Transmigrated Teri is a WIP that is part of a “post 200 words a day during July” challenge issued by
.NOTE: Episodes posted daily will be of various lengths and sometimes will stop in the middle of the scene! You have been warned!
The set up:
Teri Travers, a nearly-50 bitter “office lady” who has not led a happy life gets in a massive car accident after being sent home on the first day of COVID lockdown in 2020. She (and her mother’s dog) wake up in a strange new world that is also strangely familiar…that’s right, she’s been transmigrated into the world of her favorite 1990s fantasy novel series, the massively popular, critically disdained, and incredibly tropetastic Allisar Fireborn Chronicles by the infamous Chadwick Jarvaldson, aka “Fuckin’ Chad” to all his very annoyed fans who are still waiting for the final book to be published.
March 16, 2020, continues at Teri’s office…
Previously: Teri continued dusting the bookshelf. "I honestly doubt I’ll be back here any time soon.”
Ellie sighed. “I hope you’re wrong. The boys are really enjoying third grade.”
Teri braced herself for another long-winded information session about “the boys,” including their grades and which sports they loved that week and how much their grandmothers doted on them. Instead, Ellie straightened up and peered at her. Teri tried not to bristle.
“What?”
“How’s your mother?”
Teri slapped the wad of paper towels she was using to clean onto her desk. “The same.”
Ellie wrinkled her annoyingly adorable button nose and pushed her long blond hair out of her face. Then she put her hands on her hips with a sigh.
“Look, I know we don’t always get along, but this a pandemic, right? So if you need anything—”
“We’re fine.”
She got a slanted look of disbelief for that. “Dementia is rough for everyone, Teri. My great grand-uncle—”
“I appreciate the sympathy, Ellie, but there is nothing you can do. You’ve got your boys and your husband and that all takes priority.” She turned back to wrestling the largest fern out of its corner. It was too heavy to carry, but facilities was too busy to help her move a plant, most likely working to prepare the campus for a completely unplanned, history-making crisis. She tried to remember if there was a dolly cart in the storage room.
“Sure, fine. Okay.” Ellie grumbled and finally left Teri alone.
Teri closed the door and put both of her hands on her desk, bowing her head and taking a deep breath. Her mother was not doing “the same,” she was visibly worsening by the day, her dementia turning mean and chaotic. Her mother had always shaded toward narcissism but in the past five years that had dialed up to where she was more like a spoiled toddler than a 72-year-old woman.
The idea of being trapped in the house with her deteriorating mother and her mother’s rambunctious dog who was going to miss seeing his friends at doggy daycare every day rattled her hard, but she reminded herself that there was nothing she could do about it. They were both her responsibility and there was no one else to do it…as if her brothers would even offer.
Sometimes, very rarely, Teri was glad she never had children because she could not imagine trying to deal with kids and her unstable, nasty mother all at the same time.
She stood up and got back to prepping her office for the duration, however long it might last.
They were all told to go home at 2:41 p.m.
Everyone else was gathered around the front desk, slightly panicked and making some attempt to bolster each other’s moods. When Teri rolled the dolly cart past them with her box and her plants, Ellie gave her a polite wave and Devon called out good luck, but everyone else ignored her.
It was fine. She was fine. It was all going to be fine.