9. This body isn't mine?!

At times, my life seems to be nothing but a series of remorse, of wrong choices, of irreversible mistakes. 

Regret gnaws at me relentlessly as my mind replays the fight with Henry. It's my fault - This is what I've been telling myself for the past few days as I sit beneath the yew tree, feeling the weight of dehydration and hunger. Henry kicked me out and changed the locks immediately after. He always appeared to be a reasonable man. Henry knew I had nowhere to go - gosh, he even told me that none of my friends would take me in. Funny enough, he was right. So I wait in the backyard, with no money for him to let me back in. He must let me back eventually, right?

Alec planted this piny tree after Millen's death. I don't know where he got an almost full-grown tree, but that isn't important now. He cherished it, and with his intense care, the tree thrived. 

And now I sit beneath it, looking at its aggressively red berrylike fruits. I want to devour them like an animal. I want to-

Kristina reached for the red fruits. When she tasted it, its sweetness took over her reason, and she ate a handful in a blink. She ate a handful of the sweetest deathly poison hidden in seeds she devoured along with its sweet flesh. The yew poison, with no effective antidote.

Not long after, her body put up a fight, a battle she had already lost before it even began. 

Oh, I completely forgot these are poisonous, silly me.

Before she lost consciousness, she saw someone running towards her, screaming desperately. Wait, who was it? She cannot remember.

Darkness, nothing more awaits Kristina as her body gives up. She met her end with a mere fruit. Fruit from the tree Alec planted. Tree planted by Alec, a tree planted by Alec, a tree planted by Alec, a tree planted by A- 

Crack. A branch broke and fell on the ground with a thud. Kristina wasn't part of this world anymore. Clouds frowned at the earth below. An unrecognizable figure held her motionless body. Kristina couldn't feel her worldly shell. Was she now just a lone soul without a body? 

Void. Pure nothingness surrounded Kristina. It was like floating on the calm waters of a lake she once visited with Henry before he became-

Kristina couldn't feel anything else aside from this lingering sensation.

So am I dead?

She felt so light, so small, insignificant.

"Try again, try harder," a voice as tender as silk harvested from the depths of her soul lullabies her into a deep slumber. 

Kristina wanted to ask this heavenly voice countless questions but didn't have a chance to do so.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in an unfamiliar room. 

Her vision was hazy, her head throbbing. She felt feverish. 

Didn't I die? Is this the afterlife?

She turned around. Kristina was now facing a wall covered in blackish mold. 

At first glance, everything seemed normal, way too real. Did Kristina perhaps survive? No, this was unlikely.

"What?" her voice quivered as she asked herself aloud in disbelief. In front of her lay a big black stuffed cat. She stared at it for a moment. 

It looked just like the plushy Alec gave Tristan. She wobbly stood up and looked at her hands - they weren't hers. These unfamiliar hands touched a short hair - she never had hair this short. A strange feeling ran through her. Face - no, this isn't her face. The pair of unfamiliar hands ran around this body with great urgency.

What is happening? 

Kristina franticly searched for a mirror - no, for any reflective surface but there was none. She cautiously opened the door to bump into Anne, Tristan's sister.

"Tristan? Are you feeling better already?" Anne asked worriedly.

Kristina looked around but found no one else Anne could be speaking to.

Wait, me? Tristan? 

"I need to rest," Tristan sighed. A voice so deep - this voice didn't belong to her eighter. How could she not notice? 

Close eyes. Take a deep breath.

'Try again, try harder.' - These words rung in her head. Did I forget something? Something important? This sentence alone sounded familiar yet so foreign. Who said this to me? Who-

"Did your fever go up again?" Anne asked, checking the temperature by hand.

"It did," Tristan murmured.

Kristina returned to the past, a year before her mother got killed in that filthy bathroom. And to add insult to injury, Kristina was now stuck in Tristan's body. 

"Dad left this morning. You're lucky if he was here-" Kristina couldn't focus on Anne's words. Maybe if Kristina paid attention, if she listened, she'd catch on. She'd notice. 

However, as Anne spoke, Kristina's mind clouded a great fear. Does no one remember? Why do I have to live this again? Why can't I forget? Why do I have to return to the past?! Why me? Why Tristan's body?!

"Anyway, if you need something, scream," Anne smiled before walking away.

Tristan gulped down any words threatening to escape. And perhaps this was Kristina's punishment, her warning - there are no second chances in life, yet she got one. She got a second chance she never asked for.

She opened Tristan's phone. There must be something that could help her with this charade until- Wait, do I have to pretend? Do I have to live the rest of my life pretending to be someone else?

Anne sat in the kitchen silently, looking at a handwritten note. 'I'll be back' - the note read. "As if," she frowns. Anne's life is flooded with empty words and unfulfilled promises.

Tristan turned in bed, his eyes wide open. He scrolled down the chat history. That night, Kristina didn't get a wink of sleep. She was left alone, with her thoughts running wilder than a hurricane. Her soul, her consciousness, stuck in the body of Tristan. 

Oh, how ironic.