Help! Chapter 10 (Patreon)

The next day, Jeremy awoke to find several teeth on the mattress. As she ran her tongue along the inside of her mouth, she noticed several others were fairly loose.

Her hair had also changed texture and color. It was like she was aging as she watched.

She used some of the makeup she found to hide the worst of her facial flaws, and pulled her hair up into a bun. She’d need to visit a salon soon.

As she applied it, she realized as Jeremy she’d never worn makeup before, but she somehow knew what to do and how to highlight and enhance. It was still clumsy, but getting easier.

Her first attempts at makeup came out a bit clownish...

Jeremy found by closing her eyes, and relaxing, not thinking about what she was doing, the results were much better. She still couldn’t get the hang of eyebrows, however and gave up since she wanted to go back out and see Guru Venkman.

As Jeremy drove out of town following the same path he and his mother had taken the day before, he grew sad. So much had changed in 24 hours, could they possibly go back to how they were? Would his mother even believe her, know who she truly was? Jeremy felt sick to her stomach and pulled out a cigarette to calm her nerves.

Guru Venkman had to have a way for her to get back to being a man, to being himself again. He just had to. There wasn’t any way she was going to be able to cope with being this old woman, no way was she going to be Mrs. Manchester, this had to stop!

At first, she drove fast, in the method Jeremy had developed, impatient to get where she was going, but as the trees sped by, this became uncomfortable for her, so she slowed her speed down to a more sedate pace.

Young people were always in such a hurry to get somewhere they never took time to see the trees. Jeremy thought as she tapped her ash into the ashtray.

She got to the parking area, and remembered the hike to the gate. She had worn the wrong shoes!

She got out and using the fence as a railing, made her way to the beginning of the trail.

“Greetings,” guru Venkman said when Jeremy finally made it to the temple.

“Where’s Lilly?” Jeremy said, remembering the young asian woman from the day before.

“She has the day off.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said, still trying to catch her breath.

“You have been here before.”

“Yes, yesterday in fact.”

The Guru frowned at that. “Yesterday, I had a troubled young man...”

“That was me, Jeremy Fuller.” Jeremy finally could breathe again. “She stole my body!”

“Hmm, yes, I sense great distress within you, and I see your spirit does not match your vesicle.”

“Yes!” Jeremy said. “And erasing the sigil did nothing!”

“Was it destroyed before or after the transmigration?”

“Before!” Jeremy said. “The instant I erased it, we swapped.”

The Guru nodded. “I see.”

“She told me because I destroyed the sigil, there was no way for us two switch back. Is that true?”

The guru closed his eyes for a time.

He nodded, then said. “Come, Jeremy, let’s take a walk.”

Jeremy followed the man further into the garden, then said: “I’m a bit exhausted from the walking in this body. It’s definitely not in the same shape as my other.”

The guru nodded, then indicated Jeremy should sit on a stone bench.

“Well?” Jeremy said.

“Breathe in the fragrance of the flowers, Jeremy. Feel the slight breeze on your skin.”

Jeremy sighed, wanting answers, not wanting to be consoled. “Look, man, can you switch us back or no?”

“A being such as the one you describe has several poor qualities.” He spoke in a soft voice, soothing. “A witch as you call her, a being who has a nearly constant grasp on the supernatural and the energy that flows in and around us.”

“Okay,” Jeremy said.

“They have an almost ideological disregard for anything outside of their wants and desires. They fixate on an outcome and approach it with a single-minded desire to achieve the intended results.”

“You make them seem like the CEO of a corporation.”

He grinned. “In a way, they both have a similarity of spirit, yes.”

“So, can we swap back?”

He rubbed his chin. “As it stands right now, no.”

Jeremy felt his heart breaking. “But that could change?”

“The entity was right, it is incredibly difficult to force another person into a transmigration against their will.”

“She threatened Bethany! She turned her into a lamp!”

“I recognize that. It’s despicable, but you still agreed to the transmigration.”

Jeremy could feel tears streaming down her face.

“So that’s it then?”

“Well, not quite.”

“Then what?”

The guru stood still for a long time. Then he spoke. “You have been shown how to open your Anja. That is the first step in a very long journey that could result in your being able to perform a similar exercise.”

“So I could force her to swap back?”

“Have you been able to find her Anapata and Sahasrara?

Jeremy sighed. “No, though I haven’t had time to try.”

Guru shook his head. “Without some kind of leverage, no you cannot force her to swap back. But if you could convince her or someone else to swap, you could perform such an exercise given time.”

Jeremy looked down at her wrinkled hands. “Time is not on my side, guru. How long would it take?”

The guru shook his head. “Sadly, it takes decades of research and practice before you could possibly be ready to perform such an action.”

Again, Jeremy felt her heart break. “But I don’t have decades guru! She did something that caused my aging to speed up!”

He nodded, sadly. “Aside from that, I can give you little hope. There are implements of power in the world that could do it...but their location and proximity to hostile forces negate their efficacy.”

Jeremy stood up then. “So I’m really stuck then.”

The guru nodded. “Unless you can convince her to return, I’m afraid so.”

Jeremy felt tears spill down her face, as the guru silently walked away, leaving her to her grief.