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Chapter 4 As darkness consumed me, I had this feeling I was in a dream state. Flashes of memories, of smells, of sounds. Things that didn’t make sense. For example, why was I walking through a field? At least I thought it was a field. There was grass and trees. It was a bright sunny day. I could feel the warm sun on my face. Wasn’t it supposed to be winter? Why was I here and where was I walking to? I tripped over something, I didn’t see. It wasn’t there before. It was a gravestone. I wasn’t in a field. I was in a cemetery. I got up and dusted my knees off, when I noticed two or three people huddled around flowers and an open hole. A funeral? In my dream state I kept walking towards it. I typically don’t walk up to random funerals, but my dream legs keep moving me closer. I could start to make out the faces of the few people assembled there. There was a man giving a sermon that I couldn’t hear. As I got closer I realized I couldn’t hear anything. There was another man standing

Monday morning asserted itself with the smell of coffee and the muted sounds of televised newscasters. I couldn’t make out the words, but I assumed that like most of the news I caught snippets of passing shops with television displays, it was depressing. For a brief moment I was my 11 year old self again, waking up in a strange bedroom in a strange house, with strange people moving around outside this space. That didn’t last long though. I recognized the few decorations I had chosen to keep and place around the room, the box of clothing by the closet, and recognized Jen’s voice complaining at the television briefly as if it could hear her. All of that was enough to bring me back and make me remember where I was. I wasn’t that scared 11 year old boy anymore. I mean, was I even a boy anymore? Arguably. I scratched a nagging itch at the back of my head, feeling the unevenly shorn hair as yet another reminder of my current situation. I swung my legs over the side of the bed realizing that

My first proper shower in a long time wasn’t made any less awkward by the confrontation with my new anatomy. I wasn’t as filthy as I expected to be, which told me that I’d likely been washed in some fashion at the hospital. Probably so my street grime wouldn’t smell up the hospital bed. That also meant that at least one person had seen me and my new… equipment. That thought would be addressed later. For now I settled for drying off and getting properly dressed for the evening. Of course the only underwear was for girls, thanks again to the Bureau. A knock came at the door, and I nearly jumped out of my skin in the warm quietude of the bathroom. “Kat, are you done in there hon? I brought you something to wear,” Jen said through the door. “Yeah, um, I’m done…” I looked down at myself, grimacing at the underwear on my lower body. I wrapped my towel around my waist and opened the door. Jen took one look at me and smiled. “You look much more relaxed after a nice hot shower. I figured