word count

a collection of pieces; good, bad, and ugly

it all started with an ipod nano.

where the hell am i?

"Zac! Get the ball!" LucasWhere the Hell a shouted. The soccer ball rolled slowly to the other end of the field.

"Fine." I rolled my eyes. I was running so fast, my reddish-brown hair whipped against my face. Sprinting toward the ball, I clumsily tripped on my shoelace. "Piece of crap," I muttered. Luckily, the ball was just an arm length away. Stretching my arm, I grabbed. At the corner of eye, I saw a black iPod Nano lay on the grass.

Sweet, a free Nano, crap, I have no headphones. Might as well just see what's on it. I turned it on and scrolled down the list. Some of them I knew. Songs like American Idiot, Holiday, Boulevard Of Broken Dreams. But the rest, I had no idea what the heck they were. At The Library, Brain Stew, Longview, and Redundant . . . I skipped to artists. Only two words were in the list. Green Day. Must be Grace's Nano, I mean, who else would have just Green Day on their iPod?

I clicked on a random song, Wake Me Up When September Ends, I think. Suddenly there was a flash of red, and my head started to hurt like hell. I had to close my eyes, sometimes that helped to make the pain go away.

Then I couldn't hear the usual chatter of the school field. No shouting, no sound of feet running across the grass. Nothing.

I slowly opened my eyes and gasped. I was in a room, a really messy room. Near the wastebasket was crumple pieces of paper, and clothes were thrown on the floor lazily. All I know is that this isn't my room or any of my friends.

A woman came bursting through the door. She nervously wrung a towel in her hands. Her eyes were red and swollen, was she crying? "Billie, your father died," she said boldly.

Billie? Who's Billie? My dad's perfectly healthy. And who is this person? I know for sure that she isn't one of my friend's moms.

"Uh . . . Who? " I stuttered. I had no idea what to say. I mean what would you do if you found yourself in a bedroom in the middle of recess, with a random woman barging in, thinking you're someone else and saying your dad died?

"It was so sudden. We were talking, and then . . . He was gone," she said in between sobs. Flinging her arms around my neck, she started to cry. "But there was nothing we could do about it, right? We all saw this coming, your father and I."

Your father and I, what did that mean? My dad doesn't know this person. She sounded like she was referring to her and dad as if they were married. Maybe the "dad", she's talking about is the Billie person's dad. I quickly concluded that this was Billie's mom. But, how should I know?

"M-mom," I blurted out. It felt so weird calling this stranger "mom". "I'm not Billie. I mean, look at me. Do I look like Billie to you?"

She leaned back to look at me; her brown eyes studied me hard. Then a concerned look appeared on her face. "Are you okay Billie? Of course you look like . . . You. Check for yourself, look in a mirror." She frowned.

"Where's a mirror then?" I asked dumbly.

"In the washroom," she frowned again.

"Then where's the washroom?" I asked irritably. I tried to make it sound obvious, but she didn't get the hint.

"Down the hallway, it's the second one to your right," she mumbled. I walked quickly out of the room. I threw open the washroom door.

I stared at the reflection staring back at me. My brown eyes had turned into a bright green, and my hair was a darker shade of reddish brown. All I know is that the person in the mirror wasn't me. I was trapped in someone else's body.

table of contents
chapter 2