I'm sitting on a bench when I realize I don't remember choosing it.
The street moves in front of me without slowing. Cars pass in steady lines. People weave between each other with practiced ease, conversations overlapping just long enough to exist before disappearing again. Everyone seems to know where they're supposed to head.
I try to reach backward, to find the moment where I decided to stop, but there's nothing there. The space behind my thoughts feels smooth, like it's been wiped clean. All I can hold onto are the scrambled paper in my pocket which is still hard to believe, and the growing certainty that my body has been acting on decisions my mind never made.
I watch the crowd, letting my eyes drift without focus.
A woman walks past from my left, coat pulled tight, head angled down as if bracing against the wind. I track her for a second, then look away.
…
A similar woman that looked the same passes.
Same direction, at the same pace.
My brow tightens. The thought that follows is immediate and dismissive. People double back all the time. My mind is just reaching for patterns that aren't there.
I close my eyes.
The sound cuts out.
Not gradually. Not like distance. It's as if someone reached out and removed it. The hum of engines, the murmur of voices, the soft friction of the city, all of it gone at once.
My breathing feels too loud in the absence.
…
When I open my eyes, I'm inside a café.
Warm light pools across small tables. The air smells of coffee and something faintly sweet, burned just enough to linger. Low conversation hums around me, contained and steady, like it's been waiting for me to return.
Everything here feels familiar.
A cup of milk settles onto the table in front of me.
I look up, startled, but the waitress is already smiling, nodding as if I've just finished ordering. Her expression doesn't ask anything—it confirms something. I realize I'm staring when she tilts her head slightly, then turns and walks away.
I follow her until she disappears behind the counter.
Then I look down.
The cup is warm beneath my palms. The drink is exactly what I would have ordered.
That realization tightens something in my chest. Not fear. Something closer to resignation.
I let out a breath I didn't realize I was holding.
Maybe this is just another instinct.
Another moment my body remembers before my mind can catch up.
I lift the cup.
The milk touches my lips, warmer than expected. I take a small sip.
The taste makes me pause.
It isn't bad. It isn't good. It's unfamiliar in a way that doesn't match what I'm drinking, like my tongue recognizes something my mind can't name. I swallow anyway and set the cup down.
The surface ripples faintly.
I glance at the seat across from me.
Empty.
The sight unsettles me, not because I expected someone to be there, but because it feels like someone should be. The absence presses in, like a thought I was just about to remember.
I look back at the mug.
The liquid inside moves in a smooth, deliberate circle, even though my hands aren't touching it.
Soft music drifts from near the entrance.
I hadn't noticed it before. A slow melody, melancholic, restrained. The kind that makes a room feel smaller without suffocating it. For a moment, it's calming.
Then the liquid stops.
So does the music.
I look up.
The café is gone.
No walls. No counter. No windows. The warmth vanishes, replaced by an endless black void. Silence presses in, thick enough to feel against my skin.
The table remains.
So does the seat across from me.
Someone is sitting there now.
There's no movement. No sound. One moment the chair is empty, the next it isn't. My eyes register a figure occupying the space, but my mind lags behind, struggling to accept it.
I try to look at their face.
My vision blurs, sliding off details the moment they form. The outline holds, but everything else fractures and recombines, refusing to stay long enough to be understood. I feel a dull pressure behind my eyes, the sensation of forcing a thought that doesn't want to exist yet.
I lower my gaze.
A single sheet of clean paper rests on the table.
At the top, printed neatly:
Body Possession Contract
A strange calm settles over me.
As if every step, every absence, every misplaced instinct, has been leading here. Not by choice. By momentum. By inevitability.
If this is my purpose, I wonder, then whose will decided it?
A voice speaks.
At first it's distorted, stretched thin, like a sound traveling through water. I look up.
The blur clears.
A skinny kid sits across from me. Glasses slightly crooked. Acne scattered across his face. His shoulders are drawn inward, posture folded tight around himself. He doesn't look at me, not really. His eyes stay fixed on the contract.
His hands are pressed together in his lap, fingers digging into each other as if holding himself in place.
"S-sir," he says.
This time, his voice is clear.
"I want to live in your body. Even if it's just once."
Something shifts in me.
"Are you sure?" I ask. "You'll lose your soul after."
He glances up briefly, just long enough for our eyes to meet. Then he looks back down. His mouth tightens as he considers it.
"Yes."
"Are you absolutely sure?"
His breath stutters. Tears gather, spill over before he can stop them.
"Yes!" he shouts, voice breaking. "Please, sir. Please sign the contract."
I look at him.
Then at the paper.
A pen rests beside it, exactly where my hand expects it to be.
The sentence stands out:
Borrow my body, at the cost of your soul.
"You have a long life ahead of you, kid," I say quietly.
He doesn't answer.
He just sits there, unmoving, as if the decision has already been made and all that's left is for me to acknowledge it.
My fingers close around the pen.
There's a brief, irrational tightness in my chest. A thought that doesn't finish forming. Then the pressure fades.
I sign.
…
I'm standing in my room again.
There's no transition. No sense of movement. One moment there is elsewhere, and the next there is this, stillness settling around me like it never left, like it's been waiting. The light is dim, filtered through curtains I don't remember closing. The air smells faintly stale, untouched.
My eyes move before I decide to.
The bed sits against the wall, sheets rumpled, one corner pulled loose as if I left in a hurry, or never truly got up at all. The indentation at the center hasn't fully faded. It looks recent.
I look away.
The drawer beside it hangs half open, its contents spilling over the edge. Scrambled papers. Now I know what these are.
Next to the drawer is the pill bottle.
Exactly where it should be.
The cap is loose. A few tablets rest beside it. I don't remember setting them there, but the sight of them steadies something in my chest. Like proof that this has happened before. That it will happen again.
My gaze drifts to the closet.
Rows of clothes are hung neatly inside, jackets with their tags still attached, shirts pressed and unworn, shoes lined up beneath them without a single crease in the leather. Outfits meant for occasions I never attended. Versions of myself I never became.
Finally, my eyes settle on the corner of the room.
The recycling bin sits there.
I look down at my hand.
The contract is still there, the paper bent where my fingers have been holding it too tightly. The words at the top stare back at me, familiar in a way that doesn't require memory.
The next time I wake up,
I'll forget everything again.
I folded the paper, and tossed it at the bin.