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The Pattern This story is one of six stories in the compilation, A New You by Emma Finn, a book of transformation and body swap stories available on Amazon, iBooks, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords. 1 "I didn't used to be an old lady," she said, and then the light faltered in her eyes, dimming as she focused somewhere inside her memory. "At least... I don't think I did." She went deeper into her trance and I took the chance to examine her more closely. She wasn't long for the world. Her hands were thin, the joints swollen. Her face was deeply scored with wrinkles. Inside her mouth, she had no teeth or dentures. And she quaked. Shivers of infirmity vibrated her hands; made her lips quiver. The spectacles on her nose were decades out of fashion, as was her dress. One lens was thinner, the other finger thick, distorting the eye beyond. Her eyes flicked back onto mine and I started a little, smiling to cover it. "You don't remember?" "No, I do," she replied. "I think I do. It comes and goes. Sometimes... Sometimes I dream that I am a man; young and strong. I dream I'm jogging. I think... I think I used to do that... every morning." I allowed her to continue but she didn't. "Do you think that's all it is? A dream? Nothing more?" "No," she said. "It happened. I was a man. I'm sure of it. I was a man in my forties." I almost dropped into a chuckle but I stopped myself. That would have been unforgivably rude and I shouldn't have been surprised by this. "I had a wife; and a family. I had a job. Yes. And a car." She shuddered. "A ghastly big monstrous thing." I narrowed my eyes, surprised that she should describe it that way. "Do you remember your name?" "When I was a man?" "Yes." She stared off again. "Mmmm..." After almost a full minute she gave a tiny shake to her head and chewed her gums. "You know it's completely slipped my mind." I sighed quietly to myself and set my pen down on the pad I'd brought with me for the interview. "There's no hurry. Just try and cast your mind back. Let the memories come." "I'm doing my best young man, but it isn't easy you know." "Okay. I'm sorry. I don't want you to feel under pressure." I glanced at the door. The lady who let me into the nursing home was likely to be back any minute to check in and the story I'd given her was a total lie. "You remember your life... as a woman, yes?" "Well of course I do. I'm not senile you know." "Uh..." "It hasn't been the same since Harold died. He was a good man, though a tad grumpy if he put his mind to it." "How long ago did he die?" "Well..." She stared off again. "Twenty three years ago this March 17th." "Really?" "I'll never forget the date. It was the anniversary of the day I had my appendix out when I was a little girl." "Oh." I scrutinised my notes. "I thought you said you only... became a woman six months ago?" "Eh?" She looked at me oddly, then I saw her eyes unfocus. "No... I... Yes. I was a man. I'm certain I was a man. Ben. That was it. That was my name." "Ben?" "Yes. I'm sure of it. At least I think I am." I sat back in my seat, examining her again, then I leaned forward and said, "What other details do you remember? Things I could verify. A surname? Your wife's name? Your address? What you did for a living?" "Empire," she said. "Sorry, what?" "The... The Empire building. Down by the river. That new estate that was all just marshland when I was a girl." "Meadside?" "It was there," she said. I frowned. "What was?" "That was where I worked," she said. "Hang on a minute. The Empire building? Are you sure?" "Of course I am. There's nothing wrong with my memory." "Good God," I said. "That's... The Empire building?" "Yes." "It can't just be a coincidence," I said, incredulously. "What can't? What are you talking about?" I looked back at her and grinned, marvelling as I realised it. "I think I've discovered a pattern." 2 "What do you mean, a pattern?" she asked. I ignored her for a moment, my mind sprinting from one fact to another, piecing it together. "Young man." "Huh?" "What pattern? What do you mean?" "Er... Let me just ask you a few more questions first." She looked hesitant then let her shoulders settle. "Alright. But it's going to be lunch soon and there's an awfully dishy man about your age who brings the food around. I'd hate to miss that." "Okay... Yeah. Sure." The shifts in her memories and perspective were fascinating and despite my own scepticism I was half inclined to believe this crazy tale. With this latest revelation I was half inclined to believe all of them. And that scared me not a little. I took up my notepad and pen again. She watched me placidly. "When you were a man, you worked in the Empire Building in town?" "I just said so." "Doing what?" "I..." "There's no hurry. Just give it some thought." "I was... No. I don't recall." "Do you... remember what floor you were on? I could track it back that way." "Planning." "Sorry?" "Town planning. The ground floor." I frowned. That didn't fit my theory at all. "I was... hmmm. I was a team leader. Yes. I'm sure of it." She smiled toothlessly then that faltered on her lips. "You don't seem very pleased." "Huh? Sorry. I was just... just thinking." "About what?" I considered telling her, wondering what harm it could do. I hadn't even told my editor about this story. It was too wild to give credence to, especially with this new direction I might have stumbled on; at least until I'd gathered all the stories together. "Can you keep a secret?" I asked. "Of course." "I'm not a historian. I'm a journalist. I'm researching a story for the Nockton Crier." "Hmmm. I see." "It started off as just a puff piece; nothing particularly exciting; about the local legends. Magical transformations? Going back hundreds of years? People swapping bodies? Just crap basically." "Language." "Sorry. You must have heard the stories. Somebody knows somebody who knows someone that it happened to. It's generally assumed it's just an urban legend, propagated by high school kids as the generations go on. Have you heard the stories?" "No. I don't think so." "Have you heard of something called the Golden Gloom?" "I can't say that I have." I shook my head. "It doesn't matter. Basically I started asking round. I was going to gather a few stories; take a few pictures; nothing major. It didn't occur to me that I'd actually talk to anyone who said it happened to them directly. I really thought it was just stories and nothing more." "And then you found me?" "Not first, no. I've talked to half a dozen people who claim that they used to be someone else. All sorts of people. A checkout girl in G&Ts. A pneumatic drill operator. A secretary. A businessman. A nightclub bouncer. Then you. "I really thought it was just fantasy, but I've met too many people now that verify it really happens. I've cross-checked their information; verified everything I could. This isn't just some silly puff piece anymore. We're talking about a national story. Maybe international." I grinned, imagining that. "It sounds like a lot of old hokum to me." "But... it happened to you. You used to be a man." "Pardon?" I frowned, feeling frustrated. "You used to be a man," I said. "But the change affected your mind. It makes you forget that. It tricks you into thinking you've always been Vera Dickenson; that you were never this Ben bloke working in town planning." "Well I don't know about that. That doesn't sound right. How do you know?" I shrugged. "I'm just going by what happened to the others. Generally people don't remember much, if anything. Certainly their sense of identity is totally altered. The secretary I mentioned. I only found her because she was the other half of the businessman's swap; and she had no recollection at all of whom she used to be." I looked at my notes, scrolling back several pages in the notepad. "You mentioned a pattern..." "Huh? Yeah." I went on reading. "What pattern?" I set the notepad down, considering again whether to share what I'd found. She was harmless enough and it actually helped to vocalise it. It wasn't likely she'd do any harm. She was just an old lady. "I looked for a pattern at first," I said. "After I started to think it might be real. But there wasn't one. I'd heard stories about the Golden Gloom when I was at school but none of the people I spoke to reported anything like that. Each one was totally different. Sometimes there was a device involved - like an artefact of some kind. Sometimes it just happened. Sometimes there was a body...swap. Sometimes there didn't seem to be. There wasn't any kind of... rule set that I could identify. You know what I mean?" The old lady just looked back at me. For all I knew she had entirely lost the thread of the conversation. "What made you change?" I asked. "Was there an... enchanted item; like a necklace or a ring or something?" She didn't react. She might not have even heard me. "Was it maybe a--" "Stress," she said. "Sorry, what?" "I was stressed. Too much work. People left and they weren't replaced." "When you were a man? When you were that team leader?" She gazed off wistfully and her voice became distant. "All I... could think about... was getting out of there. Of retiring. I was looking forward to that so much." She said nothing more and then a clutter of words came to my lips without me even sending them that nevertheless made some sense of it. "And your wish came true." Tears came to her eyes and started to trickle down her cheeks and her shoulders shook with silent emotion, her face crinkling into the most awful look of despair. I sat, watching her helplessly for several moments, then caring nothing for decorum or professionalism, I placed my hand on top of hers and gently squeezed. 3 I had planned to quietly leave when she started crying but as I was putting my notepad away she said something else and I found myself setting my briefcase aside. "I'm still happier now," she said. "You wouldn't have thought it. But I am." I nodded. I think I'd expected her to say that. "I have my jigsaw puzzles and the crossword. There's a dayroom here. It has a wonderful view down the valley. The nurse pushes me through there in the afternoons and I watch the trains coming and going." Her face broke into a heart breaking smile, the tears still moistening her eyes. "And my children come. They bring my grandchildren. I'm so lucky to have such a lovely family." I hesitated, deciding not to ask about her former family. She had to mean the family of the woman she'd become. She chattered on about the children; their names; their temperaments. I nodded, smiling, but my mind was onto other things; to this pattern of mine I was starting to see. She went on chattering and there was a subtle but noticeable shift in the way she was talking. It was clear to me that she'd forgotten again. She was just Vera Dickenson now, talking about her life and her fond memories. It almost seemed that this change had been a good thing for her, if it had really happened. And I'd heard and seen enough now to be pretty certain it had. It was almost funny how readily I believed this stuff now. I'd been a sceptic all my life. But then again, I think most sceptics are people who want to believe. They just need more proof. When that proof starts showing up they're liable to become true believers. I listened to Vera's tales for a while longer, deciding not to broach the subject of her former life again. It only upset her. I had enough information now to crosscheck at the planning office. She gave me a kind smile as I shook her quivering hand and said goodbye. Yes. She had a good life, of a sort. 4 I thanked the nurse and made my way out to my Vauxhall. The Willows was probably the grandest old folks' home in Nockton. It had fairly extensive, well-tended grounds right at the western edge of town. If you had to end your life in a home, this was the place to do it. I got in the car but didn't start the engine. I just sat, running it all back through my head. I wished I'd recorded the meeting now like I'd done with the others. It had just seemed a little too intrusive for the old dear though. She might not have opened up as much if I had. To think that her life had been transformed like that, as I was sure that it had. And why? Because she'd wished she was retired? Was it as simple as that? Why did it need a device of some kind sometimes and not others? It was kind of creepy: the idea that any errant thought might toss someone into another life like that. It made me question myself. Did I have any thoughts like that? Did I wish I was someone else? I guess everybody does that from time to time. I didn't remember any particular instance. I chuckled. I wouldn't say no to being the richest person in town. "You out there listening?" I murmured. "You can make me the richest person in town whenever you like." I had a good laugh, then felt a chill akin to presentiment and stopped. I actually couldn't imagine anything worse than that loss of identity. It was horrifying: the idea of becoming another person so thoroughly that I forgot who I was now. I actually gave a full body shiver. It was better to put my mind off it and I concentrated instead on the realisation I'd had whilst with Vera; that there was a pattern. I took out my voice recorder and pressed it to my lips, gathered my thoughts, then hit RECORD. "Following interview with Vera Dickenson at the Willows in Wilder's Pool. I'm finally seeing a pattern. Not sure exactly what it is yet. Vera said she used to be a man, working at the Empire Building in Meadside. That's three different people now, all connected to that building in some way. Surely that isn't a coincidence. Though the secretary and her boss were in a consulting firm. As far as I know there's no direct connection here beyond the building. Vera used to be a man named Ben who worked in town planning. I'll check that later. Whether this Ben disappeared one day or whether the... former Vera took his place..." I hit PAUSE and looked out at the great old trees. They had to have been hundreds of years old. I wondered if the Willows had been built as a home. Did it used to be a house? Did someone live here with all that space? I took it off pause. "I'm starting to wonder now if there is some kind of... intent behind all this. I mean, what is making them happen? Is there a - I don't know - conscious... being that's... causing these changes? "The idea of that is... staggering. Surely it can't be as neat as that. What would that force or whatever want? Why would it be doing it? And if there is some link between the different people who change; what is it? "The Empire building..." I drummed my hands on the steering wheel. I had a feeling that... "It might be bigger than that." I thought again for a while, almost pressed PAUSE but didn't; let the timer run on instead. "What if... What if it is just a coincidence that the secretary and manager work in the same building as this Ben character? What if that was connection enough to get me thinking, but actually it's much bigger than that? I mean, these stories go back forever. It isn't a recent thing. If there is some force that's making them happen then it can't be just one little thing. That building wasn't even there ten years ago. "I need to think about this." I started the engine. It growled like a tiger then purred quietly, full of potential. "Jesus Christ, this is huge!" I grinned, hitting STOP and dumping the recorder into the top of my briefcase. I needed to lay out all the clues I had; maybe even pin them to the wall in my study back home in Howekirk. And I had to start going back through the old stories; gather as many as I could find; start to look for parallels and direct links. I reversed out of my slot and powered down the long drive toward the road. "God damn, this is going to be incredible!" 5 I drove through the suburbs of Wilder's Pool and Redbush then got to the ring road. It occurred to me that I should pop down to the Crier offices and talk this over with my editor, but it wasn't quite time for that yet. It was all too circumstantial. I'd seen more than enough to convince me there was some overarching... conspiracy for want of a better word. I couldn't see him buying it as it stood. I was getting pretty sure myself though. I wondered about even... Yeah. I went left to take the clockwise route down toward town and got onto the Banbury Way, skimming the town centre and taking the Meadside exit. The Empire Building overlooked the river. I worked my way through to it and took a space in the car park, showing my press ID first to the attendant. This close to town parking was at a premium but he let me take one of the visitor spaces. Looking up at the building I got another little quiver of presentiment and the compulsion to get back into my car. I ignored it, quickening my pace. The first two floors were leased by the local government. County Hall in Nockton Marsh had been purpose built in the fifties but it was too small for everything. They'd had to find overflow offices about eight years ago and this was where they'd gone for. I went in and made my way to the planning office reception then flashed my ID and said, "Hi, I'm looking for Ben." The receptionist was a little guarded. "Ben Watts?" I hedged a guess. "That's him. Is he in today?" She clearly thought about confidentiality issues then I saw the mental shrug I'd grown to recognise and she picked up the phone, dialling through. "Hello Ben?" she said. "There's a reporter here to see you; from the Nockton Crier." She stopped to listen. "He didn't say." She paused again then addressed me. "May I ask what it's in connection with?" Which was a tricky question. I was half surprised there still was someone working there called Ben. There might not have been. Obviously I couldn't spill the beans to her. I decided to say, "It's on a confidential matter." She told him that and then put the phone down and asked me to wait. Ben Watts appeared several minutes later. I was still standing in reception, scan reading the covers of the magazines laid out for visitors. "Can I help you?" "Ben Watts?" "Yes." He looked slightly harried; a portly man with receding hair and wire-frame spectacles. "Do you have somewhere we can talk in private?" "What's this about?" "It's a confidential matter." He glanced round then guided me to one of several interview rooms off reception, presumably where members of the public met with planning officers to discuss cases. He didn't appear comfortable in the least and seemed about as stressed as the old lady in The Willows had described. He closed us in and we both took a seat. "How can I help you?" "Thank you for meeting me." This was the moment of truth. His reaction was going to tell me everything. "I wanted to talk to you about Vera Dickenson." There. A flicker of panic on his features - just the briefest flash that told me he knew the name - or his subconscious did at least. "Er... who?" "Vera Dickenson." I let it hang on that, gauging his response. It was impossible to be sure if it was real or feigned but he was giving off the air of ignorance. "I'm sorry, I don't know that name. Is she someone who put in a planning application here? I could look her up... though there is the matter of confidentiality." "She's a sweet old lady, living out her time in a home over in Wilder's Pool. She was married to a man named Harold." Another little flinch, but I was getting the sense that it was subconscious. Once the flinch was done, Ben relaxed back into general curiosity. In my profession it paid to be able to spot liars. I wasn't catching the usual signs here. "I'm sorry," he said. "That name doesn't mean anything to me. Vera Dickson?" "Dickenson." He shook his head and I believed him. But I was also sure that he was one of them. The brain scramble had just settled in more tightly. He had no idea he used to be someone else. That still left me without answers though, to my greater conspiracy. If I could look back over his case files... But I couldn't see that happening. Instead I gave him a smile and said, "I'm sorry to waste your time. I must have made a mistake." "Oh. Okay. Sure." We shook hands and I left. He couldn't tell me anymore but he'd confirmed what I already knew. The question was: what did it all mean? 6 Rather than going straight back to my car I wandered round to the other side of the building. There were several benches overlooking the river as it slowly curved and then curved again to go on down the river. I sat on one and went back over everything I'd learned so far. I believed now without doubt that these body exchanges and one way transformations were occurring. There was generally a mental change that went along with it, sometimes but not always causing the subject to forget who they used to be. There were various different causes of the change but surely they all had to be connected by some common root. Just because I didn't know what governed these changes, didn't mean there were no rules. With a broad enough set of examples it would surely be possible to pick out a pattern and start to deduce what was really going on. There had to be some... force causing these transformations to occur. But was it a sentient force and did it have some kind of agenda? I thought about that. The obvious answer was that it was kind of like karma... or God... punishing the wicked or rewarding the good. But that didn't seem to gel that much with the facts as I knew them. "Damn it." There were simply too many questions without answers. But on the other hand it had got my attention now. All I had to do was keep probing; ask around until I heard more of these crazy stories; look for connections; try to see some overarching pattern. It was only a matter of time before I was going to start putting it together. I stared at the gently rippling water, my mind wandering where it willed for a while. "What if..." What if Ben Watts was in a position to take a certain action? And what if this force - whatever it was - didn't want him to take that action? He worked in town planning. Maybe there was a decision he was going to make... and he didn't make it that way because he swapped lives with Vera Dickenson... and she made a different decision... "Jesus Christ!" Could that really be it? My mind crackled for half a minute. And everyone else involved in a change; directly or indirectly... Maybe they were going to do a certain thing at a certain time. "And because they changed..." ... they didn't. "Bloody hell. This is huge." I had to get more information; fast. And I needed to start keeping copious notes, starting now. I went to take out my voice recorder but it wasn't in my pocket. There were just some empty sweet wrappers and an old lottery ticket. I remembered putting it back in my briefcase now. "Damn." I dumped the rubbish in the waste bin next to the bench and hurried back toward the car. I had to investigate every link; no matter how tenuous; between the subjects of the stories I'd uncovered so far. Then I had to spread the net wider; track down more people who knew people who knew people who had changed. I had a huge grin on my face by the time I got back to my little Mini. This was going to make me, it really was. I got in and turned the key. The engine sputtered and gave up the ghost. I tried a couple more times, giving it some choke and eventually it caught. It was such a piece of crap; but there was no way I could afford better right now. I pulled out of the car park and got back on the Banbury Way. Next stop: home; to lay all this out and see if I couldn't start piecing together exactly what the pattern was. 7 I got off at the next roundabout and drove through Barton Mills, continuing to mull things over. However unbelievable it sounded, if I could gather enough evidence then I could still prove it. I imagined how well-regarded I would be if I actually managed to break this story in full. It was mind-blowing; absolutely mind-blowing. It could change the way people thought about everything. If I could prove it. "I mean, it may not be limited to Nockton and Barton. It could have substantially larger reach." What if it could reach anywhere? Affect anyone? The potential impact was staggering and I ran through all the different ways I could imagine it manifesting itself as I worked my way through the maze of narrow streets in Barton centre. People were known to get lost, the streets were so labyrinthine, but I knew the layout like the back of my hand - I'd lived there all my life. I passed the blocks of flats at the centre of Barton Green and drove on as the Green slowly became Corbridge. The houses there were old, maybe the oldest in Barton, and the lack of renewal money had allowed most of them to fall into disrepair. On every street there were half a dozen houses that were just stinking empty shells. Where we lived wasn't much better. It was draughty as hell with damp throughout and barely any heating. But it was home and it was all we could afford for now, especially with me not working. My little dream was to get on the council house list and get somewhere nice over in Sudwell or Pondgate, one of the posh areas. I pulled up outside my house in the Mini. The engine complained bitterly when I stopped it. There was a screeching noise coming from under the hood that probably meant the fan belt was going. I grabbed my handbag and did my best to climb out decorously in my heels and short skirt. It wasn't easy. I tottered up the uneven front path and climbed the steps to the left hand door. We had the upstairs flat. Some students lived downstairs - a pack of noisy kids who played the drums late into the evening. They were real bastards about it. I lifted the keys to the lock but stopped there, poised, looking at myself in the reflection: the ruffled tank top; the mini skirt; my skinny legs; the stilettos. I looked into my face; at the muddled expression looking back at me framed by the curtains of curly brown hair. I had a feeling that there was something wrong with what I was seeing but I couldn't tell what it was for the life of me. I was sure there was something I was forgetting; something important. I tried to cast my mind back over the day to work out what it was. I hadn't done much; just gone shopping for new shoes; I'd had my hair done. I'd stopped by the river for... to just chill out for a bit. There wasn't anything I could think of that I was meant to do. I shrugged and let myself in. "Kev? You in?" His gruff voice came from the top of the flight of sour-smelling stairs. "Angie? That you?" "Yeah!" I went up. The flat was squalid; a festering pit of damp and mould. Nothing was untouched by it. I passed the tiny kitchen, floor, cabinets and walls, all covered in grease. "I'm in ere," called Kevin. "Did you gerrit?" I went to the lounge doorway. Kevin was slumped on the sofa in his favourite football shirt and a pair of soiled Y-fronts. He had his usual surly expression on his face but seeing it there jarred me a little, almost as if I were seeing him for the first time, and I got that same sense of dread; as though I'd forgotten something absolutely crucial. "Hiya," I said, chucking my handbag down on a pile of dirty dishes on the floor. "You get that job at Cooper's Textiles you was goin for?" "What you talkin about you stupid slag? I don't need that no more, do I?" "Eh?" I put my hands on my hips and peered at him, wrinkling my nose. Kev looked back at me blankly, then his face shifted into suspicion and then bubbling anger. "You did get it didn't you?" "Wot?" He sprang up to his feet, towering over me. "You didn't get it? Ow stupid can you get? What do ya mean you didn't get it? Are you trying to be thick?" I winced, holding up my arm to block the blow that was likely to follow. "I'm sorry Kev. Really; I'm sorry." "All you had to do was one thing. One thing and you can't even do that! You stupid skinny little turd!" He slapped me hard. "I'm sorry Kev! I'm sorry!" "I'll give you sorry you ugly tart!" He hit me again and again, driving me back until I was against the wall. "Now give me the fucking thing. I'll haveta go and do it meself! Where is it?" I looked at him blankly. "Where is it? SPEAK!" "I'm sorry Kev! I'm sorry I forgot!" He grabbed me by the shoulders, wrenching me off my feet then threw me down so that I struck the sofa and then the floor. I lay there sobbing while he snatched up my handbag and started riffling through. This all felt wrong, like it shouldn't be happening, but I knew I shouldn't have been surprised. Kev slapped me around most nights, sometimes almost enough to make me think I should break up with him. "It ain't in ere," he said angrily. "You got it down your cleavage or somethin?" I lifted my head. "Eh?" He snatched me up off the floor and shook me hard. "I said where is it, you stupid fucking idiot!" He shoved his hands in between my breasts, grabbing the front of my top and tearing it; pushing his big clumsy fingers into the front of my bra. Then he shook me again, bellowing into my face. "Where is it Angie? What 'ave you done with it?" "Done with what?" I stammered, confused. "With the fricking lottery ticket you daft bitch! With the lottery ticket that's gonna make us the richest people in Nockton Vale!" 8 As soon as he said those words it all came crashing back to me. My life as a man. My job as a reporter for the Crier. The story I'd been working on; the urban legends of Nockton Vale. The transformations. The body swaps. And the pattern. I put my hand to my mouth. "Oh my Lord." It had got me too! My voice was a woman's voice. My body was a scrawny woman's body; all chest and legs and arms and ass. It had turned me into a woman. Into Angie Pane; some unemployed slag living in the arse-end of Barton. And it had thrown me into this squalid little flat with this overbearing man who towered over me. "Well?" he boomed. "Where is it?" I raised my hands up in front of my face to ward off the expected blow but instead of hitting me he grabbed my wrist, wrenching me forward. He twisted his grip, sending pain right up my arm and forcing my entire body to twist, bending at the waist. "Agh! Kev! Leave off! I ain't got it!" "What do you mean you ain't got it?" He whipped my arm up into a lock behind my back. I was already on my toes in these awful stilettos, but he raised me still higher so that the heels of my feet popped out of the ill-fitting shoes. "Aargh, Kev, please!" I begged. "You're 'urtin me!" Oh God. Oh God. It had got me too. It had changed me. "You stupid slag!" He pulled my wrist up higher, biting pain into my arm and shoulder and down my back. "That ticket was gonna get us out of this hovel! All you had to do was cash it in! I knew I shouldn't 'ave trusted you with it! I knew it!" "I'm sorry Kev! I'm sorry, really!" I was sorry. I felt so sorry. I always messed up. I always got things wrong. I'd been thick my whole life. I was always letting people down. He shouldn't have trusted me with it. I couldn't do nothing right. "You idiot! I should break your frickin arm! Then maybe you'd do as you're told next time!" "I'm sorry Kev! I swear! I'm sorry!" He snarled and hurled me down, face first. I hit the table and fell hard to the dirty carpet, breathing heavily and sobbing again. This wasn't right. None of it was right. I was a reporter. I was a man. This couldn't be my life now. But I remembered something now, in all the stories I'd heard; something that almost never ever happened. I was never going back. I was never going to go back to being myself. And I'd already forgotten myself once. It would happen again. And that was when I realised why this had happened. It wasn't random. I didn't think any of the changes were random. Whatever force it was had changed me on purpose. To shut me up. It had known I had spotted the pattern. It had known I was going to find out the truth. It was protecting itself. It was getting me out of the way; turning me into a brainless loser who would remember nothing; who'd live out the rest of her life destitute and abused. Kev snarled again and pulled me back up. He slapped me hard across the face then slapped me hard the other way. Then he shook me again and I stopped crying, gaping back at him in shock and fear. When he spoke now, his voice was low but laced with the same threat of physical violence; of mental abuse. "You think my girl. You think hard. You left ere with that ticket. Somewhere between goin out that door an comin back you let go of it somewhere." This was my life. It was all I had now. There was never going to be any way back. My destiny had been irredeemably altered. I would never learn what the pattern really was. I would never get to reveal its secrets. I looked into the crazed eyes of this vicious overbearing man, and I realised that the only thing I could do was anything he asked. I had to do exactly what he demanded, when he demanded it. And I had to try to retrieve that lottery ticket. Somehow. Kev shook me hard again, rocking my head back and forth painfully. "Where is it?" I hated when he got like this - when he treated me like this - but I needed him. And he could be so gentle too when he wanted to be. That was why I loved him. That was why I loved him so much that it hurt. But then a little light went off in my eyes and I smiled. I smiled at him as blood ran down from the side of my mouth and my body ached; as my memories clouded over; as my IQ drained away to almost nothing. "The riverside," I said; hopelessly; desperately. "The bin!" "Eh?" "I must ave thrown it in there!" "The lottery ticket?" "Yeah!" I cried, feeling a flicker of hope for a second at least. "It might still be there!" If you liked this then read the complete compilation of stories in A New You on Amazon. You can also follow my serials every other day on http://transformation- stories.blogspot.co.uk/