Chapter 2: Plot Twists and Power Plays

“I can!”

“Me too!”

“Let’s go for it!” I said, hope flickering in the darkness.

Under our collective effort, the heroine’s body started twitching on the bed. My eyes flew open, rolling around like crazy. Every part of her started convulsing—hands twisted, legs jerked, Marissa made the mouth hang open and stick out the tongue. Anyone watching would’ve lost their mind. Picture The Exorcist, but way less coordinated.

The old woman froze, backing away in horror. Her face went white as a sheet, and for a second, I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

All thirty of us shouted, and finally, the heroine jerked upright. But the kids controlling the legs and feet couldn’t coordinate, so as soon as she stood, she collapsed again. It was like trying to run a three-legged race with thirty people.

People started grumbling.

“Hey, it’s our first time as legs. Cut us some slack!”

“Let’s crawl, just go!” the football captain said, always the one to call a play when things got messy.

So the heroine, twitching and wild-eyed, mouth gaping, crawled on all fours out of the room. The old woman was too stunned to follow. If there had been a camera, we’d have gone viral in seconds.

We barreled into a grand old Southern mansion’s hallway. Two maids were sweeping. They looked up, saw the heroine’s crazed face, and dropped their brooms, shrieking, “Lord have mercy, Miss Charlotte’s possessed!”

Their screams made us panic. “Run!” Ms. Bennett yelled. “I don’t want another beating! Left, go left!”

Ms. Bennett always loved to boss people around, but her directions were a mess—left, then right—and since we weren’t used to our parts, her chaos just made things worse. The heroine spun in circles, tripped over herself, hands smacked each other, limbs twisted like a pretzel. It was a slapstick comedy, and we were the punchline.

Ms. Bennett freaked out: “Why are you lying down? Get up!”

“Didn’t you hear her? Get up!” the class president echoed, bossy as ever. He couldn’t resist the urge to play leader, even as an intestine.

“Oh, give it a rest, you’re still acting like class president?” the small intestine kid snarked.

“Hey, I’m just trying to help!”

“Yeah, right. People like you just talk.”

“If I’m useless, what about you?”

Small intestine kid snapped, “You want me to do something? Fine!”

He started making the small intestine squirm. The stomach kid joined in, feeling bad for the class president. You could feel the tension ripple through the body—like a group project gone horribly wrong.

I realized what was happening and tried to stop them. “No! Don’t!”

Too late. The stomach and small intestine pushed all the food the heroine had eaten into the already full large intestine.

The class president groaned, “Stop, it stinks.”

The others kept pushing.

Ms. Bennett screamed, “Don’t push it over here! Hold it in!”

“I can’t, there’s too much, and it really stinks… Sorry, Ms. Bennett…”

The class president squeezed the large intestine.

“Noooo—”

Ms. Bennett shrieked.

Moments later—

“Oh no… oh no…”

Ms. Bennett sobbed as a massive fart echoed. The sound bounced off the high ceilings and echoed down the hallway. I wanted to sink through the floor. Too bad we didn’t have one.

We all went dead silent. Even the troublemaker, who never missed a chance to crack a joke, was speechless.

After a long pause, the biology rep—who was, for some reason, the left boob—said, deadpan, “Guess that’s biology class, live and in person. Thanks, Ms. Bennett.”

Ms. Bennett burst into tears. I felt a pang of guilt, but also a weird urge to laugh. It was just so absurd.

When the romantic lead of the mansion arrived, he found the heroine sprawled in the hallway, limbs tangled, reeking. He looked horrified. His face twisted, like he’d bitten into a lemon.

“What happened to her? Who did this?”

The old woman insisted she’d only whipped the heroine a few times, no idea why she’d gone nuts.

The romantic lead was furious. Even though he’d always been cruel to the heroine, he clearly cared a little. Seeing her like this, he snatched the belt from the old woman, punished her, and had her thrown out of the house. He stormed down the hall like he was auditioning for a superhero movie.

His wife rushed in to plead for the old woman. The romantic lead pointed at the heroine and said, “Even if I can’t stand Charlotte, she’s still the mistress. For a servant to abuse her, tossing her out is letting her off easy!”

His wife, delicate and teary-eyed, agreed, “It’s all Mrs. Hawkins’s fault. Poor Charlotte. We need to get a doctor.”

Her maid snapped, “She’s faking it! She’s always hated you, ma’am. She’s just trying to frame you!”

The romantic lead didn’t buy it. “Would she crawl around and soil herself just to frame a servant?”

His wife was aghast. “She… soiled herself?”

He snorted and left. His wife hurried after him, dropping the matter. Even for a Southern mansion, this was next-level drama.

To show her kindness, she sent for the best doctor and medicine. In the original story, Mrs. Hawkins was the wife’s right-hand woman and lasted longer, but our chaos got her kicked out early. The heroine was supposed to be locked in a dark room for days, left with a chronic illness, but now she was in bed being treated. We didn’t know if we’d helped or hurt her. The uncertainty hung over us like a storm cloud.

While the heroine slept, we thirty held a class meeting to debrief. It felt like a late-night group chat, only we were all in the same head.

The football captain said, “We know we can move our parts, but we need to test how much control we have.”