When I got home that night, I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. The evidence of the fight was gone. No purple bruises bloomed on my jaw, no split lip stung when I touched it. The skin was smooth, unmarked. It should have been impossible. It *was* impossible.
But the shock of my healed body was a distant second to the earthquake still rumbling inside me. For the first time in my life, I had felt a real, raw emotion. **Wrath.** It wasn't a memory or an observation. It had been a living fire in my veins, and its embers still glowed, a hot coal sitting where my heart should be.
I was still trying to process the impossible when a knock came at the door.
It was Phil.
Phil called himself my childhood friend. The truth was, my memory was a fog, and he'd only appeared in it about a week ago. But he'd been visiting almost daily since then. I didn't have the energy to care, so I always let him in.
"Hey," he said, stepping inside with his usual easy grin. "Heard you got a new girlfriend. Also heard you got your face rearranged for it."
A flicker of heat pulsed in my chest. "She's not my girlfriend," I replied, my voice sharper than I intended.
"Whoa, okay. Then why the beating?"
"I wasn't beaten!" The words snapped out of me, laced with a defensiveness that felt entirely new.
Phil's grin faltered, replaced by a look of genuine surprise. "Chill, man. It was a joke."
I pressed the heels of my hands against my temples, trying to push back the static building in my head. "Something's not right," I muttered, more to myself than to him.
"Yeah… you," Phil said, stroking his chin. He was a bit older than me, with strangely intense red eyes and messy, dark brown hair. "You're different."
"I haven't been… thinking. Not really. And now there's this… this noise in my head. This anxiety. Something is wrong with me."
To my surprise, a faint, relieved smile touched Phil's lips. "I like the new you. It makes you seem… alive. More human."
"So I wasn't human before?" The question came out flat, a genuine confusion cutting through the internal chaos.
"Emotions are what make us human, Will. Without them…" He chuckled softly, but it turned into a harsh, wet cough that doubled him over. He pulled his hand away from his mouth. Blood smeared his palm.
"You still bleed when you cough?" I asked, watching as he wiped the crimson streak on his jeans.
He waved a dismissive hand, but I saw the flicker of something dark—disappointment?—in his red eyes. "Nah. It's nothing serious. Just an illness."
He looked back at me, and his smile returned, wider this time. "Hah! You see? Normally, you wouldn't even have noticed the blood. But now you do. You should just accept it already. You're changing." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Anyways, I came here to invite you to our school festival. I guess you'll come, right? Right?"
The invitation felt trivial, a speck of dust in the hurricane of my life. "I don't mind."
"Good. I'll be expecting you." He left with that same, unreadably serious smile.
---
The next day, I went to the library, desperate for some kind of anchor. I needed to research human psychology, to find some textbook explanation for the warzone my mind had become.
Love found me before I could even open a book.
"Hey," she greeted, her voice soft, that ever-present smile on her face. *Is smiling the only expression she has?*
"Hey," I replied, not looking up from the table.
"What's wrong?"
"Nothing."
She slid into the chair opposite me. "Come on, tell me. I've never seen this expression on your face before."
A spark of irritation flared. "Of course you haven't. You stare at me all day. That's why I got attacked yesterday by your *fans*. We should avoid each other. It would be better for both of us." The words were harsh, and they weren't entirely mine.
"Fans? Who?" she asked, her smile finally fading.
"It doesn't matter. Just stay away from me."
Her expression crumpled into one of genuine hurt. It was the first real emotion I'd seen on her face besides serene happiness, and a part of me I didn't recognize felt a twinge of guilt.
*"Yes! That's more like it!"* a voice boomed inside my skull. *"She definitely won't leave him alone again. Not with that form!"*
**Wrath.**
In an instant, my perspective shifted. I was no longer in the driver's seat. I was a spectator, trapped in a dim, messy office that existed within my own mind. A single chair, a desk littered with scattered papers, a large screen that showed the outside world—the library, my body, Love's sad face. This was my prison. My psyche environment.
I watched, powerless, as **Wrath** raised a jubilant fist on his side of the screen. He was celebrating. He hadn't spoken to me directly since his first appearance, and he didn't seem to sense me watching him now. He just sat there, a smug, evil grin plastered on his face, occasionally turning to say something to my statue-like form. I couldn't hear his words, but the malicious intent was clear.
On the outside, my body was moving without me. **Wrath** was in control.
Love tried one last time. "You're not acting like yourself, Will. What changed you?"
*"Quit pestering me!"* **Wrath** snarled through my lips, his voice a distorted version of my own. *"Don't act like you know me. We only talked yesterday."*
Her eyes held a depth of sorrow that seemed ancient. "I know you more than you know yourself," she murmured.
Students nearby whispered as my body—*his* body—stood and walked away. **Wrath** didn't do anything else violent; he just… existed in my skin, radiating contempt. I was a passenger, forced to watch a play where I was the main actor, and the script was being rewritten by a monster.
---
By the time I finally regained control, hours later, a corrosive mix of hate and regret was burning in my chest. It wasn't just my emotion; it was the leftover poison **Wrath** had pumped into my system. I felt edgy, volatile. And I knew exactly where to direct it.
I sent a challenge to Jake and his gang.
We met in the karate club dojo after school. Five of them stood across from me: Jake, the two bullies from the alley, and the twins, Rimp and Romp, who were legendary in the school for never losing a fight.
"I'm glad you came," I said, the words feeling foreign and aggressive in my mouth. This was me talking, but **Wrath**'s influence was a drug in my blood. "You still have unfinished business with me."
Jake smirked, though I could see the nervousness in his eyes. "You were lucky I was unconscious last time. Besides, who turns down a beating invitation? Now—"
*"Hurry up and come at me, you loser,"* I cut him off, the impatience erupting from me. I was on edge, my fists clenched. **Wrath** wasn't in direct control of my speech or actions, but his essence had encroached on my soul, twisting my very nature.
"How dare you cut me off?" Jake roared, his face flushing with anger. "Rimp, Romp, get him!"
The twins charged. I moved without thinking. I dropped Rimp with one punch to the jaw before his brother could even finish his battle cry. My physical abilities were heightened, my movements a blur. A faint, flickering **red** aura cloaked my body—not the inferno of **Wrath**'s full control, but a visible echo of his power.
Seeing his brother on the ground, Romp roared and swung a wild fist at my head. I ducked under it effortlessly and drove my own fist into his torso. The air left his lungs in a whoosh as he crashed into the dojo door, slumping to the floor.
The remaining three rushed me. I floored each of them with a single, precise blow. My strength wasn't the earth-shattering force **Wrath** had unleashed in the alley, but it was more than enough. They lay unconscious on the polished wood, their skin already blooming with light burns.
"Your wrath can't compare to my original," I said to their motionless forms, the words a dark promise.
I turned and saw Love standing at the dojo entrance, her face pale. She had been watching.
"They deserved it, right?" I asked, seeking some kind of validation, some confirmation that this new, violent part of me was justified.
Her eyes, usually so warm, were cold and disappointed. "You're weak, Will. I'm disappointed."
The words felt like a physical blow. "What do you know about me? Stay out of my way. We negate each other." I turned my back on her and walked away, the heat of my anger warring with a sudden, chilling emptiness.
I heard her bite her thumbnail, a sharp, frustrated sound. "This is worse than I expected," she whispered to herself, her voice laced with a fear I didn't understand. "I need to act before it's too late."
Then, in my mind's eye, back in the psychic office, the door creaked open.
A new figure stepped through, his form radiating a blinding, **golden** light of absolute superiority. He looked around the messy room with disdain.
"So, I'm the first to get here," he said, his voice dripping with condescension. "What an accomplishment… befitting someone like me."
Who was this new intruder in my mind? And what did he want with me?