Your eyes sweep the room with practiced efficiency, cataloguing every detail. Old habit. The detective's instinct never dies, even trapped in this foreign flesh. Computer setup—three monitors, custom rig, probably worth four thousand dollars. External hard drives stacked beside the tower. Notebooks scattered across the desk with handwritten code snippets. A USB drive dangling from—
"Wait, is that a Chronoquest poster?"
The words leave your mouth before you can stop them. Your gaze has snagged on the wall above Trevor's bed—a massive poster depicting armored warriors standing before a glowing portal. You recognize it immediately. The critically acclaimed RPG from three years ago. The one where you have to solve temporal paradoxes and—
No. Focus. The source code. The virus. That's what matters.
But your feet are already moving toward the poster, your new body's weight shifting awkwardly as you cross the cluttered floor. "The Shattered Timeline expansion. That puzzle in the Void Cathedral was insane. Took me three hours to figure out the sequence."
Trevor's face transforms. The fear drains away, replaced by shocked delight. "You... you play Chronoquest? But you're... I mean, you were..."
"The temporal mechanics are actually brilliant," you hear yourself saying, and part of you—the real you—screams in horror at what's happening. Your mission. Your focus. Everything that makes you Batman is being buried under this manufactured personality. "The way they integrated quantum superposition into the spell system? Pure genius."
Your body feels different. Heavier. Your clothes are tighter, straining across an expanding belly. You glance down and your breath catches. The gray hoodie is gone. Instead you're wearing a faded green t-shirt emblazoned with pixel art from some retro game. Your stomach protrudes further than before, soft and round, pressing against the fabric. On your face—you can feel them now—a pair of thick-framed glasses that weren't there seconds ago.
The virus is accelerating.
"Oh my god," Trevor breathes. "You really do... you actually like the same stuff I do." He moves closer, his earlier caution evaporating. "Nobody at school plays Chronoquest. They all think it's too nerdy. But the lore is incredible, right? The whole thing with the Paradox Keeper and how he's actually—"
Your mouth opens to respond. To continue this conversation that isn't yours, about a game you have no memory of playing, wearing clothes that materialized from nothing while your body continues its grotesque transformation.
Deep inside, Batman is drowning.