An Old Woman. A Witch. A Name.

Casting out as wide a net as I possibly could across a dozen different message boards specifically relating to this situation or situations like it and then casting it out even further.

Video games and movies and every bit of pop culture I could think of. Local boards and international boards and boards that are local to specific people.

Finding every single instance and mention of them that I could manage and reading through every message for hints and clues about their personality and their preferences.

A specific movie quote would lead me to fan boards on that movie or on the Director or the Actor who played the role and I would find Sw1tch3d-1 there. I would find their username, unique as it was, ubiquitous and used in places that I wouldn't have thought to look.

And bit by bit and piece by piece I put together the picture of the person.

Finding that they had hints at a full personality and finding posts, using that username, that were posted before they'd ever made any mention of being sent back in time.

And the tone struck me, caught my attention.

Because there was a tonal shift, a change in the way they were speaking between the before and the after the point where they claimed to have traveled. It was slight and nearly imperceptible but they were speaking with a little shift, still clearly the same person but like that person had evolved somehow, as if their personality had drifted.

More than that, though, there were bits and pieces that stood out to me. Slang or words that were incongruous with the time period we were in. This person was using modern day slang, as in my old lifes modern day, but in this time period instead.

And all that lent authenticity to their claim and made me perk up and pay attention when I found another forum where they mentioned the old woman.

On this second forum they spoke about their research into her specifically. As far as I could tell they were still at the point, then where they were trying to go back. They hadn't yet accepted that they were where they were meant to be, the process for them taking weeks or possibly even months longer than me.

But all that is irrelevant. What is important here is that they found her, first in myth and legend and then in real life.

At least all their posts seemed to indicate that they had found her and that was something. That meant that I could have a conversation with her and figure out...

Why did it feel like I already had?

This nagging feeling in the back of my mind had been prickling around the thought of talking to her all morning long. Thinking about Sw1tch3d-1 my thoughts were clear and thinking about myself, well while their was a haze of general confusion surrounding this body I could at least feel striking moments of clarity.

But when it came to the old woman I realized that things were far more complicated than they seemed to be. I realized that there was this irrepressible feeling of deja vu surrounding everything with her, as if it had all happened before.

As if I'd spoken to her before.

And when I close my eyes I feel the wisps of a dress made of smoke around me and the words that she is speaking in a thousand different voices. I remember a conversation that couldn't have happened except in my dreams and maybe it was all just a dream.

But maybe it had been a dream but it was real at the same time and it was all so hard to hold onto and when I stumbled upon the name Sw1tch3d-1 called her by it all clicked for me, the reason why she could and would and was like this all at once.

An old tale, half-remembered. An old fear, half-realized and mostly insubstantial.

An old name from an old world and a time of superstition.

Baba Yaga.

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