Turn 9 of 15

My clothes change as well.

I am still standing in the bathroom, my hands gripping the edge of the sink, when the fabric of my jumper begins to change. I watch, transfixed, as the worn, navy wool dissolves at the seams, the threads unravelling and reweaving themselves into a new material. It happens silently, a smooth, liquid transformation that spreads across my chest and down my arms. The texture shifts from coarse wool to the soft, plush pile of velour. The colour bleeds from navy to a deep, uniform grey, the exact shade I have seen on every woman who leaves the Solaris.

My jeans follow, the denim stiffening and then softening, the blue fading to the same grey, the cut narrowing into a tapered leg that fits my body with an uncanny precision. My socks dissolve into nothing, replaced by the sleek lines of grey velour tracksuit bottoms that pool slightly at my ankles. I am wearing a matching set. I am wearing the uniform. I look down at myself and see not Gemma, but a silhouette, a template, a placeholder for a person who no longer exists.

I lunge for the door, my new tracksuit whispering against my skin, and throw it open. I run down the stairs, my bare feet slapping against the cold treads, and burst out onto the landing. The communal hallway is empty, the air stale with the smell of someone's cooking. I fumble for my keys on the hall table, but my hands are clumsy, the fingers thick and uncooperative. The keys slip from my grasp and clatter to the floor. I bend to pick them up, and my reflection in the glass of the picture frame above the table stops me cold.

The woman staring back at me is a stranger. Her face is mine, but smoothed, perfected, the anxious lines erased. Her lashes are dark and thick, her lips full and glossy. Her hair falls in a sleek, dark curtain around a face that is calm, composed, and utterly empty. She is wearing a grey velour tracksuit. She looks like she belongs on the pavement outside the salon, leaning against the wall, scrolling through her phone with an air of immense boredom. She looks like she has never had a creative thought in her life.

I pick up the keys with a hand that does not tremble, and I walk back upstairs to my flat. The panic is gone now, smoothed away, replaced by that terrible, placid stillness. I sit at my desk and look at the blank document on my screen. The cursor blinks, patient and steady. I place my hands on the keyboard, the new, long nails clicking against the plastic. I begin to type, and the words that appear are neat, orderly, and utterly devoid of the person I was. They are the words of someone else, someone who has been tidied, someone who has been filled in. The high street waits outside, and I know, with a certainty that is no longer mine but has been installed like software, that I will go back to the salon tomorrow. I will stand with the others. I will watch the street. I will be part of the pattern.