I will destroy him and be left in blessed solitude, alone to my own thoughts and all I want, with no one threatening to take it from me the moment my eyes close in sleep!
My breath comes faster.
This is it.
This is what I’ve wanted for millennia.
Freedom.
A body that’s truly mine.
No more waking up to find he’s undone everything I worked for.
No more feeling him judge me, hate me, wish me gone.
I shut my eyes and fling my arms out.
A buzzing starts in my ears, and I see it so perfectly, what I could not before. Perhaps it is the bursting energy inside me; perhaps I was willingly blind out of some misguided affection or reliance on the parasite who was only ever holding me back.
But I see him now. Our body in golden outline projected perfectly in my mind and the exact lines demarcating where I can cauterize the neurons that are him so that only I remain.
In my new godly state, what seemed impossible is now child’s play.
His outer face will be easy to slice off, then I can grow hair where he once was so that finally,finally, I will be a whole man.
I exhale in satisfaction, imagining how her eyes will glow when she sees me flying down to her in a triumphant return. Alone. Just like the first moment I met her.
I remember the moment so well, burned into my memory. Eyes wide in shock and then interest, she all but glowed when I announced my intentions and raised her hand as a volunteer to be my consort. The only brave one as everyone else fled.
Her bravery has only continued to impress me, never once turning her face or embrace away from me, no matter what the circumstances of being with me have thrown at her. Not missiles or strange creatures from other planes of existence or?—
Or him.
The power builds. I can feel the neural connections lighting up in my mind like a map. There. And there. And there. Just a few precise divisions and he’ll be gone. Forever.
My arms tremble. The buzzing gets louder.
I begin.
The first cut is surgical. Clean. I feel it slice through our shared consciousness, severing connections that have existed since before we drew our first breath.
There’s resistance. Not from Romulus—he’s still asleep, unaware of what I’m doing—but from the body itself, trying to maintain its integrity.
I push harder. More power. The glow inside me flares brighter, hotter.
The second cut goes deeper. I feel something shift, something fundamental in the architecture of our being. Like a building losing a support beam. The buzzing becomes a roar.
“I always dreamed of finding adventure,”her voice whispers through my memory.“But I also dreamed about finding someone who’d fight for me. Not just fight with me around, butforme. Ya know?”
I grit my teeth and continue. Third cut. Fourth. I’m halfway through the separation now, and I can feel Romulus starting to slip away. His presence, always there in the back of my mind like an itch I couldn’t scratch, begins to fade.
Good. This is what I want. What I’ve always wanted.
Fifth cut. Sixth.
And then I feel it. The moment his consciousness flickers. Not asleep anymore. Something worse. Dying.
Our body spasms in space. Pain lances through me—through us—and for the first time since we were forged, I feel truly alone inside this skull.
