Retranslation

Yvette Belange was 23. Her mother, Dora, looked out the window in the library room. This is how an afternoon after school normally went. But today, both of them felt it could be different.

... Dora, 49, looked at her daughter and saw her husband, maybe even an enemy.

It wasn't like it was 10 years ago. Heck, even 5. Things had gotten harder. Dad left for another woman 4 years ago. He didn't want to be with "an aging mother hen and a daughter who couldn't be independent." As he put it.

WTF had they done with all of their time? Didn't 4 years of college and now career training helped Yvette... or did, like mom, she just waste years playing, pretending, and fighting fires. It's not like it had gotten nicer. A friend calls. Yvette's mother begs her to watch a new TV series with her, but Yv tells mom she has a meeting.

Of course.

Jarrin is one of the few guys who likes Yvette. They went to college together and bumped into each other enough times. They had to exchange information, which led to a progressive friendship. But maybe this year is an all time low. Even with that.

J does not like Yvette's attitude. "You're turning into your neuropath mother" – always so judgemental.

While they tend to commiserate and cry a lot together, emotionally bonding, that's not how it is today. Jarrin is being selfish. He feels like this relationship, which he expected to be tighter, is falling apart. After he starts talking bitter about his friends and boss, she knows he'll cycle again.

"I don't need more negativity." She says. Jarrin calls her a narcissist... and she tells him she can't be friends if he's like this. Feeling guilty, he lets her go. Her windy blue skirt disappears into the brightness of a misty day. The sun is lower but intense.

...

Driving back home but mostly just driving for driving's sake, Yvette almost cries. Her eyes go emotional – a feeling of heart-deep dread hits her. Then a runaway train that's run off the tracks does. Her air's front is decapitated. She is somehow injured but just knocked out – stunned. She is lucky to be alive.

A doctor she's never seen before ushers her mother in. He is tall and looks very intelligent. Glasses cover his blue eyes. His hair is dark gray and he has a Soviet-style goatee. Dora, mother dearest, is there. She looks happily yet sadly at her daughter's face.

"The girl... your daughter... is badly hit. The train smashed her car and 2 feet closer.. I know you don't want to hear that. She is okay. For now. But her neck is in a suspender and her right arm is paralyzed. It will take rehab and coaching to get her back on her feet. But her arm and legs will never be the same. She has back and rib injuries, and spinal. I will do all I can with other staff. But I will not sugarcoat it for you..." Doctor Saul's words were sharp and heavy, but loving. Unlike others, he would not lie.

Dora looks emotionless. Her eyes look down at her daughter. The expression is fear masked in calm acceptance, as if she is seeing Yvette die. The 20-something young woman is just a girl to her mom. Her young face pale and scared. Her dark brown hair long and thick. Those tender green eyes filled with 1000 fears, and fear her hopes and goals are over. She thinks life is, or soon will be.

...

2 days later, after a lot of medical work, she feels she is not ready for surgery. Her body tells her treatments will do okay but not invasive work. She knows that... Dr. Saul comes in again with another. A woman with sleek black hair and icy inhuman grey eyes stands beside. "My name is Anna. I am here to help."

This mysterious woman in a black and white nurse uniform, is painfully plain. Though beautiful and mature, her words are stiff, she has a cool loveless voice. Her hair and skin seem cold, too old or tense for her age – she looks no older than 32. "I don't want any help", Yvette moans as she rolls, or tries to, turning away. The woman and Saul tell her she has a Choice... and it might be the last one she gets. "Okay", says Yv, "what is it..."

She is given a paper and asked by Dr. Anna to sign. It will give a new life... or so they promise. It's now like a dream but not a good one. Anna has Yvette sign it, totally and wholly the woman's choice, not anything she is pressured into. It is something that will give her rights, or allow them to do something to further her recovery. But it will not go like that, as Yvette wants.

The next night, after more cramped bed compromising and tough hours, she feels a sudden pain in her arm. It's like her heart is having trouble. Pain even stronger occurs in her leg and neck. Maybe this is just resulting from all the work the doctors did. They did have to do some surgeries. But it is not a spasm or local issue. Something between is causing her so much trouble.

...

A young breath just stops pulsing, lungs harden. The heart falls flat, no more energy or strength to beat. The white butterfly on the window outside, so perfectly at peace, flies off as if scared. There is a rushing. Vision turns to light, color turns gray then there's a vision of hazy bespotted glow. Everything is noise, blur, and calm. Yvette's mother comes in hours later. She was called in. As she sees her daughter, she begins to cry hard.

Yvette does not know what is happening. Her soul is in a room like an alien spaceship, like some kind of NASA rocket design. Is she just in a ventilation system or some machine in the hospital? She fears she signed the contract because it gave her more than better help, or her consent in more intrusive operations. This out-of-body experience and being in this "fusion chamber" is the result. Is this their doing? How'd that even be possible.

There is a pulse as the magnetic machine around her soul turns on. The light moves from magnetic cell to magnetic cell, running in a circuit. But then the light gets brighter. Electric forces grab her consciousness. She sees her entire self illuminated – filled with radiant energy. Then there's only fire and power.

... She awakes, born again, in a new body. Part of her mind is enmeshed into the mind of another. It's like a dream.

There is no more "Yvette" and this is not the world she's from. Her mind or spirit was beamed through a machine into this new form. Around her are robotic walkers like those from a space fiction. Robot-human beings, at closer examination aliens, harvest a crop of some kind. She looks to see she is small and purple with smooth reddish purple skin. Her hands are not hands, they are four fingers around a wrist bulge. She was -born- into a new body.

It's almost too much to think about.

Her minds bulges with strange thoughts. How did this happen, will she ever return to Earth? She remembers the nurses calling her "chosen" and "it was her choice." This is what just happened, even if it was only her. She is reborn as an alien baby, not born straight out but this species gets their True Mind at 4 years. It was time for the body to inherit a soul – and newly dead human ghost beams via a medical deep-star module. It's all so insane.

...

A white butterfly, or something like one, lands at her feet on a blue flowering bush. It feeds from the bloom.

This is not what she ever expected but this is a peaceful place. An alien matrix of gardens and rivers forms a humanized system, aesthetic areas between crops and industries.

The air she breaths is not polluted or smoggy but a mix of plant chemicals and sweat fresh oxygen. She is home.

The fiery evening sky is a perfect red sunset.

Zilluu, as she is now named, has three parents. Each a different sex. She has a mother, a father, and a carrier. She is now that third gender. All these alien people have two arms and two legs but a shorter body, two tails, and a large melon-shaped head with frog eyes and a simple mouth. They eat plants and animals or meat but not like way humans do. For them feeding is formal and allows a ritual. ... Zilluu might not like it all but this is life now.

It's a second chance. Her parents, Imnee, Eephus, and Loh respect her innocence. "You will now learn to be an adult over the next years. It's not a hard thing. We will help you at each step." This culture might be formal or even too conservative but they had peace. No politics, no war, not so far as Zilluu could see. Just a society based around families, living, and learning.

... They did not know what was in store, or even if 'she' belonged here. But this was a new life and a new chance. It was her choice – and soon that would be the only thing she remembered. Her spirit was transformed in this new Alien body. She learned so much from Trainer, and her Mentors and alien friends. All had parents or work, but they worked for Society, not businesses or governments. In this area, people lived in houses and had a lot of space. Agriculture and trade ports were always central.

Slowly Zilluu forgot who she had been and grow into who she is now. It was a frightening vastness of possibilities. Did she have to work, what job would she do, what if she failed or offended Them? Those around her were family, siblings, peers, leaders, traders, farmers, and friends. Everybody had a job, everybody had a life... and there were no familiar emotions. Only yes:and:no thinking, simple communication, and a quickness to resolve things. She began to feel this blue-green world was Home. It would take years but she'd have a place... and find her future.