November 8th, 1988 - as cliché as it is to start our story here, it seems only right to note the girl's birth when years later it will alter not only her life, but the world's. Isis was born by a wholly different name, Kayla, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Her mother, Shannon, only eighteen at Isis's birth, was an Irish beauty with a temper to match her fiery hair and a love for nothing other than money and propriety. Kayla spent her first three years in the care of her mother - being forced into frilly gowns, taking tea with napkins in her lap, and tasting caviar, only to return to their shanty apartment each night where mommy left her with the sitter. Her father, Harry, twenty at Kayla's birth, returned from his service in the Navy. Failing to find a job immediately, he was not required to pay child support - Shannon dropped off her daughter one week later and ran off to Wisconsin with the heir of the Sargento cheese fortune.
Life with Daddy took Isis to a farm in Webster, Massachusetts. Even with a land of ponies, where Gram and Poppy lived next store, her life was never merry. She spent her youth determining fact from fiction, lies from truth, and good from evil in the world of the adults battling around her. Mommy would pop in from time to time, enjoy a meal, and disappear anew. Dad replaced her with a good choice - Rhonda was beautiful dark haired woman, with a son of her own and a bright spirit that seemed to compliment Daddy's 'live free' nature. This was the only peaceful time in Isis's life…
Rhonda's son, Louis, was the first to introduce Kayla to the sexual abuse that would plague her repeatedly in the future. She was too young to understand the full implications of her step-brother's "secret game", but knew somewhere, as all people do, it was not right. Her fear that she had done something wrong kept these horrible acts a secret. Already by this time, with thanks to the divorce above all else, Kayla had convinced herself to cry was a waist of her time. Louis was the first, but not the last. A string of similar harsh luck and situations can be spotted throughout Isis's adolescence. She shed no tears, never cried out, and always fought back no matter how hollow she became with each stolen use. It was not uncommon for her to imagine leaving her body, or idolize the male form for all the power it seemed to hold in this twisted society. She quickly became 'The Bitch' in school after her father put her through a second divorce. She managed to turn her life towards healthier and productive - immersing herself in learning, and the escape of fantasy novels. Still, her dark attire and blunt attitude made her little friends, but those that did accept her turned out to be gold among the muck of life. High School was a stage of depression when her father seemed to forget his paternal responsibilities completely, choosing to relive a youth he had wasted in having a daughter by buying motorcycles and all the toys his money could afford. It's at this juncture that she quickly learned to take care of herself - already taking to part time work while still attending high school. It would be to her great benefit when she had found she had saved up enough money.
Finally, her eighteenth birthday. She'd moved out as soon as she graduated High School and snagged the first tiny apartment that crossed her path. She had a small gang over for a party, the weed and stolen beer being passed through the room when… Their television show cut out, the face of a worried reporter hovering over the words… 'BOMB'. The group turned to Kayla, one of them mumbling the catch phrase that had been funny among them, till now. "Kayla, you have the worst luck. Every time I have a bad day, I think of your life - then I feel better." The horrid pictures began to flash across the scene, Kayla's stomach sinking more deeply with each image. "Out. Everyone out." They left. She couldn't bare the images, but couldn't shut off the screen. She took a walk. A dark evening, quiet town, and her horrible luck - it was a recipe for disaster all along. The man jumped out at her from behind tree…
She threw her bare hands out and… WHAM! It felt like she'd run headlong into a brick wall. When the stars around her vision faded, she was looking back upon her own body. She'd swapped bodies with her attacker, looking down at his calloused, perverted hands, and than back to her small frame woozy and tussled on the ground. Quickly she reached out, seeking to remedy whatever mistake had been made. As soon as she found contact with her true form, the swirling slam rushed her back into her original frame. It didn't take her long to jump back to her feet and sprint to the house. The next day Kayla went down to the City Hall. She would flee this life of twisted circles as quickly as she had fled from last night's attacker. She put in for a change of name and applied to college. She spent two years at the University of Massachusetts Amherst as Isis, dressed in gloves and long sleeves no matter the season. Her main interest in studies began to follow the path of her excellences in high school - Chemistry and Mathematics. These studies were concrete, as far as she was concerned, something solid in a world she found only to be muddled and convoluted. Bartending made a fitting career, a logical choice that complimented her attitude, in the atmosphere of college drunkards and trouble. It was this career and the growing anxiety of a need to steal herself further and further away from her saddening past that had her changing her ways further - She quickly switched her major to psychology - wishing to dissect and understand the minds of those around her - What had caused all those individuals to harm her as they had? What brought these drunken fools under her service every evening at the bar? How deeply could and would she affect those lives with which she interacted? And, what power of the mind and body gave her the rarely used and strange ability to swap bodies with those she touched? As twentieth birthday approached even her studies of psychology were not enough to keep the anxiety rising under her skin. She purchased a ticket and headed for the site of the bombing… It had changed her life once, in one manner or another, perhaps it would again.
