Eighteen years.
That's how long Brandon Mendoza had on this earth. He spent his final moments lying in the hospital bed, staring at the ceiling tiles.
There were still forty-seven tiles, with seventeen cracked in the corner. It was the same view he'd memorized over countless visits that blurred together.
His life wasn't supposed to be like this.
He started boxing at seven and found out he was really good at it. He was touted as a once-in-a-generation genius, winning the National Junior Championship at the age of twelve.
Then came the diagnosis.
He was thirteen when they found it. He fainted after a routine spar and was rushed to the hospital.
Catecholaminergic Polymorphic Ventricular Tachycardia. That's what the doctor called it. Brandon only remembered the sight of his mother crying in the corner and the fact that the diagrams looked like the inside of a grenade.
Fitting, really.
By sixteen, the bomb started ticking louder.
One more instance of any excitement or fear and you could drop dead.
So he stopped first. Stopped fighting. Stopped running. Stopped doing anything that made him feel alive because feeling alive would literally kill him.
A whole year behind glass. Watching other boxers take shots he could have dodged. Watching championship belts go to fighters he could have beaten with one hand wrapped. Watching life happen to everyone except him.
He was so goddamn tired.
The beeping slowed. He noticed it the way you notice a clock at 2 AM. His mother was here. Or had been. The chair beside his bed sat empty now. Maybe she went to get coffee. Maybe she couldn't watch anymore. He didn't blame her.
The monitors sang their dying song. He should have been scared.
He wasn't.
At least I don't have to be careful anymore.
The beep became a tone. Long. Flat. Final.
And then nothing.
He did't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Hell, he didn't even know if his eyes were open or not, everything around him was pitch black. It felt like he was floating in the water, suspended in animation.
Until something grabbed him and pulled.
Air slammed into his lungs like a fist.
He was sitting up before his brain caught up to his body, hands clawing at sheets that weren't hospital sheets, eyes wide open in darkness that wasn't hospital darkness, heart POUNDING.
His heart was pounding.
Oh fuck. Oh fuck oh fuck oh—
Every nerve in his body screamed the same warning it had screamed for two years. Fast heartbeat equals death. Adrenaline equals flatline. This is how you die, you idiot, this is how you—
He froze. Forced himself still. Closed his eyes.
Four counts in. Hold. Four counts out.
The technique was automatic. Dr. Morrison had drilled it into him until it became reflex. When you feel your heart racing, you breathe. You don't panic. Panic kills you faster than the defect.
He waited for the pain. The tightness in his chest. The flutter that signaled the beginning of the end.
Nothing.
His heart kept beating. Strong. Steady. A little fast still, but... fine?
He opened his eyes.
The smell hit him like a right hook.
Body odor. Old food. Something biological that had long since crossed the line from "gross" to "potential biohazard." His gag reflex kicked in before he could process anything visual.
Jesus Christ, did something die in here?
He couldn't see much. The darkness was thick, heavy, the kind that came from blackout curtains blocking every scrap of light. Shapes lurked in the black. A desk. A door. Piles of something he didn't want to identify.
This wasn't his hospital room. This wasn't anywhere he recognized.
The sheets beneath him were damp with sweat. The mattress sagged in a shape that didn't match his body. His body—
His body was wrong.
He tried to swing his legs over the side of the bed. The motion took twice the effort it should have. Everything felt heavier. Thicker. His arms moved through invisible resistance.
He reached up to touch his face.
The fingers were too thick. Sausages instead of digits. When they found his cheeks, they sank into flesh that shouldn't have been there.
His hands moved down to his chest, searching for the familiar planes of muscle he'd spent years building.
He found fat. Actual fat. His pecs had become something else entirely, soft mounds that jiggled when he moved. His stomach... god, his stomach sat on his thighs like a bag of wet concrete.
He stood. Nearly fell. The weight distribution threw his balance completely off, his center of gravity shifted so far forward he had to catch himself on something that turned out to be a wall.
The wall was sticky.
Don't think about it. Don't think about what that is. Just find the light.
He shuffled forward, one hand trailing along the disaster that passed for a wall. His foot kicked something that clattered. Plate, probably. His shin cracked against furniture. He bit back a curse that wanted to be a scream.
His fingers found a switch.
Wait, do I want to see this shit show?
He flipped it anyways and immediately regretted it.
Clothes piled on the floor in drifts that reached knee-height in places. A desk buried under fast food wrappers and energy drink cans, some of them growing fuzzy ecosystems. Pizza boxes stacked like archaeological layers. The computer setup had a keyboard crusted with crumbs and something that might have been cheese at some point.
The bed he'd woken in wore sheets that had surrendered their original color to sweat stains and neglect. Anime posters covered the walls, featuring women in outfits that existed purely to test the limits of fabric science.
Holy shit. I died and went to incel hell.
Against the far wall sat a flat-screen TV, powered off. Dark. Reflective.
He could see a shape in it. A figure standing where he was standing.
He stepped closer. The figure stepped with him.
He raised a hand. Fat fingers waggled back at him from the dark glass.
The face staring back wasn't his.
Round. Soft. Pale with blotchy undertones and the kind of stubble that grew in patches, like it couldn't commit to the whole beard thing. Multiple chins. Greasy hair plastered to a sweaty forehead in strings that might have been dirty blonde under better circumstances.
But the eyes.
The eyes were blue-grey.
They were his eyes. In a stranger's body.
That's me. That's not me. That's me. What the FUCK.
He looked down and saw straight stomach.
A genuine belly that hung over the waistband of boxers that had given up on life.
He had at least B-cup sized man tits and smelled like a trucker bathroom.
He'd seen bodies like this before. In gyms, usually. Guys who came in January and quit by February. He'd never judged them, everyone has to stop somewhere.
But he was definitely judging now.
Just breathe, Brandon, this is just some weird dream before death. I'll wake up and be back in that miserable room, with the miserable food, and the miserable smell.
He decided to pinch himself to exit the dream.
"OW!"
He slapped his own face. The fat rippled. He felt the impact twice.
Not a dream. Not a coma. This is real. This is happening. I'm... here.
His hands moved before he made a conscious decision, pressing against his chest. Not the fat. Beneath the fat. Searching for the heartbeat that had betrayed him for years.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Steady. Strong. Regular.
He took a deep breath. The deepest he'd allowed himself in two years. His lungs filled completely. No tightness. No warning signs.
He jumped.
Once. Twice. His entire body jiggled in ways that were genuinely disgusting. But his heart—
His heart just kept beating.
He could run right now. Fight right now. Feel something right now.
And he wouldn't die for it.
He slid down the wall, crushing food containers and God knew what else beneath his borrowed ass. Didn't care. Couldn't care.
His hands shook. He let them shake.
His heart raced. He let it race.
Nothing bad happens.
The tears came like a dam breaking. Not grief. Not exactly. Release. Two years of holding still. Eighteen years of holding back. Every emotion he'd suppressed because feeling too much would kill him, all of it crashing through at once.
He cried like he hadn't since the diagnosis. Heaving sobs that shook the fat on his borrowed body. Snot and tears mixing on a face that wasn't his.
The room stank. This body disgusted him. He had no idea where he was or what had happened or if this was permanent.
But his heart was beating and it didn't hurt.
He let himself have this. Just for a moment.
The crying stopped eventually. Ran out of fuel. He sat there in the garbage and the silence, wrung out and dehydrated and somehow more alive than he'd felt in years.
He wiped his face. His hand came away wet with sweat and tears and something he hoped was just dried food.
The room looked different now. Same disaster, but his eyes found details they'd missed before. A calendar on the wall, three months out of date. Dirty clothes that came in one size. Photos pinned to a corkboard, most of them featuring a family that didn't include whoever lived here.
This was someone's life. Someone who had given up on it completely.
He didn't know whose. Didn't know how he'd ended up here. Didn't know anything beyond the basic fact that he was breathing in a body that could actually handle it.
I'm not going to waste it. Not this time. Not again.
He tried to stand. His knees screamed. His back complained bitterly about the sudden change in altitude. This body was a disaster wrapped in a catastrophe sprinkled with poor life choices.
But it was alive.
His eyes found the computer. Dark monitors. Crumb-covered keyboard. If this was someone's room, there was a life attached to it. A name. A history. Answers.
He needed to know whose body he was wearing.
He took a step toward the desk. Something crunched underfoot. He decided not to look.
From somewhere beyond the door, muffled by walls and distance, a woman's voice drifted through.
"Leo? Are you feeling better? Dinner's ready if you want it..."
He went still.
Leo.
His name was Leo.
Okay, Leo. Let's find out what kind of mess you left me.