Carlos looked out over the water. From the deck where he stood, he could see the wide stretch of the river disappearing into the darkness. It reminded him of something out of a Huckleberry Finn novel.

When he turned back toward the boat, he noticed a girl standing among the crowd. It was the same girl who had comforted him that night in his bedroom. A strange mixture of relief and sadness passed through him at the sight of her, because he had already realized something was wrong.

He was not in his normal body.

The realization unsettled him. Nothing like this had ever happened before. He tried to move toward the girl, but something stopped him. Not physically, exactly. It felt more like crossing an invisible line he somehow wasn’t supposed to cross. Every time he attempted to approach her, the crowd seemed to shift subtly in the way.

Only then did he fully take in his surroundings. The boat was crowded with people talking softly beneath strings of dim yellow lights. Music drifted faintly through the air. It was some kind of party.

A waiter approached him carrying a silver tray.

“Can I get you anything, Carla?”

Carlos stared at him for a moment.

Carla.

The name sat strangely in his chest. For a brief second, an impossible thought crossed his mind. Was this some other dimension where he had been born a woman?

No. Obviously not.

So what was this?

Before he could think any further, the Hispanic man he had seen before stepped through the crowd toward him.

“Carlos, right?” the man said with the faintest smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

Relief immediately washed over him.

“Oh thank God,” Carlos said. “Someone actually knows who I am.”

The man chuckled quietly.

“Yeah. The organization does this sometimes with new recruits. Keeps things calmer.”

Carlos let out a slow breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

The man drifted back into the crowd, and Carlos once again searched for the girl. He moved carefully through clusters of strangers, scanning faces beneath the dim lights, hoping at the very least to learn her name.

But no matter how long he searched, he never found her again.

Eventually, he gave up.