I went to sleep, then woke up in a different body

I was a nurse for a little over 8 years until I killed a patient by mistake, it happened about a year ago. I was suicidal for a while but the past couple months I’ve really started pulling myself together. I’ve been trying to be more involved in my community, volunteering at the local animal shelter, going to meetings and joining groups. Last night I volunteered at the hospital. My plan was to get involved as much as I could, then try to get my old job back. Just an hour into my volunteer shift, I didn’t want it, I didn’t want to go back to work there, I really didn’t want to be there at all.<br><br>Everyone knew me, the person who killed a patient. I wasn’t sure how they knew, I assumed tiffany had said something since she was the only person I was close to at work. I’d talk to her about it occasionally. The doctors and nurses would give me these weird condescending smiles when they’d see me, it made me sick, I tried not to take it personally but it was hard, of course they would judge me, what I did was so stupid, everyone made mistakes, but my mistake was not only bad, it was deadly.<br><br>I didn’t want to be there. My assignment was to help clean the rooms, replenish soap and toilet paper, and bring them to the nurses and doctors. It didn’t take long to clean the rooms and I didn’t want to carry around the soap and toilet paper for hours, so I just started bringing it to the nurses and doctors. I continued doing this, going into every room so I didn’t look unbalanced, but I really just wanted to go home. Sometimes, especially at night, my brain felt like it was moving &amp; twitching, like there were insects crawling across the surface of my brain, but I couldn’t see them, it was the same feeling you get when you touch a spider web and it feels like the spider is crawling on your face, except it was inside of me. It was also hot, it felt like there was a brick in the oven and I couldn’t take it out because my hands were burned, which made no sense, but that was the only way I could explain it.<br><br>I’d see patients, sick ones, on death’s door, and I just wanted to put a pillow over their face, get it over with. I shouldn’t be at this job, I shouldn’t be around people. But I tried. I didn’t want to be alone again, and I knew what would happen if I was, I’d come home from my shift and drink, and the next morning I’d come home from work and think about how I was such a disappointment, how I’d never be good at anything if I couldn’t even do my job right, how I was bringing shame to my family, so I’d drink &amp; probably come home late, and then I’d do it all again the next day.<br><br>I went into a room and there was a patient, she was comatose, on life support. I wanted to unplug the machine, get it over with, put her out of her misery. But I knew it wasn’t my decision to make. Why couldn’t this woman just die already, it’s not fair to keep her alive like this, especially if she’s just going to wake up like this, unable to move or speak. I took a deep breath, let it out slowly. It wasn’t my decision to make, it wasn’t wrong of me to think it, it was just sympathy.<br><br>I heard a voice, “it’s okay”, and I turned around, it was Dr. Carson. He was one of my superiors at the previous job, and I’d seen him a couple times when I was volunteering, he smiled and waved politely, but didn’t really talk to me. He was a tall thin man with glasses and a bald spot, he was probably about 60, he looked older though.<br><br>“Thanks”, I said, fidgeted a little, “I’m just a little anxious. I think it’s PMS”.<br><br>“That’s understandable”, he said. He stepped closer, he had his arms folded, he looked like he had something to say, but he was being reserved, “I think you should come with me for a minute”, he said, “I’ll walk with you, we don’t have to go anywhere else”.<br><br>“Okay”, I said.<br><br>“I don’t want you to think of me as your superior right now. I just want to have a talk with you as one person to another.” He walked closer to me, he was almost right next to me, his voice was low, “Did you know your mistake actually helped us?”<br><br>“No”, I said. The only thing my mistake did was kill a patient. There was no way it helped them.<br><br>“Yes”, he said. “We were using an experimental drug, the patient that died from it, well it made us take a deeper look at it. We didn’t realize it had such a side effect, but now that we know, we were able to work on it and not only fix the side effect, but make the drug more effective, we’ve been using it, and have already seen a dramatic increase in recovery.” He smiled, expecting me to be happy, but I didn’t feel happy, he was placing the credit for the experimental drug on me, he made me feel responsible for something I had no involvement in.<br><br>“I’m glad that it worked out”, I said.<br><br>He stepped forward again, his voice lowered, “You don’t understand, we give it to our comatose patients, the ones who won’t wake up. When you gave it to the wrong patient, it caused the patient to switch bodies with someone else. It was a huge fail, but we were able to use that information to create not only an effective drug, but a new drug, one that will revolutionize the medical field.”<br><br>I laughed, “that sounds crazy”, I said.<br><br>“You don’t realize what you’ve accomplished”, he said, “I know you’re hard on yourself because of what you did, but you need to get over it, AT LEAST try to look at the positive side. You need to understand how important you are, not just to me, but to your friends, your family, and the world. This drug can cure cancer, cure HIV, we can transfer knowledge, we already have discovery, we can transfer people’s consciousness into clones.”<br><br>I laughed again. I knew he was joking, but he was serious.<br><br>“Stop playing games with me, I’m sick of it”, I said. I was getting really frustrated, this was ridiculous, everyone at this hospital was treating me like a child, he reached out and put his hand on my shoulder.<br><br>“I’m serious, you’re going to be a part of this, I need you to understand. I have a special assignment for you, and you’re going to be the only person to do it. You can’t tell anyone, you can only trust yourself. You can only discuss your progress with me, no one else, not even family or friends. Do you understand?”<br><br>My brain was twitching, I didn’t understand, I didn’t want to understand. I just wanted to be left alone, I turned around, “I need to get out of here, I don’t want to be here anymore.”, I walked away, he called out after me, “think about it” was all he said.<br><br>I walked away, and I didn’t stop walking, I walked home, and I didn’t stop until I made it to my car and drove away.<br><br>When I got home I had a bottle of wine, and I watched Netflix, after about an hour and a half, I heard my phone vibrate, it was a text from Dr. Carson, “think about it, we will talk soon”. I was furious, I replied “fuck off”, and then I turned my phone off. I drank until I passed out. I guess I drank too much because when I woke up the next day, I was in different body.<br><br>I don’t remember anything about leaving my house, driving to the hospital, or signing papers. The last thing I remember is drinking, and all of a sudden, I woke up, and looking down at the bed, I saw long blonde hair, and a tube going into my mouth. I reached up to my head, it was balding, with only a little bit of blonde hair on the side, I looked at my hands, they were wrinkled and old, and looked nothing like my hands. It was terrifying.<br><br>I started screaming, my voice was nothing like mine, it was deep, and had an accent. I started hitting the buttons on the bed, no one came, I tried yelling again, at the top of my lungs, I yelled for help, but no one came. The door was open, and I could hear people walking by, talking, but no one was paying any attention to me.<br><br>I tried to get up, my legs hurt, my back hurt, I had tubes in me, and the roommate was awake, they looked at me, “what are you doing, is this some kind of joke?” they said. They started hitting their buttons, a nurse came in, “of course you have to make your dramatics right when I have to deal with her dramatics” She looked at the roommate, “I’ll be right there.” She looked at me, “What seems to be the problem?”<br><br>“I don’t know who I am or where I am” I said, I was trying not to cry, but it was so hard, I was so scared.<br><br>“I don’t want to hear your bullshit right now” the nurse said.<br><br>“She’s not being sarcastic!” the roommate called out, “look at her she’s really scared, she’s crying, stop expecting