Ruby looked in the window at the dress. It was beautiful. She looked down at the price.
"Okay, maybe not."
In the distance a police siren wailed in two tone distress.
Purchasing it had never really been a realistic option in the first place. For a start, the mannequin looked to be a size eight, possibly ten. Ruby was a size thirty. On a good day. She doubted that the dress was even made in her size and even if it had, it would have looked entirely ridiculous on her…prodigious… frame.
Even when she was nine, she doubted that she would have been small enough to be able to wear it. But she could dream. She was twenty three now.
The siren was coming closer, accompanied by a growling roar. It wasn't the only thing that was growling. There was a Greggs bakery just a few shop fronts further along. She could accommodate their products easily enough.
The wail was louder, as was the scream of an engine, or was it an exhaust? Ruby looked round, as did most of the people on the street.
They said that time slowed in moments of extreme stress or danger. Ruby had always scoffed at such ridiculousness. And yet…
A pigeon, feasting on something cast aside from the Greggs, slowly took to wing, each beat ridiculously slow.
Across the street, a woman in her car, who looked to be somewhere between eighty or ninety, turned on her indicator. Ruby unconsciously split the difference and settled on eight five. She watched as the woman made no attempt to look. She just pulled out into the traffic with the surety of someone who has been driving for over forty years without a single accident. Completely oblivious to the forty years of carnage that she had left behind in her wake.
The old woman had just managed to get her front wheels into the live carriageway when the stolen Audi ploughed straight into her driver's door. The driver's door of the thirty year old Nisan Micra, one careful owner at less than two thousand miles a year, didn't even attempt structural cohesion.
Neither did the chassis.
The contents of the car became a one ton Newton's cradle, the shock wave travelling through a body riddled with osteoporosis. With her bones turned to mush, the weight of her head disintegrated what had once been a neck. Airway, nerves, arteries and veins, all crushed and collapsed.
The old woman was dead even as the Audi, the remains of its front left headlight still imbedded in the Micra, the track rod ends and supports of the left wheel buckled but hanging in there, careered across the road at the better part of eighty miles an hour.
Ruby watched the Audi head directly for her.
Had she been fourteen stone lighter, she might have leapt nimbly to the side.
She wasn't.
The car slowly headed for her. She could make out the face of the man behind the wheel. Baseball cap on backwards, cigarette in the corner of his mouth. His face neutral. The information from his eyeballs about the collision with the Micra, barely even arriving at his brain.
The undamaged part of the bumper hit her legs and she was travelling forward. Or the car was travelling forward and she was just stationary. She wasn't sure. What she was sure of, was that she hit the windscreen and she was flying.
The car ploughed into the shop front, the low wall supporting the window ripping off both front wheels as the rear bounced up, both rear tyres exploding as the rims buckled and shattered as they hit the remains of the low wall. The car ploughed on, sending racks of clothes and shoppers in every direction.
Ruby flew.
Her eyes met the eyes of a confused pigeon, and then they were past, going in opposite directions.
Her body was slowly revolving. She looked down at the slowly approaching municipal bin. Painted black with the town's golden crest. The words in white.
Please don't litter, use the bins provided
She was still slowly rotating. The corner of the rectangular bin, it's slightly pyramid shaped top, to aid water runoff and to stop people sitting on it.
Her head collided with the corner of two sides and the lid, punching into her skull. She felt her skull give and then she was bouncing across the pavement.
Darkness.
***
Voices.
She knew two of them to be her parents.
She tried to open her eyes, but something had sealed them shut. She could feel pressure on her eyebrows. They were taped shut. Something was in throat, and for a moment, she had a fleeting image from that horror movie, where a creature was wrapped round the woman's neck. Her neck pulsed as the creature kept her alive as it deposited the embryo in her lungs, or was it her stomach? It didn't matter as the true horror would come later when the creature birthed.
Strangely the thing in her throat did not make her gag. She could hear the steady beep of monitoring equipment.
"It's been two months, there has been no recorded brain activity in that time. I'm sorry, but it's only the machines that are keeping your daughter's body functioning. The girl you knew died on impact."
"There is no chance that she might regain function?"
Her mother. There was silence. Ruby could picture the unknown man shaking his head.
"I'm sorry, no. The damage was too great. If she were to ever regain consciousness, she would be paralysed from the neck down due to her injuries. The head trauma was so substantial that I wouldn't like to hazard a guess at how much of your daughter would return. The most humane thing for your daughter,"
"Ruby."
"Ruby, is to switch off her support, let her go peacefully." He paused. "If you sign consent, her organs can go on to give life to other girls, so that part of her will always live on. Save many other families from your loss…"
No! I don't want to die! I want to live!
Darkness consumed her.
***
"I'm sorry, she will be with the Lord soon."
Ruby tried to open her eyes. They opened into partial dark. She stared at a…
What the actual fuck.
It looked like she was in some hut that belonged in one of those begging aid adverts that wanted you to give money for some water pump in Africa. That was definitely a straw roof above her head.
The room, hut, whatever the fuck it was, stunk.
Her neck hurt and she could only really move her eyes. Between her prone body and the rickety planks that made up the door, were two gaunt people she did not recognise and a fat man in a plain brown robe. He was holding a staff and looked to Ruby like some Hollywood interpretation of what a monk would look like. But with more dirt and more smell.
Who the fuck are you, where the fuck am I?
Was what her brain sent to her mouth.
"Wghjre ergns fjnertfg adnierfn." was what came out of her mouth.
All three looked at her.
"She wakes!"
"A miracle from our Lord!"
Shut the fuck up you pompous ass.
Ruby found she could move her neck a bit more. She could feel extremities. She had toes she could wriggle. Fingers too. Fuck she was cold.
"Elaria you'er awake my love." The obviously peasant woman hobbled over to her, kneeled down and held onto her tightly. "We thought we had lost you…"
Elaria? What the fuck!
Ruby tried lifting her right hand as the crazy woman was currently holding onto her left in a death grip. Her right hand raised. Only it wasn't her hand.
She looked at the small, thin, very grubby hand. She knew of 'thigh gap' but wondered if 'finger gap' was also a 'thing'. It had been, like, forever since she could see between her fingers. She could see bones. Finger bones, wrist bones. How long had it been since she'd had a properly defined wrist and not just a crease in her fat where forearm became hand.
The hand that was not hers, yet under her control, fell to her head. Her finger tips that were not her fingertips, touched hair that was beyond greasy. She couldn't help herself, she touched the place where the corner of the bin had connected with her head.
There was an obvious dent.
This is so fucked up.
She struggled to sit up, was about to give up when the strange woman helped her.
The blanket fell from her chest and Ruby looked down at a grubby chest. She looked, but didn't see. Not really. She could see ribs. A belly button.
Well, that's a novelty.
When was the last time she had seen that without the aid of a mirror? Ruby bit her tongue.
"Ow!" Even her voice was not her voice to her ears.
"What's wrong my love?"
"Sorry to be rude, but who are you? And do you have some water? My throat is like Ghandi's flip-flop."
The peasant woman looked shocked. The fat man spoke up.
"Ah blow to the head like that, is very rarely survivable, never really. It's going to cause irrevocable damage to the tissue inside. I've seen people who have survived even light blows to the head lose all knowledge of who they were before the blow."
"Do they get it back, Father?" asked the woman, who Ruby was starting to horribly suspect, was her 'mother'.
The fat man slowly shook his head in sorry. The strange woman started to sob on Ruby's lap as the other, considerably gaunter, man just stood there and looked helpless.
If wailing woman was her mother, then Captain Useless there, must be her father. Just because it sounded plausible, didn't make it right. Neither of them remotely looked like her parents. Mind you, I don't look like me.
No-one seemed to be mentioning, or bothered, that her breasts, as small as they were, were on show now that she had sat up. Ratios were all wrong. She was not twenty three. Not in a million malnourished years. Try taking a decade off her age and a millennia off the. She paused. The millennia.
She couldn't say the word. Mother. It sounded wrong, so she didn't.
"How old am I? And for the love of God, can I get some water?"
All that did, was set her mother sobbing even more into her lap. Father Fat-man spoke up.
"You are fourteen summers old child."
Math was not mathing. Shouldn't I be twenty three summers old?
"Water?"
Fat Man turned to Captain Useless.
"Go get your daughter some water, my son."
Famine commercial extra departed the mud hut. No doubt in search of some water pump provided by Water Aid at a vastly inflated rate over commercial value.
Ruby swung a foot out so she could see it. Dirty, emaciated, pretty much like the rest of her.
No tax on kids shoes. Her brain pointed out, pointlessly, since it was obvious that she wasn't in 'modern day England'. Not that it looked like she had any shoes in the first place. Or that her 'family' had the means to buy a pair for her.
Dad entered, holding a cracked and slightly leaking wooden goblet. She took hold of it with a shaking hand and avoided peering into too much. She was pretty sure she had seen something swimming inside. It tasted… weird… but it was wet and soothing.
"I must go. I have others of my flock I must attend to."
"Thank you, Father." Her parents said as one reverently.
"May the Lord's light watch over you." He made a fancy motion with his hand before he turned and left.
She didn't want to, but she needed to. Ruby tried to stand. She was regaining strength, just not very quickly. Her mother quietened in her sobbing and stood herself. Ruby tried to use her as a brace. Failed. Third time proved to be the lucky one as her mother helped her up. The scrap of, whatever had been used as a the thread barest of threadbare blankets dropped from her to the hard packed soil floor.
Ruby looked down at a body that would have had her hospitalised with a feeding tube, back … before…
She needed to know. She had a horrible suspicion, but she needed to know. She hobbled over to the door, needless of her nakedness. Her father opened the door and she looked out, then down.
They appeared to be on some hill, slope, or something. She could see the roofs of some more thatched hovels. Not many of them. There were fields, some animals. A man was attacking some long grass which looked remarkably like a scythe.
No towering council flats. No radio mast. No tarmacked roads. No cars, nothing flying through the air bigger than a bird. They few people close by were dressed like her parents. No footwear. Those that looked her way looked away again, seemingly unconcerned by her nakedness.
Just the other week, well, according to her memories anyway, she had been reading a book about a woman who was dying from cancer in hospital, 'Evil lives!' or something. In it, a strange old woman had approached, offered the main character the chance to live again. The main character had accepted and had been transported to a world that was, quite literarily, out of a very popular fantasy novel that she in turn had been reading. This allowed her to know what the future of said world 'foretold'.
Ruby had no recollection of speaking to any old woman, or of being given a choice. One minute she had been flying through the air, her destiny with a rubbish bin, the next, listening to her impending death and carve up into little pieces, and then she was here.
This wasn't quite the flash of your entire life before your eyes either. Unless it started with your fifteenth, or whatever, great grandmother…
Fuck! If it did, it was going to take a while…
"Here." Her not-father handed her a sack. A sack in poor condition it had to be said.
Her not-mother started to push her arms into the sack, through some large holes at the bottom.
You've got to be kidding me…
Her arms were lifted and the third large hole in the bottom was pulled over her head. What used to be the neck of the old sack reached mid-thigh. She was missing Lycra already.
***
Soon after her 'awakening' her parents had left to go back to work. Alone in the hovel, there was nothing much to see apart from herself. She kept reaching for a phone she no longer possessed, and as much as she wanted to go for a wander, her legs threatened floor collapse after a few minutes. So she explored her new body instead.
The first thing she did was spread her legs and check herself. It was abundantly clear that she was no virgin. Which did ask the further questions of who was responsible for that, and was she currently seeing someone. Were they even the same individual?
No matter how hard she tried, she could not conjure up any memories that were not her own. It looked like the system re-write came with a new hard drive. Or at least, the replacement of the old with hers. She had no idea how that worked and didn't even want think too much about it either.
What was done was, apparently, done.
It turned out that she had a brother of a similar age, who she met that night. Evening meal was a watery soup of some vegetables. There were two beds. Her parents had one and she shared the other with her brother.
Her new family rose with dawns light and after a meagre breakfast of porridge, her parents departed. She followed her new brother, as he also departed for the fields.
"Lucius?"
"Hmm?"
"What happened to me?"
"Do you not remember?"
"If I did, do you think I would be asking you?"
He gave her a sharp look. Ruby was not surprised, as she had no idea how Elaria had acted before the incident.
"Osric's mule kicked you in the head."
"Did I deserve it?"
For a second he looked amused, then anger crossed his face.
"No. We were walking down the street. He was going the other way and it just lashed out a hind leg."
"Where does, um Osric, live?"
"Over there."
Ruby followed his pointing arm.
"Okay, thanks."
"I need to get to the fields." And with that, he broke into a run. Ruby carried on into the denser cluster of mud huts.
There was a blacksmith, laying out what he needed, no doubt, for the morning ahead. She watched him for a moment, partly to regain some energy. Her body moved in ways not familiar to her and although Elaria looked weaker, she was all muscle, no fat, whereas Ruby had been more the opposite.
She carried on to Osric's place. It looked a place where horses were stabled. At the moment it just had a mule tethered by reigns to a strong post. A boy moved past and it lashed out with a hind leg. The boy easily avoided it with what looked like experience to Ruby. Another two boys were sat nearby and didn't seem interested in the slightest by the action of the mule.
It looked like it was well known for lashing out.
Ruby approached the front, where the halter stopped it from raising its head and therefore it's forelegs, from lashing out. She stopped right in front of it and stared it in the eye. It looked like it was smiling. An expression further reinforced by a long baying that sounded like laughter.
"You cunt."
It bayed in laughter again.
She walked backwards till she was sure she was out of striking range before she turned her back on it.
Stopping near the blacksmith, she watched.
He had a routine. Take metal out of the fire, bash it on an anvil for a bit, return it to the fire, take hold of another bit of metal, bash that for a bit, return to the fire, take yet another bit of metal, bash that for a bit, return it to the fire.
Steady, repetitive.
She walked up to him, timing her steps so that she would be closest when his back was turned.
There was a collection of tools and hammers, ready and waiting. She grabbed a hammer she thought she could lift. Turning around she walked quickly away. No shouts of anger behind her. Not yet at least.
The mule was still there. She approached, it laughed. Again she stopped right in front of it, but not close enough to be bitten. It laughed in her face.
Ruby swung her hand and arm as hard as she could. The mule tried to pull its head back, only to find it couldn't because of the post it was reigned to. The hammer connected between its eye and ear with a dull 'thud' and it was as though all four legs had been instantly chopped off. It collapsed to the ground it's head pulled up awkwardly by the tension in the halter.
The amusement was gone from its eyes. A plaintive whimper issued from its throat.
"Sucks doesn't it."
The two boys had stood and were looking at her in astonishment. Ruby wasn't paying them any attention. She took hold of the handle with her other hand. She raised it with both hands and put every ounce of strength her little body possessed into the blow.
There was a loud 'crack' that came from neither her nor the hammer.
A rear leg jerked and twitched, as blood ran from its eye and nostrils. Ruby wondered if that was the leg that had kicked Elaria. No matter, she was beyond caring. She turned and headed back to the blacksmith, dropping his hammer on the bench as he looked after her departing body in confusion.