One: Rumi Penelope Lee

A sharp gasped of air, escaped from my tightly closed lips as I sat above the soft mattress, who knows where it came from. My eyes were wide open, staring right straight the empty cream painted walls. My lips were chapped and slightly apart and I can feel my numb left foot, aching from an unknown reason.

I closed my eyes again and stroke the nape of my neck, thinking of what happened. Everything was a blur and my head felt like it was being hit by a hammer, when I tried to think of the things that happened before waking up in this place. A calming aroma of the incense brought me back to reality.

"Where am I?" I asked myself, as I open my eyes again and  looked around me.

An unfamiliar place with only me and the sunlight's presence around, coming from the window's transparent glass. Outside the windowed glass was a view that was a world that I could see from where I am. A view of a beautiful city landscape of some unknown place. Where lights of various colors flickered like stars, resting on the ground.

I put a a frown on my face.

Feeling a sudden nausea, when I saw a scene of two people flocking theirselves together intimately, my head felt like a cracking shell that it hurts so much after seeing a blurred scene that I couldn't remember. So, I tried pressing my eyes tight. What I knew was, it was one of the things I knew but I couldn't remembered and it was kinda frustrating.

I don't know where am I either.

"What the-"

A curse almost escape my lips when my peace of mind crumbled from the tingling noise of something crashing. It came from the door so I threw a glance over and meet a two pair of pretty eyes, moist and longing for something.

My body turned stiffed like a stone when the woman of my age suddenly ran over and cage me for a hug.

She sobbed as I, went struck from her sudden reaction. But I can't even think that much. Why do I felt small from the hug when from the looks of it, we only have the same height?

A prickly feeling suddenly creeps on my skin and it was weird enough to keep my head straight.

Goosebumps.

I could feel the tiny hairs of my body stood like I was being electrified. 

It went all over my body, crawled underneath my skin and suddenly remembered what caused me to be here.

Am I lost or what?

But where am I?

What's going on?

I thought I remembered it clearly but no. My head was like a blank sheet of paper with only a certain old memories could be found. As if something was blocking the reason that cause me here.

"Rumi, don't do that again," I heard the woman's cracked voice lingered in my right ear, but still has its faint soothing softness. It was enough to bring comfort in my heart but it didn't. Because that wasn't what makes me wanted to cry. She just called me by someone else's name.

A name that insanely familiar to me but unfamiliar at the same time.

She's not mistaken, right? I mean, my name is not Rumi and it was way too far from the sound of my own name.

"Who are you?" I asked, cracked voiced and sounded helpless, but it was the only thing that I could say in this situation. It was the only thing that escaped from my lips, making her body stiff. I felt how she suddenly froze and hardened, because of how close our body was, making me uncomfortable.

"I am asking you, who are you?" I repeated. There's a faint sterness to my voice but I didn't came to my mind to even care about how she will react. Because as far as I remember, she's the one being rude here.

Who would want to be hugged by some stranger, right? I don't care if she looks too pretty for her age. I mean, really pretty. But she's still being rude here.

She moves away from me and held both of my shoulders together. I only gave her a look, keeping myself from frowning because of her actions. She stare at me with her wavering and teary eyes as if she was openly reading me, before a panicked expression drew her face and paled. Without saying anything, she moves her body away from me and hurriedly run to the red panic button near the bed, obviously reminding me that she's really that~ panicking.

Did she already realized something?

My name is not Rumi or whoever it is. But before I could even clarify myself to her, the door of the room suddenly opened, then several, no. There are about seven or nine people wearing white laboratory coats each that are neatly ironed and spotless of dirt, who came inside. With some of them has stethoscope hanging around their neck, they marched inside the room and left me in a midst of being speechless.

Should I ask myself again what the hell was going on right now?

"Crazy. This is crazy," I murmured to myself, wishing it was only me who can hear it. None of them reacted so my prayer must have been heard. But seriously, it never occured to me that I, Ayla Navarez, will be treated like this like some higher ups in a private hospital at the least.

I mean~ Oh my God.

I am only an ordinary woman on her late twenties, managing alone her parents old coffee shop by the lonely street of their subdivision, dreaming to travel abroad fulfilling her travel bucketlist, buy her own studio in the city and waiting to marry her longtime boyfriend, Daryl.

Yes.

That's me. 

An ordinary, Ayla Navarez. But this scene, really leave me dumbfounded. If I am Ayla, then this must be a dream, right? Because in my case, this kind of thing only happens in dreams.

Before thinking of letting it out of my mouth, I secretly pinched my own arm, and then instead let out a moan. It hurts of course but it didn't matter as I realized it already. I don't know why but I wanted to cry right now, and so I did.

A stream of hot fluid fell down through my cheeks. Not even minding how the woman from the earlier, reach out for me and pulled me for another tight hugged.

My breath hitched as I gulped my own saliva, pressing my lips together and letting my body shrugged as I went on crying. It didn't count as I collapsed in that woman's arms because I suddenly lost interest after realizing the truth.

The fact that I'm no longer Ayla Navarez but someone I don't know.

"Who am I?"

***

I don't want to listen to them talking, so I scurried over the bed and lay down. I pulled the soft blanket covering my body, right above my shoulder as I carefully gripped the the edge of its soft hem.

Well, who would want to live like this?

My dreams as an ordinary Ayla already collapsed right after the earthquake of reality occured. And still, I still couldn't remember anything. Shouldn't this kind of situation, alike of those in transmigration novels I've read before? I mean, the memories of this body should have flooded my head already right after realizing that I am inside someone else's body.

This is somewhat unfair.

"Ruru," my so-called mother called me by my so-called name again. A childish nickname at that. It was actually a nickname but just by hearing it makes me uncomfortable. I'm not fond with someone calling me by endearments or such, nicknames.

She called me again. 

"Ruru." 

Her soft voice suddenly lingered in my ears, as though I was listeningto a lullaby. It was so soft and soothing but I can't even accept it that it was. Because someone who has the same age as me, was calling me by that sweet voice and patting me like a child.

Right, I'm a child.

"Hmm," I hummed as a response. I don't want to talk about anything so I only hummed in response. Yet I am too lazy to turn around or to even sit on the bed just to look at her. I can't bear it myself.

"Your name is Rumi Penelope. Pretty, right?" I heard her from behind but I suddenly realized that it was kind of weird that I really felt botheres after hearing that name. 

Surely it is. 

I am Ayla Navarez yesterday and now I suddenly woke up into someone else who was named Rumi Penelope.

"Rumi Penelope," I murmured.

"That's right. You're Rumi Penelope," my mother said and from hearing her words, I think she's smiling right now. Her sweet voice makes me guilty knowing that, the daughter she's been calling Rumi Penelope, was no longer her daughter. I couldn't even voice it out that somebody else's soul was inside her lovely daughter's body.

And I'm not crazy to tell her that I'm not her daughter but someone whose age was twenty-eight, when physically speaking, it was obviously her daughter's body where I am in.

But, they won't throw me to a mental hospital if I tell them, right?

The bed suddenly creaked as I felt her moved, just to gave me a kiss on my hair, that actually scares me. No one has ever kissed me on my hair not even my boyfriend, Daryl, never did. She carefully fixed the blanket above me and then moved away, making the bed felt lightweighted.

I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard her footstep faded as the door opened then closed again. Everything went silent after that. My eyes stare straightforward to my reflection on the window glass. The night has already scattered and from here, I can see the full view of the breathtaking lights of buildings in the city landscape. But my reflection shone clearly on the window glass.

My eyes were bright and youthful, gleaming lightly as I gazed on it. Perfectly mixing with the lights of the night. As if it was one of the lights that shone brightly in the night.

But something's more weirder than that was the color of my eyes.

The color of this body's eyes.

I frowned slightly before I finally lift myself off from bed, my legs and thighs both shook in response, when I tried to stand. I gathered my strength as I started to walk. My body feels so light unlike my previous old body. I can really feel the youthful energy of Rumi's body.

Although faint, but maybe its because her body has been here in the hospital for five days.

"It seems like I really turned younger again," I mentally smiled to myself.

But I froze when I finally got the full view of Rumi's reflection on the floor-to-ceiling glass window. I can see a young lady on her teens standing in front of me. She's not too tall but not that short. Her small body hugged by the white patient's dress, looks fragile and delicate.

Too pretty.

Her long and silky ebony hair shone in the reflection. It's too pretty to just describe it like that but what's more eye candy was her unusual yet beautiful gem-like purple eyes, wavering like star in the dark sky. They're just too beautiful to be expressed in word. She looked like a doll and what I am seeing write now was literally like a description of a character in a novel.

She's too good to be true.

I move my feet to see myself closely. It's kinda weird to say that the pretty young lady I am seeing right now, in front me is actually me, although the truth says the opposite. This body wasn't mine, naturally. I reached for the glass where I can see my reflection. But the reflection wasn't Ayla Navarez.

My small palm reached for the glass, meeting with my own reflections palm. Wondering if I touch it, will I be swallowed by this weird dreams or will it shattered away, disappearing like it never happened? Of the two things that suddenly appeared inside my head, I would choose the latter.

I can't accept this weird situation, even though I know that this is already my reality.

"Rumi Penelope," I murmured my so-called name once again, as if I was chanting a spell that only leave me mesmerized.

But the moment that name escaped from my lips, a foreign memories suddenly flooded my entire head. Memories that are neither good nor happy. Everything was mixed with my current memories and as it did, I felt helpless.

The new memories wasn't mine but my heart felt like it'll explode from being in pain and sadness.

Poor child.

I whispered mentally. Rumi Penelope is a lonely child. But that's not the only one that bothered be the most.

Her full name is Rumi Penelope Lee, my new name.

A pitiful cannon fodder of a novel I read as Ayla Navarez.