Given Genetics Pool [Rewrite]
There was no better feeling than getting away from life and relaxing in a foreign country. It had been three years or so since I went on holiday last, so I had no time to spare between University and everything else. When my father offered to take me on holiday for a week, just me and him, how could I say no?
When we got there, the hotel was almost empty. Nobody in the lobby or dining areas. I could guess there were only one hundred of us in that hotel including the staff. The first day, we got the key to the hotel and took our bags over, ready to start our holiday. Wandering over, I overheard some man speaking to his wife, saying there were some weird chemicals in the swimming pool. He seemed overly distraught. His wife on the other hand? Completely lost. I had just assumed they had some chlorine burns or something. We threw our bags in the room, ripped out our swim wear, changed and rushed to the pool, wanting to enjoy the mid day sun. I raced my father, slipping past the chairs and down the stairs. I remember being cockily as I thought I got in the pool before him, dunking my entire head into the pool before he could even touch the water.
The next thing I remember? Coughing up water on the side of the pool, with some heavy hands pressing against my chest, panting as he quickly uttered “Sir.” to me as I opened my eyes. Next thing I saw was just some thirty year old, trying to resuscitate my heavy body. He brought me to my feet and everything felt wrong
Everything was groggy and heavy. My breath was heavier and sharper. My legs were thicker and weaker. Then, my voice, as shaky as it was, with a mumbled “Yeah” to the life guard sounded wrong. I looked around as the life guard went, wanting to ask “Have you seen my Dad?”, but he was nowhere, and I was left with a quiet selfish whisper. I looked down at myself, seeing my body being covered in hair and muscle. I felt bigger, but more unenergetic, like it took so much energy for me to move. I felt utterly dazed, nothing made sense to me, I do not even remember wearing these orange shorts, wasn’t I wearing grey ones before? My stomach dropped. Maybe he went back to the room, I thought.
I trotted down the corridor, looking at myself as I soaked the carpet below me, analysing myself. Tattoos? Beard? Chest hair? Something was not adding up. The cold air trapped itself in between my hairs, making me feel large and threatening as I walked down the halls. I reached my hotel room, Room 302, and whipped out my key card, which felt weaker and smaller than before. I walked inside, with my balance completely ruined. Maybe I was just suffering from sunstroke, or maybe just hit my head on the way into the pool.
Inside were two suitcases, left the same way as it was before, nothing out of place. The TV was still off, and the blinds still closed. He was nowhere to be seen. I knocked on the door, calling out for my father. Dead quiet. I opened the door, not seeing him anywhere. I stepped inside, hoping he was joking around and hiding behind the shower curtain. Nowhere to be seen.
I turned around, catching a glance at myself. I looked again. I saw him. Standing there in the mirror, in my place. My dad, looking right back at me, but nowhere to be seen next to me. I stood there. Blinking, staring, panting. For a second, my heart sank
Those tattoos, that thick beard, those weary eyes. It was unmistakable to be him. I took a step back, watching him mirror my frightened movements. I looked down at myself, every feature of mine being the same as his, even down to the same shorts.
“What the hell-” I murmured, feeling my voice rattle against my throat. It sounded just like him. It sounded nothing like me. I grabbed the towel rail behind me, almost ripping it off the wall as I fell backwards, trying to keep myself upright. This was not some messed up dream, or crazed sleepwalk. I was my father. The man standing in front of me, was now me.
My heart bounced in my chest. My breath fled my body. My throat dried up. My eye pierced the air. I could feel every little change, overanalyse every little difference there was in this body. “No.” I whispered on repeat, completely lost within my father’s physiology. I was stuck in his body, and my old body was nowhere to be seen. My father was nowhere to be heard.
What is this who I am now?
Stuck in my father’s body?
That couple from earlier. The two arguing, were they in the same predicament? Is that why this hotel was so quiet? I stood there, clinging harder to the handrail, with my larger hands wrapped around it, stuck as my father, not knowing if I will be myself again.