“Renee!”

The girl in question turned over in her bed and buried her face in the pillow with a grunt. This was not how she liked to be awoken. Not that she could see any kind of clock but her body and her heavy eyelids were telling her it was not time to get up.

“Later, Mom.”

“God you really are asleep.” Was it just her or was that voice decidedly unfamiliar? Her sleep filled brain was obviously not working this morning. It was weird; she’d slept like a log and her slumber had been dreamless, yet every bone in her body was tired.

“Renee Anderson you have precisely fifteen minutes in which to get up, get dressed and get downstairs, we’re on a tight schedule here.”

“What? We’re on what?” She turned over and was ever so slightly alarmed when she finally opened her eyes and light flooded into them. Not only was the woman towering over her a complete stranger, this wasn't even her bed. She bolted upright with a severely panicked look on her face. This was most definitely not her dorm room. It was three times the size with this huge bureau to the side, a huge closet and chest of drawers, a very expensive and plush looking carpet, not to mention that fact she was on what was possibly the biggest bed she’d ever seen. They were most definitely not in Kansas any more. Not that they had been in Kansas but this was most definitely not on any part of the campus she’d ever seen. What was going on? How in the world had she got here?

“Look, sweetie, I know that stupid launch party went on way too late last night but we have got precisely four days until the VMAs and we need to get your butt to rehearsals so I want you out of this bed and we are going to have you downstairs by quarter to or my name isn’t Marcia Jean Jones.” The older woman stated firmly, resolutely.

They had four days until the WHAT so they needed to get her butt to WHAT or her name wasn't WHO? Renee blinked rapidly. This was the weirdest dream she had ever had. It was… so real. It was textile. She could feel the sheets and smell the clogging scent of whatever nasty perfume the woman was wearing.

“Uhh… give me a minute.” She stuttered, closing her eyes and praying to wake up.

***

Needless to say, Renee didn’t ‘wake up’. Oh no, that would have been far too normal and sane and like she wasn't having vivid hallucinations. She was trying desperately to break through whatever shroud was over her mind and whatever trick was being played on her senses but this all felt so real. She was hot and sweaty and ready to collapse and being stared at by everybody around her like she had gone completely mental. Honestly, she understood that. She was taking their side on the matter. If she had been observing this, she would have thought she was a crazy person too. First she had woken up in what had turned out to be the penthouse suite of a very expensive hotel with some strange woman who appeared to be some kind of personal assistant or something. Marcia seemed nice and all but still she was watching for all signs of hidden cameras or perhaps axes, butcher knives, anything of the kind.

Then she had looked in the mirror and nearly screamed. Even her reflection wasn't right. It was still unmistakeably her. There was no question of that. But overnight her hair had turned Barbie blonde instead of its natural, non-descript shade. Her cheeks seemed to have sunken in, her cheekbones become more defined, and the eyebrows she had never been able to shape properly herself no matter how long she spent with the tweezers were now perfect arches. Even her body was different. She was the same height, but at least two dress sizes smaller and her hips had disappeared to be replaced by a slight protrusion in her skin where the bones jutted out. Her calves had shrunk too, and her collarbones seemed a little more obvious. Then she had noticed that while everything else got smaller, her chest looked kind of… well… undeniably bigger. Maybe not to the naked eye but then she had lived in that body for a while and she knew what it was supposed to look like and this wasn't it. After spending about ninety seconds in the mirror starting to reach for them and then pulling away feeling stupid numerous times, she had given them a quick squeeze and while she’d never felt breast implants before, she highly suspected she had them.

The real fun had been getting to her destination, led by Marcia and a group of scarily huge black men, to be dumped in the middle of a rehearsal room at a dance studio. Where she was then expected to rehearse a bump and grind routine with a bunch of people she had never seen before in her life but supposedly had been practising it with for two days. To a song bursting through the speakers that she didn’t recognise but had apparently recorded. That was where the real freak out had begun. The wake up freak out was just a practice run compared to this, which was the mother of all freaking out. This life, this body, whatever weird Twilight Zone she had woken up in – she was a star. She had gone to the CD player, picked up the case for the CD currently playing and seen her face on the cover. It was an album with her name on it. She was rehearsing for a VMA performance, being treated like royalty… and she sucked at it. She was out of sync, out of time, out of focus and naturally she had no idea what any of these dance moves were. So they’d given her a break and sent her to her own private dressing room where she was sat now, staring at the mirror, still disbelieving.

“You hit your head and forgot the moves? Jesus Christ was that the best you could come up with? Obviously I didn’t get here fast enough because dang girl you are beyond bad at this.” There had been no opening of the door, no reflection in the mirror, and yet a voice had sounded through the room, from right behind her. Renee had been alone and then a voice… slowly turning around, scared to death of what she was about to see, her eyes fell on a young woman, her own age.

“W-w-who are y-you?” She asked, scared. “How’d you get in here?”

“I’m hurt, Ren.” She stood with her hands on her hips, head tilting to the side. “It hasn’t been that long. I know I look a little older but I’m still…”

“Claire?” Renee began breathing deeply, sharply, yet never deep or fast enough. Now she knew she’d gone crazy.

“Okay honey I thought you’d grown out of these panic attacks… come on, inhale exhale, losing it now is not in your best interests.”

“You’re dead!” The newly blonde girl choked out, trying to take the advice. “You can’t… that’s not possible.”

“After all you’ve seen today, you’re still questioning the limits of possible?” Claire scoffed, tossing her hair behind her shoulder in the same way she always had in life. Renee was reeling. This woman certainly looked like an older version of her deceased best friend and she sure as hell acted like her – blunt, tactless, bossy.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Boy, somebody got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning. Well, more like got out of the wrong existence…” Claire asked softly, with a smirk. “What the hell is going on?” Renee repeated louder as she stood up and flailed her hands, beginning to look aggravated.

“Don’t you get it? Your wish came true, sweetie.”

“What wish?”

“Oh god, don’t tell me I have to fill in all the gaps.” The ghost… was she a ghost? She looked fairly solid. In any event, she spoke. “We don’t have a lot of time here.”

“I don’t have a lot of sanity here.” Renee finally managed to retort, clutching her stomach, which was uncharacteristically bared by the tearaway exercise pants and stomach revealing halter-top.

“Look, honey…” The brunette looked sympathetically at her childhood friend. “I know this is confusing but there’s a lot and they’ll be here any second… you found the necklace, right? The onyx one?”

“Right…” Renee said slowly, remembering.

“Well, funny thing about that little trinket, if you rub it while making a wish, it kinda comes true. Long story. Tell ya later.”

“I wished I was famous.” She muttered. “And now I am, right?”

“Hell yeah. Multi platinum, bigger than big, adored by millions, every guy in America lusting for you.”

“Me and my breast implants.” Her voice started rising in pitch as she felt the hysteria bubbling up inside her chest again. “And WHY am I singing Britney Spears’ songs?” She’d been more than a little surprised to see Boys and I’m A Slave 4 U on the track listing.

Claire winced. “Look, I’m just here to break you in real quick, we don’t have a lot of time and it’s a very complicated question. Let’s just say that in the whole karma cycle for you to be famous somebody has to fade back into obscurity in your place, and it was Britney. But hey,” she shrugged, “a lot of people would thank you for that. If they knew any better.”

“I’m Britney? I sing all her songs?” She looked disgusted. She had always imagined singing her own songs and even though technically they seemed to be hers in this dimension or reality or whatever, she felt like a bad cover artist.

“You’re not her and you don’t sing them all, just some.” Claire picked at her nails, a nervous habit that had always really annoyed Renee, who had a bit of a thing about trying to grow her own nails and keep them neat. She’d felt that perfectly good nails were being squandered. “Look, I can’t stay long, I just need to give you a warning. You need to start playing along with this a little better, babe. I know you’re in the deep end here but you’re making everybody think you’re nuts. Can you please just get through the day so I can come find you later and explain better?”

“How will you know where I am?” Renee responded desperately. She was taking a lot on faith here but if this apparition knew what was going on, even if it was a vision of her dead best friend, she’d take that. Hopefully the nice psychiatrist would bring her some drugs soon that would stop whatever chemical in her brain was making her imagine this whole thing. Obviously she must have been put in a mental hospital at some point. She couldn’t quite tell if she was in denial and this was real or if she was just insane.

“I’ll know.”

“Why can’t you just tell me now?”

“Well I need to go like right now and…” Claire smacked her forehead with her palm, yet the slapping sound never came. “Shit, that was another thing I need to mention Ren, ya see…”

“Hey baby.” Yet another voice had magically appeared in the room but Renee had barely had time to turn her body around to face the door, let alone open her mouth to ask who it was before thick, steel set arms had locked around her waist and strange lips were hungrily crushing themselves against hers. She attempted to yelp but it came out as more of a surprised squeak as her hands gripped the large set of biceps and tried to exert some force to push the body away from her. Claire stood behind the man’s back, slightly to the side, wincing. Finally he broke the kiss, pulling back yet holding her securely to him with one arm while brushing his thumb over her lip with his free hand.

“Yeah, he’s kind of your boyfriend and he can’t actually see or hear me anyway but that’s why I really need to go now.” Claire disappeared while the wide-eyed, startled young woman looked up into the face of the only person she’d met in this weird alternate reality or whatever it was who she actually recognised. She was highly temped to faint. It was starting to look like she really had turned into Britney Spears.

Except Justin Timberlake had broken up with Britney Spears two years ago and yet in the here and now had just launched himself at little ole Renee Anderson who until this morning had been an English major at Michigan who had a much bigger crush on JC.