ears suddenly hypersensitive in the absence of everything she's always known. She feels like a fish pulled from their tank and dropped on the hot sidewalk. It's searing, the emptiness burning tightly as it scratches and claws for something it can't find.