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Chapter Text

Courtney!”

“Courtney?!”

“It’s me! Don’t you remember?!”

There was a clatter of a bracelet on the pavement and the voice calling Courtney’s name disappeared. 

She picked it up and examined it, when she suddenly looked up into the night and saw a comet shooting across the sky!

It was magnificent and beautiful! 

It seemed to be made out of complete utter magic!

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Courtney felt herself wake up with a slight start. She had a strange dream last night, but she couldn’t remember it too well.

All she could remember was somebody calling her name as well as something to do with a comet? But it didn’t matter much to her, dreams were always weird.

But as she began to look at her surroundings she realised that she wasn’t in her room.

The room In question was a midnight blue colour and covered head to toe in metal posters. There was a desk in the corner that had drawing pinned above it on a cork board, there was also a sewing machine position haphazardly placed on it.

But before Courtney could do anything about the fact she had woken up in a random room, the room’s door slammed open.

“Grandma says it’s time to get up! It was your turn to make breakfast” said a young brown haired boy. He looked to be about 11 or 12.

“I…I’m sorry?” She said, confused.

“Whatever, just hurry up! I’m starving” the boy complained he then slammed the door shut.

I…I must still be dreaming! Courtney thought to herself.

She got up and began to inspect the room she was in. It was a lot messier than hers.

As she did this she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror, only Courtney wasn’t Courtney.

Instead, she was a very pale, short, looking girl with black hair and cyan highlights.

“WHAT!?” Courtney screamed in a raspy voice that was not her own.

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“Gwen!”

“Gwen!”

“I remember! Don’t worry I’ll save you!”

The voice calling to her suddenly disappeared and Gwen was left standing on top of the great hill on wawanakwa.

She looked up to see a comet streaking across the sky!

It was breathtaking and beautiful!

Nothing more nor less than complete and utter magic!

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Gwen felt herself shoot awake. She had a weird dream that night. But as she tried to think about it all she could remember was it was something to do with the comet and…someone calling her?

I shouldn’t dwell on it. It was just a dumb dream she thought to herself.

She got up, dressed and made her way into the kitchen. It was her turn to make breakfast this morning 

She began to cook some omelettes when her grandmother and brother came in.

“Oh good morning Gwenny,” her grandmother  said, giving her a smile.

“Good morning” she said back

“Oh good you’re back to normal! You were acting insane yesterday!” Her brother teased

“Hey what’s that supposed to mean Morgan!?” Gwen shot back

As the two bickered, Gwen's grandmother turned on their radio and went to help her with the cooking.

After a couple of cheesy pop songs, a local news report started

‘For those just tuning in, the wawanakwa electoral election is being hosted on the 4th of November, the two candidates are  Chris MacClean and Alexander Ingrid-‘ but the host was cut off by Gwen reaching over and switching the station.

The radio then began to play the national news.

‘Recent reports say that comet that is only seen every 1000 years will be passing over Canada on the 31st of October just in time for Halloween! It should be visible around 7pm’

“God can you just make up with dad already?” Morgan asked, speaking over the radio from where he was sitting at the table.

“My relationship with dad is none of your business!” She told him while placing his omelet in front of him.

“And it wouldn’t kill you to learn how to cook” she added

Morgan stuck his tongue out in reply.

After breakfast Gwen went back to her room and gathered her scattered school supplies and put them in her backpack.

She went over to her desk and opened her jewellery box and pulled out the Celtic knot bracelet that had belonged to her late mother.

When her mother had passed she inherited it and made a point of wearing it everywhere.

She grabbed her bag, said goodbye to her grandmother and brother then headed off to school.

Around 20 minutes into her walk she heard two people calling her name.

She turned around to see her best friends Leshawna and Zoey.

“Hey guys” she smiled.

“Nice to see you remember us” Zoey said smiling slightly

“Oh yeah, did you have the demon exercised out of you girl?” Leshawna chimed in.

“Huh!? What are you two talking about?” Gwen said, completely confused.

“Well yesterday, you couldn’t remember either of our names or the way to school.” Leshawna explained.

“You also forgot where your locker was and what classes you had, and you weren’t wearing your bracelet!” Zoey added. “Have you been feeling okay?” 

“I guess” Gwen shrugged. She tried to think about yesterday but nothing was coming to mind.

“It’s probably just stress. You do have to go back to Boney Island in a couple of weeks for that offering thing, and you're not talking to your dad right now.” Leshawna said sympathetically, putting a hand on her shoulder.

“Ugh, don't remind me,” She said back.

Once the three actually got to school Zoey went off to her separate classes as she was one year behind the other two.

Leshawna and Gwen made their way to their first class which was English with Mr ford who everyone just called Don.

He was currently teaching them about entomology and how words evolved over time.

“Here’s another example: twilight was originally the words twi meaning two in Middle English and light obviously in reference to the setting sun. It was often believed that magic was most apparent around this time, especially in Celtic mythology. they believed that during this time the veil between the living and the fae grew weak.” Don explained 

“Can anyone think of any synonyms of twilight?”He added

“How about magic hour? I’ve heard my big sister call it that” Beth spoke up.

“Yeah, that's a term usually used by photographers. Let’s see anyone else? No? Okay how about you Gwen?”

“Umm…owl light?” she said quickly

“That's correct and it’s nice to see that you remember your name today.” Don smiled, turning his attention back to the whiteboard.

Gwen felt her face heat up as low giggling filled the classroom.

“Okay everyone get out your work books and write down this definition” Don instructed.

Gwen grabbed her book out of her bag still flushing slightly and flipped to were she had last left off.

But instead of a plank page there was a single sentence written in cursive.

‘Who are you?’

Chapter Text

The rest of the school day passed with similar comments from teachers and students alike about Gwen being able to remember who she was.

Finally it was time to go home.

But things just had to get worse for Gwen.

As she, Zoey and Leshawna made their way past the town centre they noticed Gwen’s father Alexander Ingrid making a speech.

“If elected mayor, I will-” but he stop himself when he watched his daughter pass him.

“Gwen, stand up straight! And I thought I told you to stop wearing those demonic clothes!” He called over to her prompting the crowd stood around him to look in her direction.

“Wow he’s tough on his family” an older woman whispered loud enough for her to hear

“Well that’s good old Ingrid for you” a man beside her said

Gwen glared at her father and stormed off, with Leshawna and Zoey at her heels.

“Don’t listen to him,” Zoey said kindly.

“I hate this stupid fucking town” gwen spat.

“I know what you mean girl. Everyone here is always in everybody else’s business” leshawna agreed.

“I know right! This stupid island is way too small, there’s literally nothing to do here! I just want to get out of here already” Gwen complained.

By the time she got home her grandmother had already begun preparations for the offerings they were taking to Boney island, with Morgan begrudgingly helping.

The offerings included cawl which was a traditional welsh soup, Morgan was currently suturing this as well as incense that their grandmother was making by hand.

Gwen put her bag down and went over to help her grandma.

“Why do we have to do this again?” she heard her brother complain.

“Because our family has been going to Boney island for generations. We leave offerings to cernunnos in hopes that he will help protect wawanakwa and the other surrounding islands from the creatures on Boney island.” Their grandma explained patiently.

“Yeah but why?” He asked

“I don’t know Morgan maybe because we’re the only welsh family for miles around” Gwen suggested snarkily.

Her grandmother gently smacked her shoulder as if to say ‘don’t start a fight.’

“Well the real reasons for why we do this died in a fire in the 19th century. Your ancestor Bryn Carew accidentally set fire to their old house so all of our documents on the matter were lost. It’s known as Bryn’s great fire” She went on

“Dang! They named the fire after him? Poor Bryn” Gwen laughed slightly.

“But while the true meaning has faded it’s a tradition that was passed down-”

“Okay, okay! I get it now grandma!” Morgan said exasperated.

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Gwen woke up the next morning to an alarm clock blasting in her ear. 

She sleeply reached over to make it shut up but she accidentally rolled out of bed and hit the floor with a thud.

This woke her up completely and she sat up only to find that she wasn’t in her room.

The room she was in was meticulously clean and almost looked like something you would find in a staged house.

It was a darkish green colour with white accents. The room definitely had a preppy kind of vibe.

“Where am I?” Gwen said out loud, but her voice wasn’t hers, it was more high pitched. 

She looked down confused and instead of her pale skin she found tan darker skin.

Gwen got up and ran to a mirror in the corner of the room and was met with the appearance  of a girl around her age. 

She was taller then Gwen was and had brown  hair with lighter brown highlights in her fringe.

“Huh…I must still be dreaming!” She concluded.

It really was the only logical explanation for…whatever this is.

Gwen gave a start when a ringing sound came from on top of the room's chest of drawers. A phone was ringing.

she went over and looked at the phone, The contact said Bridgette.

Gwen decided to pick it up.

“Hey! Alejandro and I were wondering if you wanted to hit up a cafe this afternoon?” The girl called Bridgette asked.

“Uh yeah, sure?” Gwen answered.

“Cool! See you later at school, bye court!” She then hung up the phone.

“Okay…guess I'm going to school?” She said still a little confused.

Wait, what did she mean by court? She thought.

Gwen gave a shrug and looked to the wardrobe. There she spied a neat uniform on a hanger. She went over and grabbed it.

embroidered on the button up shirt was the school’s logo. It was some kind of fish? Maybe a bass? Underneath the logo was the words killa institute of Toronto.

Toronto? Huh, I mean I guess I have always wanted to go here. Makes sense for my subconscious to make weird shit up about it. Especially this school's name, it definitely sounds made up. she thought as she slipped the uniform on.

Gwen exited the bedroom and looked down the hallway. 

Like in the bedroom everything was very clean, and also the house was very modern, unlike Gwen’s home which was an old 50s colonial style house.

She continued to explore the house, opening each door along the hallway. She found another more grander bedroom than she had been in, as well as two offices still both modern and filled with books as well as two bathrooms

Nobody else seemed to be home. 

Gwen decided to explore the downstairs too. She walked down and was met with a huge window, overlooking the city.

Oh my god! Am I in some kind of penthouse!? She thought while running up to the glass.

She could see CNN tower from the window, it was really close actually.

Gwen had never been as far as Saskatoon before so being able to see the bustling city of Toronto was amazing.

She smiled to herself and looked around the overly large living-kitchen combo.

I’ve never understood why people need big over the top places like this . She thought.

After she had finished snooping Gwen decided she better get off to school…or made up dream school.

She walked into the penthouse’s entryway and found a school bag, keys and a wallet placed neatly on the console table.

Gwen grabbed them but the keys and wallet into her pocket and then swung the bag over her shoulder.

It was only when she headed out of the penthouse and into the street that she had no idea where the killa institute of Toronto was. 

She looked to the left and decided to try her luck going that way.

After walking for what seemed like ages she finally found the school.

After being berated by the office lady for being nearly 4 hours late for school she began to wander around until someone tapped her on the shoulder.

She turned around to find a smiling good natured looking blonde girl, and a tall handsome Hispanic boy, both around Gwen’s age.

“Where have you been? We’ve been looking for you everywhere” the boy asked.

“I, uh…got lost?” She said

The other girl laughed and this, making Gwen realise that this was Bridgette the girl who had called her earlier. So the boy standing next to her was Alejandro.

“Good one court, if you don’t wanna tell us you don’t have to.” She continued to smile.

“Come on, let's go eat!” Bridgette added, beginning to walk down the hall. Gwen followed.

She could feel Alejandro looking at her strangely the whole way to the cafeteria which unnerved her slightly.

The three bought their food and ate while Gwen looked around the rest of the cafeteria.

This really is a strange dream, she thought.

Eventually the bell rang and Bridgette said that it was time for her and Gwen to do P.E

They made their way to the changing rooms and after looking in one of the mirrors, Gwen got jump scared by her appearance.

she had forgotten that she didn’t look like her in this dream.

“You okay?” Bridgette asked her

Gwen nodded back in response.

After P.E, she and Bridgette met Alejandro and walked down to a nearby cafe.

Wawanakwa had absolutely zero cafes and Gwen hadn’t been in one in years so she felt a little excited.

But as she looked at the menu she felt her jaw drop. Everything was so expensive. She pulled the wallet she had grabbed this morning and looked in it. There was plenty of cash in there.

It’s not like it’s real money anyways, it’s only a dream Gwen thought to herself when she decided to order a slice of cake and a cup of herbal tea.

She watched as Alejandro and Bridgette chatted with each other and occasionally joined in.

But when she did talk it would leave Bridgette looking slightly confused and would make Alejandro begin to study her again.

It made Gwen feel really out of place.

Suddenly she got a text message on her phone from someone called Duncan.

It read ‘at library’

“Oh um sorry I need to meet…Duncan at the library or something?” She said getting out the cash that she owed and placing it on the table.

“Ooh! I didn’t know you had tutoring on today” Bridgette said giving some sort of knowing smile.

Alejandro then smirked slightly.

Gwen didn’t get it.

“Uh yeah” she said standing up realising the same problem she had this morning.

“Do you know where the library is?” she asked them.

Both of their smiles turned into looks of utter confusion and a little bit of concern.

“Yeah it’s just down roseway street” Bridgette said looking Gwen up and down.

 “Are you okay Courtney?” She added, sounding more concerned.

“Uh fine?” Gwen said back

Guess my name is Courtney in this dream…weird…why does that sound familiar? She thought as she waved bye to the other two

She found her way to the library in 10 minutes, entered and looked around.

Until she realised that she had no idea what this Duncan guy looked like.

That was until she heard the name Courtney yelled from the right followed by a shushing noise from the librarian.

She looked over to  find a tall punk looking boy waving her over.

She walked over to him and sat down.

“You're late princess,” he said in a teasing tone.

“Oh sorry” Gwen apologised.

This left a puzzled look on Duncan’s face.

“Okay…let’s get hell over with” he said, eventually pulling out a workbook as well as a textbook.

He then looked up at her expectantly. 

“So are you gonna beat trigonometry into me?” He asked, looking at her.

Gwen stared at the textbook. She was horrible at math.

Oh for fucks sake, of course this dream had to turn into a nightmare! How am I supposed to teach math when I barely understand it myself! Gwen thought panicking while picking up the textbook.

She opened it and did her best to read it.

This went on for about 15 minutes until she decided she couldn’t do it.

“I give up, I can’t do it” she said, putting down the textbook

“Wow,” Duncan said, laughing slightly “I thought you could do everything”

“Whatever” Gwen said back a little embarrassed.

Why was she being made fun of for her lack of mathematical prowess in a dumb dream?

Duncan looked at her for a while.

“You wanna get out of her and do something fun?” He asked

“Sure why not” Gwen shrugged.

Duncan led Gwen out of the library, down a couple of streets until they made it to a run down looking warehouse.

He took Gwen around the side and then pulled out a bunch of spray bottles from his bag.

He chucked one to her.

Gwen smiled. Art was something she could do.

She took the spray can, shook it and began to spray the wall.

Duncan smirked back at her and joined in.

After they were both finished the stood back to admire both of there work.

Duncan had drawn a skull with flames around it, while Gwen had drawn an oversized vampire bat.

“So the princess has a dark side,” he commented, looking over at her. “You're pretty good for someone I'm assuming has never done any graffiti before.”

“Thanks” Gwen smiled back.

Duncan ended up walking her home as it was starting to get dark.

She went back up to the oversized, in Gwen’s opinion penthouse and collapsed on the bed in the room she had woken up in that morning.

“This has to be the fucking strangest dream I have ever had” she said out loud.

She was starting to feel strangely tired. This confused her as she was already asleep…right?

Gwen was just about to doze off when she remembered the ‘who are you?’ note in her English workbook.

She opened her eyes.

She had no idea what possessed her to do it, but she walked over to the room’s desk, opened the drawer and pulled out a pad of paper.

She grabbed a pen and wrote

‘My name is Gwen’

Chapter Text

Courtney woke up to the sound of her alarm clock.

She turned it off and stretched slightly, looking down she noticed that she had fallen asleep in her school uniform.

That wasn’t like her.

There was suddenly a ping from her phone and she saw that she had two unread text messages.

The most recent was from Bridgette.

Bridge💕.                                                  

‘Hey court, you know you can talk to us if something is wrong’.                                   

7:05 am

The text confused her. 

What is she talking about? Courtney thought to herself.

She had another text from Duncan.

Duncan🙄

‘graffiti last night was cool. ’

11:00 pm Yesterday

This confused Courtney even more, but she decided to put it off for now.

She changed out of her uniform into a fresh one and went to gather her school supplies from her desk when she spotted a note.

It read ‘My name is Gwen’

“What the?” Courtney said, picking the note up.

Gwen…Gwen, that name sounds familiar. She thought.

She stood there holding the note for a while, but nothing came to mind so she placed the note back on her desk and went to make herself breakfast.

After breakfast Courtney grabbed her school supplies from the entrance of her apartment and went down to the apartment building's car park to drive to school.

She got in the car and backed out of the parking lot and made her way to her school.

Once she got there Courtney parked into the student parking lot and made her way to the library so she could do some extra research for her history class.

She was just reading about the eruption of mount Vesuvius when someone tapped on her book with a pen.

She looked up to find Alejandro. 

“Back to your usual schedule?” He said teasing slightly.

“What do you mean?” She asked

“I mean you were four hours late yesterday amiga” he said looking at her.

“What! No I…” but Courtney paused. 

She was just realising that she couldn’t remember anything about yesterday.

“Is everything alright chica?” Alejandro asked her.

“Yeah…” she said pausing again.

Maybe I’m stressed out about finals at the end of the year? She thought to herself.

She had been pulling a lot of all nighters recently and having really strange dreams.

“I think I’m just overtired” Courtney admitted.

When Bridgette arrived Courtney had a similar exchange with her about how strange she had acted.

“Are you sure your okay?” She seemed to ask Courtney for the third time that day.

“You know you can always stay with me while your parents are on their business trip”

“I’m fine Bridgette i was just over tired” she said back annoyed.

Things got weirder when she went to her tutor session with Duncan.

She had begun to direct him on how to solve one of the problems when he sighed.

“So you're no fun again princess” he smirked at her.

“Exscuse me?” She asked.

Duncan Lifted an eyebrow.

“You know the graffiti last night” he said, pulling out his camera and showing her a photo of two bits of graffiti. “You did the vampire bat”

She looked at him in  utter confusion.

“I would never deface public property!” Courtney replied slightly aghast,

“But…you did? Oh my god were you high last night!” He started to laugh.

“WHAT NO!” she yelled, earning a loud shush from the librarian.

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Courtney woke up to her door banging open and she shot up out of bed.

“Get up Gwen! I’m starving!” A boy yelled at her.

He then slammed the door.

Wait…I’ve see him before! Courtney thought to herself as she got out of a bed that wasn’t hers.

I’ve dreamed about him and this room before! He…he said Gwen. Like the name on the note in my room! But…that would be insane! It’s just a dumb dream she told herself.

She got dressed and made breakfast for the rude little boy.

“I don’t understand why you couldn’t do that yourself,” she said, placing a bowl of porridge in front of him.

He made a face at her in reply.

The day went on…or the dream went on.

Because this is definitely just a dream! Courtney thought as she helped the older woman who also lived there make candles.

It was a pretty relaxing pastime and the candles smelled pretty like flowers.

Once it was time for bed Courtney paused by the room's desk.

She grabbed a pen and paper and began to write.

She looked over it when she had finished. It read:

‘My name is Courtney stallea, Why do I keep dreaming of you? Have we met before?’

She then put it on one of the bedside tables.

She didn’t know why she wrote that note, especially since this was all just a stupid recurring dream!

But it just felt like an appropriate response.

she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

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Gwen opened her eyes the next morning and stretched.

She got up and out of her bed and noticed a note on her bedside table.

She grabbed it and began to read it.

“What the fuck?” She said putting it back on the bedside table.

Courtney…I’ve heard that name before…I dreamed about her!…but that’s crazy! Gwen thought walking into the kitchen.

She began to haphazardly make breakfast, still reeling about the fact that the girl from her dream had apparently been able to make contact with her.

No, that would be actually insane! Gwen told herself I bet this is Morgan’s weird idea of a prank, yeah! That makes more sense!

She placed the eggs and toast on the table in preparation for her brother demanding to be fed. 

She then turned to make some for her grandmother and herself.

“Oh good you’re up” Morgan said when he walked into the kitchen.

“You know how I make food for you, because you’re such an idiot that you can’t make anything yourself” Gwen said looking over at her brother.

“Yeah…hey! I’m not an idiot!” he shot back.

“It would be great if in return you didn’t break into my room and leave me weird notes!” She spat ignoring his comment.

“What are you talking about?” He asked, sounding genuinely confused.

Gwen studied Morgan for a couple of seconds.

He’s not lying… she thought.

After she finished breakfast, Gwen went into the lounge room and got on her shared family computer.

She began to research dreams and their meanings.

She typed in ‘why do I dream of someone else’s life?’ Into google

The first thing that came up was some psychology website that basically told her that it was because she was ‘unfulfilled’ in her life.

Eh I guess? She thought as she scrolled down. But that wouldn’t explain the letter…

Then Gwen saw it.

‘The history behind body swapping’ 

She clicked on the website and began to read.

‘Body swapping relates to essentially switching places with a person usually through dreams. This is prominent in mythology, though some do claim that it is real. Any claims of this are unverified.‘

Gwen lent back in her chair.

“No…” she whispered. “That…could it be?”

She sat there for what seemed like hours until an idea struck her.

the next time I swap with this person, I’ll leave her my email address! If it’s real she’ll write me back! If it’s not…then I might need to take a second look at that psychology website. She thought while walking out of the lounge room.

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Gwen heard an alarm clock ring.

She opened her eyes and looked around.

She was back in the green preppy room.

Gwen looked down. She wasn’t her again.

She scrambled up and out of bed and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen.

‘I don’t know why you keep dreaming of me, but I also keep dreaming about you! I don’t think we’ve met before?

email me:

Gwen.Ingrid1991.Gmail.com’

She then put the note on the bedside table.

Gwen spent the rest of that day pacing around the apartment.

“This can’t be real, it’s just a dream” she told herself for the hundredth time.

Once it got dark she ran up to the bedroom and got back into the bed.

She laid there until she drifted off to sleep.

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Courtney’s alarm clock rang the next morning and she went to turn it off until she noticed a note.

She grabbed it and stared at what was written.

“No…this…this is some kind of joke!” She said to herself. “I’m going to type this email in and nothing is going to happen!”

With her heart in her throat she grabbed her laptop, brought up Gmail and typed the email address in.

She then wrote a short email.

‘Hello?

You're not actually real are you?’

Courtney then hit send.

She waited around fifteen minutes and was about to shut her laptop when a ping told her an email just came through.

Feeling like she was actually losing it Courtney opened the email and saw it was from this Gwen person.

‘Hi

I’m real, and judging by your email you are too! Look this might sound insane but I think we’re switching bodies’

Courtney read and reread the email.

Oh god this can’t be happening! It’s not scientifically possible! She thought.

And yet the strange behaviour she had apparently displayed from the other day would make sense!

“WHY!?” She yelled to no one in particular. “Why is this happening!?”

She put her head in her hands.

This was not how she expected her senior year of high school to go.