Julia Jacobs frowned at her reflection as she wrung out the cloth in her hands. The man in the mirror... he was truly frightening. Tall, muscular, with a shaved head and a scruffy brown goatee, and tattoos all over his body... not to mention the bright orange jumpsuit that he and she were both wearing. She tried to keep an open mind about people, but this man looked like a killer, and it was difficult for Julia to believe that this was what she looked like to the world now. She hated that she looked like a man, but even more than that, she hated looking like a man who looked like this.
Leaning down, she dabbed the damp cloth in her hands gently over the face of the red-haired man sitting wearily in the bed... or, rather, over the woman who was currently inside that man. The woman--she called herself Scarlet--was dressed in an orange jumpsuit similar to Julia's own, though her body was a little more clean-cut and a little less unnerving than Julia's own. Or it wouldn't have been, had it not been for the cuts and bruises all over her body. Scarlet winced as the cloth touched her face. It was hard for Julia to cause Scarlet any more pain than she already seemed to be in, but Julia had been both a nurse and a mother... she knew how to care people, and she knew that Scarlet would be better off with a clean face.
"You're sure I'm going to be okay?" Scarlet asked, her voice shaky and guttural.
"I'm sure, hon," Julia said. "You're going to have some scars, and you'll probably hurt for a long time, but I don't see any serious injuries. You were lucky that boy... what was his name?"
"Jon," Scarlet said. "He's the brother of one of my c... one of my friends."
"Well, you're glad he jumped into this man I'm in now when he did," Julia said. "I imagine it saved your life... it looks like the man was intent on killing you."
"I know," Scarlet said, flinching and biting her lip as Julia's cloth touched the deep gash on her shoulder. "Believe me, I know."
Julia looked at the cuts and the deep black bruises that covered Scarlet's face, arms, and torso. She couldn't believe that anyone could do this to a person. The man she had jumped into must have been a psychopath, a terrible and violent man. It was no wonder he had been in jail. She shuddered at the thought that he was running free now.
It was still difficult to believe what had happened to her. One minute Julia had been in a department store, trying on a dress for her niece's wedding; the next she'd been here, in prison, in a cell, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling over the slumped and bleeding body of Scarlet, who she'd taken to be a man at first. At seeing Scarlet in her prison outfit, Julia had struggled to her feet--not easy, at her age and her weight--and run away from her. Finding the halls of the prison full of rioting prisoners, though, Julia had retreated back to Scarlet's cell. Over the next few minutes, she and Scarlet had managed to sort out their identities and determine that neither was a threat to the other. Since then, Julia had been tending to Scarlet's wounds. Julia had been a nurse for eight years, before she'd quit her job to take care of her children. Having not worked for a dozen years, Julia felt a bit rusty; but she still remembered enough to care for the wounded young woman who currently shared this cell with her. Scarlet's injuries were ugly, but they all appeared to be superficial. Julia wondered if Scarlet really understood how fortunate she was for that.
Julia and Scarlet were not the only two who had swapped into the prison. Given the chaos of her surroundings, it was difficult for Julia to put together a solid picture of what was going on. She'd gathered a few details, though. She and Scarlet were in a cell in John Wilson Penitentiary. That morning and on into the afternoon, prisoners around the penitentiary had started claiming that they weren't really prisoners, but civilians who had been swapped into prisoners' bodies. Scarlet had arrived long before Julia; she must have been one of the first people to have been swapped. Some time later--Julia hadn't yet pinned down the timeline of events--all of the doors in the prison had opened up at once, and the prison had suddenly erupted into a riot that was still raging. Many of the prisoners, it seemed, were still in their original bodies; there were a number of people in the prison, however, who were innocent people who, like Julia and Scarlet, had been thrown into unfamiliar bodies. It sounded like it was happening all over town, in fact. Some of the civilians had banded together and attempted to find their way out of the prison; they had stopped by Scarlet's cell to ask if she and Julia wanted to come with them. Julia had refused; she hadn't been willing to leave until she'd checked Scarlet over. Now that she had Scarlet stabilized and cleaned up, however, Julia suspected it was time the two of them attempt and escape.
"Scarlet," Julia said, "can you walk?"
"I think so," said Scarlet. She pushed herself to her feet, grunting deep grunts as she did so. She walked slowly, with a limp, but she was able to make a couple of circuits around the cell. "Yeah, I'm good."
"I think we need to get moving then," Julia said. "Things are bad out there... I have a feeling they're going to get worse before they get better."
Scarlet nodded. "I think you're right. Besides, I have some people I need to get in touch with... the sooner I hook up with them, the better."
Placing her arm around Scarlet and letting the younger woman lean on her for support, Julia moved slowly out into the dark corridors of the prison.
The lights of in the hallway flickered unsteadily. The hallway immediately outside Scarlet's cell was deserted now, but the steady roar of voices in the distance was enough to let Julia know that the riot still raged through the rest of the prison. The cells lining the hallway were open and empty, and there were scattered possessions, broken glass, and even the occasional bullet hole everywhere Julia looked. From place to place as Julia and Scarlet wound their way through the halls, Julia saw bodies, dressed both in orange jumpsuits and in guards' uniforms, lying on the ground. Julia wasn't sure if these people were dead or unconscious, but she didn't feel comfortable taking the time to look. Elsewhere they found people who were still clearly alive and on their feet. Some of them were fighting, some talking in small groups, some walking or running, some huddled alone in cells, but all of them were wrapped up enough in their own affairs to pay two more prisoners walking slowly together through the hallway much attention.
Julia didn't have the slightest clue which way the exit was. She had driven by John Wilson before; the prison was a vast complex, and now that she saw it from the inside, she could see that the hallways were numerous and labyrinthine. She wondered if it would even be possible for her and Scarlet to find the way out, and she also wondered what they would find if they got there... but she didn't speak these concerns to Scarlet. Instead, she simply followed in the direction most people seemed to be heading.
At one point a new sound caught Julia's ears. It was a low, soft weeping, and it seemed to be coming from a corner at the end of the hallway that she and Scarlet were traversing. Julia followed the sound to its source and found a tall African-American man in a prison guard's uniform huddled deep in the shadows, crying. The man looked strong and capable, so it was a little disorienting to see him so afraid; Julia suspected that he wasn't in his original body.
"Are you okay?" she asked.
The man looked up at Julia, terror in his eyes; then, without a word, he buried his head between his knees.
"Sir?" Julia said.
"My mommy told me never to talk to strangers," the man said. "And you look scary."
Julia bit her lip; she was beginning to get an idea of who this person was behind the image of the prison guard they wore. Letting go of Scarlet and kneeling down, she said, gently, "I know what I look like, but I'm not the person I appear to be. I don't think you are, either. My name is Julia Jacobs, and I'm a mommy, too. And I used to be a nurse. So it's okay to talk to me. What's your name?"
The man lifted his head and looked at Julia for a long time. At last he said, quietly, "I'm Chelsea."
"How old are you, Chelsea?" Julia asked.
"I'm nine," Chelsea said.
"Well, Chelsea," Julia said, "this is no place for a nine-year-old girl to be, no matter how big and brave she is. I'm trying to leave this place so I can get home to my family and my children, and my friend Scarlet is coming with me." Julia reached out her hand. "Would you like to come with us?"
Chelsea looked hesitantly at Julia's hand. At last she look it, and the two of them got to their feet. Keeping one hand around Chelsea's big hand and placing her other arm around Scarlet's broad torso, Julia set off slowly in the direction that she hoped would take them to the exit.
