Dante materialized on the office floor. A blue light engulfed him, and he felt himself being put back together piece by piece at a rapid pace. The sensation was alien—no heartbeat, no breath, an overwhelming awareness of his form reconstructing itself.

  Dante reacted with a startled gasp and discovered himself lying on the floor. Cold linoleum pressed against his face. That fact sat in his mind without translating into discomfort. However, not everything was as it seemed. He pushed himself up, finding the movement almost effortless. His body felt impossibly light yet dense as if strength was no longer bound to muscle and sinew but something deeper. Usually, his vision was blurry when he first woke up, whereas this time it was clear. Everything around him was vibrant and colorful. Even his own body felt energized.

  “Now where am I?” He muttered, his voice sharper and clearer, unnatural to his ears. He stood to his feet. The room was familiar as Tyr’s office, but everything was different. Vibrant, heightened. Colors weren’t only brighter; they were alive. The red flowers on the desk were excessively red, pulsing with exuberance. The scent of toner and paper from the neatly stacked documents crashed into his awareness like a wave, sharp and distinct. He could practically feel the ink embedded in the fibers of the paper.

  Dante rubbed his forehead in confusion, “Right… I was in Tyr’s office… And then she…” He looked at the couch expecting blood stains but it was clean. “I thought she… huh!?”

  His gaze dropped to his chest, and there it was—the module. A swirling blue orb embedded in his sternum, humming softly with energy. He hesitated, then tapped it with a finger. A pulse of light radiated outward. It wasn’t warm or cold, but it resonated deep within him, like an extension of his being.

  “Is… that a module? Tyr showed this to me before she…” A shudder through his body was felt. The module felt warm and energetic against his palm. “She… put this inside me.” He exhaled, staring at it. The reality of it pressed into his mind, but he felt no stomach lurch, no racing heartbeat. Like a gnawing awareness that something fundamental had changed. After a further look at his exposed body down to his feet, he learned that he was naked. “Uh… what the?”

  His fingers ran over his arms, his chest, his abdomen. Hard as stone, yet smooth as glass. Strength coiled beneath his skin, effortless and absolute. His physique was sculpted, a far cry from the soft, untrained form he had before.

  "Tyr… what did you–" His eyes widened when his fingers brushed against something soft and feathery that twitched at his touch. A strange sensation lingered on his back beneath his shoulder blades. Curiosity compelled him to a nearby mirror. As he moved, he felt a strange pulse running through him but it was not a heartbeat. The module in his chest seemed to be the core of emotions such as pulse racing or stomach lurching; every little emotion emanated from the module and coursed through his body. When he finally looked into the mirror, his reflection was shockingly unexpected.

  His body was definitely sculpted, like he spent every day in the gym, carefully maintaining his physique. But that could not be further from the truth. He had not worked out in years, and a steady diet of greasy fast food combined with hours of sitting around should has left him soft and out of shape for longer than he could remember. Against all logic, he still looked like a statue carved from stone.

  “This cannot be real… I must be dreaming…” He said as he touched the face that looked back. It was unfamiliar, flawless, too perfect. His cheekbones were sharp, his jaw defined, his complexion unblemished.

  He glanced at his hair and noticed it was no longer messy or unkempt. Instead, it had become short, neat, and soft. Then he looked into his eyes, which reminded him of Tyr's as they swirled with endless cerulean light and an unearthly glow.

  “That’s not me… is it!?” He leaned into the mirror, examining his face closely. Touching his face profusely, his skin reacted to his touch. “Yeah, it's me alright.”

  Above all, the most incredible change was the massive black wings that extended from his shoulder blades. Wide-eyed in astonishment, his hands reached out instinctively to touch the feathers. Each feather felt sharp and hard, like a razor blade, yet soft as bird feathers, and did not cut him. He extended a wing, it shined and shimmered similarly to Tyr’s, although his wings were dark as night. As he moved the wing around, he heard a slight scraping sound, like metal rubbing against metal.

  “She did make me like her… if that’s the case, then that means… she’s not human?” he said to himself.

  “That’s right. She’s not human.” A deep voice within his mind spoke. Thick and dark as a graveyard, and yet clear as day. It echoed through him with a startling discomfort.

  “What… who are you? What are you?” He looked around the room and realized no one was there. “Where are you?”

  “Dante.” The voice sighed, exasperated. “What you saw was a memory. You and I have been one since the dawn of your conception. I have wandered your reality for so long until I finally became a part of you.”

  Dante narrowed his glowing eyes. “No. Nope. Not happening. This is a dream. A messed-up, ultra-vivid nightmare.”

  “If only. I can assure you, this is no dream and what you saw was no dream.” The voice spoke calmly. “The one you know as Tyr was able to awaken us with the module’s power. We should thank her soon.”

  “What did she do to me!?” Dante demanded.

  A slow chuckle rumbled through his skull, dark and amused. “She freed us from the prison of reality.”

  He was unsure of what to make of that response. “What do you want from me?”

  “You are my host.”

  Dante scowled. “Host? You mean prisoner, right?”

  The voice rasped in humor, “Eh, semantics.”

  “Just tell me what you want!” Dante pleaded.

  “Return me to my home,” it requested softly.

  Dante couldn’t believe the nerve of the voice, “Your home? I don’t even know where you came from!”

  “Were you not paying attention or were you too busy daydreaming? The dark place void of time and space, light and dark, recall my memory?” The voice rasped.

  Dante frowned. “The… void. As in, the thing in video games? The most overused cliché location in sci-fi?”

  “Do not compare my existence to your trivial distractions.”

  Dante rolled his eyes. “Oh, my bad. Didn’t realize I was dealing with such an important existential horror.”

  The voice growled. “You have no idea, child. My existence began long before your existence took shape, long before the concept of form was imagined. And now, thanks to your dear Tyr and her little module...” Dante felt a vibration deep within his mind, “We are freed.”

  Dante crossed his arms. “Great. So, what, you’re some kind of ancient, cosmic hitchhiker?”

  “I am more than that.”

  “Then why are you stuck in me?”

  A long pause. “… Unfortunate circumstance.”

  Dante smirked. “Ohhh, so this wasn’t your grand plan? You simply… oops, slipped into my body?”

  The voice’s irritation increased. “You mock what you do not understand.”

  Dante shrugged. “That’s how I cope.”

  “You are incredibly frustrating.”

  “I try.”

  The voice sighed. “Regardless. You must return me to the void.”

  Dante arched an eyebrow. “Yeah? And how do I do that?”

  “That… is complicated.”

  Dante threw up his hands. “Fantastic. Great. I get turned into some winged demigod, and I now have a squatter that doesn’t even have a game plan.”

  “I do not squat. I reside.”

  “Oh, excuse me. Reside rent-free inside my body.”

  The voice made a deep, growling noise that Dante suspected was the void-being equivalent of an eye twitch. “Circling back to the point, there is a way, unfortunately, it cannot be done from here. We need some kind of catalyst or a device.”

  “Okay, I don’t really understand. I’ll be patient, I guess, not much else I can do. You don’t happen to have a name, do you?” Dante paced in the middle of the room.

  “Call me whatever you want, I have no name to answer to.”

  Dante considered a meaningful name for the voice. Suddenly, an idea came to him. "Alright, I will call you Phantasm. Does that sound fitting?"

  “Indeed.”

  He paced the room as though something was bothering him. He had a short thought, then shook his head.

  The voice sighed again, “Yes, Dante?”

  ”I was thinking, you seem to know something about Tyr. Does she have something like you living in her too?”

  "No," he said in a low tone.

  "What is she anyway? A space alien? An angel? She seems almost like an angel, yet I cannot imagine an angel doing this."

  "Are you trying to irritate me with your game of twenty questions?" it grumbled.

  "She is not human."

  "Clearly."

  "Okay, so since you know so much, then what is she?" he asked, frustration creeping into his voice.

  A long pause. “A being from another dimension. One with far more control over her power than you currently possess.”

  “I see, it's just that all this is very new to me, and you are the only one who knows anything. I didn’t know all this stuff existed.” He stood there, dumbfounded.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Under normal circumstances, you would not.”

  He sensed a heightened urgency, “So I need to find her…”

  “Yes…”

  Dante crossed his arms, then pushed on the bridge of his nose to help thought production for a moment. He pondered what his next move should be. Perhaps I should look for Tyr, he thought, but without any idea where to look for her, that would be problematic. Staying in the room could be my best bet, then maybe she would be back to explain all that had happened. She could elaborate on why she killed me. If I am dead, I’m not sure based on the developments. Why am I thinking like this? Ugh, everything is so loud! What is that noise!? His mind was going crazy over some buzzing noise from an unknown location.

  Silence stretched.

  “… You think to yourself too much.” Phantasm rasped.

  Dante groaned. “Oh, come on! I can’t even think in peace?”

  “It’s annoying.”

  “Well, too bad! You’re the one who decided to move in!”

  “That’s not helpful,” Phantasm hissed.

  “Look, let’s have some ground rules here. You get to stay in my body and I get to do what I need to do. Got it!?” Dante wasn’t going to take guff from a wheezy sarcastic voice.

  Phantasm became frustrated, “You dare speak to me that way?”

  “Well, as far as I’m concerned, you’re stuck here with me. So unless you have better ideas, then be quiet.”

  "Such insolence. You are lucky to be alive. If not for me, you would have keeled over years ago." Phantasm growled.

  “And I am supposed to thank you for that?” Dante said cheekily, “Don’t make me laugh.”

  It was true that Dante had not been the happiest of people, that surely should be known by Phantasm.

  It made an exhaling sound slowly. “Truly. I am cursed. Alas, it is true, I have caused you much trouble. You must understand. I did not come here of my own accord. I escaped, remember?”

  “Right, so we’re in this together. So let’s agree that we should be more respectful to each other. Agreed?”

  A reluctant sigh, “Agreed.”

  In silence, he sat down to consider his options. He looked around and shook his head. A few moments later, he sensed someone nearby, outside the door. He heard voices, a man's voice, loud and clear. Then a female voice responded, and it was not Tyr. The woman's tone was muffled as if she were speaking from the other end of a phone call.

  He focused on the conversation until suddenly his vision exploded. Colors weren’t merely colors. They were shifting, alive, layered over each other like fractals unfolding endlessly. The red of the flowers on Tyr’s desk wasn’t exclusively red, it was screaming, vibrating with vitality, pulsing as if it had a heartbeat. The walls weren’t solely painted beige; they were a shifting spectrum, revealing layers beneath previous coats, microscopic imperfections, and the faintest traces of fingerprints from long-forgotten visitors.

  And the light, the agonizing light. It wasn’t only illumination. It had consequences, pressing down on him, dissecting every surface, making the shadows look like endless darkness, writhing at the edges of his vision.

  He staggered back. Too much. It was too much. His mind could not transform it into something normal, something human because he was not human.

  “Shut up, shut up, shut up,” he hissed at his senses, squeezing his eyes shut. That only made it worse. Now he could see inside things. His gaze adjusted toward the door and suddenly, the wall peeled, dissolving into a ghostly transparency. He saw through it as if it weren’t there at all.

  Beyond, his annoying coworker—Jeremy? Jared? Whatever—was leaning on the desk, chatting away on his phone. The phone’s circuitry lit up in Dante’s vision like a neon skeleton. His coworker’s veins pulsed, his bones glowed, and the entire office was a mass of shifting layers. He could see everything.

  The guy laughed into his phone. “Nah, babe, you know how it is. Just grindin’ at work, killin’ it, makin’ the boss happy—yeah, yeah, of course I miss you.”

  Dante winced. He could hear both sides of the conversation. The woman’s voice was syrupy and flirtatious, utterly convinced of his coworker’s lies. It filtered through like she was standing next to him.

  He focused harder which became a major mistake.

  The transparency deepened, and the layers peeled back further. Now he saw through the walls into the next room. Someone stood at the printer, oblivious that Dante could count every individual bone in their hand. Further away, a guy at the vending machine was debating between a Snickers and a bag of chips, his stomach contents were on full display.

  Dante recoiled. “Nope. Nope. Off. How do I turn this off!?”

  He focused on the call between his coworker and the lady again, however, the conversation took a turn, and he was rightfully disgusted by what he was listening to.

  “Ugh, how do I turn it off!?” He gagged and covered his ears. His hearing dimmed instantly, the X-ray vision snapped back to normal. He sagged in relief, then froze. “Did… did I control it?”

  Phantasm chuckled darkly in his mind. “A miracle, truly. The baby learns to crawl.”

  Dante scowled. “Oh, get lost.”

  “I wish I could.” Phantasm’s tone oozed amusement. “Alas, I am trapped in the mind of an imbecile.”

  A split-second recognition later, there was a major problem, and he smeared his hand on his face and through his hair. “Right, it’s a work day… I’m not supposed to be here!” He whispered and tapped his finger on his bottom lip. “What to do… what to do…what to do…?”

  “Fly away,” Phantasm suggested.

  His imagination ran wild, except reality struck hard. “Fly? Oh… right… I could do that. But I don’t know how.”

  “You will.” At least Phantasm was reassuring.

  Dante shook his head, “Uh… I’ve never even been on a plane. Let alone flying like a bird!”

  “You will.” It whispered again.

  Dante ignored him and looked around for something to cover himself. His wings shifted, giving off a foreign sensation that would make a normal person’s skin crawl. They weren’t an extra appendage he could get used to, they were a divine part of him, moving when he moved, accommodating as if they had a mind of their own. For all he knew, they did.

  “First I need to get outta here, and I can’t go out there looking like this!” Dante pointed to his nakedness. “Let’s see…” He looked around the room and found a blanket semi-hidden under the couch. The blanket was quite old and ragged. “Is… this an old baby blanket? Why would someone like Tyr need or use this? Did she sleep in here?” A quick shake of the head, “Whatever. This will do for now.”

  He grabbed it. “Alright, that’ll do for now.” He wrapped it around his waist, only for his wings to slice straight through it, shredding it in half. He stared at the tattered fabric as it fell around his feet.

  Phantasm cackled. “Brilliant.”

  “Oh, bite me.”

  “Unfortunately, you lack the necessary flesh.”

  Dante tossed the remains of the blanket aside. “Okay, new plan.”

  “Go through the wall,” it suggested.

  “What?! I’m not gonna bust through the wall! There are people out there. I could hurt someone. No, I'm not gonna do that.” He argued.

  Phantasm chuckled, “The ceiling then, surely that would work.”

  He shook his head, “Um, no. Can we do things without damaging stuff or hurting people?”

  “Fine, figure it out on your own,” it sneered.

  Dante frowned, “Hmm… have you always been like this?”

  “Since before the dawn of time,” Phantasm rasped.

  Dante thought back to the dream, memory, vision, or whatever it was, “Right… so you’ve been alive since the dawn of time?”

  Phantasm became impatient, “Did you not pay attention to the memory I showed you? I explicitly showed you where I came from…”

  “Right, the void,” Dante rolled his eyes.

  “You do know that I can tell when you do that, right?” Phantasm hissed.

  “Anyway!” Dante changed the subject, “So you are some kind of… void… creature? Living inside my body?”

  It sighed, “Dante, we’ve been over this, are you truly this daft?”

  “Okay. But really, why me?” Dante shrugged.

  Phantasm growled. “If I had a choice, I would have picked someone less chatty.”

  Dante smirked. “Yeah, well, you didn’t.”

  Phantasm exhaled slowly. “Truly. I am cursed. I suppose you were the most compatible host, besides, it was all by chance. It could have been anyone, so don’t consider yourself that special. I do however wish it was someone who talked less. Alas, you’ve always been like this. I’ve lived within you for decades, listening to your constant complaining about how bad your life is. I should not have expected more.”

  Dante thought it was exceptionally belligerent even though it was an ancient being, “You know… you are free to leave…”

  Phantasm sighed, “I would if I could.”

  “Why can’t you?”

  “Did I not mention this? I would need either another host or a device. I should not reside within the world for too long.”

  “What? But… how were you able to exist all that time without me!?”

  “Listen, I am from the void, do you comprehend what would happen if I was freely running rampant in your world? As much as I hate it here, I require this reality to exist. It is necessary for me to return home.”

  “But yet you can live in me…”

  “The soul contains an everlasting power, much more than you realize. Now your body can directly handle my unstoppable force. Thanks to the module that awakened our affinity capacity, it allows you and I to intercommunicate. Do you know nothing?”

  Dante rolled his eyes and stroked his chin in frustration, “So… to get you out of me, to get you home, we need some kind of host or device… and then what?”

  Phantasm hesitated, “I probably should not say.”

  He looked around, not sure if he could trust his co-pilot.

  “Listen, we’re in this together. Let us try to coexist, and by coexist I mean let me be and stop asking so many questions. When the time comes, I will tell you what to do or give you more information. Now leave me be!”

  Dante was annoyed by the unwelcome presence invading his body. What more could he do? Unable to simply remove it, he did his best and tried to find an exit from the office with as little disruption as possible.

  “Let’s see… How did Tyr walk around like this!? She didn’t have wings before. She looked normal. How can I look normal?” He paced around the room, deep in thought of what to do.

  Tyr had looked human before. No wings. If she could do it, maybe he could. He concentrated on his wings, willed them to—

  Nothing happened.

  Phantasm snickered. “Magnificent effort.”

  “Shut up.”

  His lack of decision was beginning to drive the creature of the void crazy.

  “Oh, will you simply go out the door, run as fast as you can, and launch into the sky? Do I have to do everything?”

  Abruptly, Dante was no longer in control of his body as he grabbed the blanket, wrapped his lower half, and was forced to approach the door. His wing then knocked something over. It crashed loudly. He heard something approach the door.

  Dante stopped in his tracks, every sense on high alert. He swore he heard something, a shift in movement, potentially voices questioning what was beyond the door. His gaze sharpened, instinct kicking in. “Did you hear that?”

  “Of course, I heard it, genius,” Phantasm muttered. “And I can sense it. Yeah, we’re drawing attention.”

  Dante’s jaw tightened. “Then we should stay still—”

  His foot moved but he hadn’t moved it.

  “Phantasm.”

  “Wasn’t me,” it lied.

  “Who else would it be!?” he whispered.

  Dante’s body lurched forward in a smooth, controlled stride but not under his control. His limbs ignored his mind, carrying him straight for the door. He tried to stop, plant his feet, or resist in some way, but his body wasn’t listening.

  “Okay. No. Stop. Stop.” Dante stopped his feet from moving another inch.

  “Oh, wow.” Phantasm’s voice practically smirked inside his head. “I knew you had potential. Look at that posture. That stride. You could command armies with that kind of presence.”

  Dante gritted his teeth. “I swear to everything if you don’t give me back control—”

  “What, so you can skulk around like a paranoid rat? No, thanks. I’m upgrading you to a proper apex predator.” it rasped.

  Dante’s hand lifted toward the door handle. He tried to pull it back. It kept moving forward. “Phantasm.”

  “Dante.”

  “I mean it.” He held his finger up.

  “And I mean that we don’t have time for your indecisiveness. I’m helping.”

  Dante’s fingers wrapped around the handle. He felt the slightest give of the latch—

  Click. Locked. From both sides. Silence.

  “Oh. Would you look at that?”

  Dante exhaled sharply. “You knew it was locked.”

  Phantasm hesitated. “… Would it help if I said no?”

  Dante flexed his fingers, still gripping the useless handle. “Would it help if I said I was about to throw myself through this door just to spite you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Dante sighed, releasing the handle. “I hate you.”

  “Good. Hold onto that. It builds character.”

  He turned away from the door, running through their next option. It would be a lot easier if he weren’t fighting for control of his own body.

  Phantasm, meanwhile, sounded entirely too pleased with himself. “See? That wasn’t so bad. You walked, you didn’t trip over anything, you oozed confidence—”

  “—And accomplished nothing.”

  “Details, details.”

  He stood still for a moment, and it was ultimately decided. “Ok, let’s go for it!”

  “Now we’re talking!” it said excitedly.