Chapter 2

Chase tried to move his hands and legs but he couldn't. His bed was never this small and hard. He felt pain all over his body. The acrid smell of the room made his open his eyes.

"This didn't smell like my room" he thought to himself.

He slowly opened his eyes and he was greeted by a dim light right above him.

"This is definitely not my room". He whispered.

He looked around and he couldn't recognize where he was. He was in a cramped bathroom. It smelled so bad there that he felt bile rise up his throat and he sat up and emptied the contents of his stomach into the toilet bowl.

Just as he was about to stand up, he pushed his hand to the cold ground to support his weight and he felt something. He reached out to it and it was a bottle of xanax, and used syringes lay around. 

"What the hell?" He thought.

He pushed the bottle to the side and walked out of the bathroom but something caught his attention that made him retrace his steps and walk back into the bathroom.

It was a mirror.

His black hair was suddenly blonde and his blue eyes looked grey to him. He studied his other features and he came to the conclusion that the person staring back at him was definitely not him.

"Am I going crazy?" He asked as he slapped his cheek but somehow, that image wouldn't disappear.

He tried to think of anything he could remember in the last 24 hours.

He remembered closing a 100 million dollars deal and he remembered stopping at the flower shop to buy flowers for his wife.

" My wife". He whispered.

The word left a bitter taste in his mouth as all of the horrible memories came rushing back.

He held the sink tightly till his knuckles turned white.

But he still hadn't gotten his answer.

"If I was hit, I'm supposed to be in a hospital. Not in this unknown place, staring back at an unknown figure". He thought.

He had to figure out what was going on.

He rushed out of the bathroom and into a room. Calling that a room was literally a luxury. That was practically a matchbox. There were papers littered everywhere and a tiny television on the wall and some posters of almost naked women were plastered on the walls. He looked around, looking for any clue as to what was going on.

His eyes landed on a cell phone on a drawer and he dashed towards it. He turned it on and it requested a face id. With shaky hands, he brought the phone to his face and was granted access. 

Can anything more surprising happen?

He immediately went to the gallery and  saw some random pictures of the person. Him. "What the fuck was going on?" He ran his fingers through his hair.

He kept skimming through and saw more pictures of the person….him with a girl. "She is probably his girlfriend". He thought.

"But who was this person?" He pondered.

He searched the drawers and saw an id. Theo Ramirez, 24 years old. "Just wow". He breathed.

He went to the stack of books and started going through them. He didn't know what exactly he was looking for but he needed to find something. Anything.

He stopped when his hands landed on a grey thick-covered book.

He opened the first page and grimaced at the cliché line.

"Dear diary" he scoffed. "Who still keeps a diary? Well I guess I should I grateful for this because this would give me an insight". He thought to himself.

"Mom and dad are gone now and it's just me and you. I don't know if to feel hurt or happy at the revelation they gave me last weekend on my 21st birthday. How would you feel finding out the family that the family you grew up with isn't really yours? Right. That's what I thought. I feel hurt because they lied to me. I feel happy because they took care of me and never made me feel adopted. And I feel angry because I didn't get the chance to tell them I loved them and to apologize for my uproar at their revelation. They were really just looking out for me"

"Hmm" he hummed and kept reading. He talked about his love life with his girlfriend, Laura and he seemed like a happy lad. She was really good to him from what he said and Chase wondered what happened.

" Dear diary… I feel fed up. I feel left out. There's really nothing left. This world is full of darkness and sadness. I don't belong here" 

He flipped to the next chapter but it was torn. He was really intrigued now.

"This was last updated two days ago". He observed as he leafed through the next pages which were blank.

He sat down to process everything he had gathered. It dawned on him that this person, had committed suicide. 

"But why?" The unanswered question lingered in the air.

"While I fought for my life, this person readily gave up his". He laughed humorlessly at the irony.

"Should I call the cops?" He thought but immediately crossed out the idea because how would he explain dying and coming back alive in someone else's body. That theory alone would get him weird stares that would lead him to a psychiatric ward or worse, he would become a lab rat to crazy scientists. He shuddered at the thought.

He opened the phone again and went online, looking up Chase Andersons, wondering what had actually happened.

"Rising owner of the popular restaurant 'Eat Me' found dead in a pool of blood in his home. He died in a home accident. This has been confirmed by his wife and the police and we send our deepest condolences to the bereaved family" the headline read.

He ran my fingers through his hair and heaved a deep sigh.

Chase Andersons was dead. 

He been given a second chance all thanks to Theo Ramirez. 

He was lost in thoughts but the loud grumbling of his  stomach brought him back to reality and he wondered just when last this person ate anything.