The pale blue light of early morning peeked through the gaps in the faded curtains, casting a soft glow across the quiet cabin room.
On the worn-out brown couch, B stirred up awake from her slumber, a nice slumber. She let out a long, quiet yawn, her arms reaching straight above her head as she arched her back, stretching lazily like a sleepy white cat waking up from a long nap. Her floor-length white hair spilled over the edges of the cushions, glowing faintly in the dim morning light.
She rubbed her eyes with the back of her small hands, her large, void-black pupils blinking slowly as she looked toward the wide window.
The sky outside was still dark purple and grey, showing that the sun hadn't quite climbed over the horizon yet. It was the crack of dawn.
"So early..." B mumbled, her child-like voice sounding thick with sleep. She rarely get to wake up this early, back on her previous life's world, whenever she isnt sleeping at the company by taking night shift overwork to finish papers, she would go back to her apartment, but most of the time it was either weekend or she would arrive home very very late, like way past midnight and closer to morning kind of late.
She would immediately sleep and would wake up way past noon, or late morning if she is lucky. which is unlike now that she could sleep very early and woke up just as early.
She pulled the blanket back over her shoulders, fully intending to flop back down onto her pillow and sleep for another three hours, not out of any tired feeling but just from the laziness feeling everyone have when they just woke up. But as her cheek hit the soft cushion, a slight feeling of stickiness made her pause.
She hadn't taken a shower since arriving in this world.
In her old life, even when she was dying of overwork under the flickering lights of her corporate office, B had always loved taking showers. Stepping under warm running water was the one small comfort that made her feel human again after a brutal twenty-hour shift.
B let out a small sigh, sitting back up on the edge of the couch. "Can't enjoy a good nap if I feel dirty."
She swung her short legs over the side and stood up, carefully lifting her white hair so she wouldn't step on it. She shuffled over to the wooden table by the window, where the heavy bundle of clothes she had bought yesterday was sitting wrapped in brown paper.
She untied the thick twine string and opened the paper wrapping. Inside were her five brand-new sets of clothes. She picked out a simple white dress made of soft cotton and a pair of small black shorts. Holding the clean clothes in her arm, she walked over to the plastic door with the blue 'Bathroom' sign and pushed it open.
Inside, she turned the metal handles above the ceramic tub, letting the cool water wash over the basin before setting it to a comfortable, warm temperature. She stripped off her old white dress, stepped into the stall, and let the running water cascade over her head and shoulders.
"Ahhh..." B sighed happily, closing her pitch-black eyes as the water washed over her skin.
She spent a very long time standing under the warm spray, just enjoying the sensation of the water rinsing away her fatigue.
As she washed her chest and arms, her small hands paused for a moment. For the first time since waking up, she really paid attention to her new body. She looked down at her slender arms, her small flat chest, and her soft, child-like shoulders.
'I'm really a girl now,' B thought, staring at her pale reflection in the steamy mirror across the room.
Back in her old life, she had been a twenty-three-year-old male corporate worker with dry skin and dark circles under his eyes. Now she was a fifteen-year-old girl with a voice like a small bell. It was definitely a weird shift, but to be completely honest, B couldn't bring herself to care very much and his mind is somewhat already accepted that she is a girl now as she barely had any awkward feeling with this. Being a girl didn't stop her from sleeping on a soft couch, it didn't make sweeping leaves any harder, and it didn't stop sweet cream buns from tasting delicious.
As long as she didn't have to do overtime, her gender didn't matter to her at all.
Then, B turned her attention to her floor-length white hair.
She had been pretty worried about washing it. Hair that reached all the way to her feet seemed like an absolute nightmare to clean and dry. Yesterday, she had dragged the ends of her hair across dirt paths, dry leaves, and stone floors as she would often get exhausted from constantly carrying the bundle of hairs. She braced herself for a long, painful hour of scrubbing and untangling knots which is going to take a lot of her time, she might even consider cutting them off to a shorter long hair.
However, the moment the running water touched her white hair, B's eyes widened in surprise, pleasantly so.
The water washed through the long strands like magic. The dirt and dust clinging to the very ends simply slid right off, dissolving instantly without even needing shampoo. Even better, when she ran her small fingers through the massive mass of white hair to check for tangles, her fingers slid through completely smooth from her head all the way down to the tips.
Every single knot straightened out effortlessly with a single gentle brush of her hand.
"Whoa," B whispered, looking at a wet lock of pure, shimmering white hair resting in her palm. "That is so convenient."
It was as if her her and her very body refused to hold onto dirt or tangles, keeping itself clean with the absolute bare minimum effort. To someone as profoundly lazy as B, this was the greatest gift she could have ever asked for.
After drying off with a clean towel and brushing her hair with her fingers one last time, B put on her clean black shorts and the fresh white dress.
When she finally pushed open the plastic bathroom door and stepped back into the main cabin room, she noticed that the sky outside the window had completely changed. The dark purple of dawn was gone, replaced by the bright, warm gold of full morning light.
"Guess I took a pretty long shower," B muttered to herself.
Her sleepy eyes drifted over to the tall wooden shelf stocked with neat rows of canned beans, soups, and bottled water.
"Time for breakfast," B said, walking over to the shelf.
She reached out her hand to pick up a can of pork and beans, but as her fingers touched the cold metal, she paused.
She paid attention to her stomach. Strangely enough, she didn't feel hungry at all. In fact, her belly felt completely full, almost as if she had just finished eating a massive, five-course heavy dinner just a few minutes ago.
B tilted her head, her void-black pupils blinking in confusion.
'Did all those bakery cream buns and pastries from yesterday take this long to digest?' B wondered, patting her flat stomach through her clean white dress. 'My digestion in this new body must be super slow. Oh well, saving food means saving Vicks.'
Since her stomach was totally full and her leaves from yesterday were already gone, B remembered the other main duty her mysterious boss had assigned to her: scraping the green moss and dirt off the old tombstones.
"Right," B said with a small nod. "Scrubbing duty."
She walked over to the corner near the metal front door, where a pair of heavy, dark leather boots sat resting against the wall. They were high boots that reached halfway up her shins, sturdy and thick-soled. She slid her feet into them, tying the laces tight so they wouldn't slip off her small feet.
She checked a small wooden box on the lower shelf near the door, finding a sturdy stiff-bristled hand brush and a small bucket.
Holding the bucket in one hand and the brush in the other, B unlocked the heavy metal latch and pushed open the cabin door.
The crisp morning air washed over her face, carrying the fresh smell of pine trees and wet grass. The graveyard was quiet, peaceful, and bathed in bright morning sunlight.
Holding her long hair in one arm so it wouldn't touch the damp grass, the tiny white-haired grave keeper stepped off the porch and walked out into the rows of stone graves, ready to begin her lazy morning work.
Author's Note
EliteToeCollector
Thanks for reading!