The first time it happened I didn’t even know it was happening. Even after I looked in a mirror and the face I’d come to finally accept was gone it took some time before I really believed it. Like three bodies later. That was when I finally accepted it. It was real.
I felt something different each time I jumped, but the strongest feeling which wasn’t something I could control. It never changed. The feeling, I couldn’t describe, I just knew it had always been there. I thought everyone felt the same thing until one day I realized they didn’t. I realized I was different.
The first body I jumped into was an old man. The reason: he wouldn’t leave me alone. I’d go to the store and he’d be there. I’d go to school he’d be across the street. At first I thought nothing of it- of him. I figured it was a coincidence at first.
I was ten, the same age as my daughter. I didn’t know evil existed then.
I finally took notice when I saw the old man standing outside my house. Then he was on my porch, and then he was inside my house. Before he touched me I already knew what his intentions were.
It was like his thoughts were my own. That was my first time jumping. I knew instantly what he planned to do to me, and what he would say if he was caught. I was terrified, I remember that. I was scared paralyzed by it then suddenly I wasn’t.
My fear evaporated and in its place I felt only excitement. My insides tingled with it. I know now it was him I felt. They were his feelings, but at the time I thought it was me.
Instinctively, I latched onto the feelings of excitement. It felt weird but good. I just knew it was much better than my fear so I ignored what I felt and followed the good feelings. It didn’t take long for me to make the transfer.
What I remember most was the heat. It felt like I was sweating from the inside out. My face, my eyes, my skin, my bones, my entire body was on fire. I know now that feeling was me taking over. It was me killing him.
Matter is funny that way. No two souls, I learned can ever exist together. One has to leave in order for the other to live. That’s how I did it. It was how I took someone’s body over. There was never a fight, just a shock then acquiescence as I took control melted into what was them and eased them out. I locked in on their emotion whatever it was then I squeezed in and that’s when the burn began. I burned them with my heat. Sometimes I thought I could hear them scream as they left their body like toothpaste from its tube. Then just like that they were gone, and it was just me. Where they went I didn’t know, but their body was mine afterwards for as long as I wanted or needed it.
Afterwards I remember looking down at the girl on the ground. The little girl was me, or what was left of me. The old man’s hands were still wrapped around the throat of my ten year old body.
I remember thinking it was all a dream. A really weird and wild dream that I couldn’t wake from no matter how badly I wanted to.
I didn’t know what to do, so I ran. I ran and ran until I couldn’t run anymore.
The old man wasn’t the only kill I made that day. Initially I thought I was still sleeping and having some trippy dream. So I figured if it was a dream I might as well see what else I could do. I’d taken two more bodies before I admitted it wasn’t a dream, but it took me years before I figured it all out- what I could do.
My mind played tricks on me for a while. I drifted. I had no one to talk to, nothing to live for other than my work. There was no one until Caitlynn.
My life had been an unwanted battle against evil before her. I saved many lives, but I killed many more to do it. I died more times than I cared to remember, but when Caitlynn came along it all changed. I gave birth to a living metronome. Caitlynn kept me in sync with the world around me.
She was my anchor, my rock. I could no longer be pulled into the lives of people without leaving her behind, and that I wouldn’t do. I couldn’t leave her behind like I’d been left behind.
I’d created a life for her, and I didn’t want to lose it. I wouldn’t lose it.
I had to get her back, but first I had to find her.
####
I saw the flashing lights ahead, the car at the bottom of the embankment off the highway its hood hidden by the trees as if it had been run off the road. Traffic was at a crawl but I pulled next to the first responder cars.
As soon as the black and white cruiser came to a stop I was out and running. I knew it was Caitlynn. She was close. I could feel her. I ran hard and fast but before I could make it to the car I was tackled to the ground.
“Miss,” I heard a man yelling as I clawed at the gravel. “Miss stop it’s over, she’s gone,” he yelled, but I wouldn’t stop I couldn’t. My Caitlynn wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be. I elbowed the officer in the face stunning him and once again I was on my feet running towards the car and its trunk which was gaping wide open.
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Southern Fried Honeybee 