Carl practically ran for home after realising what he’d just done. It was no easy feat, considering he was out of shape, but the adrenaline alone powered him through. It wasn’t long before he was in an elevator, heading up to the floor of his apartment. He panted, looking at his own hands as the sheer disbelief of what now lay at his fingertips was hard to grasp.
Fumbling his key into the lock, he slammed the door behind him and flipped on the light. His dingy apartment illuminated under the ceiling lamp, still a mess like it always was. Throwing the bag onto the sofa, he rummaged through to see how much he'd gotten from the store.
Along with the 12 or so packs of high quality cigarettes and cigars the ‘clerk’ had loaded, there must have been around $350 in various bills and coins.
“And it’s all mine, hassle free. Easiest steal of my life!”
His mind began to race with thoughts of what else he could steal. He could burgle houses with ease and make some chumps give up their most valued possessions. He could steal expensive cars just by asking for the keys. Heck, he could probably walk out of the Louvre with the Mona Lisa if he wanted!
But he tried not to get ahead of himself. He still didn’t know much about these powers, or the extent he could use them too.
‘Speaking of which…’
He began to think about what his ‘clone’ had said while he was piloting the unsuspecting store clerk. He’d mentioned that Carl himself could leave his body and take over someone else. He could see the world through someone else’s eyes. The question was how…
The other him had said about ‘focus’ being needed. So Carl made some space on the sofa and reached for a cigarette. Instinctively reaching for his cheap pack, he remembered he now had the higher quality stuff, so he fished one out of his goody bag and lit up.
“Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff” he sighed as he took a long drag.
It was a quiet evening as he stared up at the ceiling. Quiet as it could be in the city anyway, but enough to hear the ticking of the clock on the wall. Taking another drag, he set the cigarette on his ashtray and exhaled as he closed his eyes. He began to focus on exactly how he could get out of his body and into someone else. It seemed almost ridiculous at first. But that was when he felt it - like he was getting lighter. He kept hold of that feeling as it swelled, until he almost felt like he weighed nothing. Opening his eyes, he saw the ceiling again. Only this time, much closer. So much so, that the fan was practically poking him in the face.
He tried to speak but no words came out.
‘Huh? Why am I…’
That’s when he looked down and saw it. He was floating above the sofa now, pretty much drifting up towards the ceiling. There, he saw his dishevelled self passed out on the sofa. He could actually see his own body from the outside!
Again, he tried to speak but nothing came out.
‘Holy shit!’ he thought. Looking at his hands, he saw they were now almost translucent, like a smoky aura instead of solid. In fact, his whole form was like that as he hung in the air.
‘This is fucking nuts. I’m floating here!’
The pure adrenaline came with a hint of fear however.
‘Wait, I’m not dead am I? Shit, I’d better check’.
Slowly working out how to will himself forward, he started to descend until he was face to face with his own, dormant body.
‘This is freaky as shit’.
He couldn’t see much sign that his body was breathing. Reaching out a hand, he checked for breath coming from his nostrils. He couldn’t feel anything though. Trying the mouth, he reached to touch it but suddenly felt himself swiftly being sucked forwards. Everything went black before he suddenly jerked his eyes open, taking a sharp intake of breath through his lungs. He was once again back in his body.
“Damn, ok. That’s… how that works” he spluttered through coughing. Calming back down and checking himself over, he could find no damage from his out of body experience.
“Ok. So I can get back into my body when I leave. That’s good to know”.
Taking another deep breath, he exhaled and focused as he closed his eyes. In a moment, he felt the weightless feeling take him before he was again floating over his passed out body.
‘Fuck if I’m not going crazy’.
It all felt like some kind of lucid dream, but it was all very very real. He began to work out how to steer himself forward and backwards, up and down. He drifted down to the loot bag and attempted to reach in, only to see his hand disappear straight through the plastic.
‘It’s like being a ghost or something. Must only work on people though, no poltergeist shit’.
Floating back upwards, he headed for his apartment door. Tentatively reaching his hand out, he watched as it phased right through the wooden composite. He quickly retracted it. No damage. This time, he began to move his head through too, passing through the door until he saw the hallway of the complex outside, like he’d just stepped through. Moving his whole body through, he spun around in a moment of triumph before moving towards the door opposite. Poking his head through, he saw the inside of the other apartment. It was dark, with all the lights off. The owner was either asleep or out. He could make out the faint outline of the room however.
Pulling his head back, he took a moment to just revel in flying. This was the craziest experience he’d ever had - possibly the craziest anyone had ever had. He bolted forward down the hallway at speed, only to stop himself almost rocketing out of the building.
‘Shit, this form’s got some velocity to it!’
He turned and shot down to the other end of the hall, towards where the elevators were. Moving at speed, he noticed only too late the doors swinging open, and a teenage boy walking out in front of him. With the boy unable to see him and Carl moving at speed, he crashed right into him, with everything going black again for a second.
On the outside, the boy was almost thrown backwards as something invisible hit him in the chest at speed. He lurched against the wall with one hand to support him, whilst he held his head with the other. He winced in pain as something began to pull and prod at every nerve in his body. Eventually, he gasped as his eyes clouded over with a white mist. It only lasted a brief moment, before his head dropped, only to raise back up again sharply.
Carl inhaled a deep breath, like he'd never felt air before, as his vision began to clear through the blur. He was looking back down the hall he'd just shot up, now solid again, though shaken.
“What… what just…”
His hand shot up his neck as he heard it - a different voice coming out of his mouth. It sounded younger, with a slight trace of an accent. He wasn’t trying to put on an accent though?
Looking down at his other hand, he saw it was softer than his own - youthful even, with more tanned skin than his. He was also now wearing a green track jacket, sweatpants and nicer sneakers than he usually owned.
“Wait, the kid… did I?”
Fumbling through his pockets, he pulled out a phone and opened the camera app. There he saw it - another face staring back at him, younger and skinnier, with a mop of curly black hair. Carl blinked and the reflection did the same. He raised his free hand to his cheek. The reflection did the same.
A grin spread across his astonished face as he realised what this meant.
“Holy shit! I'm actually in this kid's body. Wow!”
Pocketing his phone, he felt himself over. He was definitely much slimmer than his own body, with the onset of poor metabolism nowhere near taking hold yet. He had developing muscles in his biceps. He even breathed easier, free of the years of substance abuse Carl had known.
‘But who am I now? And where was this kid going?’
He tried to find answers in the phone before they suddenly became clear in his head. Like a note of information hidden away, he extracted it from the boy's memory. His new identity was now Pedro Fuentes, a 16 year old Latino boy who lived with his dad and sister in one of the apartments down this end of the hall.
“Damn if I'm not going crazy” Carl exclaimed with Pedro's smoother, higher pitched voice.
“I'd forgotten what it was like to feel this young and healthy. These fucking kids don't realise how good they've got it!”
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