Moonlit Waters

Green eyes, thick, prominent eyebrows, an angled jaw, a slightly beaked nose, occasional dimples, a shadow of a beard above the mouth and on the very edges of the face, close to the ears.

I don't like my face, not really. It's a realisation that I've only recently had, ironically after watching a long documentary about how social media can have a huge negative impact on teenagers' self-perception.

It's not even that I'm like immensely ugly or anything. I think I look pretty average, if not even a bit good. But that doesn't mean that I like it.

It just doesn't feel like me.

Whenever I look in the mirror I have to actively make the connection. That bastard over there? That's you, punk. Because there's no feeling of recognition, no sense of belonging.

Should there be a sense of belonging or feeling of satisfaction that that face belongs to me?
That's the unfortunate thing about the internet. Everybody trying their very best to be special has the effect of nobody being willing to talk about things so blatantly banal.

So there's no cheat sheet to compare myself to to find out whether there's anything off.
And anyway, isn't it normal for people my age to feel a little lost and to not be at peace with themselves and the world at large?

"Timothy!" My mother's call snaps me out of my thoughts.

God I hate that name, so old and long and ugly.

"Are you coming? We're going out to watch the comet!"

Did I forget to mention?

For a year now it's been all over the news, practically since they first discovered it was headed toward us. Since then it has been reported over on the daily, either the comet immediately, or the way stupid people reacted to it. Mainly by hoarding food and preparing for doomsday, building luxury bunkers or committing suicide en masse. And all that even though they were able to predict pretty quickly that the comet would only orbit earth for a week before heading off on its merry way to probably obliterate an entire planet of aliens a few hundred light years onwards.

The thing is, though, that the comet is large enough to deal a lot of damage and you know how people can be. People are stupid and that doesn't even exclude me. Otherwise, I wouldn't be staring at myself in the mirror, contemplating my identity.

"No, I think I'll go to bed early," I call back, without any intention of actually doing it.

Mum doesn't press the matter further. It isn't the first time and she knows it won't be the last time I'm ditching my family in exchange for some quality time on my own. It's not that I don't like them – I just like it more without them.

Another family member, however, isn't as easy to get rid of.

"Timmy?" a small voice asks from the doorway, knocking against the wood softly. It's my little sister, Pearl, the only one allowed to call me that.

"Yes?" I don't have to put effort into making my voice sound tired. The prospect of the coming discussion is more than enough.

In comes a girl maybe half my size, with blonde, long hair, huge blue eyes, and a round, cute face. Yeah, I have no clue either how we can have the same parents. We don't even have the same hair colour. Her name is Pearl and she's eight years old. I like her, though of course, her being a kid and all, can be tiring at times.

"Why won't you come watch the comet with us?" she asks, hugging me around the waist.

I pat her hair absently as my gaze trails out the window and up to the cloudless sky. "I just don't feel like it."

"Will you come out tomorrow, then?" she asks and looks up at me hopefully.

I shrug. "Maybe? I don't know. I promise I'll come stargaze with you at least once before the comet is gone, okay?" That's the best I can do for now. I have honestly no clue how my mental state is going to behave the next days, it's been pretty bad lately. I try to keep away from them and especially her when I'm not in a good mood. Pearl has this almost creepy ability to see right through any facade I might put up.

"Alright," she says with a small smile. "Can I have a hug before I go?"

Suppressing a sigh, I kneel before her and gently press her to my chest. I can feel her tiny heartbeat and the warmth of her skin. It's calming and reassuring somehow and she puts her arms around my neck and nuzzles her face into the crook of my neck, just like she always does when she feels like I'm having a bad time.

"Will you promise me to get better?" she whispers so silently that I almost don't react to it.

There's a pang of guilt in my chest. This is the exact reason I've been avoiding her lately. She really shouldn't have to worry about me. She's only eight for fuck's sake.

"I can't promise," I whisper back just as silently.

"Then promise that you'll try."

"Okay. I promise."

She presses closer one last time before letting go and wriggling out of my embrace. "Good night, sleep tight, Timmy," she says with a wave and disappears down the stairs, leaving me too baffled to reply anything.

Only when I hear the backdoor close downstairs, I finally get up. I walk out of the bathroom, through the narrow corridor, and into my room.

It's not big or anything. Barely enough for a desk with PC and keyboard, a narrow bed underneath the pitch of the roof, a closet and a shelf filled with all kinds of things. Books, DVDs, souvenirs, origami figurines Pearl made for me, you name it.

It's not big but I don't mind much. It's got everything I need, after all. Entertainment and seclusion.

My favorite part, though, is the picture wall. The slope above my bed is plastered with them. My life is on there, pretty much. Pictures from zoo visits, class trips. Alex is on many of them. He's my best friend since kindergarten and a massive goofball. We spend practically every free day together, sit next to each other in class, do homework together, play games together, go partying together.

I don't know if he realised my mood recently, though it would surprise me if he hadn't. He's probably just too polite about it and waiting for me to tell him if it's anything important enough.

I'm grateful for that, though. I'm sure he'll be running in my door the very moment he gets so much as an inkling that I'm having actual trouble. He just knows me, I guess.

I open my closet, take out my swimming trunks and a large towel and make my way downstairs, careful not to make any attention-drawing sounds.

Quick as I can, I put on my shoes and before anyone can notice my absence, I've gone out the front door and down the street.

It's dark outside, but still pleasantly warm. It's summer after all, the hottest one in a decade at that. I'm not sure whether it's just bad luck or the changing climate, but the fact is, that it's reliably above 35°C during the day and usually it doesn't get colder than 20°C during the night. Nobody's outside during the day, not if they can help it anyway. People around here aren't used to high temperatures and draughts.

It must be around midnight, the comet is said to enter its closest point in earth orbit around one in the morning. I'll be at the lake by then.

It has become a bit of a tradition for me, these days. Don't leave the house until it's dark and then swim out into the lake, float and enjoy the silence.

Nobody comes there to party, the lake is too close to the village and people would instantly call the police, so I'm pretty much on my own out there. Everybody goes to the parties these days. They're held in a barn a few miles out west, you can walk there if you've got enough time at your hands, most just cycle.

I've been there a few times too, but it's just not my drive. I'm uncomfortable with all the unpredictability of fifty drunk kids around me.

They're probably having another party tonight, probably under a motto along the lines of "doomsday" and if the world doesn't end today, at least three girls will have to inform themselves how they should go about unwanted pregnancies.

They'll have a blast. The weather is perfect, too. There are absolutely no clouds for the stars to hide behind and out here there's also no light pollution so the view is pretty cool. It will be even cooler once we've got the comet reflecting the sun. It won't be much bigger than the stars, but it'll be moving.

It takes me barely ten minutes to make my way through the village and along a few abandoned meadows.

As predicted, there is no human soul within sight as I make my way down the gravelly shore to the undisturbed water. There's not so much as a breeze going and the moon is high above me, its crescent silhouette reflecting in the water before me. It's perfect. On the far side of the lake, the mountains lie, like sleeping giants. They're not huge, not like the Alps or the Scottish Highlands, mind you, but they're still tall enough to attract an annual flood of tourists.

Slowly, I sit down and pull off my shoes and T-shirt. I bundle them up, then pull my shorts down and with a quick look over my shoulder, change my boxers for the swimming trunks.

The water is pleasantly cool. Maybe around the temperature you'd expect a sports swimming pool to be.

I walk in slowly, having hidden my clothes in a bush. Step by step I let the water rise up my body, from my feet up my calves to my knees. I stop when it reaches my hip and take a few deep breaths before crouching and letting myself submerge fully. With a gentle push against the gravel underneath my feet, I move forward and my arms stretch out in a first measured stroke.

I'm a good swimmer, though I might not look the part. I'm pretty lean, don't have the broad shoulders and chest muscles or tanned skin of our school's swimming team's members. But I'm not a bad swimmer, still.

For ten minutes I swim indifferently, my breath and movements slow and steady. Then I'm out far enough and I turn onto my back and let myself float.

I feel light, the silence in my submerged ears is almost perfect. With every breath I take in, my body floats up a bit and then sinks down when I let it out again.

This is perfection. Out here, I don't have to care how I look. Nobody can see me, not even I. There's just the water, the silence, my regular breath and the sky above me.

I open my eyes to the glowing expanse above me, just in time to see it.

The comet is maybe a third of the moon in size, giving off a pale blue glow. It doesn't look like a shooting star at all, more like a bigger star. I can see it move, though, slowly inching its way forward across the nightly sky.

'Do you want to be happy?'

Somehow, the disembodied voice echoing through my head doesn't scare me. The opposite: the voice has a calming evenness to it, sounds like that of a really beautiful woman. Like somebody who knows what they're offering.

The whispered "yes," passes my lips like an early morning's mist without conscious thought.
It's like I'm in trance. I can feel my body changing, my skin moving and my scalp tingling. It doesn't hurt, weirdly. It just... changes.

Only sometime later, when it's done does my mind finally resurface. The realisation of something being wrong creeps into my mind like an unwelcome guest and goosebumps spread over my arms and legs.

It hits me when I tentatively move. Everything is different. Reflexively my hands wander up to feel for my shoulders but flinch back when there's something squishy in the way. What really gives me a fright, though, is that I could still feel my lower arms against my chest. Just further in front?

My hands confirm what I already know. I have breasts. I put myself upright in the water and as soon as my head comes up there is the weight of long hair pulling on my scalp. I don't have to reach down to know that there's something missing in between my legs. I do it nevertheless and when the tips of my fingers touch the small mound my breath catches.

Even my breathing sounds feminine, somehow.

Panic takes a hold of my consciousness. Again and again, my mind repeats the same question 'What the fuck?' and runs into a wall of utter lack of explanation. How is something like this even possible? Why have I never heard of it? Am I dreaming?

"Make it turn back," I whisper, not daring to use my voice, in fear of making it all true.

But the voice doesn't come back. Nothing happens and suddenly I'm shivering and there are hot tears running down my cheeks. I don't know what to do, how to handle this situation. How do I get my old body back? What will the others at school think?

Would they even recognise me? Probably not, right? How do I ever prove that I am me?

And suddenly I'm screaming "MAKE IT TURN BACK!" at the top of my lungs, hitting the water with all the power in my arms, for simple lack of anything else to funnel my distress into.

My breathing grows shallow and my limbs lose strength far quicker than I thought they would. Maybe because I can't breathe properly, but I'm not sure.

Suddenly, the fact that I'm having a panic attack becomes very evident to me, just like the fact that I'm more than half a mile away from the shore, all of which doesn't make matters better.

I submerge for the first time and swallow a mouth full of water. My luck I don't breathe it in and I also get back up quickly, but I know it's only a matter of time.

Again and again, my thoughts run into invisible walls of impossibility and hopelessness and my eyes flicker around, searching desperately for something, anything that could help me.

The second time I sink underwater I'm not so lucky. Not a lot of water gets into my lungs, but it's enough to make me cough my lungs out and keep me from breathing properly for precious seconds.

And that's when I hear it.

"Hey! You alright?" It's a man's voice and in spite of the prospect of being saved, I only panic more because I don't want to be seen like this.

But there's nothing I can do. I continue coughing and gagging, heaving in air whenever I can, just to start coughing it out all over.

I go under once more and breathe in water but just when I want to fight my way back up, an arm comes around my stomach and suddenly my head is well above water and I'm coughing like a maniac, but I don't have to fight to stay up.

The man holds me for what must be minutes, my back pressed against his chest as his one free arm and legs work to keep the both of us from drowning.

"Can you swim?" he asks when I finally stop coughing. The panic has gone by then and in its stead is simple, plain tiredness.

I nod, but when he lets go of me I just sink like a stone so in the end he carries me all the way to the shore, swimming on his back while I let myself float to make it easier for him.

Eventually, he says, "It's shallow here," and lets go.

Weakly, I let myself sink until I'm sitting on the gravel and turn to look at my saviour.
It's just as well I'm so tired, otherwise, I'd have probably screamed all over.

The young man that just pulled my female self through half the lake is none other than my best friend Alex.

I feel my face flush and uncomfortably nibble my lower lip. He hasn't gotten a good look at my face yet, has he? Does that mean he didn't recognise me yet or that he won't recognise me at all?

Alex is in the local swimming club, one of the better swimmers at that. So no surprise that he was with me so quickly and doesn't seem to be very exhausted.

Next to me, he pulls his wet t-shirt over his head and hands it to me to cover up.
I take it gratefully, only now realising that for the last twenty minutes or so he'd only been centimeters away from touching my bare chest and other than I, he'd been well aware of that.

Careful to not rise above water too far, I pull the fabric down over my torso and shakily stand up making sure not to face him. My chest might be covered, but the white fabric tightly clings to my skin and I don't need to look down to know how much of me is actually very visible.

"Thank you," I whisper, meaning both for saving my life and the t-shirt. My voice sounds croaky and I clear my throat to repeat it in my apparently normal, very girly voice. "Thank you."

I glance over to catch a look at his reaction. He's still standing in the water next to me, grinning. What makes me nervous is that I have really no clue as to what he finds funny.

"No problem," he replies.

Even in the dim light of the stars I can't help but see that my friend is absolutely fucking ripped. Broad shoulders, defined core muscles, substantial chest and upper arms. It's not the first time I've seen him like this, of course, but the change of perspective really does contribute to the effect.

"You really shouldn't go swimming at night if you're not sure you'll make it out of the water again," he adds now, more serious. The bastard.

"I'm not retarded, okay?" I snap. "It was... different," I add sheepishly, already feeling bad.

He shrugs in reply. "You'll know best. Just be careful next time, okay?"

Slowly we make our way out of the water and onto the shore. I can feel his eyes lingering on my swimming trunks and I know the question that's forming in his mind, but he doesn't say anything.

A few meters up shore I let myself slump down onto the gravel. I don't really want to walk back barefoot, especially not with him. It doesn't seem like he's caught onto my identity yet and I want to keep it at that. But I also can't really get my clothes with him still around since he knows my entire wardrobe, pretty much. So I sit and wait for him to continue onwards back to the village.

But he doesn't. Of course he doesn't. Instead, he sits down next to me, keeping a respectful distance.

"You're not from around here, are you?" he asks when I don't say anything for a while.

For a second I'm unsure what I should tell him, then I shake my head. "No, I'm not." In this village, everybody knows everybody. There's no way I could tell him I lived here without being suspicious.

"So where're you from then?" He sits bent forward, his arms folded on his slightly bent knees, looking over at me.

I have my knees pulled up to my chest and my arms slung around them. I'm not cold really, but I feel too naked to sit any other way.

"What makes you think it's any of your business?" I reply, not sounding particularly annoyed. If I wanna get rid of him, not being nice is probably the best way to hint him off. And anyway, I've figured nothing out so far, building a net of lies around my identity would be pretty stupid right now, if I don't even know how this will work out.

He chuckles lightly. "My bad." He gets up and pats the dust off his shorts. He didn't even take off his shoes to jump into the water. "Mind telling me your name at least?" My rudeness doesn't seem to have shaken his good mood in the least.

I look around, trying hard not to seem panicked. I can't tell him that my name is Timothy. But I also can't tell him to fuck off, can I? I owe him my life.

My gaze glides out onto the lake and catches the moon's silver glow.

"Selena," I mouth and somehow it feels so right. "My name is Selena," I repeat with more confidence in my voice.