I awoke to a killer headache.
"Ugh. What…?"
My eyes opened, and a bright light quickly invaded my unprepared pupils, causing them to shrink in pain. I shut them again as my head began to spin.
I tried to move from where I lay, but couldn't muster the energy to do so.
I tried opening my mouth to speak but was stopped by a stinging pain in my throat. It felt like my neck was being ripped open from my attempts so in the end I just gave up, unable to do anything.
So, I just lay there, quietly.
Eventually, I fell back asleep. Getting myself some much needed recovery in the process.
~~~
Waking up for the second time, I was a little more cautious with my movements.
I slowly opened my eyes, carefully squinting at the now somewhat bearable light that was glaring down on me.
A large ceiling fan that doubled as a lamp hung directly above me, turning slowly in silence. The lightbulb radiated a ridiculously bright light, which to my previously unadapted vision, was not dissimilar from getting flashbanged.
That's what the blaring light had been.
'Who the fuck thought that was a good idea?' I thought, shaking my head in a weak attempt to clear it.
Sitting up, I began to examine my surroundings thoroughly, on the lookout for any clue as to where I was. My vision was blotchy, with dark spots obscuring some of my sight. I waved it off uncaringly, moving on and assuming my eyes were still adjusting after looking directly at that ridiculous lamp.
The place looked cheap; that was simply the best way to describe it. Straight ahead of me was a door - looking like it needed a keycard to open - which combined with the other things I saw, made me think it was in an apartment of some kind.
The place was relatively empty; no outstanding furniture or personal items; the color scheme was also a bland grey and brown mix, causing me consider downgrading my original guess from apartment to motel. The owner had clearly paid no expense in decoration.
"Who would live in this shithole by choice?" I murmured, taking in more of my surroundings.
Situated to the right of it was a short partition that separated a makeshift area from the rest of the room, almost like a pod. It had large desk that spanned the entire interior, with a large monitor and some other miscillaneous items lying on it.
Slightly above the desk was a series of bookshelves that continued until reaching the ceiling.
I call them bookshelves but there wasn't a single book on any of them. There wasn't anything on them at all actually, they were all empty. Odd.
'Not an avid reader our guy.' I thought dryly, before continuing my scan of the room.
The carpet beneath me was a light shade of grey and felt fuzzy to the touch.
I glanced at it absentmindedly, only to blink once, twice; look away and then back at what could only be MY hand. It was quite a bit smaller than I remembered it to be.
"What the fuck is going on?" I said loudly, bringing up the tiny hand to my face so I could see it better, as my vision had still not returned to normal levels yet.
"My voice… I'm a kid?" I looked down, noticing my small stature and childlike appearance for the first time since waking up. I was fucked.
More than that though, 'Why is there so much blood on this shirt? That can only be blood right?' The white shirt this foreign body wore was soaked in a deep red liquid, which was staining a large portion of it.
I decided to ignore that for now and focus on the more pressing issues at hand. Or hands. Or body in general.
I held up the tiny hand again, now manouvering into a cross-legged position on the floor. I flexed my small fist experimentally. Open, close, open, close; no issues there at least. I brought up my other hand to my throat, massaging it thoroughly; the phantom pain from my first attempts at talking still haunting my senses as an uncomfortable prickling sensation.
As I did this, a sticky substance glued itself to the offending hand. I brought it near my face to look, as my vision still hadn't fully recovered yet. It was stained red, coincidently or not, the same shade of red my shirt was.
"This kind of thing does not bode well."
I stood up, attempting to move to the door; after which I immediately fell forwards because I had absolutely no idea how to walk in this new body.
It wasn't that I was a baby, or even a toddler, but the difference between being six feet tall and then suddenly around three feet tall was a staggering amount.
This would take some getting used to.
Pushing aside my embarrassment at this latest humiliation, I tried to walk once more. This time, much more carefully.
It felt strange, being so small. Exactly why I fell, was not because of the height difference; but rather my limbs were completely disproportionate from what they used to be. My former body was rather bottom heavy with long legs and short arms. This new one however, was the opposite of that, with long arms and stubby legs.
The succulent cherry sitting on top of this metaphorical shitcake I was in finally revealed itself to me; or alternatively, I had finally noticed the obvious.
I apparently had visual problems, enough to qualify being labelled as 'Partially blind'.
Why do I say this? Because my vision STILL hadn't cleared the fuck up. No matter how hard I rubbed my eyes, blinked, squinted, or waited for recovery; there were still large blotchy patches in my vision where I couldn't see anything at all.
I was cooked. Officially.
…
Putting all that aside though, my main priority was still the same. This wasn't something I could solve by wasting my time on it.
I needed to find out exactly where I situated; because my simple deduction of being in an 'apartment' was not one that satisfied me.
That did NOT explain my transformation, nor the blood that was soaking through my clothes.
I turned around, seeing the back of the apartment for the first time. It was home to a long window that stretched horizontally across it most of the wall. What was more important though, was the land that lay out of the window.
From what I could gather; this place was at the very least, eight stories up in whatever building this was. Below me lay what looked like an extensive industrial complex, dotted with a series of smoking chimneys that exhuded constant amounts of smoke up into the sky.
In the distance, I could see a masive red building with a glowing number '12' on the side of it.
What I found impressive was its arcitecture: It looked like a small child had grabbed a few red blocks and placed them on top of another grey block, except that fhs gray one was about half the size of the other three and looked far too weak to hold the rest of them.
To the side of this modern miracle was a massive shipping yard, built around a large esturay which I assumed led eventually to the sea.
On the opposite side of this esturay was an endless desert of small metallic pylons that stretched to the horizon, with a few windmills made from the same rustic material scattered on the landscape between them.
This scenery was definitely nowhere close to anything I had seen previously, in fact; I don't think I had ever heard of a place like this existing before.
Pondering this unique setting I found myself in, I turned back around; once again facing the door ahead of me.
Deciding to wash the drying blood off my neck, and change out of the dirty clothes I wore, I began treading over to the washroom.
It was situated directly to my right, coupled with a bed space that looked to be carved out of the wall next to it. There was another area past the washroom; but much like with the desk, it was partitioned off and I couldn't see inside it.
The entrance to the washroom contained exactly what I was looking for: a sink. It didn't have a mirror above it like I expected it to; instead just a large black tile covering most of the wall.
"This instead of a mirror? Pointless."
Annoyingly, I was far too short to properly access the sink. My head was barely on the same level as the basin which was going to make my seemingly straightfoward goal of cleanliness a difficult task to complete.
"How fucking tall are these people?" I grumbled irritably, realising once again just how crippling my new dwarfed stature was going to be.
I grabbed the rim with both hands, trying to work myself in a more flattering position in order to access the taps more efficiently. As I finally made contact with them, the black tile poised above the sink pixelated; its dark color quickly fading away to be replaced by a digital screen.
I frowned, nothing was surprising me at this point, let alone a wall that could change colors.
It didn't take me long to realise that it was a mirror - albeit a very high tech one, which had activated upon making contact with the sink.
"Huh, not so pointless after all."
I completely ignored it, along with my reflection. That could come later, for now all I wanted to do was get these filthy stains off my skin.
'A waste of resources,' I thought. 'Why not simply have a normal mirror instead?'
"This is familiar, I've seen something like this before, but… Where?"
My musing continued as I turned the taps on, allowing cool water to flow onto my outstretched hands. After scooping a reasonable amount I splashed it onto my neck, drenching the shirt I wore in the process.
'Whoever lives here clearly isn't wealthy, it being an apartment and all. This mirror seems to be attatched quite thoroughly to the wall, which means it probably came with the place. So in conclusion the residents weren't the ones who placed it there.'
A plausible deduction; one I would focus expanding on for the time being.
'If they didn't, it means the landlord did, pointing to the fact this mirror is probably in every single apartment in this building. Which, in turn means this mirror is not a rare commodity. How advanced is this place for it to have a costly item like this available to the public at large?'
"Ugh, If this turns out to be some communist state I might just get us to jump out of that window."
I wiped my wet hands on my shorts, as there wasn't a towel anywhere nearby.
My curiosity was piqued by this new technology. I wanted to test next was how the mirror reacted to direct contact.
My effort at reaching for it however was pathetic. I tried, really I did; but even with how much longer my arms were than my legs, no amount of repositioning helped me get any closer to it.
"Fuck's sake!" I exclaimed angrily, dropping down from where I was practically hanging off the edge of the sink, my arms crashing down to my sides.
Just as I turned back towards the center of the apartment, my body froze in place.
Real shock flooded through me as I stared unbelievingly at the translucent door on the opposite side of the room.
I confess I had been playing up my reactions a little, mainly because I was excited by this impossiblility that was my situation.
But this? This shock was real. I HAD been here before, but not in person.
This was V's apartment, from Cyberpunk 2077.