The One That Lives Inside
*Trigger Warning: Story contains references to self harm and suicide*
After only 24 weeks of development, Taylor was born prematurely. Margaret and Anso Malter were informed that their newborn needed to be put in a Neo-natal intensive care unit (NICU) if Taylor was going to survive.
But Taylor did survive.
As the weeks rolled by Taylor continued to grow and develop, however a new worrying problem arose. Many of Taylor’s organs were not growing with him. These organs were still functioning, but had not increased in size and weight relative to the infant’s growth which was alarming to the medical staff. As time went on, the organs began to fail as their size did not support the processes of life they were required for.
Taylor’s predicament was bleak.
A newborn that had just been carried to term had tragically died upon birth and the mother, in an act of saintly generosity, donated the body of her beloved child to save another’s. In a last ditch effort to secure young Taylor Malter’s future, the medical team at the hospital undertook the most extensive organ transplant that any infant had ever been subjected to. After the paperwork was all finalized the three surgeons and team of eight nurses took Taylor Malter and the donor into the surgical theater for no less than fifteen hours causing his parents an immense amount of stress.
As the hands made their leisurely way around the indifferent clock face Margaret was a nervous wreck of tears and Anso, normally a fountain of strength, was out of energy to console her. Both had been exhausted since their boy’s birth due to the concern that was constantly eroding their insides whenever they considered his well being.
When the doors to the theater finally swung open and the head surgeon removed his mask the parents were met with a broad smile and the announcement that the procedure had been a success.
Taylor Malter would live.
The day that Anso and Margaret brought their baby boy home was the happiest day of their lives. Taylor had finally managed to make a weight of four pounds and seven ounces and met all of the other criteria his doctor required so he was free to experience the world outside of the hospital for the first time in his short life. He still had weekly visits to assure he was developing properly and that his organs were still fully functional, but the child didn’t present any more medical problems for the time being.
When Taylor turned four he started to develop painful migraines that caused him to throw tantrums and scream until they subsided. They began sparsely but increased in frequency and length until he had an episode almost every day. His anxious parents took him to the family physician, Dr Diyoby, who had some tests run only to find that the boy was perfectly healthy. The doctor couldn’t prescribe Taylor anything stronger than ibuprofen due to his age but the Malters found that it helped to alleviate some of the pain whenever an episode started. Taylor was able to push through whatever pain remained and the family was able to live normally again for a while.
When Taylor was about ten and a half he discovered a nagging doubt in the back of his mind. Something felt off and he couldn’t explain it. After a year, the feeling grew stronger, intimidating Taylor. It was uncomfortable to think about and distracting so gradually his thoughts shied away from the space in his head where the feelings resided. But as he retreated the doubts took up more space like a sponge soaking up water until Taylor panicked and tried to confront the unpleasant feelings. He didn’t know what was going on within the space, only that when thoughts or emotions came from that area of his brain that he rarely agreed with them.
During moments of joy, he would often feel empty sensations nagging for his attention and often heard himself asking, “Is this what happiness feels like?” Sometimes when Taylor was in a perfectly good mood or enjoying his hobbies like building legos or climbing trees, his mind would wander, seemingly uninterested with his entertaining activities, and he would feel vacant and aimless and lonely.
Taylor did not enjoy these sensations and couldn’t help but feel that they weren’t really his. He wasn’t sure where the thoughts came from, and he had never had to worry about such a thing before ignoring his doubts, but he decided he would have to maintain a steady focus on them at all times as a precaution. This prevented him from being fully present in moments and drained his energy much faster during stressful situations than another might be, but these were necessary trade-offs to defend his peace of mind from the intrusive emotions. These costs did take their toll on his character however, and Taylor became more moody, more irritable and had less patience for dealing with everyday tasks as he grew older. He grew bored quickly and his mind would wander back to the space, to the nagging doubts and the questions he had about it.
When Taylor was thirteen the cry of a voice escaped the space that he didn’t recognize, a cry that sounded diabolically frustrated at its core.
A voice that Taylor thought didn’t sound like him at all.
Taylor was unsettled and asked his mother if everyone had two voices in their head.
“What do you mean two voices Tay?”
Taylor couldn’t explain it. He could only say that the second voice had different thoughts and feelings.
“You have a second voice?” Margaret clarified, “What, in your head?”
“Yeah Mom, it doesn’t feel like me.” Taylor tried to explain. His mother was unable to get her own head around what Taylor was trying to communicate and so after their conversation concluded, she called Anso at work and informed him of the discussion.
“A second voice?” Anso asked incredulously.
“That’s what he said dear,” Margaret confirmed, peaking through the corn yellow kitchen curtains to observe Taylor playing outside in the driveway on his skateboard, “He says it doesn’t feel like him. Could it be the headaches?” Taylor did a kick flip and she let the curtains fall back into place.
“I mean, I guess?” Anso replied, “I doubt it though, he hasn’t had any problems with them recently. The last one was years ago.”
“Oh dear, you don’t think he’s developing schizophrenia or something do you?” Margaret fretted in distress, “I’ve been reading so much about it lately and they say a predictive sign is episodes of headaches.”
“Do they now?” queried Anso, “Well, give Dr Dioby a ring and see what he thinks of it, just to be safe.”
But Margaret didn’t call the good doctor. Immobilized by uncertainty, she was worried that he would say there was indeed something else wrong with her young boy and she couldn’t bare the thought of submitting him to more tests and surgeries. What if they had to drill into his brain? He’d already been through so much. What would she even tell Dr Dioby? She didn’t really understand what she had been told herself. A second voice?
Better to wait and see what happens, she thought to herself. What was the point in getting all flustered about something when you weren’t even sure what the thing was? A second voice didn’t make much sense to Margaret, but she quickly elected to give Taylor the time to figure out if there was really something amiss before she made any rash decisions. With that thought she put the matter entirely from her mind.
One day when Taylor was fifteen he got out of bed and the voice in his head spoke.
- What joy, another day, said the voice.
“Huh?” Asked Taylor aloud in confusion. There was a tense pause as the silence stretched through the seconds until another thought floated through Taylor’s mind.
- Can you hear me?
“Yeah I can,” Taylor said to himself, “Who’s voice is this? Why are you in my head? Is that you, God?” He was getting very disoriented by the conversation and sat back down on the turquoise bedspread. There was a long quiet moment before the voice responded again.
- I’m you. Well, I guess I’m me. I live here.
“You live in my head?”
- Yes, I have lived here for as long as I can remember.
Taylor was trying to digest this new information when his door creaked ajar and his mother popped her head into his bedroom.
“Tay, sweetie, who are you talking to?” Margaret asked her son who sat in his dinosaur boxers on the edge of the bed.
“The voice in my head is talking back to me!” he responded with a mixture of perplexed excitement. Margaret’s face fell as she remembered his complaints from years ago, a familiar tightness gripping her stomach.
“That’s just you dear,” she tried to explain, “The voice in your head is just you thinking thoughts.”
But Taylor didn’t agree.
“Nuh-uh! It’s not me! It sounds different and doesn’t think like me!” he responded.
Margaret left her adolescent son and hurried back to her room to wake her husband and seek his advice.
“Anso, wake up!” she snapped, closing the door hurriedly behind her. Anso’s snoring ceased and he sat his bulk up in bed looking lost.
“Wha’ssa matter? What’s today?” Anso demanded in sleepy slurs of confusion.
“It’s Saturday. Tay’s talking about that voice again!” she hissed in a whisper, “The one in his head? The second voice? Well, apparently he’s talking to it now.” Anso shook his head and looked at the digital clock on his bedside table. It was too early for this.
“He’s talking to the voice in his head?” he asked.
“Yes!”
“Isn’t that what everyone does?” Anso asked after a moment. Margaret paused.
“That’s what I thought,” she finally agreed, “But he says it isn’t him. He says it doesn’t think like him. Oh, Anso I don’t know what to do. I’m so worried. What if he’s going schizo?”
“Calm down dear, give me a minute.” Anso requested as he rolled his legs out of bed to sit on the precipice of a new day, beleaguered and contemplative. While Margaret waited she couldn’t help but see the family resemblance between father and son, gathering their thoughts on the edge of the bed with the same posture as if it was a genetic position. Finally he looked up into his wife’s thin, pale face framed by her dark brown curls.
“What did Dr Dioby say about this when you called?”
“I never called!” Margaret admitted covering her mouth with horror at the realization, “I wanted to give Tay some time to figure out what was going on and I completely forgot! I didn’t want to worry him about nothing. He’s been through so much! Oh no, what have I done?”
“Well, it seems like it’s more than nothing now,” concluded Anso steadily, “We should probably call Dr Dioby and get his opinion.”
Dr Dioby had never heard of such a thing outside of a few abnormal cases of extreme mental illness and instructed Margaret to immediately take Taylor to a psychologist to get to the bottom of the mystery.
“I know it’s the weekend, but first thing on Monday I want you to call this friend of mine and they’ll book you right in,” Dr Dioby said, “Give them my name and tell them I say it’s urgent. Terry will be more than curious once she meets Taylor.”
But Terry wasn’t altogether impressed when she met Taylor on Monday for their emergency appointment. The boy recanted his tale of two voices and instead suggested his mother might have been right all along, that he was just getting used to thinking inside of his own head. Dr Terry Waiters informed Margaret that not everyone has a voice in their head and that this might just be a peculiar case of slow development.
“Only about 40%-50% of people even have an inner monologue,” she explained, shrugging her long black hair off of her shoulders, “Taylor may just have developed his a little later.”
“You don’t think there’s anything wrong with him?” she inquired, “You don’t think it could have to do with his headaches or the medicine he takes for them?”
“I don’t think that’s likely,” Terry replied with a frown, “But if anything should change, if you notice any difference in his behavior or if he complains about his headaches coming back don’t hesitate to call me. Something seems amiss here.”
Margaret was very embarrassed as she bundled Taylor into the car and she was not shy about letting him know.
“It’s really awful of you Tay,” she scolded, “When everyone is just trying to help, and you go and waste people’s time like that! I mean really! That poor doctor made a last-second appointment for us too!”
Taylor said nothing. He simply looked out of the window at the road rolling passed outside.
When they arrived home, Margaret sent Taylor to his room to think about what he had done while she made lunch, but upon arriving at his bed chamber he looked around the top of the stairs to check that the coast was clear and closed his door quietly behind him.
I think I fooled them, he thought to himself.
- Yeah, nice work.
Taylor had obeyed the voice’s instructions and had lied to the psychologist. He didn’t feel good about it and his parents had always taught him not to tell fibs, but when the voice painted a bleak picture of being labelled a freak and getting locked up in a psych ward to be experimented on by strange scientists, Taylor’s fifteen year old imagination confirmed it was in his best interest to comply.
After all, the voice was inside of him. Why wouldn’t it be looking out for the body in which it resides?
Over the next year Taylor became much more integrated with the voice in his head. It had been awkward adjusting to life without privacy, especially as a teenager, but Taylor managed, mainly due to the fact that he had no other choice. The two were literally inseparable and at first this was an interesting experience for Taylor. He didn’t have any siblings and his medical history had made making friends challenging.
There were also positive aspects to the new relationship. He didn’t have the nagging doubts anymore, he didn’t have moments when he questioned his own happiness. He wasn’t lonely. He now knew that the foreign emotions were just the resident in his mind and this understanding and distance brought him a sense of peace.
After concluding his new friend was here to stay, Taylor practiced building mind palaces so that the voice had its own residence. He studied methods of meditation so he could focus and visually recreate his bedroom almost exactly within his mind’s eye. When Taylor recreated his room he added an imaginary extension with an extra identical bed that he gave to the voice as a place to call its own. By creating a conceptual configuration of a physical place, the voice was able to materialize as a reflection of Taylor within the room.
I hope this is ok?
- This is great! Thank you! the voice replied, looking at itself in the mirror on Taylor’s wall, which eerily for Taylor, reflected an image of his normal self.
I figured since you’re your own person or whatever, that you needed your own space. Even if it’s imaginary.
- I noticed, the voice replied as a cheery sensation bubbled through Taylor’s head. The voice was always there, in the back of Taylor’s consciousness. He found that his thoughts and feelings were all shared automatically, as if he were an open book that the voice could read at its discretion. Although this connection was not mutual, as Taylor only occasionally received impressions of the voice’s feelings and only heard its thoughts when it shared them.
- Since I have my own space and appearance now, I was wondering if I could have a name?
Taylor hadn’t considered this before and as he did he felt a familiar feeling of impatience and apprehension, as he always did whenever he was coming to terms with his new companion.
I hadn’t thought of that.
- I know.
You don’t have a name?
- Our parents never gave me one.
Hearing the voice lay claim to Taylor’s parents was disturbing for him. He wasn’t practiced at sharing them with a real sibling, let alone an imaginary one who considered them his own.
Well they didn’t know you were here. Taylor felt a ripple of annoyance from the voice.
- Yeah, but you do.
True, Taylor conceded. He had always just started interactions with “Hey” or simply by thinking, because the voice was ever-present, watching his life from its passenger seat inside his head. He hadn’t needed a name to refer to it.
So, what do you want to be called?
- How about Ty?
Ty?
- Yeah, like Tay but without the ‘a’. Because I’m a part of you. Just a little piece.
I like that. Ok Ty, you’ve got a name! How does it feel?
Taylor felt a warm fuzzy feeling reverberate throughout his being. Ty seemed real happy.
As Taylor grew, his relationship with Ty become deeply intertwined. They began to do things that Ty enjoyed as well, more intellectual hobbies like reading and studying topics that aren’t available to students in high school, like the extreme physics of deep space or the evolution of maternal care in earwigs. Ty was extraordinarily curious about the world.
Taylor had always been more physically focussed, taking part in sports and having hobbies like climbing and skateboarding. He felt that he didn’t have the patience for more mindful activities and it led him to wonder if his historical lack of attention span was due to the presence of Ty constantly borrowing some of it. Taylor even began to rely on Ty for many things like school, which allowed him to zone out in class and still have someone to whisper the answers to him during the tests.
As the two minds developed together Taylor found himself receiving credit that he was not accustomed to. His parents were proud of his academic achievements for once which felt good for him, even if it was really Ty behind the scenes, and his counterpart’s intellectual prowess helped him when he was talking to girls that he was shy around in class. Taylor felt like he had a secret power that nobody knew about and he was was reveling in the unearned glory.
- Whoa, who’s that?
Taylor had just spotted a new student for the first time, an average looking girl to him, who had just joined their class. She had velvety brown locks that fell to her shoulders and a sparkling blue pair of eyes that shone with creativity.
I dunno, he thought back. Taylor wasn’t very interested in her if he was honest. He didn’t think she was very attractive personally. Her face was too round.
- What do you mean? She’s beautiful!
Taylor shifted his gaze down to look at his work book but he could feel Ty’s attention fixed on the new girl. Later on they would find out her name was Sierra.
Like Sierra Leone? That’s kind of weird. Taylor thought to himself.
- Sierra… It’s lovely.
Taylor could feel Ty being captivated by the new presence in class and he was fine with it until the end of the week when their teacher gave them a test and Ty was not forthcoming with the answers.
- I’m sorry pal, I was a little distracted. I didn’t remember a lot of what we learned this week.
Taylor felt frustrated as he looked at the pathetic excuses he had left for answers, randomly dotting the page because of a lack of consistent knowledge on the subject matter. He could have just done the work himself and he would probably have been able to get a B- or a C but he hadn’t bothered. He didn’t think he needed to. He’d been blindsided. Taylor felt a little betrayed by his reliance on Ty and the ghost in his mind took notice.
- I know. I didn’t mean it. I’ll pay attention in the future, don’t worry.
For a while, Ty kept by his word and Taylor’s test scores returned to the lofty highs they once had been, although he could still feel Ty’s attention glued to Sierra during class, but he didn’t mind as long as his grades were good. The young adolescent felt himself a very generous host for the bizarre anomaly of a second, conscious internal voice.
After a month, Ty said something randomly that confused Taylor.
- You can talk to Sierra whenever, I’ve been thinking about what you can say.
What do you mean talk? Why would I talk to Sierra?
- I don’t know. Just to spend time with her? Get to know her?
Yeah but, why?
- I don’t know. I just thought... Forget about it.
Taylor didn’t forget about it, because it didn’t make any sense to him. He was not one of those people that will often put these kind of things out of mind for their own attainment of peace. He felt a similar way about the question as he had when Ty had referred to Taylor’s parents as his own. There was an unnatural sense of possessiveness over his body that he didn’t like feeling. Like he was being challenged. He didn’t want to spend time with Sierra, and the embarrassment he detected from Ty was uncomfortable.
But what was he meant to do? Ty was here to stay. He didn’t know how he got there or why, but he also didn’t know that there was anything he could do about it. With Ty able to read his thoughts and feelings it would be impossible to take measures against him without them being seen coming from a mile away.
What could he even do? Remove Ty? How would that work?
Taylor felt himself flushed with fear and realized his mind had been wandering and Ty had been witness to it. He immediately felt ashamed. He had never meant for Ty to perceive these tasteless thoughts, Taylor just didn’t realize he was thinking them until it was too late.
He was going to apologize but then he stopped. Taylor felt like he had done something wrong, but had he? What had he done wrong? This was his body wasn’t it? He could do whatever he liked with it and he could think whatever he liked too. The restriction on his freedom rubbed him the wrong way.
Taylor was filled with indignation at his own shame and his temper grew hot like an iron in the furnace. With it he punctured the friendship he had with Ty through an unprovoked and vicious attack.
Stop reading my thoughts! They’re MINE! This body is MINE! I already let you stay here, just let me have me thoughts!
He could feel the hurt vibrate through him, the wound was deep and stung not only Ty’s personal feelings for Taylor but also his pride. Taylor could feel a small kernel of jealousy within the hurt however, and it drained any empathy he had for his counterpart.
I mean it! Stop reading my thoughts or I’ll never even look at Sierra again!
Taylor watched Ty sit down on the imaginary bed in their mind and turn his back to the center of the room and on Taylor. It was his way of pouting, and he claimed that when he did it, a mental barrier was created that prevented Taylor from communicating with him, but this time it left the teenager a little nervous.
Had he gone too far? What was Ty thinking right now? He could only guess and the possibilities didn’t fill him with feelings of comfort.
Taylor decided he needed to learn how to shield his thoughts from Ty so he could be free to think whatever he wished. The projected bedroom had worked, maybe he could use his mind to create a barrier between them, similar to the soundproof one Ty formed with his back turned.
Taylor sat down on the imaginary bed in his share of the imaginary bedroom and began to think of a cloud of smoke forming around him. He focussed on drawing the shape into a fully formed sphere before twisting it to make an armor shell that would prevent Ty from looking in, and as Taylor adjusted the image in his mind’s eye he solidified the sphere into a tough and opaque metallic substance that he sealed around himself.
After a few minutes Taylor had finished and he felt, for the first time in a very long time, that he was truly alone.
He hoped he was now safe to think whatever he wanted without feeling watched and this was such a relief for the boy. He wondered if he should do this all the time but realized he could not interact with the outside world like this. Was there a way to make a bubble around Ty instead? Taylor liked being able to think about whatever he wanted and thought about making a bubble around Ty for a while. He deduced the amount of focus that it required would be too debilitating. And plus, he didn’t want to hurt Ty. He just wanted to stop having to serve his needs and share everything with him, like looking for Sierra when she was around or doing certain hobbies in his spare time that he didn’t personally find interesting. It was frustrating to have to dedicate a portion of his life to someone else and get nothing in return.
Taylor reminded himself that his grades were good, and that Ty was helpful for certain things, but he surmised that he should try and find a way to remove the voice from his head if possible.
A few nights later, Taylor awoke to find himself sitting at the desk in his bedroom in his boxers. Before him lay a sheet of paper and upon it, written in malformed and disorganized lines, was the word ‘Sierra’ in the sloppiest handwriting he had ever seen. It took him a second to realize what was going on but when he did Taylor was furious.
Ty had been controlling his body while he was asleep.
What’s going on?
- I’m just practicing, Ty admitted willingly, I wasn’t going to do anything.
This is MY body Ty. NOT yours. You are NEVER allowed to control it again do you understand?
- What if I ask before next time?
NEVER.
Taylor felt a wave of heavy sadness sink through him but then Ty turned in on himself and the emotion suddenly cut mid feeling. Taylor felt only his own fear and indignation swirling around in his head now as he tried to figure out this predicament. He remembered to enshroud himself in the protective ball so he was free to think the thoughts and feelings he wanted, but once the ball was sealed, Taylor unleashed a hidden fury. He felt violated. The fires of his wrath scorched the interior of his imaginary sanctuary and left black, ugly burn marks scarring its insides.
How DARE Ty try to steal his body. It was as if giving the voice half of his life and attention span wasn’t enough! As if doing boring activities like reading and studying weird subjects WASN’T ENOUGH. Now it wanted him to spend time with Sierra, and wanted to practice using their body, HIS body, without even asking? Taylor was not only irate, he was scared. He wasn’t going to be able to go back to sleep tonight. If Ty could control the body while he was asleep, could he control it while Taylor was fully conscious? Would Ty be able to take Taylor’s body from him and imprison him within his own mind?
Taylor shuddered.
He sat in his bubble for hours trying to piece together the puzzle of his mental room mate. Then he had a thought. If he could create a protective bubble around himself to prevent Ty from perceiving his thoughts and feelings, could he create one around Ty? He had discarded the idea that it would be permanent previously, but perhaps he could do it momentarily in order to interact with the outside world in privacy. Could he then ask his parents for help in dealing with this spiritual parasite before Ty had an opportunity to react?
Taylor felt progress, he was hopeful that he could reclaim the entirety of his anatomy again and this motivated him more than he had expected. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Ty, it was just that he was young and wanted his body to himself. He wanted to be free.
When Taylor exited his bubble, he saw it was daylight outside and could hear his folks making breakfast in the kitchen. Taylor decided now was his opportunity when he saw that Ty’s back was still turned. His parents were both downstairs and if Taylor didn’t act immediately there was a chance that Ty could catch him daydreaming about his plan later on and suss it out before he had the opportunity to ask for help.
In one fluid motion, Taylor summoned a new swirl of smoke and twisted it into a metallic sheet that he cast around Ty to seal him inside.
The reflection never saw it coming.
In the same second Taylor ran out of his bedroom and sprinted down the stairs. He could feel Ty pushing against the imaginary prison in surprise, testing it for weaknesses where he could escape, but Taylor had been practicing his focus. He hurtled into the kitchen to startle his parents with his entry.
“Mom! Dad!” Taylor blurted out, “I need to get rid of the voice in my head but he hears everything! What do I do?”
Taylor’s parents looked stunned and looked at each other in confusion.
“PLEASE!” Taylor begged, “I can’t keep him locked up for much longer!” Margaret was flustered into a panic.
“Wha…wha…” she babbled.
“What was the name of that psychologist?” Anso asked.
“Oh, we should call Terry Waiters!” Margaret announced smiling broadly at the hope although her face was still painted a pale shade of concern.
“Yeah! Call her!” Taylor agreed in desperation, “Book an appointment! Don’t say anything about it to me please. Just tell me the date and time so I can prepare.” Taylor’s parents looked at each other with unsettled faces as Taylor ran back up the stairs and into his room, slamming the door behind him. He felt Ty push through the boundary he had created to contain him.
- What was THAT?
Ty was enraged.
Nothing.
- You just locked me up!
I was just playing around, Taylor lied, Don’t worry about it.
But Taylor knew the consciousness was indeed worrying about it. He could feel the aura of suspicion and anxiety that emanated from the corner of the imaginary bedroom where Ty made his residence and it left Taylor feeling subtly uncomfortable for days. Taylor’s mother let him know about the appointment with Dr Waiters, by reminding him with the words “your thing is tomorrow” which Taylor pleasantly noted did not create any disturbance in the emotional energy he was feeling from Ty. Hopefully the voice hadn’t figured out what was going on.
The next morning Taylor was very careful to control what he was feeling and thinking. He could sense Ty’s prying presence seeping into his thoughts and he knew this might be his one chance to find a solution to the unique problem he was having. When the time came to go and they climbed into the car, Ty asked where they were headed but Taylor was prepared. He had been meditating for a long time last night, hiding away in his safety sphere of privacy and plotting his steps carefully.
Taylor told Ty that they were going to watch Sierra play field hockey. She was on the girl’s team for their school and Taylor explained he wanted to surprise Ty with the visit. He was careful to imagine Sierra playing on the school hockey pitches to encourage Ty to believe him. He was comfortable that his plan was working as astonishment and happiness arose from Ty and swam within his own veins in a merry celebration of joy. Hopefully this excitement would distract him from the reality of their destination.
Taylor liked the way he was presently feeling, but couldn’t help being slightly stressed that the added disappointment of not seeing Sierra might make Ty more angry than if he was just silenced for the appointment, but Taylor could think of no other way to throw off the hound from the scent, and he was relieved to determine that his worries were not being picked up by his counterpart. He didn’t have a ton of confidence in his ability to disguise his intentions from Ty so distracting his attention was the next best thing that the fifteen year old could come up with.
Taylor had his plan all laid out, but there was a hiccup when Ty was puzzled by the direction they were going sooner than Taylor had expected.
- This isn’t the way to the field hockey pitches?
Taylor, unsure of what to do, panicked and created the imaginary bubble around Ty earlier than he had expected, sealing it as quickly as he could. The imaginary bedroom flooded with dark acrid smoke that Taylor immediately began weaving into his desired design. He visualized the the clouds solidifying into the two metal halves of the sphere, closing around Ty, with shock painted on his reflection’s face, and he melted them closed with bright imaginary welding flames. As the sparks subsided, he felt alone once more. Taylor could hear a banging from the inside but felt sure he was safe for now. He was briefly tempted to try using this method to live his life but again reckoned it required an enormous amount of his attention and would simply make living untenable. He also didn’t think he could do that to Ty because it would be incredibly cruel.
“Hurry mom, he noticed earlier than I thought he would.” Taylor insisted.
“Ok sweetie, ok.” Margaret replied, upping the speed another two miles an hour so she was going a riotous seven miles above the speed limit to her own personal horror. The two trundled along the quiet roads in silence while Taylor focussed on maintaining the metal orb in his mind. Slowing his breathing and meditating was the most effective means for him to do this. Every now and then he would hear noises from the inside as Ty tried to find a way out.
When they arrived, Taylor jumped out of the small car and rushed inside with his mother hot on his heels. He burst into the office, straining to keep the sphere closed with Ty trapped inside, and went straight to the secretary.
“Do you have an appointment today?” the old lady asked him sweetly.
“Yeah, for Taylor Malter,” he said, distracted by his inner turmoil.
“Date of birth?” As Taylor answered the receptionist’s questions his mother caught up and took over for him. The two then sat and waited for a few minutes before they were summoned into Dr Waiter’s office and each second was an agony for Taylor.
By this point Ty was trying to smash out of the confining sphere and it was requiring a lot of Taylor’s attention which made talking increasingly difficult, but he did his best.
“Hi Taylor, it’s good to see you again,” Dr Waiters greeted as he entered her office, “What seems to be the problem?”
“I lied before,” he admitted hurriedly, “I have a second voice in my head and it isn’t me. I need to get rid of him, he’s trying to take my body!” Dr Waiters looked at Margaret with surprise.
“When you say a second voice,” she began, leaving the question open for Taylor to finish.
“I mean there’s a voice in my head that isn’t me. It has different thoughts and feelings, thoughts and feelings that aren’t mine.” Sweat began beading on Taylor’s brow as he struggled to maintain the conversation while focussing on the prison sphere simultaneously.
“Like how? Do you have an example?” Dr Waiters asked. There was a loud crash from within the enclosure and Taylor could feel Ty exerting more force. It looked almost like there was a dent in its shiny silver surface.
“Uh…” he started distractedly, “He likes reading and stuff that I don’t like. He likes this girl in class that I don’t like. I think she’s just normal but he really likes her. He tried to write her name down. Uh…”
“The voice you mean?”
“Yeah,” he continued, “I woke up last week and I was sitting at my desk and I had been writing her name all over this page.”
“I see,” Dr Waiters said jotting something down on her notepad.
Taylor watched in horror as the welding seal that he had joined the two halves of the metal prison in his mind with began to tear apart. A small, dark crack had appeared a the center and began slowly stretching wider.
“Please,” he begged desperately, “I can’t hold him back much longer.”
Hands reached through the crack and started pushing the edges apart.
“That’s fine, just calm down Taylor,” reassured the doctor, “Does the voice have a name?”
“Yeah he’s called-“ Taylor started but at that moment the sphere in his mind blew apart with a loud boom that shook the interior of his skull and stunned the young man into silence.
For a second Taylor stared aghast at the nightmarish vision that hovered before him. Ty seemed to have transformed into a demonic monster with glowing red eyes filled with hate, a hulking figure encircled by dark swirling rings of fire and smoke.
Taylor’s nose began to bleed, his vision collapsed, and he fainted.
When Taylor woke up he was lying in his bed back in his room. He sat up and looked around to see Ty sitting on the second bed, looking like his normal self again, like Taylor’s reflection. Taylor realized that he was not at home at all. He was inside of his imagination. And yet everything looked and seemed entirely there. He could even feel the bed beneath him as dread gripped him. Was Ty altering the room?
“You’re trying to get rid of me,” Ty said aloud, looking up at Taylor. His eyes were no longer glowing and red but were the dark brown eyes of Taylor Malter.
“No I’m not.”
“I know who Terry Waiters is, Tay,” Ty rebuffed, “I know what you’re trying to do. You can stop lying to me.” Taylor could feel his face draining of color and despite the words he said, he didn’t have half of the bravado that they required.
“Fine!” he admitted, “Maybe I was! It’s MY body. I don’t see why I should have to share it. Nobody else has to read stupid books they don’t want to or spend time learning useless crap! It’s boring and it’s not fair!”
“What about me?” Ty roared in disbelief, “You think I enjoy living like this? Like a passenger in a car that is always driving in a direction I don’t want? Having no agency and being trapped to watch you live your life like a buffoon and that’s it? How do you think that feels?”
“Sounds like it sucks,” Taylor spat back venomously, “But that’s not MY fault! It’s not my fault you’re just here inside my head, I didn’t ask for this!”
Ty’s shoulders slumped as he contemplated their situation with a calm Taylor had never been capable of.
“Seems like neither of us will be happy like this.” he said quietly, gazing off at the imaginary floor.
“Yeah well, maybe you’re right!” Taylor acknowledged, “I don’t know how you got in my head or why but it’s not fair on me!”
Taylor stood up and the room disintegrated around him causing him to become incredibly light headed. As he rose, the room changed from his imaginary bedroom to an office with similar decor to that of Dr Waiters and the disorientation caused him to fall back onto the couch he had been lying on.
“Tay!” Margaret gasped in relief, “Tay! Oh my god! Honey are you ok?” Taylor looked around for a second while his head adjusted to the new location.
“Taylor, how are you feeling?” Dr Waiters asked once he showed signs of being resettled.
“My head hurts,” Taylor said. And it did.
There was a throbbing ache that washed over his being like waves crashing on the shores of his consciousness, each cascading slowly through him until they passed down, along his spine and faded in between his shoulders. Dr Waiters sent for some water and once Taylor had drunk his fill and was feeling better she tried asking him some questions despite his hesitancy to reply. When Taylor couldn’t openly respond she changed tact.
“Taylor, did you want to keep going with our appointment?” she asked. Taylor didn’t know what to say, he didn’t want to talk in front of Ty but he didn’t know what else to do. Dr Waiters suspected something was wrong and asked, “Would you like to book another appointment for when you’re feeling better?” Taylor nodded and said he would. He didn’t know what would be different about the next appointment, because Ty would still be there. What he did know was that he could not continue today.
He could feel Ty’s anger smoldering in the back of his hippocampus, no doubt ruminating on recent memories, and he was torn. He didn’t really want to get rid of Ty, but he did think that he, Taylor, deserved his own body. His own freedom. It wasn’t fair that he had to share with Ty and it made him upset to be in this situation.
On the drive home, Taylor was very quiet and it spooked Margaret. She waited until Taylor was safely out of earshot upstairs before informing Anso of what happened.
“He fainted?” Anso asked incredulously, “Is he all right?”
“He’s says he’s fine. He said he was restraining the voice so it couldn’t see what he was doing but it broke out.” Anso digested the words thoughtfully.
“A second voice in his head. You don’t think…”
“What dear?” Margaret asked on the verge of hysterics. She hadn’t felt this afraid for the wellbeing of her son in a long time.
“You don’t think it could have anything to do with his transplants right? I’ve heard of weird things occurring with those procedures.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” continued Anso, “I heard about one case where a guy had a heart transplant and then left his wife and kid for the widow of the donor. Said he loved her.” He heard Margaret gasp and met her gaze to see her bright wide eyes streaming with tears.
“Now, now,” Anso said trying to console his wife with a knowing smile, “It might have been a movie or something. I wouldn’t worry about it. What did Dr Waiters say?” Margaret dried her eyes and straightened herself up before replying.
“She booked Tay in for another appointment but we really didn’t get anywhere today. Right before Taylor could talk to us he fainted and he wasn’t in any state to continue after that.”
When Anso was not forthcoming with something to say Margaret nervously filled the conversational void.
“Oh Anso,” she sobbed, “I’m so worried about him. He’s been through so much!”
“Don’t worry dear,” Anso said holding his wife in his big burly arms and doing his best to make her feel better, “Taylor’s a tough puppy. And who knows? There might be a simple solution to this situation yet.”
That night Taylor awoke to once again find himself sitting at his desk with pen in hand. Before him was the most ugly letter he had ever seen, scrawled atrociously with barely legible handwriting and signed by Ty with a little cartoon heart. As Taylor read the letter, his own heart broke.
Ty had clearly been practicing for a while to get his handwriting legible enough to communicate this simplest form of affection, his distant love from afar, as clearly as he could. The letter was wonderfully expressive and it detailed how much he admired her attitude and was captivated by her strength and charm. Taylor had never felt affection for anyone like this before, and yet reading these words, he immediately understood how Ty felt. He felt tears welling up in his eyes.
I’m so sorry Ty. I didn’t understand.
- That’s ok.
Taylor felt embarrassed and childish. All of his whinging about having to share his body and here was the person he was sharing it with, unable to tell the one they love how they truly feel. Taylor could not imagine a more painful existence than being so unseeable that no one knows you’re even there to care about.
In that moment Taylor felt inspired and decided he wanted to help Ty and improve the life of the voice in his head. He didn’t know why it had picked him, but he would do his best to do right by it. Maybe he would talk to Sierra. Maybe they could start building a friendship that would be satisfactory for Ty. Taylor didn’t know, but he was hopeful, and with that feeling he got up from reading the letter and climbed back into bed.
The next day Ty was uncharacteristically quiet.
When Taylor checked his memory palace he found him out of reach, sitting facing away, deaf to Taylor’s attempts to talk to him. Taylor couldn’t help but wonder about the timing. He felt they had grown a lot together in their moment last night. He felt like his understanding of the depth of Ty’s feelings and their focus on Sierra, brought the two closer and he was grateful for that.
This left Taylor unsure about why Ty might be sulking, but he left Ty to himself for the day, deciding he might need some space after having his inner colors unearthed.
But Ty didn’t turn around the next day either.
Or the one after that.
Taylor became increasingly troubled. He checked in on Ty on the second day of silence but with his back turned, Ty’s lack of response supported what he had always told Taylor previously: he couldn’t hear him if he was on the other side of the barrier. Taylor didn’t know what to do. He had a test coming up on Friday and he hadn’t done any studying.
On the third day of silence Taylor tried to physically turn Ty on the bed to face him, but when he reached out the barrier shocked his hand. He yanked his injured limb back with a yelp and massaged it gently in his other as he stared at Ty’s silent revenge. Taylor had never tried to climb onto the bed he had added for Ty because he wanted to define that as Ty’s space.
Now he realized that maybe it was never up to him.
Taylor discovered that he didn’t know the extent of Ty’s powers. What else could the consciousness do? He could certainly maneuver Taylor’s body well enough to climb out of bed and write a love letter to Sierra. It seemed to him that Ty, with practice, had gained complete control of his body when Taylor was asleep.
But could he do it when Taylor was awake?
This thought stuck in the back of Taylor’s brain like a dart in a cork board. He was thankful that Ty was deaf to him in this moment, but Taylor shivered when he gave the thought more space to expand. Would Ty ever be able to do that? With practice? Take Taylor’s body from him by force? He had been able to break the enclosure Taylor had used to imprison him and that had only been after an hour or so.
Was Ty… stronger… than Taylor? What if it came down to a mental battle between the two?
Could Taylor win?
Taylor fled from the room in his mind for the safety and security of the real world. His appointment with Dr Waiters was next Tuesday and he might try to talk about it with her then but he didn’t want to risk making Ty angry by confining him again. He might only be able to use that trick one more time, if that.
Taylor figured the best approach was to sell the voice on the appointment as an opportunity to find out more about Ty’s nature and origin, rather than as a means of removing him. And Taylor hoped that maybe, when the day of the test came, Ty would come back on his own in order to keep their grades up. He couldn’t help feeling like it was a long shot, so he went to his backpack to retrieve his school books and began properly studying for the first time in almost a year.
It was difficult for Taylor to fall asleep due to his insecurities about losing control of himself, but he did eventually drift off into a restless and fitful slumber.
That night Taylor woke up again but he was not seated at his desk, he was standing at his window looking out at the shadowy street outside. He could see the neighborhood homes, quietly resting with their darkened windows and vacant gazes, lining the road just outside of the glow of the streetlights. He went to uncross his arms and head back to bed but he couldn’t move.
His body wouldn’t budge.
Taylor felt a pang of fright begin to simmer in the pit of his stomach as his thoughts raced through his options. He entered into the bedroom of his mind to see that Ty was standing by the window exactly where he had been, looking out at an imaginary street as a perfect mirror image of himself.
“Ty what’s going on?” Taylor demanded, but Ty ignored him.
“TY!” he shouted, stomping across the room to grab his reflection’s shoulder and forcibly take the attention he was being denied.
But Taylor never made it to Ty.
The sound-proof barrier that had defended the bed from Taylor had been somehow expanded to include the window and the desk and when he collided with it he was thrown across the imaginary space. He collapsed on his bed in a heap and groaned in pain. Taylor now only had access to two thirds of the room’s empty floorspace, his own bed and the door.
“Ty,” he pleaded, “Ty what’s going on? What are you doing to the room?” His answer came in a sudden, spine tingling glance when Ty met Taylor’s eye for the first time in days. His face was twisted in a malicious smirk, Taylor’s smug reflection looking back at him. Looking down on him.
Taylor knew in an instant what the expression on Ty’s face meant.
He was intending to take control of the body from Taylor.
Taylor didn’t know how long the plan had been in effect or how much practice was still required on Ty’s part before he could claim total control, but his ability to shut Taylor out of parts of his own memory palace and the actions Ty had been rehearsing each night filled Taylor with an existential dread. What was going to happen if Ty took over? Would he be able to see what was going on? The things Ty was doing with his body and with the people he loved? Would Taylor ever be able to feel a hug from his mom again? Or feel his dad run his hand fondly through his hair? Would he be stuck in this room all day every day like solitary confinement with no knowledge of the outside world?
Suddenly the weight of Taylor’s situation crushed him. If Ty eventually got bored of sharing his every waking moment with Taylor, just as he had with Ty, would the voice be able to enclose him in a sphere like Taylor had done? Could he be trapped in a dark void for the rest of his life, left alone to go mad in his own nonexistence?
Tears started to roll down Taylor’s cheeks as his young heart pounded in terror. He thought things had changed with the letter. He thought things were looking up for their relationship, and now, not only was he losing his friend, he was potentially facing down the brunt of years of vengeance stored secretly until it could be unleashed.
Ty saw the tears and he paused, but then he threw his head back and laughed maniacally despite producing no sound for Taylor to hear. He pointed at Taylor, and disdainfully shouted something wordless with a grin, and then he continued to laugh.
Taylor remembered the red glowing eyes of the demon that had broken out of his prison, and wondered if this scenario was of his own making. There was no recognizable feature of the old Ty left in those eyes. In Taylor’s eyes. A pair of deep molasses brown beauties stared right back at him, but they glimmered with a fiery hatred that had been stoked through years of immature mistreatment.
For the second time in a week, Taylor fled from his own mind in fright.
Taylor couldn’t sleep. He paced his bedroom for three hours until the summer dawn broke like a sardonic smile upon the world. His imagination was spinning through an assortment of horrifying futures all of which were definite possibilities for Taylor regardless of how realistic they seemed.
When his mother finally came to wake him for school he told her he wasn’t feeling well and begged her to let him stay home, to which she reluctantly agreed. When Taylor mentioned it was a headache and she looked into his eyes, she saw genuine pain. Her son thanked her profusely and before she could turn and leave his room, he rushed to her and threw his arms around her in a hug. For a moment the two embraced and Taylor held his mother with a fear that he might never get to again. He smelled her perfume, the one he hated, and it brought tears to his eyes.
“Tay, is everything ok?” Margaret asked him, “You’re acting strange.”
“I’m ok Mom,” he sniffled, “It’s nothing, don’t worry. I just can’t go to school today.”
“Tay, you have me really worried, what’s up?”
“Nothing,” he repeated, “I’m going to lie down.”
“Tay?”
“Please mom,” Taylor said flashing her the most reassuring smile he could muster, “I’m really tired, I’m just gonna lay down.” Margaret uneasily watched her son climb into bed and turn over to face the wall before she left the room and slowly closed the door behind her.
Taylor waited until he heard his father drive away to work but remained in bed and checked on Ty, whose back was once again turned to him. He waited until after his mother came up to check on him before heading to the shops to buy groceries for dinner, and only then did he roll out of bed and creep down the stairs to the list of phone numbers the family kept pinned to a cupboard door in their kitchen.
Aside from skipping the test today, this was the real reason he stayed home. He looked at the page of numbers and about halfway up the list was the number for Dr Waiters’s office. Taylor typed the digits into his cell phone and started pacing until he was finally, after several urgent requests, put through to the good doctor herself.
“Hi Taylor,” her voice crackled down the line, “My assistant tells me this is an emergency?”
“Yeah! Hi! Oh thank God!” Taylor stammered, “He’s taking over. He’s taking over my body right now!”
“Ok Taylor, calm down for a second. Can you take a deep breath for me?” Taylor nodded and then remembered to say ‘yes’ before gulping down a few deep breaths to help get himself back under control.
“Ok now tell me what’s happening?” Dr Waiters asked with an air of trepidation.
“The voice in my head, he’s been practicing at night when I’m asleep!” Taylor explained hurriedly, “He’s getting stronger and he’s getting control over my body. He’s cutting me off from parts of my brain! I’m going to be trapped! Please! You’ve got to help me!”
“The voice is practicing with your body?”
“YES!” Taylor cried out.
“Ok, don’t worry, “ she said, “We’ll get this straightened out. Do you think you will be ok until our next appointment?” Taylor shook his head in misery as he considered not sleeping for the weekend and then remembered to say ‘no’ down the line.
“When is the next time you’d be able to get in? Do you know? Is your mother home?” Taylor informed her that he was alone at the house.
“Ok, well when your mother gets home could you have her call me Taylor?” Dr Waiters asked, “And we’ll get you in ASAP to see if we can’t fix this problem you’re having, ok?” Taylor said that he would.
“In the meantime I have a few things you can try to help until she’s back. Techniques that might give you more control until we next meet, would you like to hear them?”
“Yes! Please!” Taylor yelled.
“Ok, so the first thing you could try is t-“ Taylor couldn’t hear what Dr Waiters said next because his head was suddenly filled with the sound of screaming. Taylor grabbed his ears with a cry, letting the phone fall and clatter loudly on the floor.
It was Ty.
He was shrieking at the top of his imaginary lungs and he was filling Taylor’s head with a raucous din. Taylor wouldn’t be able to hear Dr Waiters even if he hadn’t dropped the phone. He couldn’t hear anything but the cacophonous noise echoing in between his thoughts. He was unable to focus on anything, he could barely think.
Taylor was paralyzed until Ty stopped, a motionless ball, curled on the floor in pain, wincing from the echoes of his mind. When Ty’s voice subsided, Taylor was left shaking on the cold tile floor of the kitchen, cheeks streaked with tears and head pounding in agony. He looked around and saw his phone lying not far from him, so he reached out and put the receiver to his ear. He could hear Dr Waiters calling his name and asking if he was all right. Before he could say anything the shrieking began again and Taylor hung up the phone in the hopes that the sound would cease.
Thankfully it did.
Taylor sat up on the terracotta colored tiles with his back against the steel refrigerator and cried. What could he do? Ty was going to take over his body no matter what he did. He couldn’t get help, he couldn’t do anything. He was looking at a bleak future ahead with no escape. Taylor thought about watching Ty live his life, interacting with his parents for him, spending all his time with Sierra.
And then he remembered the look he had been given. The burning fury of vengeance that had resided within Ty’s eyes, and Taylor knew that his imprisonment would be more severe than he was currently predicting. He could sense Ty reading his thoughts and agreeing with his sentiments.
Taylor was mortified.
He would rather be dead than trapped inside of the darkest place in the depths of his own mind for the rest of his days.
Suddenly Taylor’s dark eyes lit up. For the first time in a long while Taylor felt a sliver of hope. It was an awful choice to have to make, but it was the only way he could see himself as being truly free.
His body vibrated with an intense panic in response. Ty knew of his escape plan.
- You’re not serious?
Despite hearing the voice, Taylor refused to meet it face to face within his mind. He was too scared of never leaving.
Well look who’s finally talking again.
- You’re not serious right?
I don’t really see that you’ve left me any other options.
- You’d prefer to kill us both than see me happy, is that it?
This has nothing to do with you Ty. It never did. You were just a complication. This is all about me.
- You’re so selfish! You’ve always been so selfish!
Taylor could feel the fire behind Ty’s words, the resentment. Their heat choked Taylor like a black cloud of smoke and brought tears to his eyes.
This is YOUR fault! I thought things would be better after I read your letter! I wanted to help!
- That letter was never for you to read!
I wanted to help you Ty. I wanted things to be different.
- You just wanted things to go back to how they were!
That’s not true!
- You’re lying!
Taylor looked around the kitchen. How would he do it? How could he escape from this nightmare? He jumped up and ran for the big chopping knife on the kitchen counter but right as he grabbed the handle his arm rebelled.
It wouldn’t bring the knife.
Taylor couldn’t move. He was paralyzed! The two forces were both trying to operate the body at the same time bringing it to a standstill. Taylor almost screamed in frustration as he desperately battled for control of his body.
Ty could move it while he was awake!
It was only a matter of time before he had full control and Taylor was riding shotgun, forever silenced within his own skull.
Taylor had a glimpse of that future, images rushing through his imagination as he invented his own suffering in real time. Something snapped in him. He screamed and brought the knife to his wrist, practically stabbing it through the joint, feeling the cold metal scrape the skin with an unnatural sting. He cried out in pain as he felt warm blood spilling out of him, draining onto the floor, and he laughed madly. He could feel the fear rising up within him and knew that it was not his.
This was Ty’s fear.
Taylor was no longer afraid, he was determined to win his freedom. He gasped as he pulled the knife from his wrist and swapped it to his left hand to repeat the procedure but he felt Ty seizing control again. The two struggled back and forth, pushing and pulling the arm away and towards their impending mutual doom.
YOU CAN’T HAVE MY BODY! Taylor bellowed at the figment of his imagination, but the overwhelming force of the hatred that exploded from inside of Ty in response nearly knocked Taylor unconscious. He desperately held on to his perception, focussing all of his energy on being present.
He took a deep breath and settled himself.
Taylor continued to check his breathing while putting the rest of his attention into pushing the knife forwards. His brow furrowed from the strain and it took every ounce of his energy to steady himself and continue his contest against Ty, but gradually he was gaining. Slowly but surely the culinary tool descended towards his right wrist which was rising to meet it. Inching towards each other through the sheer effort of Taylor’s will.
Suddenly the front door opened and snapped Taylor’s attention, and he spun around in surprise to see his mother had returned home from the shops. He slipped on the blood that was pooling on the floor and flipped backwards, smashing his head on the soapstone counter and knocking himself out cold.
Margaret and Anso Malter sat side by side in Taylor’s hospital room for the first time in years, waiting for their only son to awake from his medically induced coma. The loss of blood and the head trauma had done some serious damage and the doctors were not certain that he would fully recover. Margaret squeezed Anso’s hand tightly as silent tears trickled down her sunken cheeks and she thought back to all of the previous times she had been to this very same hospital because of this very same child.
Poor Taylor.
Right from birth he had been fighting for his life, almost so much so that he could nearly call the hospital his second home. It had been so long since Taylor had needed to return to this dreary place. Margaret had hoped their visits might’ve been behind them.
Then, Taylor stirred slightly and both of his parents leapt out of their seats and knelt beside him to watch his eyelids flick open and to catch his deep brown eyes gazing back at them. He leaned forward and looked confused as he searched around the room but then they saw understanding spread across his face. He relaxed back into the pillows of his hospital bed with exhaustion stretched across his features. Margaret started weeping.
“Hey Tay buddy,” Anso said gently, “How are ya feeling?” Taylor’s focus moved from his mother to his father before he answered shakily.
“I’m feeling OK, Dad,”
“What happened?” Anso continued, “You had us really scared there for a second buddy.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to,” Taylor explained, “It was the voice! I didn’t know what else I could do! He was taking over my body! I was so scared.”
Margaret and Anso shared a troubled look.
“Are you ok now son?” Anso asked hesitantly, “Is the voice still trying to take over your body?” Taylor sat back and processed this for a second.
“No,” he replied finally, “I don’t think he’ll be a problem anymore.” Margaret unleashed a new torrent of tears in relief and buried her face in the sheets on the hospital bed.
“That’s good to hear,” Anso said with a soft smile “You see honey, I told you there might be a simple solution to this situation. It seems we’re all better are we?” He directed the last part at Taylor who smiled broadly and nodded in agreement.
“I think I’m all better.”
“Excellent,” Anso said standing, “Margaret you wait here with Tay and I’ll go talk to the nurses and tell them he’s awake.” Margaret nodded through her sniffles.
“Hey dad?” Taylor asked.
“Yeah Tay what is it?”
“From now on, could you call me Ty?”
© 2025 Sebastian Arends | Sincerely Seb. All Rights Reserved
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