Mouse - Rewind

Chapter 3

After calling the emergency services, Ba Reum tried to calm himself down a bit. It had been a very busy evening and he had done a lot. He took a long warm shower, hoping that his muscles would relax and then tried to get some sleep, feeling exhausted.

He tried to lay in bed, but the thought of his own body in the freezer was making him feel tense again and his head started to pound harder and harder. He got out of bed again, stumbling through the house.

He went through his medicine cabinet and was glad that the box of painkillers was approximately full, quickly taking one. He had never used a lot of medication, but he had noticed that his headaches seemed to increase more and more lately and he knew that it was the brain transplant that was slowly failing.

Luckily the painkiller helped to settle the headache to a bearable level and he managed to get a few hours of sleep in, but before he was fully rested, his alarm clock sounded, making Ba Reum startle awake and look around the place he had woken up in. At first he didn't even recognize it anymore, but then it came back to him.

Right. So it seemed that this wasn't a dream after all. He was still in his old home. He went to his freezer and opened the lid and saw the plastic lying in there. No, not a dream.

He closed it again and went to the bathroom to freshen himself up a bit and then looked in his wardrobe. He looked at all the shirts and pants he used to wear back then and took a random pair, not really caring much about it. He had forgotten that he had even adjusted his taste in clothes to seem more harmless.

Still, they were soft and fit him well enough, even with the weight loss from the past few week.

He took a moment to study himself in the mirror. He looked different from his younger self, the short hair was a dead give-away, giving him an harsher look, but that was easily waved away. It were his eyes that looked just a bit more different.

He wondered if a lot of people would notice it. He tried smiling in the mirror and that made him look a bit more like his younger self. Let's just try to get through the day, he thought.

Seeing the current affairs, he thought it better not to go to work, and as soon as it was socially acceptable, he called his old chief to ask for a week holiday, hoping the man wouldn't be too annoyed by it.

"I'm truly sorry, but something unexpected came up, and I'll have to deal with it." He apologised to the man.

"It's fine. These things happen. I like to be warned a bit sooner than this, but seeing as it's the first time this happened, it's fine. Try not to make an habit from it." The chief said gruffly.

"Of course not sir, I'm truly sorry." He said again, knowing that the man understood that sometimes private life could turn a bit unexpected, as long as people didn't take advantage of it of course.

"Just take care of what happened and come back to work next week." The man ended the conversation abruptly after that, probably trying to avoid Ba Reum apologizing for the same thing a third time. Ba Reum shook his head at the man's behavior, and drank another sip from his coffee. He actually liked the man.

He had been glad to have been granted the holiday. He needed it for his plan. He looked at the clock and finished the last dregs of his drink, and pouring a new cup, needing the caffeine.

His 'aunt' should almost arrive. It was time to get on with his plan.

"Good morning Ba Reum," she said cheerfully when she came in, "oh, you've cut your hair?"

Ba Reum nodded, not smiling at all, but just staring at her, an unreadable expression on his face. Still she pretended as if nothing weird was going on, still smiling at him. She was as good an actress as he was an actor.