Bad to Worse

It was difficult for Dana to raise the gun and aim it at the face of the man she loved, but she didn’t feel like she had much choice.

“I don’t know how or why you did it,” Dana said shakily, “But you stole my husband’s body, and now you’re going to give it back. If you don’t, I swear to God that I will shoot you no matter whose face you have.”

“I would if I could, lady,” The person inside her husband’s body begged, “I can’t control this. It just happens to me; I shift from person to person. That woman’s body your husband now has, that wasn’t me. I swapped with her two months ago. It’s why I come out here to the woods -- to be alone. And, please, if you know what’s good for you, you’ll leave. Because I’ve already been her, so if I swap again, it would be with you.”

“What do you --” Dana abruptly paused before feeling a slight chill, speaking the final word of her sentence, “mean?” But that last word, it wasn’t her own voice, it was her husband’s. She had swapped, just as the person suggested might happen. She was in the body of her own husband; she no longer had the gun in her hand either. The stranger, who had first swapped with her husband and now swapped with her was the one standing there with it in her hand. The situation had gone from bad to worse.