Oblivion.

That’s what I’d hoped for, but apparently old souls don’t die.

Tuesday night, around 5:45, I laid down to rest and felt the fade, like all of my self could cease to exist. Only, it didn’t, only withered to the point that it made room for something else. In the space of an hour I went from being the captain of my own soul to a third rate passenger while some jumped up shadow from a lower berth took command.

Huddled in the dark corners of my own mind, I watched passively as my body rose from the bed. Faltering steps took me, or us, I don’t know, to the bathroom. The floor creaked, as it always did in the family home built two generations back, but it only sounded like echoes to me.

The cracked mirror showed a face, my face but not my face. The eyes had changed, grown lively and sinister, windows to another soul, I suppose.

If I’d fully existed at that point, I might have felt fear. Instead, all I could do was hope and pray my brother would know what to do.

And that he’d be able to do it.