I don't know how long I was out, but when I woke up, everything felt... wrong. The first thing I noticed was the softness. I had never woken up feeling this soft before. The bed beneath me was too plush, too big. The blankets were warm, cocooning me in an unfamiliar comfort.
My first instinct was to sit up, but I froze. The body I was in didn't feel like mine—not like Korn, not like the body I'd fought to get used to. This felt different. Alien.
I looked down at my hands, my fingers pale and delicate, with short nails painted in a neutral shade. I didn't recognize them. My chest felt heavier, more... prominent than I remembered. I quickly placed my hand there, only to feel the slight curve of breasts pressing against the fabric of a soft T-shirt I was wearing.
"What... what happened?" I whispered to myself, my voice sounding unfamiliar. Not necessarily higher, but softer.
I had passed so well before, hadn't I? My voice, despite being a little higher than most, had never felt out of place. I'd worked hard to make it sound like it belonged, to make people see me for who I was. But now? Now it felt wrong. It wasn't just the softness of the pitch; it was the feeling of disconnection. The tone felt off, as if it didn't belong to me anymore. A sharp, bitter reminder that something was very, very off.
I pushed myself up to sit on the edge of the bed, the room spinning for a moment as I struggled to get my bearings. My head throbbed. The memories of Korn, of the live stream, of the sudden, violent fall, came rushing back, all at once. The poisoned water. My heart pounding. Darkness. Death.
And now this.
I ran my hands through my hair—a strange, shorter cut that didn't feel like mine, though it was the same color as before. I could already feel the weight of the grief pushing against me. I was supposed to be gone. I was dead.
Yet, here I was.
I instinctively reach towards my right, turning on the bedside lamp before wondering how I even knew it was there.I took a deep breath and forced myself to stand. My legs felt unsteady, like they weren't used to supporting me. I took a few careful steps across the room, holding onto the furniture as I went. The walls around me were decorated in pale tones—nothing that seemed too out of the ordinary, but everything about it screamed foreign.
I spotted a mirror on the far side of the room and stumbled toward it. The face staring back at me was startling. The same features—sharp cheekbones, light brown eyes—but different, somehow. It was my face, but at the same time it was not the one I was used to.
The reflection in the mirror was... me. But not me.
I reached for the dresser beside the mirror, my fingers brushing against the surface of the wood. There was a notebook, a stack of papers, and a phone sitting there, all within reach. I grabbed the notebook first, opening it to the first page.
The handwriting was clean, neat, and unmistakably hers. Kornthip. Her name. I swallowed thickly. She had the same name as I did.
This girl, this other Kornthip, had lived a life. She had been in this body before I took it, and now, I had to figure out who she was. Or rather, who I was, since I was her now.
The first few pages were filled with typical school notes—subjects I recognize from high school that I graduated from two years ago. Names I didn't know. But there were also entries that made my stomach tighten.
She had two brothers, Ploy and Bank, both a little older than her. They had seemed close, from what I read. This reminds me of own older brother Beau. We were so close, I remember always following him around growing up. He recently became the assistant manager of Krystal.
She had a sister, though she didn't mention her much. A sibling who seemed to be distant, someone I knew little about.
I flipped through more pages, finding information about her school, things she liked—books, music, even what she'd had for dinner that night. It was so... mundane. So normal. I couldn't help but wonder how much of this life I could make my own, or if I was destined to simply exist in it, a ghost of someone else.
I needed more. I needed to know how to make sense of this life. I pulled open a drawer near the bed, rifling through it, hoping to find something, anything, that would give me more of a clue.
At the bottom of the drawer, I found a school ID. I picked it up, feeling the weight of it in my hand, and read the details. She was 17, two years younger that I was. Not quite an adult, but not a child either. A teenager still trying to figure out her place in the world, just like I had been.
I stumbled back to the window, pulling the curtains aside and gazing out. The landscape was strange—houses that looked nothing like what I was used to. It was still dark out with only the smallest bits of sunlight beginning to brush the sky. The houses all looked uniform, different cars parked in all the driveways, almost all the houselights were off. A life I didn't belong to, but I was trapped inside of it.
There was a sudden pang of loss in my chest. I hadn't just lost my life as Korn; I had lost everything. My home. My friends. My family.
I needed answers. I needed to know what had happened. What had gone so wrong that I was here, now, in a body I didn't recognize, in a life that wasn't mine?
I turned my attention back to the room. It was clean, decorated in simple tones—nothing too flashy, nothing too personal. But there was a comfort to it, like the girl who lived here had found peace in the simple things. A shelf filled with books. A few framed photos on the walls.
I spotted one frame on the dresser, a picture of Kornthip with two boys around her age, smiling with what seemed like genuine affection. Her brothers, maybe? I could feel the strain of familiarity pushing against me. They weren't my brothers and this wasn't my family, but my new body recognized them.
But they were mine now. This life, this body, this new identity—I would have to make it mine. Even if it felt like trying to fit into someone else's skin.
I collapsed back on the bed, feeling the weight of it all settle around me. I had to keep going. I had to find out what happened to Korn, to me, to this new life.
"How do I even begin?" I whispered to myself, the question echoing around the room. "How do I live like this?"
The house was so still it made my ears ring.
I lay on the bed for a long moment, staring up at the ceiling, trying to ignore the weight in my chest. Sleep wasn't coming back. I could feel it—an energy humming beneath my skin, restless and anxious, refusing to let me sink back into unconsciousness.
I turned my head toward the nightstand and spotted a digital clock blinking quietly in the darkness:
5:24 AM.
Too early for anything. Too late to go back to the dream I'd left behind.
A deep breath shuddered out of me. Maybe... maybe getting up would help. Doing something normal. Something simple.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. The house around me creaked lightly, the kind of soft, familiar noises that old homes made when everyone else was still asleep. I moved quietly toward the door, slipping out into the hall. Somehow, my feet seemed to know where to go, like muscle memory that wasn't mine.
Down the hall.
Turn left.
Down a short flight of stairs, hand gliding lightly down the wooden railing.
Another left.
There—the kitchen.
The familiarity was eerie, but comforting, too, like the house had already accepted me.
The kitchen was dimly lit by the faintest glow of the streetlights outside. I padded across the tile floor and clicked on a low light above the stove, bathing the room in a gentle yellow warmth.
Instinct took over before I could think too much about it.
I opened cabinets and drawers with an ease that should have startled me, pulling out a pan, a spatula, a small bowl. I found the rice cooker tucked neatly on the counter, right where it felt like it belonged.
The hunger in my stomach twisted slightly, a sharp reminder of how alive I still was, despite everything. I needed something simple. Something grounding.
My hands moved before my mind caught up, reaching for ingredients knowing that I didn't know where they were, but my body somehow still subconciously knew: eggs, leftover rice from the fridge, a bottle of fish sauce, garlic, a small pile of green onions.
I smiled lightly: Khao khai jeow. Thai-style omelette rice.
Comfort food.
Familiar, easy, warm.
I cracked a couple of eggs into a bowl, beating them lightly with a fork, adding a splash of fish sauce and a sprinkle of chopped green onions. The scent of the raw mixture, sharp and savory, made my mouth water.
The pan hissed as the eggs hit the hot oil. I tilted it, letting the mixture spread thin, waiting for the edges to crisp up. I worked quickly but carefully, the way I'd always cooked when I was still Korn.
Funny how some things stayed the same, even when everything else had changed.
The omelet finished, I slid it onto a plate with a neat pile of steamed rice, setting it gently on the kitchen island. The silence of the house pressed in again, but it didn't feel quite so heavy now. More like... a blanket. Soft. Comforting.
I glanced at the other plates in the cabinet, and before I could second-guess myself, I made five more servings. One for each sibling and one for each parent that were still sleeping upstairs.
It felt strange, cooking for strangers. But somewhere deep down, it didn't feel wrong. Like somehow, even through the confusion and grief, I wanted to take care of them.
Maybe because it's all I knew how to do.
When I finished, I sat at the counter, chin propped in my hand, staring out the small kitchen window. The world was still cloaked in darkness, only the faintest hints of sunrise peeking over the horizon.
I didn't feel like I belonged here yet. I didn't feel like me yet. But for now... this small, quiet moment would have to be enough.
The house still slept around me, unaware that the girl who had gone to bed last night wasn't exactly the girl who woke up this morning. And I—I wasn't sure if I would ever be ready to tell them.