As Lisa Hansen awoke from a deep sleep, she discovered the strangest sensation.

Nothing.

All she could see was a black void, and not the kind of black void you could normally see with your eyes closed. How much more black could this void be? She thought to herself. And the answer is none. There were no sounds to hear in the void, nothing to smell or taste, and she had nothing to say. She tried to speak, but nothing came out. Not even a whisper. A prison of darkness surrounded her, and she was starting to feel concern.

The last thing she had remembered was a smashing of steel and broken glass. She started to wonder if she was awake or even conscious, given recent events.

Suddenly, the black void turned into a white void, and the silence was replaced with a startup sound. Her whereabouts quickly came into focus as the white void was suddenly replaced by a sterile white room. She looked down at herself, and was shocked - aside from wearing what looked like a hospital gown, she looked completely healthy, with nary a scratch to be seen on her. On top of that, her anxiety seemed to dissipate as soon as her vision and hearing came back. She tried to speak, but found that her mouth could not open, nor could she emit even the faintest whisper.

The door opened, and a woman with an electronic tablet entered the room. She was wearing a white lab coat over an otherwise casual outfit, and she looked older than Lisa. After swiping the tablet, she leant over to Lisa.

“Lisa Hansen, can you hear me?”

Lisa felt a funny feeling in her mouth, as if it was waking up. She moved her jaw a few times, even yawning.

“I asked you a question. Can you hear me?”

Lisa did her best to answer the question.

“Um…yes.”

A huge wave of relief washed over her, as she was no longer deaf, dumb and blind. One question answered, a million to go, she thought.

“You can get up now, if you like,” the woman said, swiping the tablet again.

Lisa felt a sensation of pins and needles in her body that quickly dissipated. She swung her legs over to the floor and it felt…not cold, but definitely unfamiliar.

“Hi, my name’s Michelle. Would you like to see your new head?”

Before Lisa could ask any questions, Michelle reached inside the pocket of her lab coat, and pulled out a large mirror, one that was clearly too big to fit inside a normal pocket. Lisa looked in the mirror and saw the face of a 26-year-old woman with brown her.

It was a familiar face - her face. But something felt off to her.

“This looks exactly the same as my old head,” said Lisa.

“Look closer - you’ll find your head has no blemishes or unsightly hairs. Your vision, hearing and senses of taste and smell have also been significantly enhanced, so you’ll never need glasses and hearing aids as you get older. Oh, and have a feel of your hair.”

Lisa grabbed a lock of her hair and found it was smoother and shinier, and lacked any sort of split ends.

“Your new head is also completely free of migraines, headaches, brain aneurysms, brain tumours, bad breath and the common cold,” Michelle said. “Overall, what do you think of your new head?”

“I’m sorry, new head?”

“Perhaps I should have explained - we removed your head and replaced it with our patented hard light hologram projection technology.”

Lisa was even more confused. She wanted to feel angry and scared at this prospect, but somehow, there was no compulsion of that for her to feel.

“I’m sorry, I lost you after, ‘we removed your head’,” she said.

“Where your original head made of flesh and blood used to be, we installed a tiny projector emitting a hard light hologram of your head. It generates the exact same electrical signals as your brain, but more advanced.”

Lisa felt around her neck, looking for a join between the hard light of her holographic head and the soft flesh of her body. There was no such luck - the two were indistinguishable.

“So, I’m technically headless?” Lisa asked.

“Sort of. The HoloHead has all the same functions as your normal head - you can breathe, eat and spit from it.”

“Okay…why did you do this?”

“It’s part of the contract you signed.”

“Wait, contract?”

“Section 27, B6 of the terms and conditions of your LiteB devices - customers will be experimented on and upgraded if any debilitating medical conditions are detected. When we detected a life-threatening brain tumour in your head, we decided you would be the perfect candidate for the HoloHead.”

Lisa was flabbergasted. The company responsible for the phone and laptop that she was using every day for the past two years were spying on her, subjected her to a strange experiment that she only consented to it because she didn’t bother to read the contract.

“It’s alright, Lisa.” Michelle said. “We saved your life, and you have a better head on your shoulders.”

Lisa wanted to lash out at Michelle. Despite Michelle’s kindness, Lisa felt condescended to, and one question was on her mind once the circumstances of her situation set in.

“Where is my old head?”

Michelle looked nervous.

“Oh dear…I’m afraid we’ve taken it to the crematorium.”

“So, you have technology to create holograms, and graft electronics onto people to make them live without their vital organs, but you can’t cure cancer?”

“That’s basically the case, yes.”

Lisa sat down on the hospital bed. She had lost her original head, and now she couldn’t get it back. She wanted to cry, and made an attempt. But she didn’t feel a single tear.

“Lisa…I’ve turned your anxiety levels to the absolute minimum. I’ve been doing this for your own safety. Would you like me to turn it up?”

Lisa looked up at Michelle, and nodded quietly. Michelle slowly swiped to her right, Lisa felt a huge weight being lifted off her shoulders and she completely broke down in tears.

“Good god!” Lisa bawled. “I get in a car crash, and then I wake up to find my head’s been amputated! What the hell?!?”

Michelle sat down next to Lisa and put her hand over Lisa’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry about your loss. But there was no other way to save you.”

Lisa sighed heavily.

“I’m a damned freak. I can’t go out in public without a head.”

“Lisa…it’s going to be okay. I can guarantee that no one will be able to tell that you have a hologram for a head.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, would you believe me if I told you I don’t have a right arm?”

Lisa had a good look at Michelle’s right arm, and was compelled to say “No”. She slowly put her hand in Michelle’s.

“You mean…your hand is hard light?”

“Absolutely! And there’s plenty more to show you with your head.”

Lisa wiped away her tears, feeling better for herself.

“Just get dressed and meet me in the training room. I’ll show you around the app.”

“App?” Lisa asked, her eyes widening.

————

Once Lisa had gotten dressed, she and Michelle met up in what looked like a gymnasium. As Lisa looked over Michelle’s shoulder, Michelle opened an app that looked like Create-a-Sim. Only instead of a CGI character speaking gibberish, it was a photorealistic CGI rendering of Lisa. The real Lisa could only imagine what the makers of those graphics could do if they applied those effects to the movies.

“Firstly, you choose a base head,” said Michelle. “Your original head is selected by default, but I can change it up if you like.”

As Michelle pressed a button, Lisa’s head felt funny. Michelle handed Lisa a mirror, and Lisa’s eyes nearly popped from what I saw - staring back at her was an exact copy of Michelle’s head.

“No way!”

“Yes way. Every person who ever existed is available as a base form, myself included. Would you like to take a look at the other options?”

Michelle handed Lisa the tablet, and Lisa scrolled through all the options. Her own original head was at the top of the list of options, but scrolling through it showed that she could change her head to just about all the people she knew in her everyday life. Going down further, she could see faces of various actors, popstars, politicians, etc. Almost on impulse, Lisa selected the head of Chris Hemsworth, and had a look in the mirror. There was no mistaking that face for anyone else. However, the choice made Michelle snicker.

“Something funny?” Lisa asked, in her newly deep voice.

“Sorry, it’s just…look down.” Michelle replied.

Lisa looked down, and noticed that she still retained her short, feminine body, which made the presence of a man’s head on it look ridiculous.

“Yeah, your body doesn’t change to reflect your head. That’s going to be a separate product.”

Lisa scrolled down past the celebrity heads to find some strange and surreal choices such as other body parts, animal heads, and inanimate objects. The last choice was quite peculiar - it displayed nothing. Out of curiosity, she selected it and despite that familiar feeling of her head shifting, she didn’t feel significantly different.

“Ooh, that’s a great choice”, Michelle said.

“What is?” Lisa asked. She looked in the mirror to check, and was shocked to find that her head wasn’t there. Even feeling where it should be, she could only feel air.

“What the hell? How can I still see, hear and talk?”

“This option gives you all the benefits of being headless, but lets you keep your senses…well, except for taste, you can’t eat in that mode.”

Lisa scrolled back up to the top and selected her own head again. It was there that she noticed that there were many tabs - she was currently on the tab marked “base”, but the others were labelled “edit base”, “accessories”, “modified base”, and “advanced”.

Switching over to the “edit base” tab, Lisa was shocked to see so many sub-tabs for eyes, noses, mouths, ears, and others. These weren’t just ordinary noses - there were options for beaks, faucets, pipes and even fingers. She tapped the “whole head“ sub-tab, and what stood out to her were sliders for “size” and “age”. Curiously, she swiped left on the “size” slider, and everything seemed to get bigger. Michelle snickered, and looking in the mirror confirmed that her head was now the size of a billiard ball. She swiped to the right until everything seemed to shrink, and my head was now the size of a yoga ball.

“You know, there is a default setting” Michelle said, still snickering.

She pressed the button marked “default” and Lisa’s head shrank back to its normal size.

“You want to have a look at the accessories?” Michelle asked.

Lisa selected the “accessories” tab and selected a pair of hipster glasses. Almost immediately, she felt something materialise on her nose, despite the lack of change in her vision. She felt around, confirming the glasses on her nose, and gave them a tug.

“Ow! It’s like they’re glued to my face.”

“Well, of course. It’s so you don’t lose them.”

Lisa touched the glasses icon again.

“So, like what you see, Lisa?”

“Honestly, I’m still not over this. I’ve suffered a big physical loss and you put a machine in place of it?”

“Lisa, everything is going to be fine. If you want some customer support, just call us.”

Michelle led Lisa to the door, and Lisa felt she was stepping back into the void she was in before this strange place. As soon as the door closed behind her, everything melted into black and disappeared. All the sound disappeared, as did the sensation of the ground beneath her feet. Once again, Lisa was lost in darkness.

————

As Lisa Hansen awoke from strange dreams, she found herself in a familiar room.

Her room.

She felt around her head, and the familiar sensation was there. Nothing seemed off. But just to be sure, she went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. Sure enough, her head was the same head of a 26-year-old woman with brown hair that she had before she had gone to sleep.

But her anxiety levels started to rise when she noticed the lack of skin blemishes on her face. No pimples, moles or unsightly hairs to be seen. And the hair on her head felt smoother and shinier, with no split ends to be found. She dashed back to her room and looked at both her phone and her tablet, and both of them had a new app installed. An app labelled HoloHead.