Elliot's POV

"After the still, the storm follows."

—Elliot Starfall

My breath trembles as I move, one shaking step after another. The world is dark, yet it burns like day. Flames consume the horizon, the light of a thousand torches spilling over the coast. Below me, my people die—slaughtered, screaming, stripped of their humanity—and I don't move. I stand above them, motionless.

And the worst part—I don't feel bad.

No. He doesn't feel bad. Eriksson—the body I'm trapped inside—feels anger, yes, disgust toward the men who rape, who kill. But not sickness. Not guilty enough to clench his teeth. He must see them as animals, lowlifes desperate to feel powerful for once in their miserable lives. He must see them as others do.

Why am I thinking like this?

Their cries echo, and I want to feel rage. I should feel it. But something in his blood—his calm, his coldness—seeps into me; my thoughts scatter.

Then memories flood my mind, foreign, but burning as if they genuinely are mine: a man aflame in the night. His voice is screaming without air. The memory is fresh, as if from days ago. I want to retch, to close my eyes, but I can't.

My hands tremble, yet my body stays upright, unbroken.

Across the ledge stands Elena—a small girl with frail orange-brown hair and the faint, warm hue of Orange in her eyes. Eriksson feels something for her. Something fierce, protective. The way I once felt for Ren. Light.

The thought of him cleaves me in two. My chest tightens. My breath falters. But those aren't my movements, they are Eriksson's.

Elena sits beside the other children on the mountain bird, her face soft, her laughter brief, like sunlight fighting through ash.

Eriksson's heart stutters, the muscles in my arm tense. He wants to run to her, to grab her, to take flight and escape everything burning below. I feel it: every pulse, every instinct. But I am a ghost inside his skin.

"Some of them are ready to seal off," I hear myself say. The words slip from Eriksson's mouth in my own voice, hollow and distant. I hate it.

Harmon stands beside me on the cliff, eyes raised toward the Golden moon. "Vis is handling it. Your part starts soon."

His voice is calm, but his gaze never lowers. I follow his line of sight, tracing the heavens as if answers were hidden there.

Aston stands to my rights, focused. To the left, Vis chants near the barrels. Lenny, his bald head glistening with sweat, rolls the last one forward. And then there's Elena again. She laughs, surrounded by children, Amber watching over them.

The sounds blend. Screams, whispers, crackling fire. I want to cry too, to break free from this cage of flesh that isn't mine. But my body—his body—keeps breathing. Keeps standing.

Then he moves toward Elena.

The tremor in his limbs oppresses me. My—his—hands reach for her, trembling. I hug her. It's wrong. It feels like stealing something pure from a world already poisoned. My skin burns, not from touch but from shame; a sickness curls in my stomach, a hatred for myself, for him, for everything.

I shouldn't be here. I shouldn't exist inside him.

The hug lingers too long. Too human. And yet, in that stolen moment, the noise fades. The screams vanish. For a heartbeat, it almost feels like peace.

"Don't look at me for the next minutes," I whisper through his lips. "No matter what you hear from me."

Pulling away, she blinks up at me, confused, her small fingers twitching. I turn before she can speak.

Lenny stands beside eighteen barrels now, stacked in a tight half-circle. Vis raises his hands, his words low and sharp, a language older than reason. The words are gibberish, but the rhythm burns into me, as if it would linger on my tongue—iron, smoke, and something divine.

Now.

Harmon's voice cuts through everything. He's still staring at the sky, at the Golden moon that grows brighter, larger, ready to shift its color. Ready to bleed.

Lungs—not mine, but Eriksson's—empty every memory.

Each motion follows the next, mechanical. I am not in control, and nothing but a passenger in his flesh, seeing through his eyes, hearing through his ears, drowning in a life that isn't mine.

The world around me hums. Light flickers, the moon trembles; air vibrates as if the island itself is alive. I want to run, but I can't. I want to scream, but the voice isn't mine to use.

I am a visitor without an invitation.

-----A/N-----

—Bloody Potato out

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