Inversion [Camp NaNoWriMo July 2021]

day 1

d a y   1

I wake up slowly, painfully, feeling as if I've been struck by lightning—which may not be that far off. My head is pounding, my eyes burn, and I'm sore all over.

Not a pleasant way to begin the day.

When my eyes finally open and adjust to the dim light, I realize that I'm in Cian's guest bedroom. The clock on the bedside table reads six-thirty. And then I notice Cian sitting in a chair next to the bed, fast asleep. His head is tilted to a side at an angle that looks decidedly uncomfortable. I want to wake him up, tell him to go to bed, that I'm fine, but his expression makes me pause.

I didn't realize it until now, but there's something ... guarded about Cian. As if he doesn't trust anyone or anything. As if he's scared of the entire world.

But now, sleeping, Cian looks relaxed and peaceful. And it's such a drastic change from how he looks when he's awake that I can't help but wonder about him. I remember what he said yesterday, how most Death deities are runaways or orphans. I know what he meant. People who won't be missed. Alone, lost, unloved. What had he been through, to walk through life with that caution shielding him with every step?

It must be a lonesome life, keeping so many secrets, haunted by the ghosts of their past, helping strangers when they likely weren't receiving the same help.

Slowly, painfully, I sit up in the bed, my body aching with every movement. As I push myself up, I can't help but let out a quiet groan. The sound causes Cian to stir, his expression contorting into an unconscious frown before he wakes up.

When he catches sight of me, Cian immediately gets up from the chair. "Are you okay?" he asks, hovering over me uncertainly. There's a look in his eyes—it reminds me of yesterday—but it disappears quickly, and then he's reaching out, sliding an arm around my back to ease me against the pillows. "How do you feel?"

"Like I was struck by lightning." I try to make my tone as light as possible, but my voice is scratchy, and my throat feels like sandpaper. Cian leaves the room and quickly returns with a glass of water, which I accept gratefully and down in a single breath.

"Yeah, well, you did just die and come back to life." Cian sits back down, rolling his neck. He looks exhausted. "You should get some rest. It'll take you a couple of hours to recover."

"You should sleep too," I say, still scanning his face, wondering about his story and knowing that it's none of my business. "No offense, but you look like shit."

Cian cracks a smile at that. "I could say the same for you," he replies, shifting in the chair. "I have to get ready for work soon, so I'll just stay here to make sure you're fine."

I return his smile and am just about to lay back down when my eyes latch onto the mirrored closet doors across the room. My smile fades as I stare at my reflection.

I'm not ... me anymore. It's as if someone took a picture of me and changed the palette so that all the colors are wrong. My blonde hair is now a black so deep that it shines blue under the light filtering in through the curtains. My skin, once a healthy golden tone from hours at the beach, is alabaster white, like porcelain, pale as the girl who's seen the metaphorical ghost. And my eyes. Once a light blue-gray, the same shade as Jeremy's, they're now electric blue, an unnatural shade that's brilliant enough to seem to glow in the darkness. Everything about me, all the sun-kissed golds and browns, is gone. And in its place is just cold white, black, and blue.

"Ally?" Cian's voice drags me from my staring contest with the stranger in the mirror, and I shift my horrified gaze from my own face to his.

"What's happened to me?" I whisper, reaching up and grabbing a handful of my hair. It looks even worse in real life, the pitch black of my hair against the white of my hand. I feel like throwing up, but I force the nausea down, taking deep gasping breaths.