Fight it! This can't be real, I must fight it! Hold onto my identity!

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You clench your jaw, forcing yourself to concentrate. There was another name. Your name. The real one. You dig through the fog in your mind, searching for those syllables that defined you for years.

John. Your name is John.

But the moment you grasp it, the thought fractures like glass. The neural pathways twist, redirect. Each attempt to hold onto your identity triggers a fresh cascade of the serum's effects. Your skull throbs with heat.

"You're fighting it," Miss Velvet observes, leaning closer. Her pink eyes study your face with clinical fascination. "I can see it in how your pupils are dilating. The micro-expressions around your eyes."

She strokes your cheek with one gloved finger. "Here's what you don't understand, Candy. The serum is designed to feed on resistance. Every time you try to hold onto that old identity, you're actually strengthening the new neural connections. It's deliciously elegant chemistry."

You try again. John. John? You think about your job, your age. But the name and everything about your identity starts to feel hollow now, like you're reciting someone else's biography. The name Candy sits in your mind like it belongs there, warm and comfortable.

"What's your name?" Miss Velvet asks again.

You press your lips together, refusing to answer. Sweat beads on your forehead from the effort of resistance.

Miss Velvet laughs, a sound of genuine delight. "Perfect. Keep fighting. The harder you struggle, the faster it takes hold." She checks her watch. "The initial phase should have taken fifteen minutes, but you're accelerating the process beautifully. At this rate, you'll be completely rewritten in seven or eight."

The heat in your skull intensifies. You can feel something fundamental shifting, like tectonic plates grinding beneath your consciousness. Memories are still there—childhood, college, your apartment, your job—but they're becoming detached, floating free from any sense of self.

"One more time," Miss Velvet says, her voice taking on a commanding edge. "Tell me your name, and I'll ease the discomfort. Keep fighting, and it will only get worse."

Your resistance wavers. The name sits right there on your tongue, and part of you—a growing part—wants desperately to say it, to please her, to make the burning stop.

"I'm... I'm..." The words catch in your throat as your old identity makes one final, desperate stand against the chemical tide drowning it.