Spectra

Chapter 27

Emily

"Emily?" I heard a familiar voice call but it sounded like I was underwater. "Emily!" My eyes slowly opened. I squinted at the bright white lights. I looked around the room for Lucas. I turned on my other side and saw... myself trying to shake me awake. Who was it? Immediately I thought of Hannibal Bates and his shapeshifting abilities. I pinned their hands to the ground and a scared version of my face looked up at me.

"Who are you and why do you look like me?" I gasped at the sound of my voice. It was much deeper than it should've been. Then I realized I sounded like Lucas.

"Emily, it's Lucas." My voice said back at me. I stood up and picked up a shiny metal surgical tray. I looked at my reflection and saw my best friend looking back at me. I quickly set it down and walked back to Lucas.

"I'm in your body, and you're in mine." I tried to think back to before we woke up. We were finding medicine. And Lucas and I took the nasty cold medicine. I gasped. "Lucas, where's the medicine we took?" Lucas stood up and pointed to a cupboard under the counter. I reached in and found the bottle. I read the label like we should have before. "Body Interchanging Experiment. Property of Mercury Labs."

"You mean we swapped bodies?!" My voice angrily asked. I didn't think my face could look that angry but Lucas did it.

"Yeah," I answered quietly. Lucas facepalmed. "Well, call your mom! This needs to be fixed. Now!" Lucas scrambled to get out his phone. But suddenly the doorbell rang. His eyes widened.

"Ainsley!" He ran upstairs so I followed behind him. Mrs. Marshall had said that Ainsley would be home by seven. We must've been out for close to five hours. Lucas opened the front door. His sister toddled in front of him.

"Hi Emily!" She cheered making me smile, but I realized she wasn't talking to me. Lucas smiled at the girl I'd never seen before.

"Thanks Amy. My parents are out of town for a few days, they'll pay you by Friday." The look on Amy's face reminded me that she saw me telling her this, and not Lucas.

"What she means to say is, my parents are out of town. We are so close, it feels like we share parents sometimes." I faked a smile and put an arm around Lucas. He realized his mistake and nodded in agreement. I waved her off and shut the door. I immediately turned to Lucas. "What were you thinking? I'm you and you're me, remember?

"This is going to get some getting used to."

"What is?" Ainsley asked from behind us. We both slowly turned around after remembering she was there.

"Emily and I are playing a game where we pretend we switched bodies and act like each other." I said, making up the thing on the spot. Ainsley nodded as if this made sense to her even though it didn't really make sense in this situation. "So tonight Emily is going to tuck you in." Lucas smiled and nodded, obviously relieved. They walked together upstairs and into Ainsley's room. I decided to head into Lucas' room and start think of how we were gong to solve this problem. After a few minutes he came into his room.

"Thank you." He said while sitting down next to me. He remembered to call his mom who ended up telling us there was nothing she could do and we would just have to get through the week. She told her husband who just laughed and said good luck. So basically we were stuck being each other for four whole school days.

"How are we going to do this?" I groaned.

"I have no idea." Then, all the things we'd have to do as each other spilled into my brain.

"Oh my god. Going to the bathroom? Getting dressed? Showering?" Lucas seemed to stop breathing as I listed these off.

"We just won't do those at all."