Rick knew something was wrong immediately when he woke up that morning. Nothing felt right… not the bed, not his wife's back as she slept, not the clock that he stared at to tell the time was eight o' clock, not the muscular arm that he was leaning on. He didn't feel right. He tried to sit up, but found that his balance and co-ordination was off this morning too as he fell back down, smashing his arm down onto the bedside table. The clock slipped and crashed down to the ground with an almighty thump.
"What is it, babe?" asked a soft, seductive voice that he didn't recognise. He turned over with difficulty to reply to his wife… but it wasn't his wife. It was a young blonde girl with a toned, skinny body and powerful blue eyes. She looked at him affectionately, and as she moved up to a sitting position her beautiful breasts were exposed, bouncing against her chest as they left the cover of the duvet. Her attractive face stared at him inquisitively as he gave her an alarmed facial expression in response. She smiled. "I forgot, you drank a lot. Still, I imagined that I would be too good to… forget." As she breathed the last word sensually, she leaned towards him and planted a passionate kiss on his lips. He was too stunned to respond. As she pulled away, it was clear some of the early-morning hormones had disappeared.

"Okay, clearly something's wrong," she said with frustration, covering her breasts with the duvet as she saw him staring. "What is the matter with you? Seriously, nobody drinks that much to forget a night like last night."
"Where am I?" replied Rick, feeling his heartbeat increasing rapidly. To his shame, he could feel his erection sloping the duvet. He could tell she had seen.
"Where do you think you are, Shane? You're at my house. I live five minutes away by drive from the bar, so it was easy to…"
"What did you just call me?"

As crazy as it sounded, Rick knew what was going on now, gladly feeling his heartbeat slowing down. He was having a dream where he was Shane. From time to time, he had been jealous of Shane, not being tied down by the responsibilities of family life. He fantasised about freedom, where he could make love to who he wanted, drink whenever he wanted, and not have to care about what anyone else thought. He wasn't proud of it, and at the end of the day he loved his family. He knew that Shane's womanising was only a temporary solution for his loneliness, and that one day he would try to settle down and find a wife. However, Rick never thought he would actually dream about being Shane. Clearly he had been daydreaming for too long.

"Are you listening?"
"What?" He had been daydreaming. How ironic.
"I said that I called you Shane. Is that a problem? Do you use a different name when you're out cheating on your wife or girlfriend?"
"What?"
She groaned loudly. "What is with you this morning? I'd swear you're a different person than you were last night."
Before Rick could reply, she got out of bed and stormed out of the room, but she then walked back in seconds later, putting on a robe.
"My name's Candice," she grunted. "In case you forgot that too." Now she was gone.

He was expecting to wake up any second now, but there was nothing. He got out of bed slowly, realising all too late that he was naked. Before he could look away, he caught a glimpse of Shane's penis. Disgusted he was, but also mildly impressed. His best friend was stacked. He found some boxers on the floor and put them on, looking down to check that all was covered. He couldn't help but glance at Shane's body. Rick kept himself in shape, but Shane was huge compared to him. He had already seen the powerful arms, but the body was even more intimidating. His chest was ripped and defined with muscle, and his thighs were like tree trunks, strong and… sexy. Rick had always known why Shane was popular with the ladies, but now that he could see the evidence, he felt a stab of jealousy. This man had all the tools. Rick was uncomfortable in his friend's body, but he kind of liked it too. Well, he thought to himself, might as well as enjoy this dream while I can.

He left the bedroom to find Candice leaning against the kitchen counter, slurping coffee from a mug. Behind her was the window, and out of the window he could see into the street, where a few cars passed by at clearly illegal lightning speeds. There was a sign that said 'Alamode – Turn Right'. He started to feel his heartbeat rising again. This didn't feel like a dream. Everything was too real.

"What's up with you?" asked Candice, finishing her coffee and dumping the mug in the sink. "You're being really distant."
"I'm only messing, girl," replied Rick, startled by two things. One: he would never say something that cocky and as confidently to a girl in real life, and two: he was speaking in Shane's voice, not his own. They had the same accent admittedly, but Shane's voice was deeper and more confident. He was really worried now, but somehow it didn't show on his face.
"You call that messing? You make me feel like an idiot."
Without realising, he found himself walking towards her slowly, grinning in a presumably sexy way. "I don't think you're an idiot."
She was under his spell, but she was resisting. "Don't treat me like one the…"
"What you are is kind, funny, smart… and goddamn beautiful."

It was like he wasn't in control of his, Shane's, body. Without prior thought, his large hands wrapped around her petite arms and pulled her to him. Within a second he had locked lips with her, and his hands had slipped down to her waist, and then to her tender ass. He squeezed it tight, eliciting gasps of excitement from her as he released his mouth from hers and started kissing down her neck.

"You can't win me over like that," she moaned in ecstasy, trying not to fall prey to his advances. But it was too late; he lifted her up by holding her thighs and pressed her against the wall, moving one of his hands to untie her robe.
Rick was no longer in control of his actions. He tried to move, but felt that something else was controlling him… Shane. He could only feel what was happening, and watch. He tried to think of Lori as a distraction, but the stunning Candice took over his thoughts as Shane pulled down his boxers and entered Candice, still holding her up against the wall.

Her scream of pleasure was the last thing Rick heard before he lost consciousness.

When he woke up, he was shocked to see not Candice, or her ceiling, or any of her house. Instead he was looking forward, in a room that was clearly part of a hospital. He just knew that he was in a bed, even though he couldn't see the end of it. Something must have happened since Shane had initiated sex with Candice. Maybe he'd had an accident and had been rushed into hospital. From the corner of his vision, he saw his hand – his hand, not Shane's - and another hand on top of it. It was definitely a woman's hand, so tender, thin and feminine. The wedding ring was the giveaway. He knew that it was Lori sat next to him in bed with him, because he had bought that wedding ring for her years ago and she had loved it. He tried to turn his head to face her, but he couldn't move. At all. He tried to wriggle his toes or move his fingers, but there was nothing. It was just like earlier when Shane became intimate with Candice. Except Rick had been able to feel it then. He could feel Shane's rough hands on her smooth skin… could feel Shane's erect penis inside her vagina. Yet he couldn't feel his own wife's hand on his. The dream was over now, no matter how horrifying it was, so surely it should be back to normal. Again, something was wrong, just like when he had woken up next to Candice, if that was even her name.

A woman in scrubs walked in, awkwardly standing in the doorway staring at Lori.
"I'm afraid visiting hours are over now, Mrs Grimes," she said formally. Lori must have given some form of a non-verbal response, because the nurse smiled weakly and then left. Lori took a heavy breath, laced with a sob. She said something; somehow just hearing her voice in this dire situation would be enough to make Rick start to cry uncontrollably if able to.

"Alright, good talk," she sighed in what was an attempt at a jokey manner. She patted his hand; to his disdain he didn't feel that either. All physical feeling was gone – emotional remained unfortunately. "I'm coming in tomorrow at nine, and then I can tell you all about Carl's soccer practice – Shane will be picking him up at about four – and how it went and… stuff. Feel free to comment on that."
She got up, letting go of his hand, making him scream internally. She went for the door, but just before she touched the door handle, she turned back and looked into his eyes. Tears streamed down her face.

"I love you, Rick Grimes," she sobbed, "and I'm going to keep coming here until you get better. You're gonna wake up and come back to me and Carl and we're gonna be a happy family together. We'll get through this, I promise."
She walked back over and kissed him on the cheek.
"See you tomorrow, babe."
Babe. That's what Candice had called him. Well, what she'd called him. What was worst was that when Lori said it, she said it in Candice's voice. As his wife walked away, everything blurred and went black, and all of a sudden Candice was under him, moaning as Rick – now Shane – ploughed into her with his penis.

"Fuck me!" she screamed, clawing at his pecs. "Fuck me, babe!"
The word was the trigger: suddenly Rick had control of Shane again. Immediately he stopped thrusting and exited Candice, crawling backwards off what he now realised was her bed (obviously Shane had carried her there from the kitchen) and hitting his head on the wooden floor. He could see his boxers on the floor in the kitchen down the hallway. He made a beeline for them, forgetting the balance problem and tripping, smacking his head on the doorframe and drawing blood. He made it to his boxers and put them on, returning to the bedroom to find the rest of his clothes. They were in a pile on a chair in front of her computer. He put on his officer's uniform while Candice protested.

"I was about to cum, you asshole!"
"Why did you stop?"
"We've been fucking all day and now all of a sudden you have to go?"
"Prick!"

Rick looked at the clock again – still on the floor from earlier – and nearly had a heart attack. It was two thirty. They had been having sex for nearly six hours. Rick had barely been back in his own body and now all of a sudden six hours had passed? Something very bad was happening.

"I… err… gotta go," he mumbled in Shane's voice. "I gotta pick up my son from soccer practice." He regretted it as soon as he said it.
"You couldn't have told me that you had a son earlier?" she yelled, wrapping the bed sheets around her to cover her naked body. Rick grimaced as he saw that there was a line of semen dripping down her left cheek and her mouth – Shane was scarily aggressive in bed. It seemed that he was so aggressive when consumed by lust that he literally switched bodies with Rick for about six hours.

So now Rick was accepting it. He had switched bodies with Shane.
But why was Rick's body in the hospital? Why was he in… a coma?

Once he was fully clothed, Rick quickly surveyed the room for the front door.
"Nice meeting you, I guess. I gotta run."
He left before she could protest, slamming the front door and thundering down the steps to where Shane's squad car was parked.

"You fucking prick!"

Rick got in and drove away as fast as he could, overwhelmed by the realisation that he was in a coma, and he had swapped bodies with his best friend.
And now he was on his way to pick his son from soccer practice, while pretending to not be his son's father, as his son's father is in a coma.

He really wished he would wake up soon.