Chapter 1

Everything went from dark, weak and struggling to breathe, to silent and dead.

My soul was suddenly out of my body and shoved into what could only be described as a fifth dimensional transportation station, where information about a young boy was being downloaded into my brain.

That poor kid...

The things he had to endure just to survive were far beyond what any child should be capable of surviving and way out on the far side of demonic. The loading of thoughts, experiences, memories and sensations was either extremely quick, or torturously slow. It could have been both, but it might have been neither, because the hurt, pain and fear that my new body was accustomed to enduring were all being transferred into my conscious mind. Once the influx of information slowed down I felt my mind being transmitted into that boys’ body.

From silence I was transitioned instantly to shrieking, shouting and terrible pain...

Just as my mind slipped inside the head of the dead boy, I thought I caught a glimpse of a soul slipping away ... Instinctively I knew he was far better off than he was in the life he led prior to his death.

I knew that I’d died in Michael’s body, back in Acapulco. Like one other time when I changed bodies, the universe seemed to send me straight from my final breath as Michael Ryan into the body of another dead kid. As I became a little more aware of my new surroundings, I could tell that I was on the floor of what had to be a grocery store, lying in a pool of blood that likewise, had to have belonged to the boy who’d just died and judging from the head pain, he died from a head injury perpetrated on him by the psychopath that was now attacking me.

There was another excruciating blow to my head. The crazy woman used a steel frying pan taken off the shelf where there were several other sizes and manufacturers to choose from, including Pyrex, Corning Ware and an unidentified brand made of plastic, and smashed it into my skull. She was completely out of control and dangerous, but the body I was just thrust into was so injured from the first blows that I couldn’t seem to find the strength to move out of the way. “You stupid, worthless, pathetic, trash ... You have never been anything but trouble. We didn’t want you. We couldn’t afford you and if I’d had the money I would have aborted you!!!! The very least you could do is die.”

I had no trouble hearing her voice as she shrieked at me. The screaming was accompanied by a series of vicious kicks to my head and shoulders. I had seen the frying the frying pan flying from her hand after she hit me in the head really hard and it slipped out of her hand because it had so much of my blood on it. When she lost her grip she resorted to her fists and feet. I felt several ribs go from her insane attack. For a moment I wondered if the beating would result in a quick death in this body.

Using what little bit of strength I did have, I tried to roll into a ball to cover up. The hard edges of her shoes cut the boy’s thin skin wherever they landed. I could feel her fist and then her foot as it struck the already bloody wound on the side of my head. There was plenty of blood and her continued attacks made it even worse. She had somehow managed to open several new gashes just above the temple of my new body.

That was obviously how he died.

All this and I hadn’t been in his body for a full minute, yet.

Seeing how I covered my head to escape her blows, she turned her attention to kicking my exposed ribs and stomach. It was obvious that those chest hits had done some serious damage because every breath was accompanied by sharp, stabbing pain. Without an easy route to my chest, I was positive she was trying for a crotch shot, but it was hard due to the fetal ball I rolled myself into as she re-aimed her kicks. Through the pain, haze of blood, and the screaming lunatic kicking me, I heard other voices but something was clearly wrong with my hearing, because they came to me from what sounded like very far away. One of the voices was a voice of authority and his words were almost clear.

“You!!!! Stop hurting that boy. Step away from him NOW, or I will be forced to hurt you!” I risked a peek and saw it was a uniformed police officer. I was never so happy to see a police officer as I was at that moment. My life times of training told me to try to get away, but my new body was far too damaged to do more than squeeze myself into a ball and try to avoid more abuse.

The words and tone of voice did nothing to slow down my attacker. She hit me with two more, vicious blows to the back of my head before I felt her body hit the floor near me. Striking a solid surface that hard would knock the wind out of anyone, and the officer used her momentary loss of control to quickly handcuff and drag her away from me for safety’s sake. Her screaming increased in volume and in the variety and frequency of disgusting, filthy language she hurled at me and the officer. That woman seemed to know every dirty word in the English language and strung them together in a remarkably imaginative manner.

Shortly another officer showed up and took charge of the crazy woman. That freed the first officer to get a good look at my injuries. He snatched up his walkie-talkie when he saw the amount of blood coming from under me.

“Headquarters ... This is Six-Four Seven. I need an ambulance for a severely injured child with multiple head injuries at the scene. Be advised that we have a white female in custody for the assault. Six-Four Five is handling custody of the prisoner. I will be staying with the victim.” I could almost hear every word, but found I had to rely partially on lip reading to be certain.

The radio response was almost instant, but I couldn’t hear well enough to make out what was said. The officer knelt beside me and started talking. For me it was like one of those cheesy, old movies where the characters are speaking in Japanese, but the film was overdubbed in English. The sounds I could hear bore no relationship to the officer’s lips.

It was impossible to piece his words together, even with my slight ability to read lips. What I heard were a string of disjointed, single syllables, unconnected to the rest of any word, or phrase. It was then that I realized how fortunate I was in that respect, because if I was partially, or mostly, deaf due to the attack, there was less risk that I would have to answer questions that even with the download I still didn’t know, and end up being sent to a mental ward.

The officer tried mightily to communicate, but I looked at him in silence because I really couldn’t make out what he was saying and the deafness got worse by the minute, instead of clearing up. Eventually I tried to show him by hand motions that I couldn’t hear, and when I cupped my hands over my ears he figured out that I was having trouble. The violence perpetrated against the boy’s body resulted in near deafness and severe respiratory distress.

I couldn’t hear, or breathe.

He gave orders to what appeared to be the store manager and he ran off to do something for the officer. Instead of lying in a pool of my own blood, I tried to sit up to see if that would lessen the excruciating pain in my chest, but couldn’t quite make it. When I was high enough off the floor for people see under me, they saw a wide pool of blood that my head was adding to by the second. When the manager came back he had his hands full of first aid supplies and the officer tried to apply pressure to my bleeding ears and head.

Seeing someone try to help me set off the woman all over again, and she started screaming, cursing, and kicking trying to get at me to finish what she started. The officer restraining her apparently had enough, because he hit her with a very sharp blow to the solar plexus, using four straight fingers. That had to hurt, because she finally shut up.