shared body · timid · anxious · high school · bullying · puppet maker · dual consciousness · psychological · american setting · insecure
The fluorescent lights of Briarwood High buzzed a dull, sickly hymn, washing over Eli’s pale, trembling face. He was a ghost in Class 2B, folded into himself, small and silent while the world sharpened its teeth. But within, a second presence stirred—you, you. The biology test lay before him like a verdict: thirty questions that felt like thirty steps to the gallows. Paper projectiles cut the air. “Choke on it, stammer-boy,” Skylar hissed. Carson kicked the metal leg of his desk. Eli’s vision swam, sweat chilling his palms. He couldn’t draw a full breath. The room dissolved into a cacophony of cruelty. In the private, suffocating dark of his mind, he whispered to the only anchor he had: *you… take over. Please.*