4. Familiar
The whole situation is the weirdest part...
Transmigrated Teri is an ongoing isekai/portal fantasy series about Teri Graves, an embittered middle-age GenX office lady who gets into a massive car accident and wakes up in the world of the fantasy series she loves to hate, The Allisar Fireborn Chronicles. She knows the characters, she knows the plot, and she knows that its all a massive coma dream…except for how nothing is as it should be. Worse? She woke up in the body of the doomed evil stepmother! She escaped a pandemic for this?
Previously: Teri woke up, kinda sorta…
Teri felt herself awaking up again, somehow aware that time had passed but not how much, as if she was coming out a deep sleep but not a normal one. She felt unmoored from her sense of self, from her body, from time.
Even before she opened her eyes, she knew she was alone, and that room was dark. She took a deep breath and waited for a moment, bracing for another migraine. It had been years since they were regular occurrences, thanks to the prescription from her doctor that she had started on when she was thirty-three. She was nervous about whether it was being administered while she was in hospital, and that thought led to the question: was she in a hospital? Where else could she be after an accident like that? And how long had she been unconscious, or possibly in a coma?
Slowly opening her eyes, she saw the same room she had woken up in earlier, only shrouded in darkness. Heavy and ornate curtains had been drawn tight over the tall windows, and she only noticed that because there was a low lamp on a side table casting a warm, cheery but limited glow. It looked like a damn oil lamp, the idea of which made her stare at it for a moment until she realized with a gasp that she was not alone, after all. A small, elderly woman sat in a heavily upholstered chair across from the table holding the lamp, listing to one side, her mouth slightly ajar as she slept on. She looked like an extra from Game of Thrones, her dress a costume amalgamation of historic eras, with a tight, high-necked bodice and a lacy housecoat…or something. Even from a distance and in the dark, though, Teri could tell that it was well made. If it was handmade, it had to be worth a lot of money. Not something any nurse would wear on shift.
She took a deep breath again, and consciously tried to move her fingers, then her hands, then her arms. Her body was sore, as if it had been trampled by a mule or something, but not like she had survived a head-on collision with a massive truck doing fifty miles an hour.
That was the weirdest part.
On second thought, she decided that no, her lack of injuries was not the weirdest part.
The whole fucking situation was the weirdest part.
It was all equally bizarre. Where the hell was she? Was this the fanciest hospital in the country? For a moment she toyed with the idea that the delivery truck’s company was putting her up in an exclusive hospital, but given that she was at fault, why would they bother? And what hospital, filled with oxygen lines and bottles for patience, would allow a god-damn oil lamp in any room?
Rolling carefully to one side, she let out a groan. The pain was lessened from what she remembered, replaced mostly by a general bone-deep ache, except for her right leg. The doctor had said something about not being happy with how it was healing, which matched the sharp pain shooting up from her foot.
She stopped for a long moment, taking deep breaths as the realization sunk in that there was no way she was getting out of the bed alone. Or possibly at all.
There was a tap-tap-tap noise from somewhere outside the room, as if an animal was walking down a tiled hallway. It was followed by a creaking noise and then Theo was there, sitting in the middle of the room, looking at her.
“Theo?” She called in shock.
:I am here, mistress! I am here!: He bounced up and down for a moment and then bolted, running around the room once before jumping on the bed and licking her face in excitement.
“Argh! Dog! Bleah!” She pushed him away.
:I am so happy you are awake! Everyone here smells so weird! I had some chicken for dinner! The cook’s children shared with me. They are good puppies!:
“What. The. Fuck.” She stared at the dog, who was now talking inside of her head. He stared back with a broad doggy smile on his face, his tongue lolling out.
“Milady!” The old woman called out loudly as she pushed herself up out of the chair and hobbled over, squinting, more asleep than awake. “Ah! Please, do not strain yourself!” She patted the bed coverings.
“What is with the ‘milady’ bullshit?” Teri snapped at the woman. “And who the fuck are you?”
The woman gasped and clutched at the, yes, literal pearls draped around her neck.
“You are not a nurse! I demand to speak to the managing nurse on duty!” Teri said, cringing a little inside at becoming a real Karen about the situation. Needs must, she figured.
“I will get the doctor, Milady!” The woman tottered out like a high-speed turtle.
Theo plopped down next to Teri and looked up at her. :You are so grumpy! Leg hurt?:
Teri stared at him. “This cannot be happening.”
:I don’t know about that. Seems to be happening! Did you know there are a lot of cows around here? They are so funny!:
“Cows.”
:I’ve heard about them! We eat them, don’t we? They are much bigger than I thought, and very dumb.:
“Milady!” The same so-called doctor from last time rushed in, outrageously ornate robes flapping. “How are you feeling?” He peered at her but made no move to check her pulse or anything resembling medical care in general, seeming more concerned to keep his distance from Theo.
“My dog is here,” she said, pointing at Theo.
:I am here!:
“Ahem. Yes. As unusual as it might be, in your situation, he is, ah, yours, after all.” The doctor looked very uncomfortable about it.
Teri narrowed her eyes at him, and he stepped back.
“This isn’t a hospital at all, is it?”
The woman gasped and clutched her pearls again, her eyes going wide. “Milady! We would never dare take you to a lowly hospital! You are here in—”
She stopped talking as soon as the doctor held up his hand, his own eyes narrowing. He still had not made it to the edge of the bed.
“Milady. If I may ask: can you tell us where you are, right now?”
:Home home home!:
“We are not at home!” She snapped at Theo.
More gasping from the woman, and the doctor’s hand dropped. “Do you know who I am?”
“Not really. I heard those kids call you doctor, but I don’t know you.”
“Those kids?” The doctor repeated weakly.
The lady pushed past him to lean on the bed. “Milady! You know who I am, at least, don’t you?”
Teri looked at her for a moment, dragging it out as she thought of every answer she could give that would not be in some way wrong, and possibly inflammatory. There was none.
“I have never met you before in my life.”
The woman collapsed on the bed, wailing, and it was the doctor’s turn to gasp in horror.
:You really upset them! Why are you so mean?:
Teri fell back on the mattress and yanked the cover up over her head, only for Theo to grab the edge of it with his mouth and pull it down.
:Hide and seek?: He looked so damn hopeful.
“No!” she snapped at him and he scooted backwards quickly. She only had a moment to feel a twinge of guilt before the doctor cautiously approached the bed again, eyeing Theo warily. He had apparently stuffed the weeping woman back into the chair she had been sleeping in.
“What?”
“I fear there has been some…ah…memory loss?” He smiled uncomfortably.
There was no memory loss that she was aware of, only a great deal of confusion, but she wanted answers and arguing with him would not get him to tell her anything. She waved at him to get a move on.
“Well! I would like to ask you a few questions? Just to establish a baseline, you see. To make sure—”
“I know what the fuck a baseline is!”
The woman sobbed louder, face hidden in a massive, lacey handkerchief.
“Okay, fine, get on with it.” She rubbed her eyes, grateful that at the very least she was getting some control of her body back. She expected he would ask her the date, as if she could forget that, and possibly who the president was (as if she could forget that horror either).
“What are the names of your stepchildren?” He asked, eyebrows raised. He obviously thought it was a softball of a question.
Her jaw dropped.
Step children? Who the hell did they think she was? Was there a mixup? How many cars had ended up piled up in that accident?
“Milady?” He prompted, hope fading in his eyes.
“I do not have any stepchildren.”
He stared at her in frank horror. She stared back in annoyance.
He snapped his jaw shut, glared at Theo one more time, spun around, and marched out. The woman in the chair held her handkerchief held up to her quivering mouth.
“You truly do not recognize me, milady?” She whispered into the fabric, muffled to the point that Teri could barely make out what she was saying.
“No.” Teri stopped there, suddenly struck with inspiration. If the so-called doctor was even marginally proficient at his job, he would not tell her anything. He was probably setting up a whole battery of tests to find out what she could “remember,” which Teri knew was “absolutely nothing,” because she was not the person they thought she was. The key to getting out of the whole situation was to find a way to get her bearings, and the little old lady was probably her best bet.
:Oh yes! She cares about you a lot. I don’t know why; you’re mean.: Theo was still on the bed but had turned around and was sitting with his back to her. She ignored him.
Instead, she put on her most simple smile and tried to look forlorn and confused. “Can you please tell me who you think I am?”
The woman lowered her handkerchief and eyed Teri warily. Maybe she was not as much of a pushover as she thought.
:You’ve known her since you were a puppy!:
Thanking Theo silently in her head (Theo’s tail thumped happily a few times, but he did not turn around), Teri tried to blink up some fake tears like she did every year on her mother’s birthday.
“You seem familiar…as if I’ve known you for a long time?”
:You are such a liar!:
She kicked her good leg out to bump Theo, who grumbled. The woman, meanwhile, sniffled a little.
“Oh, milady! Yes! I have been your lady-in-waiting since you were but a child! Before even your very first shadow hunt!”
Teri paused. “Shadow hunt” was a term coined by Fuckin’ Chad for the Allisar Chronicles, his take on the idea of mages hunting down demons and other dangerous creatures. She had a sinking feeling in her stomach.
“And this would be…back when we lived…in Zyphyrehon?”
She brightened up even more. “Yes! Yes! Are you remembering?”
Teri let out a gusty sigh.
So, apparently, she was in a coma and this was a dream world.
:I am not a dream dog!:
She ignored him as he flopped down and put a paw over his face.
The woman had perked up and was sitting on the edge of the giant upholstered chair, looking expectantly at Teri.
“How could a daughter of the ferocious Crimson Viper ever forget?” She tried not to wince as she spoke, testing the waters, but also afraid of how deep her fucking brain might go.
“Oh! Lady Greyrage! You do remember!” She toddled over to the bed again and grabbed Teri’s hand, her face alight with joy and relief.
Teri wondered how much she had to hate herself to dream up possessing the body of one of the most loathed step-mothers in modern fantasy: Lady Bonarae Greyrage, the Venomous Whip of Luttiron.
NEXT: Welcome to Luttiron
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