Bree woke up covered in blood again.
The motel room was nicer than the last one. Two weeks ago, she had been a persistent drip from the ceiling onto the middle of the bed, leading to a damp patch that started at the comforter and made its way through the mattress to form a foam-filtered puddle on the floor. This week’s was dry, at least.
The roar of the air conditioning unit under the window startled her. She turned her head in the direction of the sound and found herself looking at what had recently been a man. It might still have been a man, technically speaking, but there were pieces missing. Specifically, the eyes.
It was easier to look at this time. She didn’t want it to get easier.
Time to go.
She washed as much of the blood off as she could in the tiny bathroom sink, pulled her jacket on, gave her hair a cursory brush with her hands, took the man’s wallet, and opened the door. Her eyes adjusted to the bright morning light and she took in the world outside: a mostly-deserted car park, a freeway, hills that looked like they might have been New Mexico.
In the distance, she heard sirens. Probably not for her, but she couldn’t know for sure. Really: time to go.
This wasn’t what she had signed up for. What the fuck, Lane, she thought as she slung her backpack on and headed towards what she hoped was someplace she could get a coffee.
—
“What will happen to me?”
The question hung in the air, and for a moment nobody seemed to know where to look. Lane’s mom, Cindy, rested her eyes on an anatomy poster on the wall before she realized what she was doing and settled on a patch of wall with a crack that looked like a lightning bolt. What Bree wanted was incidental; she knew that. The question was meaningless. It was just, she thought someone should be asking it.
Then Dr French smiled. A practiced gentleness. “You’ll share,” he said. “You and Lane get to choose the hours.”
Which means Lane gets to choose the hours, Bree thought.
“Most sharers alternate,” the doctor said. “The cadence is up to you. Most often I see people alternate weekly, so that one week you would have your body, and the next week Lane does. Some people do every other day.”
“And what happens when I don’t have the body?”
The doctor’s smile returned. “It’ll be like you’re having the best sleep of your life.”
“How soon can we do it?” Cindy asked, her focus turning back to Dr French.
“We have the results back from our preliminary tests, and nothing suggests we can’t proceed,” French said. “All we need is the final go-ahead from Bree here, and we can slot you in for a session as soon as next week.”
“That won’t be a problem,” Cindy said, looking at Bree.
Sure. No. Not a problem.
Lane sat in her wheelchair, the monitor silently recording her blood oxygen, her pulse, how close she was to death. Her mouth turned up into a smile. Her parents had searched for the right body; the right host.
The right person with the right family who needed the money and couldn’t say no.
Dr French handed a form on a clipboard to Bree. The ballpoint pen hung on a string, dangling straight down like a pendulum.
“You’re doing a real kindness,” the doctor said.
“Sharing is caring,” Bree said, scrawling her body away.
Happy eighteenth birthday, she thought.
—
She noticed a streak of dried blood on her hand as she wrapped it around the thick porcelain of the diner cup. The coffee was warm, but that was all she could say for it.
Some guy sitting at the counter stole a glance at her. She tucked herself as far into the booth as she could. Hopefully not someone Lane had known when she was in control. Just a creeper would be ideal.
Perhaps seeing the interaction, the waitress walked over with her order pad open. “Do you know what you want?”
Bree stared at her for a moment. Big question.
“Where is this?” she asked.
“You don’t have your phone?” the waitress asked. Bree shook her head.
“Surprise, Nevada,” the waitress said.
Bree almost smiled. A surprise indeed.
The waitress looked her up and down for a moment. Bree wondered if she’d clocked the blood, but all she did was look. “Do you want to eat something?”
Bree paused, considered how much money she had. There was nothing in the wallet she’d taken except for a driver’s license, but Lane’s family made sure there was some money on the card. It was the least they could do.
“Eggs,” she said.
The waitress nodded and wrote down the order. She started to walk away.
“Wait,” Bree said. “Can I borrow your phone?”
—
Bree woke up to the stench of something rotting.
Outside, rain piled against the windows. She could see the white glow of snow on the ground.
There was a man. Of course there was. Eyes, missing. Bleeding out. The missing parts were never in the room; they were just gone.
Bree’s stomach rumbled uneasily. She got out of bed and went for his wallet. Five dollars; a photo of a young girl; an ID. She took the money, laid the ID out on the scratched-up desk by the far wall, found a ballpoint pen next to the telephone, and added this guy’s name to the list.
Lane had left her jacket draped over the rolling office chair. Bree hid the list on the inside of the lining, where she hoped Lane wouldn’t find it when she was in control. Each name was a face she’d woken up next to in a dirty motel, somewhere new. She hoped it would be a clue; some kind of key to what was happening. But so far, nine names in, she’d come up with nothing.
There was no phone. Lane never left the phones.
She glanced at the shower. There was dirt — or something — under her nails and what felt like grease in her hair. She shrugged it off, flung on her jacket, and opened the door. She paused a moment at the driving rain. And then she walked into it. As she disappeared into the haze, water claimed her clothes, soaking her to the skin.
—
Lane woke up freezing cold, in a bed she didn’t recognize. The wind outside was fierce. The thick walls connected to a concrete floor. Beyond the wooden bed frame was a door.
She rose to get out of bed and found that she couldn’t. Her arms were chained to the wooden slats.
She yelled. Her voice echoed back on her, then silence. There was nobody.
Bree, Lane thought.
The fourth time she’d woken up, she found the names hidden in the lining of her jacket. She found Bree’s letter, asking for answers that Lane didn’t have.
Those poor people.
She wrote Bree back, tucked back in the lining of the jacket. Did she receive it?
She yelled again. Louder, this time. Her voice echoed against the walls.
After the sixth cycle, she’d noticed it. The date, glaring on a bedside alarm. She should have been asleep for one week; she had been asleep for two.
Hadn’t Bree noticed?
There was a third. They’d added a third person. Someone new. Undisclosed.
The wind howled.
She yelled one more time, giving it everything. Her arms pulled against the chains, shaking the bed frame. She emptied her lungs into the room.
Why didn’t you see.
She waited. There was the wind, the sound of her own heartbeat, and nothing.
And then, finally, the echo of an approach; of footsteps; of closure.
This story was originally written for the Indieweb Fiction Carnival, April 2026.
