Failed heist

The scene looked like something straight out of a deranged mind — or perhaps a genius one. In the center of a luxurious bedroom, under the soft glow of a Venetian crystal chandelier, a stunning blonde woman stared down in disbelief, eyes wide as she took in her own body. She — or rather, he — was wearing nothing but leopard-print lingerie, bold, provocative, and utterly inappropriate for someone who, just hours before, had been wearing baggy boxers and leather slippers. Beside the king-sized bed, tangled sheets hinting at chaos, lay Alexander, the oil tycoon, unmoving, a bottle of blue pills still clenched in his hand. There was an explanation for all this — though even the people involved were struggling to grasp it.

Ryan and Paul were thieves — not the ski-mask-and-pistol type, but professionals of the invisible, the digital, the metaphysical. Paul had once broken into an old witch’s house deep in the backwoods of Brazil. Instead of jewels or cash, he walked away with dusty grimoires, candles that smelled of sulfur, and a new life path. He studied forbidden magic, half-baked alchemy, and, most importantly, learned the secret of conscious projection — a bizarre technique that allowed him to travel into the mind of another person, take control of their body, and quietly drain their bank accounts into offshore havens before slipping back into his own skin like nothing happened.

During these missions, Paul did all the astral traveling. Ryan, his loyal partner, stayed behind to watch over Paul’s body — essentially babysitting a corpse on pause. And he was sick of it. “While you’re out robbing billionaires from the inside, I’m stuck watching a drooling zombie on a couch,” he complained often.

Tired of being the sidekick, Ryan begged to join in properly. He wanted to feel what it was like — or at least escape the boredom. Paul, maybe just to shut him up, finally agreed. The target this time was Alexander Whitmore, an oil magnate with a tangled web of shell companies and dirty secrets. Paul would take over Alexander’s body. Ryan, to avoid suspicion and "stay close to the action," would have to be projected into Alexander’s trophy wife, Jhennifer, a woman who looked like she'd stepped out of a fashion editorial — statuesque, blonde, perfectly sculpted, the kind of beauty money keeps frozen in time.

“Come on, let me be one of his sons,” Ryan had protested, clearly uncomfortable with the idea of inhabiting a woman's body.

“The eldest is in Switzerland with his fiancée,” Paul explained while setting up the ritual. “The youngest is a drugged-out wreck. You want in or not?”

The choice was made.

Paul grabbed Ryan’s hand. The projection began. It always felt like being yanked through a cosmic vacuum cleaner. His vision blurred into lights and shadows, passed through walls and ceilings, and then settled abruptly.

When Ryan opened his eyes, everything felt strange — too tall, too light, too... sensual. He could feel the soft fabric of silk lingerie against smooth skin, the heavy scent of expensive perfume mingled with sweat — from yoga or something more intimate. He looked at the mirror in front of him and staggered: there she was — or rather, he — in Jhennifer’s body, in all her seductive glory.

The shock was short-lived. He turned toward Alexander, lying motionless beside the bed. Ryan rushed over, panic creeping in.

“Dude, come on! We’ve gotta get this over with... this is humiliating—”

No response. He shook Alexander’s arm. Nothing. He pulled at the eyelids — lifeless. Pressed fingers to the neck, then the wrist. No pulse. The old man’s chest wasn’t moving.

Dead.

In one hand: a sealed bottle of little blue pills. Ryan — now in Jhennifer’s flawless body — was seconds away from witnessing what would’ve been a grotesque, humiliating scene. But fate, in its twisted mercy, intervened. Perhaps old Alexander’s heart had already been worn down by years of abusing those little blue pills.

Ryan didn’t know whether to feel relieved or even more horrified by the surreal chaos unfolding around him. There Alexander lay — intact, unmoving, staring at nothing — and Ryan’s mind was spinning.

Ryan stepped back, horrified. He was now trapped in the body of a woman, in a billionaire’s mansion, beside a dead tycoon — and only Paul knew the spell to reverse the transfer.

And Paul... well, Paul was now just another corpse in silk sheets.

Ryan was stuck inside Jhennifer’s body. And the life of a trophy wife — especially one now widowed under suspicious circumstances — was about to become a spiral of investigations, accusations and

scandals.

But honestly, what worried him most at that moment was:

how the hell do you walk in these heels?