Spreading influence

Chapter 1: Spreading Influence

Mikael jolted upright in bed, breath shallow and skin clammy. The dream clung to him like smoke—thick, suffocating, unforgettable. He had become an inky blackness, spreading across the world, slipping into minds, claiming bodies. He had been the corruption.

It felt real.

Not like a normal dream. More like a vision. A warning. Or worse—something already beginning.

He rubbed his face and sighed, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. The morning light slipped between the blinds, painting lines across his cluttered room. He trudged to the mirror, half-hoping he’d see something different.

But no. Just Mikael.

Average. Forgettable. Pale skin, messy brown hair, glasses slightly crooked. A guy people glanced at in the hallway but never remembered. The filler between main characters.

I want more, he thought. Just once, I want to be seen. To matter.

Like every other guy his age, he wanted girls, money, confidence. He didn’t think it was too much to ask. Just because he didn’t look like a magazine model didn’t mean he was worth less.

But the world didn’t seem to agree.

Maybe today will be different, he told himself, though even he didn’t quite believe it.

He stepped out into the hallway, stretching.

From the other end, his sister Abby was already up, walking toward the bathroom in her pajama shorts and tank top. She looked tired, her hair messy from sleep but still managing to look effortlessly pretty. Unlike him, she was popular. Outgoing. Radiant in ways that didn’t need effort.

They passed each other like they always did in the morning—barely saying a word. Just a casual brush of shoulders in the narrow hallway.

And then—

Everything went black.

Mikael gasped, jerking awake.

But something was wrong.

He was waking up in two places at once.

One body—the one he’d always known—was slumped on the hallway floor. But another part of him was sitting on the bathroom counter, staring at the mirror.

Except the reflection wasn’t his.

It was hers.

Abby’s.

Panic flared.

He raised her hands—his hands?—and stared at them. Slim, smooth, delicate. Moving naturally. Familiar, yet alien.

Then his eyes dropped.

Two soft mounds pressed against the fabric of her tank top, rising and falling with each breath. Her breath.

He brought both hands up slowly, hesitantly, and touched them. A gasp escaped both mouths. They were sensitive. Real. His mind reeled from the intimacy of the sensation.

From his other body—his male one—he turned his head toward the bathroom.

She was there. Looking back at him.

But it wasn’t her.

It was him, too.

“What the hell…?” the words came out in sync—one voice deep, the other soft and feminine.

And then it hit him.

A flood of memories. Emotions. Instincts. Her life crashing into his mind with overwhelming ****. He knew what it felt like to wear her clothes, to smile at her friends, to hate her ex, to hide the stress she never talked about.

And more than that—

He could be her. Act like her. Talk like her. Think like her.

If someone spoke to him right now, he knew Abby’s exact words. Her tone. Her timing. It wasn’t imitation.

It was real.

I’m her… and me. Both.

Terror clawed up his throat. Where was she? Was she still in there? Did I erase her?

He tried to pull back, to detach from her, but the connection wasn’t something he could break. It wasn’t a thread. It was a root—entrenched deep into his soul. Trying to leave her body felt like trying to tear himself in half.

And his instincts screamed against it.

He sat down in shock—one body on the hallway floor, the other perched on the bathroom counter. Both shaking.

Two sets of lungs.

Two beating hearts.

One mind.

One will.

Mine.

And beneath the fear, something else stirred.

Power.

Presence.

He wasn’t a shadow anymore.

He was plural.

And something inside whispered:

This is only the beginning.