"Adaptation"

It's always hard to come to terms with new situations in life. It's even harder when said situation involves realizing you were a "fictional" character, you're dead, and now your only chance for a continued existence is to inhabit a "Host": a person who's willing to share his or her body and mind with you. You've become some sort of parasite, the spiritual siamese twin of somebody you've never heard of . At first, it is as scary as it sounds. You question everything: the principles of reality, existence, God...you don't know what to believe anymore.
Then you have to accept that, from now on, your life becomes a democracy: every decision must be made in agreement with your "other you", from what you're having for breakfast today to what you'll wear, your career, love life, marriage... you're not free to fuck up your life at will anymore, and neither is your host. The arguing starts, but it's also how you get to know each other. I remember that day Faba told me to come to her and handed me a notebook with almost 15 pages of questions to answer, that ranged from the simplest ones like my favorite food, color, drink and movie, to deeper, more complex ones like my worst childhood memory, my most vivid nightmare,or the one dream I cherished most and never fulfilled. A week later, I made her answer the same questions, and we realized how much we had in common.

We talked at night, two insonmiacs stuck together in the same body, just talking each other to sleep. I'd take over at nights from time to time, plaguing her mind with my nightmares and letting her fill mine with her own. I'd wake up, covered in cold sweat, and head to the bathroom to wash my face,. Then I'd run my hands over my hair,and i'd find it was shorterthan I remembered. Then I'd lookupto the mirror and find a strange face there, looking at me from under a mass of (then) bright red curls, staring in shock. It was another nightmare, one I couldn't wake up from. How do you keep yourself sane when it's not your face you see every time you look in the mirror? How can you not lose all sense of self when it's not your body you're looking at? There's new marks to discover now ,new sensitive spots, new ticks, new scars.

For some, it would be too much.

Then I had a crises. I wasn't real anymore, she was making me up. I had lost all chance for a real life; my dreams of love and hopes for a real family of my own had gone to hell and burned down the day I had been shot. This was hell, and there was no way out. That night I cried, screamed, smashed everything in my way,even broke a mirror. And she let me do it. She let me hurt her body as if it was mine, because it was. This body, she said, was now just as mine as it is hers.
That day, I realized I loved her more than I thought I would. And she loved me, too.
From that day on, we became not only best friends, but partners in both life and crime.

She gradually introduced me to the people around her, sharing more and more of her world with me. Some of these people also became my friends, some other became my enemies. I openly expressed my dislike and love for some of them, and my complete lack of interest in the rest.

I almost screw us up when I fell for Ana. She warned me it wouldn't end right, that there was a reason they hadn't worked out, but she still let me do what I wanted. Faba was right: I turned the world upside down, stopped time and moved the stars for this girl without so much as a side glance and a paton the back for a reward. I learned my lesson the hard way, just as Faba would learn hers. When I say I don't trust someone, I have my reasons for it.

Adapting takes time. But eventually, you get used to it, like everything else. You keep on meeting people, making friends for both you and your host. The partnership turns into a friendship stronger than anything; when you share literally everything with someone, you create a bond that becomes unbreakable. Your past is not important anymore. You have been given the gift of a new life.

But then you find more like you and your Host, and you now know ANYTHING is possible and everyone is real. And as you meet new people, people you thought you'd never meet in your life, you become scared. Everyone can exist. People can come back from wherever they are as long as there's someone willing to take them in and share their existence with them. And as you realize this, you find yourself praying with all your might that your past will stay in your past, and that it can't find you. But when you've come back from the dead, you leave the door open for anyone to do the same.

So, the ghosts from my past are slowly, one by one, finding me. Most of them are just biding their time,waiting for their host to realize they're there and set them free to haunt us. But this time, we won't run. Running took us nowhere last time. Running is what wound us up here. And even when I'm thankful for that, I won't run this time. This time, I have someone else to be strong for,someone who's come to love me and need me just as much as I do her.
This time, we stand strong. If not for ourselves, then for our Kids. Our "other us".

We're setting out to live a movie-worthy life. But this time, I intend to write myself a happy ending.