When I woke up, the world was wrong.
The ceiling stretched too high above me, unfamiliar shadows playing across plaster I'd never seen before. The bed was softer than it should be, cradling my body in a way that felt alien. Sunlight poured through curtains I didn't recognize, aggressive and bright in a way my old blackout blinds would never have allowed.
I sat up slowly and immediately knew something was fundamentally broken about reality.
My hands looked wrong. Too slender, fingers longer than they should be, skin a shade paler. When I tried to speak — to curse, to question, to something — the voice that emerged was deeper than mine, smoother, carrying a faint French-Canadian accent that had no business being in my throat.
What the hell?
I stumbled to the mirror, legs moving with a coordination that felt both familiar and foreign, and stared at the stranger looking back at me.
Sharp, angular features. Short brown hair styled with an intentionality I'd never bothered with. Narrow eyes that seemed to radiate scepticism even through my confusion. The face was familiar in that uncanny way — like I'd seen it a thousand times but never expected to wear it.
"No," I whispered, and even that single syllable sounded wrong. "No way."
My gaze dropped to the desk — and that's when denial shattered completely.
A manila envelope sat there, thick and official, labelled in bold print: Confidential - Fresh TV Productions.
My hands shook as I opened it. Inside: a contract dense with legal jargon and liability waivers that would make any sane person run. A filming schedule packed with "challenges" and "elimination ceremonies." A flight itinerary to Muskoka, Ontario.
And at the bottom, in cheerful, mocking boldface:
"Contestant: Noah Reed. Camp Wawanakwa. Filming begins July 1st."
The calendar on the wall confirmed my nightmare.
June 1st.
One month. I had exactly one month before I'd be shipped off to an island to compete in a sadistic reality show I'd watched from the safety of my couch in another life.
I should have panicked. Screamed. Had a complete breakdown right there on the floor.
Instead, I just sat down heavily on the bed, staring at my — at Noah's — reflection in the mirror across the room, and tried to piece together what the hell had happened.
Okay. Think. What do you actually know?
The last thing I remembered from my old life was... nothing dramatic. No accident, no bright light, no mysterious voice offering wishes or second chances. Just going to sleep. A normal Tuesday night after a long day at a job that paid well but left me feeling hollow. I'd been exhausted, crawled into bed, closed my eyes...
And woke up here. In a different body. In a different country. In a world that shouldn't exist outside of a TV screen.
So what am I? Dead? Reincarnated? Did some cosmic entity decide my life was boring enough to warrant a forced crossover episode?
The thought should have terrified me. My family, my friends, my entire life — gone. Just... erased. And I did feel it, that loss sitting heavy in my chest like a stone. But the grief was distant, muted, like mourning someone who'd died years ago rather than yesterday. The sharp edges had been filed down somehow, leaving only a dull ache I could function around.
Maybe that was mercy. Maybe it was just shock. I didn't know.
What I did know was that I apparently had access to Noah's memories now.
I closed my eyes and reached inward tentatively, like testing ice on a frozen lake. Would they even be there? Would I find anything, or just empty space where a person used to be?
They flooded in.
Every detail of Noah Reed's sixteen years, crisp and clear and comprehensive. His childhood home in the Toronto suburbs. His siblings' names, faces, quirks, and habits. The layout of this apartment. His favorite books, how he took his coffee, the precise tone of sarcasm he used when annoyed.
But it all felt... secondhand. Like watching someone else's home videos instead of remembering my own life. There was no emotional weight to it, no sense of mine. Just information, neatly catalogued and available for reference.
So what does that make me? A replacement? Did I overwrite him? Merge with him somehow?
The thought made my stomach churn. Is he still in here somewhere, trapped and screaming while I pilot his body like some kind of horrible parasite?
I pushed the thought away. I couldn't afford to spiral into that particular existential nightmare right now. I'd have my crisis later — preferably after I figured out how to survive whatever fresh hell awaited me.
Focus on what you can control. Process what you have. Make sense of this mess one piece at a time.
I dug deeper into the memories, cataloguing what I had to work with.
Noah Reed. Sixteen years old. One of nine children in a family that felt more like a population than a household. Four older brothers, four older sisters, all scattered across Canada living their own adult lives. The memories painted most of them as people I recognized but didn't really know — faces that showed up for holidays and big events but otherwise existed in their own orbits.
Their parents? Even more distant. Successful, wealthy, and almost completely absent from the younger children's lives. The memories showed they'd been present enough for the older kids — involved parents who attended recitals and helped with homework when the novelty of parenthood was still fresh. But by the time Noah and his three youngest siblings came along, that novelty had clearly worn off.
Business trips, the memories supplied with practiced euphemism. But the truth underneath was uglier and more honest: Mom and Dad had enjoyed making babies a hell of a lot more than actually raising them. They'd stuck around long enough to get the older children through their formative years, then gradually checked out, leaving the younger four to fend for themselves in an increasingly empty house.
The emotional neglect sat in Noah's memories like old scar tissue — painful once, now just numb. An absence that had shaped him without breaking him.
All except one.
Julia.
The memories of her came with a warmth the others lacked. Four years older, fiercely protective, the one sibling who'd actually stayed. She'd been the one who made sure Noah ate real meals instead of cereal for dinner. Who helped with homework and drove him to the library because she knew he'd spend his allowance on books instead of food if left unsupervised. Who called him petit génie when he said something particularly clever and punched his shoulder when he got too mouthy.
She'd practically raised him after their parents mentally checked out.
And she'd been away for the last few months — specialized courses and internships across Canada, building her future as a lawyer. She still came home every two weeks to check on him, but it wasn't the same as having her around full-time. But according to the calendar, she was coming back in a few days — this time to stay until my departure. Just to see me off.
I found myself smiling slightly at that thought. Not Noah's smile. Mine.
The memories showed me how she treated him. The way she'd ruffle his hair with rough affection. How she'd tease him mercilessly but would go nuclear on anyone else who tried. The fierce, uncomplicated love that said you're my little brother and I will fight God himself if he looks at you wrong.
I think I could like her, I realized. Not just because Noah's memories said I should, but genuinely. She seemed like the kind of person who didn't tolerate bullshit, who showed up when it mattered, who'd tell you hard truths because she cared enough to be honest.
Yeah. I can work with that.
I took a deep breath and stood, pacing the small apartment as my thoughts began to organize themselves.
Okay. You're in Total Drama. You know what's coming. That's... something. Maybe even an advantage.
But knowledge alone wouldn't save me. I'd watched every episode of this show in my old life. I knew every challenge, every elimination, every dramatic betrayal and tearful confession. But I also knew that Chris McLean was a sadistic nightmare who took genuine pleasure in watching teenagers suffer for ratings. I knew that Chef's "cooking" was probably classified as a biological weapon, that the challenges ranged from humiliating to actively dangerous, that the show's editing had ruined lives and reputations.
I really, really don't want to be here.
The thought came with visceral certainty. In my old life, I'd loved survival skills. Not in a paranoid doomsday-prepper way, but as a genuine hobby. Weekends spent hiking, camping, learning how to read terrain and weather patterns and animal behavior. It had been calming, meditative — a way to test myself against nature on my own terms, where the only person I had to rely on was myself.
This? This was nature filtered through the warped lens of reality television, where "survival" meant entertainment and Chris would absolutely let someone get seriously hurt if it made good TV.
But I don't have a choice. The contract's signed. The flight's booked. I'm going whether I like it or not.
So I'd prepare. Make the best of a terrible situation.
Thirty days wasn't enough to reinvent myself. I couldn't suddenly become an athlete or develop social skills Noah notoriously lacked. But I could be smart about it. Strategic in a way that didn't require me to become someone I wasn't.
Over the next few weeks, I used Noah's surprisingly generous allowance — probably guilt money from absentee parents — to buy practical supplies. A compact multitool that could pass as innocent camping gear. Energy bars that wouldn't spoil in Ontario summer heat. Waterproof matches. Electrolyte powder disguised in vitamin containers. Items small enough to smuggle past production, useful enough to matter when food or conditions got dire.
I memorized edible and poisonous plants native to the Muskoka region, cross-referencing three different field guides to be sure. Learned basic knot-tying and practiced until my fingers could work through them without thinking. Started going on long jogs through city parks to build up stamina, even though this body was never going to be athletic in any meaningful sense.
I even practiced setting simple snares and reviewed everything I remembered about preparing small game from my old life, just in case the food situation got as catastrophic as I suspected it would.
Because it definitely will. Chef's cooking could probably violate the Geneva Convention.
The thought came automatically, dry and cutting — and I paused, startled by how natural it felt.
That... that felt like Noah.
I tested it again, letting my internal monologue drift into sardonic observations about my situation. It came easily, like slipping into a comfortable jacket someone else had broken in first.
So some of his habits are bleeding through. Or maybe I'm just adapting to match the body's existing patterns. Either way, at least his sense of humor's decent.
But more than physical preparation, I found myself studying people.
Every night, I filled notebooks with everything I could remember about the contestants I'd be living with. Not just Wiki summaries or plot points, but deeper patterns I'd noticed from years of watching and rewatching, falling down fan theory rabbit holes at two in the morning when I couldn't sleep.
Katie and Sadie: Not stupid, despite what the editing implied. Just catastrophically codependent. Their entire world had narrowed to a population of two, and that isolation had stunted their growth. But I'd seen glimpses of who they could be separately — Katie's surprising emotional intelligence and practical skills, Sadie's hidden creativity and loyalty. They weren't hopeless. Just... trapped in each other's orbit.
Lindsay: Genuinely kind in a game designed to punish kindness. Sweet, trusting, and absolutely doomed to be manipulated by anyone with bad intentions and two brain cells to rub together. She'd need real friends before Heather could sink her claws in. People who'd value her for more than just her looks and blind loyalty.
Harold: Brilliant, talented, and so socially awkward he'd be bullied relentlessly for it. The show would edit him as comic relief, but I knew better. He had real skills — he just needed someone to take him seriously for once. Someone who actually believed in him instead of dismissing him as a nerdy punchline.
Courtney: Ambitious to the point of self-destruction. Type-A personality cranked to eleven, desperate to prove herself, terrified of failure in a way that made her rigid and controlling. She could be incredible if she learned to trust people instead of trying to micromanage every variable. But that same drive would make her dangerous when threatened.
Ezekiel: The thought of him made my chest tight with preemptive sympathy. Homeschooled kid with virtually no social awareness, sheltered to the point of disaster. The show would chew him up and spit him out — turn him into a running joke, then into something worse. He'd say something ignorant in the first episode out of sheer cluelessness, get eliminated, and then...
God, what they did to him in later seasons was practically criminal.
Owen, Geoff, DJ, Bridgette: Good people. Genuinely good, kind people who'd be easy to like and easier to trust. Owen's enthusiasm was infectious even through a screen. Geoff had that golden retriever energy that made everyone around him lighter. DJ was a gentle giant who'd probably cry at a sad commercial. Bridgette had that California surfer-girl warmth that felt like sunshine.
Gwen, Trent, Cody: Complicated but decent. Gwen's prickly exterior hid someone who cared deeply. Trent was laid-back almost to a fault but genuine. Cody meant well even when he was being an idiot about it.
Leshawna: A force of nature. Strong, loyal, funny, with exactly zero tolerance for bullshit. She'd be an incredible ally or a terrifying enemy.
And then there were the dangerous ones.
Heather. Queen bee, master manipulator, willing to destroy anyone in her path to victory. She'd form her alliance early, target the vulnerable, and rule through fear and social pressure.
Duncan. Delinquent with a soft side he'd rather die than admit to. Dangerous because he was smart enough to be strategic but impulsive enough to blow up his own game if his pride got wounded. He'd respect strength and loyalty but had no patience for weakness or pretense.
Justin. Mostly harmless this season, but I knew what he'd become later. Vanity and pretty privilege weaponized into a strategy that would make Heather look straightforward by comparison.
I couldn't just play the game the way Noah would have in the original timeline — sarcastic, detached, eliminated early because he couldn't be bothered to try and didn't care enough to hide it.
I had to be smarter than that. More present. More... human.
Stay under the radar at first. Don't make waves, don't create drama, don't give Chris any reason to see me as good television. Build goodwill where I could without being obvious about it. Be helpful without being threatening. Earn trust through consistency rather than grand gestures.
And maybe — carefully, subtly — nudge things away from the worst outcomes. Not playing hero, because that was a great way to paint a target on my back. Just... being decent. Offering advice when it might help. Stepping in when someone was drowning. Small interventions that wouldn't draw attention but might ripple outward into something better.
Break up toxic dynamics before they solidified. Give people confidence before bullying could take root. Help isolated people see themselves as individuals. Keep the most vulnerable from saying or doing things that would haunt them.
I'm not trying to save everyone, I told myself, staring at my notes in the dim lamplight. I'm just trying to survive. And maybe — maybe — make this nightmare a little less cruel for the people stuck in it with me.
It wasn't much of a plan. It would probably fall apart the moment Chris announced the first challenge. I'd likely misjudge someone's reaction, or miss something crucial, or just fail because I wasn't as clever as I thought I was.
But it was something. A direction. A purpose beyond "don't die on national television."
I closed the notebook and looked at my reflection one final time.
Noah's face stared back. My thoughts. My fears. My determination. A strange fusion that didn't quite feel real yet.
Somewhere in the background, I could hear traffic outside, the hum of the city Noah — I — had grown up in. A world that was familiar through borrowed memories but still felt like visiting someone else's hometown.
One month, I thought, something settling into place in my chest. Not quite determination. Not quite acceptance. Something in between — like standing at the edge of a cliff and knowing the only way forward is down.
One month to get ready. Then I'll see if I can actually do this.
Or at least survive long enough to figure out who I'm supposed to be now.