Asked Gemini/Bard to edit an excerpt, then gave it a quick personal pass: A thousand angry ants swarmed through my skull, feasting on my sanity. My head pounded in protest. Slowly, ragged gasps replaced panicked breaths. As my body settled, a chilling question arose: where in the world was I? The rancid stench assaulted me first, a thick, pungent clue of my surroundings. The squelching, crackling, cold and uneven surface beneath me. And then there was the rustling and squeaking, a ticklish dance against my skin that confirmed my worst fears – unwelcome companions shared this… accommodation. Peeking through a cracked eyelid, I caught a sliver of night sky. A groan escaped my lips. “Am I, in a dumpster?” Get OUT! Every fibre of my being screamed for me to move! With a strength born of desperation, I clambered out, collapsing to the ground, my back propped against the cold, unforgiving metal box that was, no, would have been my coffin. I drew a ragged breath, cleaner air filling my bruised lungs, my eyes taking in the meagre light of a streetlamp struggling to pierce the darkness. I just sat there. The distant sounds of the city – voices, traffic, impatient honking – should have been a comfort, a sign of normalcy. Yet, they fell on deaf ears. Something was terribly wrong, alien. "What a night," I rasped, my voice sandpaper dry. The words tumbled out, fractured and painful. "Just… how...?" The question hung heavy in the air as a tidal wave of memories crashed down. A split second that stretched into an eternity, drowning me in a stranger's life. Staring down at my unfamiliar hands, at this battered shell that housed me, a horrifying truth dawned. These memories, this body, this city, this very existence… they weren't mine.
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