The Ghost of Another Life

The darkness stretched, thick and suffocating, the way it always did in her worst dreams. Jessica couldn’t see, but she could feel. The hard metal of the van’s floor pressing into her back. The sting of zip ties around her wrists. The scent of cold air and something sterile, chemical, wrong.

A voice. Smooth. Detached.

“It’s time.”

She knew that voice. Mr. Black.

The world lurched as the van came to a stop. The doors swung open, flooding the space with harsh white light. Jason. He was beside her, his head slumped forward, his breath ragged and uneven. He was waking up just as she was.

Hands grabbed them both, dragging them out into the open. A lab. White walls. Machines humming with electricity. She was pushed to one side. Jason to the other. The figures around them were masked, faceless, instruments gleaming in their gloved hands.

She struggled. She fought. She screamed. But something sharp burned through her veins, numbing her muscles, quieting her mind. She felt herself fading.

Jason was staring at her now. Confusion. Fear.

“You?”

The words barely escaped his lips before they forced him down onto a cold metal table. She knew what came next.

Pain. Searing, unbearable pain. Like her skull was splitting apart, like her memories were unraveling thread by thread. She was slipping—

No. He was slipping.

The emptiness came next. A hollow, aching void. She had no past, no thoughts, no self. She was a vessel, a shell waiting to be filled.

Then, the transfer.

A rush of sensations, images, emotions—not her own. The weight of Jason’s memories crashed into her mind like a tidal wave, drowning her in the echo of his life. Football games. College parties. Conversations with Kevin. The taste of cheap beer on a humid night.

She gasped, her first real breath, as if she had been born in that moment.

The pain faded. The emptiness remained.

She woke up the next morning, staring at a reflection that wasn’t her own. But it was, wasn’t it? Because this was what she was made for. She was never Jason. She was never anyone at all. She wasn’t real.

Jessica sat bolt upright in bed, gasping for air, drenched in sweat. The room was silent, but her pulse was roaring in her ears. The truth had always been there. Buried. Suppressed. Waiting.

She wasn’t a person. She was a construct. A ghost of another life.

And now she knew.

* * *

The door creaked open softly, and then Leanna was there. No questions, no hesitation—just her presence, steady and real. She sat beside Jessica on the bed and pulled her into a quiet embrace.

Jessica’s breath shuddered, and the dam broke. The sobs were silent at first, then deep, gut-wrenching, pulled from somewhere she hadn’t even realized she was holding them. Leanna didn’t speak, just held her as her body shook, fingers threading gently through her hair, grounding her.

Minutes passed. The storm ebbed. The tears ran dry.

Jessica pulled back just enough to meet Leanna’s gaze. “I remember everything now,” she whispered. “I wasn’t Jason. I was made. I was empty before they gave me his life.”

Leanna didn’t flinch, didn’t look away. “You’re still you, Jess. No matter what they did.”

Jessica’s throat tightened. “Will you hold me tonight?”

Leanna nodded. “Yeah. I’ve got you.”

Jessica exhaled, leaning into her warmth. And for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t alone.