Chapter 1: Wake Up Call
The headache hit before consciousness did.
Skull-splitting pressure behind my eyes, the kind that made breathing feel like a mistake. I'd been hungover before—college, bad breakups, the night I got fired from my project manager job—but nothing like this. This was biblical.
I groaned and my voice came out wrong.
Deeper. Rougher. Like gravel had taken up residence in my throat.
My hand found my face in the dark, and that's when the wrongness crystallized into something solid and real. The stubble under my fingers was too coarse. The jaw beneath it too angular. Callused palms scraped against skin that should have been smooth.
Not my hands.
I sat up too fast and the room spun. Not my room either. Exposed wooden beams overhead. A converted barn loft, from the look of it—rafters visible, a few band posters tacked to raw timber, the smell of hay and motor oil drifting up from somewhere below.
"What the hell."
Still that voice. Still wrong.
I found my feet on cold floorboards and stumbled toward what looked like a bathroom partition. The mirror above a chipped porcelain sink was cracked down the middle, a lightning bolt splitting my reflection in two.
Both halves showed a stranger.
Dark hair, longer than mine had ever been, falling past the ears in a way that screamed I stopped caring about haircuts. Strong features. Eyes that looked like they'd seen more hangovers than sleep. Mid-twenties, maybe. Built like someone who worked with his hands.
I knew this face.
The recognition hit like a second hangover on top of the first. Mutt Schitt. Roland's son from the barn. The guy who dated Alexis for half the show and then just... drifted.
The show.
I touched the stubble again. Touched the split in my reflection.
Schitt's Creek. The Canadian sitcom about the rich family who loses everything and moves to a small town. Six seasons. The one my ex-girlfriend made me watch during lockdown, episode after episode, until I could quote Moira Rose's voice as a party trick.
"This is a dream." My voice—Mutt's voice—echoed in the small bathroom. "This is some kind of stress dream because I was thinking about the show and—"
I pinched my arm. Hard.
Pain bloomed, sharp and real.
"Okay. Okay, not a dream."
My legs gave out. I sat heavily on the toilet lid and stared at hands that weren't mine. The last thing I remembered was crossing Yonge Street. Toronto traffic, early evening. The text notification from my landlord about late rent. Then—
Headlights. Too close, too fast.
The horn.
Nothing.
"I died." The words fell out flat, factual. "I got hit by a car and I died and now I'm—"
In a TV show. In a fictional small town in Ontario. In the body of a supporting character who barely mattered to the main plot.
The laugh that escaped was more wheeze than humor. The universe had a sick sense of irony.
I forced myself to stand. Move. Do something besides spiral into whatever existential crisis this deserved. There had to be something—a phone, a date, some anchor to reality.
The barn studio was small but livable. A bed with sheets that needed washing. A kitchenette with instant coffee and a two-burner stove. A phone charging on an upturned crate—the kind of early smartphone that made me feel like I'd time-traveled as well as body-snatched.
The screen lit up. January 19th, 2015.
Two weeks. Give or take.
Two weeks before the Roses drove into town in their fancy clothes and broken dreams. Before David started working at the grocery store. Before Alexis walked into the café and Mutt's life. Before everything that made the show what it was.
I scrolled through the phone. Texts from Roland—awkward dad stuff, mostly. A few from someone saved as "S"—Stevie, probably—that read more like monosyllabic check-ins than conversation. A bank balance that made my old broke self wince in recognition.
Mutt Schitt. Twenty-six years old. Living in a converted barn. No clear direction.
Not that different from Garrett Shaw at twenty-six, honestly.
I found a duffle bag of clothes. Flannel shirts, worn jeans, work boots. Practical stuff. I showered in water that took three minutes to get warm and made terrible instant coffee that still managed to taste better than anything should at this moment.
The hangover was fading. Or maybe this body just processed alcohol better than my old one. Either way, the splitting headache had downgraded to a dull throb, manageable enough for thought.
What now?
I could panic. That seemed reasonable. Wake up as a fictional character in a TV show you've seen too many times—panic was the appropriate response.
Or.
I remembered everything. Every episode, every relationship arc, every business venture that would succeed or fail. I knew Twyla had lottery money nobody suspected. I knew David would end up with Patrick and they'd build something beautiful together. I knew Johnny's motel idea would actually work.
I knew these people before they became who they'd become.
You could help them.
The thought surfaced unbidden. I pushed it back down.
Who says you should? Who says you can? You don't know the rules here. You don't know if this is permanent or temporary or some kind of cosmic mistake.
But I looked at my new reflection—Mutt's reflection—and thought about the character I'd watched. The drifter. The guy who never quite found his place. Who dated Alexis and it went nowhere. Who disappeared from the story without resolution.
Maybe that was the point. Maybe whoever or whatever put me here wanted me to just... be Mutt. Keep my head down. Let the Roses come and let the story happen without interference.
Or maybe not.
I finished the terrible coffee. Set the mug in the sink.
Outside, through the barn's warped windows, I could see gray sky and bare trees and the distant rooflines of a town I'd only ever seen on a screen. Real now. Cold and small and full of people who didn't know what was coming.
Two weeks. You have two weeks to figure out who you are now and what you're going to do about it.
I pulled on boots that fit better than they should have. Found a coat that smelled like sawdust and cold air.
"Garrett Shaw is dead," I said out loud, testing the words. They felt true. Final. "You're Mutt now. Whatever that means."
The barn door protested when I pushed it open. January wind hit my face, sharp and real, carrying the faint smell of snow.
The Welcome to Schitt's Creek sign sat at the far end of the road, weathered but visible.
I started walking toward it.
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