Jenny Pierce was having a very rough day.
Of course, it didn't help much that her previous day had ended so terribly. She'd spent a good part of the day just trying to remember exactly what happened then, hoping it'd give her some kind of clue to what was really going on: she had just left Linda's house, turning down an invitation to sleep there overnight in favor of her own bed at her own house, and was absent-mindedly walking off the street curb and down the familiar way home. She suddenly heard a screeching of tires and was just about blinded by headlights when she snapped her head to look over. There was a sudden, crashing feeling of impact... she was sent sprawled out, god knows how, along the street... she lost consciousness fast... and then... and then...
And then she woke up. At first, Jenny figured she had just blacked out briefly, since she was still laying sprawled out along the asphalt of the road, and the first thing she was made aware of was some Good Samaritan shaking awake her unconscious body.
"Hey..." a shrill female voice asked, gently. "Are you alright? Can you hear me?" Eyes opening slowly, Jenny saw the do-gooder was a lady in her thirties, with hair tied back in a bun, a long-sleeved, frumpy white blouse, and a beige angle-length skirt. There were two do-gooders, actually; the second was a teenage girl, probably the first woman's daughter judging by her look and dress, and she was obediently standing out of the way with arms folded and just watching, but with a look of concern written all over her face. Also apparent to her slowly waking eyes was the color of the sky overhead; it was that soft, dark shade of blue reserved only for the early morning. Had she been lying there all night, Jenny wondered?
The woman seemed to be visibly relieved Jenny had at least woken up. "Praise God you're awake! Do you feel hurt at all, young man?"
Finally woken up enough to sit up a little, Jenny slowly shook her head. "No, I feel alr-... Wait." That voice was not hers; it was much too male. Young man!? She thought, looking down at herself for the first time since blacking out. Or maybe it's better said, Jenny was looking at himself for the first time since blacking out, as somehow, Jenny's body had become male! A plain, male, teenage body, that unbeknownst to her, had formerly belonged to one Jon Gibson! Jenny bolted to her (eh, his) feet and screamed at the discovery, and just about scared the daylight out of the woman and her daughter when by doing so.
"Hey, hey, calm down! Calm down, I said!" The woman commanded shrilly, and aggressively despite her fright.
"What's going on here!?" Jenny just about yelled at them, excitement not passing. "Why am I like this!? What happened!?"
"Young man, please! We are trying to help you!" She waited a bit for Jenny's panic to subside, and then added "And to all your questions, I don't know. My daughter and I just found you, lying out on the road and apparently unconscious, on our drive to seminary this morning. And by God, it's our good Christian duty to help those in need, so, here we are."
Jenny was still breathing heavily, taking it all in, when the woman finished her story. Jenny had never even seen a car like the woman was driving! Something was very, very wrong, and internally, she was losing her shit over it. "Well... thank you for that, at least," she forced herself to say when she'd regained sufficient composure.
"You're very welcome. Now I'll ask again: What's wrong, young man? Is there anything we can do to help you?"
Jenny gave the woman a hard, scrutinizing look, wondering just how much she could say without being dismissed as a nut case. "I, uh... I need to call someone," she said at last. "Do you live near here?"
"Of course. Get in the car, son, you can use my phone while we drive home," the woman said, ushering Jenny to her car. Her daughter was giving her a look, to which the woman replied "You can be late to seminary this morning, Nadine, I'll allow it."
Jenny blinked in confusion as she followed the woman to her car. "I can do what now?"
The woman produced a smartphone from her pocket as she climbed into the driver's seat. Once Jenny was in the passenger seat (Nadine had taken the back), the woman offered her the smartphone. "The PIN you'll need to unlock it is 0316, after the verse in John," she said, with the utmost confidence Jenny would know what that was supposed to mean. She did not. In fact, she hadn't the slightest clue what she was supposed to do with the device the woman had just offered her.
"Uuhhh... ma'am? What, uh, what is this?" Jenny asked, inspecting the curious, shiny metallic box she'd just been handed.
The woman gave her a curious look, when she could spare a look away from the road. "My phone," she said as if it were obvious.
"This is your phone?" Jenny didn't seem to comprehend. It was like no phone she'd ever heard of.
"Yes. It is." Now the woman was plainly annoyed with Jenny.
"Well, um... how do you use it?" Jenny asked, embarrassed.
With a huff of annoyance, the woman called back to her daughter. "Nadine, dearest, could you give this good fellow a hand?"
"Yes, ma'am." Despite her clear interest in what had been happening, Nadine hadn't said a word or moved a muscle until instructed to, and then quickly took the smartphone, unlocked it, navigated to the dial screen, and handed it back. "Just use the buttons to type in the phone number you want to call. You know that, don't you?" she asked.
"That I do!" Jenny said, glad she finally knew something in this interaction. Even with that, though, she still marveled a bit at the buttons she had to press, and had to be told by Nadine to hold it up to her ear. All that work got her, though, was an automated message telling her the line was disconnected. She had similar luck with all the other numbers she tried (In the intervening decades, just about everyone she knew had switched phone numbers at some point, but of course, she didn't know that).
"Great..." Jenny sighed as she left the car. "Nothing will go through. Thank you for all your help anyway, though, miss...?"
"Ferguson," the woman said as she took back her smartphone. "Laura Ferguson."
"LAURA FERGUSON!?" Jenny exclaimed suddenly. "You're Laura Ferguson!?" She had to have been 20 years older at least, but now that Jenny knew what she was looking at, it was unmistakable: same ultraconservative frumpy dress, same brunette bun, same eyes, same face give or take some age; it was Laura!
"Yes..?" Laura was once again taken aback by this stranger she'd rescued. "Is there a problem?"
"Laura, it's me! It's Jenny Pierce! We had Civics and Home Ec together, remember!?" Admittedly, Laura and Jenny had never been friends, or even really acquaintances beyond a general knowledge that the other existed in the same high school; Laura was too much of an uptight, prudish nut-for-god for Jenny to ever be friends with. Of course, none of that mattered to Jenny right then. "Don't you know a Jenny Pierce!?"
Jenny may as well have had thumbs for teeth and toes for eyes with the stares she got from Nadine and Laura. The latter had a look of some thought, trying to recall the name Jenny Pierce in addition to staring judgmentally at Jenny Pierce, but the former had no such reservations. "Jenny's a girl's name," Nadine said bluntly.
"Yes, I know, I am a girl!" Jenny insisted. "Something happened, and I just woke up on the road like this! I have no idea why, or what happened to you, or, anything around here, but I swear, I am Jenny Pierce, and was a teenage girl just yesterday!"
Laura had no direct response. "Please, come inside," she ordered in that familiar annoyed tone she seemed to always have.
A few moments later, the group was in the Ferguson's living room, and surrounded by the numerous pictures of Jesus and wall-mounted scriptures they considered to be suitable decorations. "Look, I know it's unbelievable, but it's true! Something happened to me, I don't know what, and I think something like it may have happened to you too, Laura! I was just, walking along, coming home from an afternoon at the Doyle's place, when the car, (I think it was a car), it swerved, and it hit me, and when I woke up I was like this!"
"Sir," Laura began without really having listened to anything Jenny had just said, "Jenny Pierce was killed over 20 years ago. Struck by a reckless driver, she was, by a sinful fiend named, eehhhh, Roche, I believe. Dreadful business, that, and proof of how godless and careless some people can be... But anyway, I've just lived my own life ever since then. I've certainly never involved myself in any of the witchcraft you claim to have mixed yourself up in, 'Jenny'."
Jenny, for her part, was just about stricken dumb listening to Laura talk. 20 years!? She thought, mind racing. I'm supposed to have been DEAD!? For over 20 years!? No wonder the phones and everything are so weird, I am in the future!
"And, if I may?" Nadine interjected.
"Yes, go ahead, dearest," replied Laura.
"I've seen this boy around in school. He certainly wasn't calling himself Jenny then; I think his name is John, or something like that. When I get to school I can ask around, at least."
"Yes, please, Nadine. School should be starting soon, anyway; I'll need to drive you both over there shortly. And John, you feel alright physically, at least? You're sure you're unhurt?"
It took Jenny a long bit to respond to the name "John". "...yeah, if you mean besides being in a guy's body."
"I'd recommend getting your head examined later, but I'm afraid we're no help to that end." Jenny glared at Laura, who continued "Other than that, I think it's settled. I'll drive you to school, Nadine will show you around until you recover from your delusions, and we'll go from there. Am I making myself clear?"
"Yes, ma'am," Nadine replied automatically.
"Suuure," Jenny said half-heartedly. It was becoming painfully clear to her that Laura wasn't going to listen to a word she said at this rate, much less believe her.
"Alright, let's get ready to go, then. God be with you, John and Nadine!"
