Young Writers Society

"No reason," I cheerfully said. "You could say that we're friends, or something along those lines."

I gave them the best smile my robotic self could muster.

"Well, I really do need to find him," I said. "So if you all just wait here for a minute or two, I'll go check all the nearby alleyways and see if we can be reunited."

I started to head towards the other end of the alleyway - the one the three were now standing in - but then I had the terrible luck of tripping over my own unfamiliar feet. It was stupid, but I felt a little jolt of fear as I went crashing towards the ground thanks to being something possibly more fragile than my actual self.

That should have been a warning sign.

But it all happened too quick for me to realize that my power was going to kick in on its own.

As my hands wildly waved out around me in a worthless attempt to stop myself from falling, they brushed up against the person nearest to me. The jump happened just as quickly as the fall did, and suddenly I was watching myself hitting the ground.

And I felt weird.

My hands - the hands of whoever I had accidentally taken control of - wildly reached for around my waist, trying to figure out what was so tightly wrapped around it. My leg ached underneath whatever I was wearing, and my arm hurt the most of all - I let out a startled cry when I realized how it felt like it was on fire.

Oh, and there was a gigantic crash as my metal body hit the ground.

At least the crying guy had the decency to rush over and try to help my body up.

...Wait a second.

My body?

I stared at the metal body he was supporting as he desperately trying to awaken someone he just couldn't awaken, eyes widening as I realized that hadn't felt like a consecutive series of switches.

That was me using my power to from my body to someone else's.

"No, no, no," I muttered, shaking my head in denial. I recognized the girl's voice as it left my mouth, but I wasn't really caring about the moral dilemma of taking over someone's body without meaning to. "This is all wrong."

The first emotion Megara felt was confusion, then anger. She wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but she'd lost control of her body. Some fear mixed with the anger at the thought that whoever it was may be able to see into her head. That would not be good, for anyone involved.

What the hell?! was the only thought that manifested into words of any sort.

It didn't take much thinking to answer some of that question. The person in her body was the same person who was clearly not in the metal body that had crashed oh so unceremoniously to the ground. She wasn't sure about the 'how', but that hardly mattered. What did matter was that this unwelcome guest be removed immediately.

Should I have offered an apology?

Yes.

Would I?

No.

I had to worry about my body suddenly being as lifeless as my skull had once been - I didn't have the time to worry about upsetting someone I already didn't like. I went over to the crying man's side and stared at my body, despite the shooting pain I felt in my leg. I reached out the arm that wasn't killing me and touched it. I didn't let the switch happen again. I just stood there and stared, trying to wrap my head around the idea that my own body had been turned into something completely unfamiliar.

"This makes no sense," I muttered, giving my body another little poke.

Megara fought against the unfamiliar presence in her head.

She had less problem with the fact that she couldn't control her body than the fact that the person now controlling her clearly didn't know how to walk on an injured leg. With every step, the pain got worse and Megara got more and more furious. Maybe she should let him see one of her memories. Just a little something to shock and disorient. Perhaps the memory of her punishment after the little chapel incident? There was enough pain there to make him wish he was never born.

Meanwhile, Fidel looked on with confusion and concern.

"I'm serious," he said to who he thought was still Megara, "There wasn't even enough flesh left to stitch you up. At least wait until you're at least a little healed. Please, I'm begging you. If you don't get off your feet right now I'm going to have to carry you." For his credit, he sounded rather confident in his threat.

If Megara had control of her mouth, she would have threatened to snap his neck if he so much as tried to deliver on that threat of his. Instead, she just fought harder against the current controller of her body, keeping her memories at bay for now.

"She's not going to let you carry her," I said, tilting my head to the side to get a better look at my body. I may have frequently gone on about how much I missed being a menacing, ghostly skull in a jar, but it was wrong to see a metal imitation of a face instead of my own.

I looked up to see the crying man staring at me. He wasn't crying any more, but I could see the confusion on his face.

Then he dropped my body with a look of terror, darting back into the alleyway wall.

"Hey-" I started to say, only to stumble as I felt another searing burst of pain shoot up my leg. "What did you do?"

While I waited for a response, I crouched down beside my own body - feeling another burst of pain as I shifted positions. There were other pains too - the corset, the arm - but it was the leg that was bugging me the most at the moment.

Fidel's face morphed into one of confusion, then his eyes widened as the realization dawned on him.

"You mean you- she-" he gestured between the two bodies, at a loss for words.

While that happened, Megara, trapped in her own head, changed tactics. Instead of trying to force him out, she pushed for control of her limbs.

"If you're talking to me," she 'said', "that is so very thoroughly none of your business." The temptation to show him one of her more painful memories was immense, but she held back. Her father would ensure she had another of those to add to the collection if he found out that an outsider knew exactly what he did, or had done, to the disobedient. It undermined his authority.

Fidel finally came to his senses enough to call after Kirux, "Wait! Come back!"

The man's hands shook as he signed back a frantic response.

"Ghost!" he signed, gesturing at both me and the body that he had let fall to the ground. I couldn't help but give a smug grin at that - finally, someone was saying what I actually was instead of explaining it with the magic of another world. Although I technically wasn't a ghost anymore, but the validation still felt good.

Besides, I had bigger fish to fry.

"I thought you said you didn't know sign language," I said to the girl, poking my body with the tip of a slender finger. "I can understand what he's saying, and I don't know it. That means you have to be the one who knows it."

"Shut up and get out of my body," she responded, choosing not to offer that particular comment any kind of validation. Mostly, though, she was just salty at being called out. Also the fact that she was trapped in her own body with no control whatsoever, but a general lack of control was something she was used to. Granted not this literally, but she was finding the concept to be similar.

"You wouldn't happen to be privy to my memories, would you?" she asked suddenly, "I wouldn't recommend digging around in them if you are capable, I would just like to know to what degree you're invading my privacy at the moment." If she had control of her body, she would stab him, or, herself. It wasn't like she wasn't already in pain, and there was a doctor right there, or something like a doctor. She should probably ask Fidel exactly what kind of medical training he had. Whatever the consequences to herself, stabbing him would be plenty satisfying enough to make up for it.

Fidel gathered his wits and composure impressively quickly, Megara thought, as he went up to the body she was currently sharing with a massive pain of a ghost and said with all the command of an experienced army general, "If you're going to occupy her body, you might as well do some good. She's too stubborn to get off her feet on her own, so would you kindly do that body you're using a favor and sit down while we all figure out what's going on here and what we're going to do about it."

Megara would have cast a warning glare at the one controlling her body if she had use of her eyes. "You better f*cking not," she told him, knowing that she had absolutely no way to enforce the implied threat.

"I don't have a problem with it," I said, promptly plopping down on the ground next to my own body. It was surprisingly hard getting comfortable thanks to the skirt, but I somehow managed. "But she's going to, once I hop back into my body - and, no, I can't see your memories."

The last part was directed at the girl, even though I knew the guy hadn't heard her originally ask the question.

Well, that was a relief. To a point. It would have been fun to subject him to the memory of what it was like inside her head on the twenty-first consecutive day of being forcefully sleep-deprived and fed only the barest minimum required to keep her alive.

But at least he wouldn't have access to the more sensitive memories. The ones that would either require her to kill him. Not that she would mind killing him after this, but she wanted to be able to do that without the burden of responsibility.

"Go to hell," she told him.

Fidel nodded approvingly, meanwhile, and sat down as well, gesturing for Kirux to sit next to him. "It'll be better if we work together," he explained.

He then turned to the currently possess Megara, "So, I imagine she was lying to me about how much pain she was actually in when I first started patching her up, and I haven't been able to ask again since she woke up. Can you feel all the physical pain?"

"I can," I confirmed. I gave a little stretch. I had been planning to pop back into my body right after I sat down, but it looked like I couldn't leave just yet. "For all intents and purposes, this is my body right now - I can feel whatever she should be feeling."

The formerly crying man eyed both of us nervously before joining us near my body.

"Where does it hurt?" he signed. Despite having to be around my physical age or a little older, there was something incredibly childlike about his expression and the way he signed.

And something about that made me want to give an in depth response.

"Well," I said, "it hurts here and here."

I gestured at my arm and leg.

Then I thought for a moment and gestured at my waist.

"It technically hurts here, too," I admitted, "but that's just the corset."

Fidel nodded, "Yeah, that makes sense. The bone was visible on her arm when I found her and her leg looked pretty gruesome. How much would you say it hurts? Like, on a scale of one to ten?"

Megara fought harder to regain control. "The answer to that is none of his business, or yours. Get out."

I mulled over my options.

"A solid six or seven," I said. I ignored her requests for me to get out of her body - I could feel her resistance more strongly now, and knew it wouldn't be long before I lost all control, but I had a moral responsibility.

...Or that's what Lucy would have said, at least.

"I'm going to jump back into my body soon," I told him. "If you have any other questions, ask me now - I'm probably not going to be much help once I get back into it."

Fidel nodded thoughtfully, "No, that's all I have to ask you. Anything else would require me to touch her to see if there are any less obvious injuries to her spine or if she sprained something I didn't notice, but I don't want to do that without her consent."

Megara, if possible, fought even harder for control, "What a gentleman," she mused, "You could learn a thing or two from him. Now, kindly, let me control my own body you-" she dissolved into a colorful rant involving several languages and every curse word she knew, which was a lot of curse words. She killed people for a living, what else was there to expect.

Meanwhile, Fidel turned his attention to Kirux, "So, you said you could travel between worlds somehow? Does that work by magic of some kind? Were you cursed with it?" he shook his head, "I'm sorry, I can't understand sign language, so, um, only answer the last one yes or no. I guess."

"Oh wow," I said, listening to the rant in my head, "you're almost as bad as the girl who kept talking about how badly she wanted to disfigure me when I possessed her - though I think her comments were a little more creative than what you're coming up with."

Well, the deed was done. I had nothing else do as her, so it was time to return back to my own body. I took a deep breath and placed my hand on my body's shoulder-

-And then I was back in my own body, popping back up and looking at the three around me.

I glanced over at the formerly crying man, who was now beginning to look more than a little excited at the prospect of talking about himself.

He nodded two times and shook his head for the third.

"What's your name?" I asked - I hadn't had a chance to learn it, given what I had been through since I got here. I glanced at the three near me. "Better question - what are all of your names?"

"K-I-R-U-X!" the man happily signed, pointing at himself when he finished.

"Kirux?" I repeated.

He eagerly nodded. "What's yours?"

"Skull," I replied.