I have never hated him as much as I do right now. We glare at each other and he smirks. He shouldn't be smirking.

I should be smirking. What is he even doing in this freaking goddamn place? My soul wants to rip his soul apart. I want to kill him. I want to see him squeal in pain and beg for forgiveness. His body's eyes just stare at me. I'm not sure why, but it's not dead. It's just empty. He laughs at me, again, his soul, not his body, because a soulless body can't laugh. It can't cry. It can't feel anything. Your soul feels. Your soul feels every damn thing that happens to you. It feels with an intensity that should be illegal. A soul can be emotional. It can feel just about everything you throw at it. It's your damn freaking personality. Two souls in one body is the equivalent of being bipolar. Dude. Who am I kidding? I am bipolar. It's not a mental condition. The mind really doesn't die, like, ever. It's the freaking principle, the body, that freaks out. The soul impacts everything else. It's the basis. Sure. You can have two minds in one body. It's really not a problem. The soul just has to stake its claim on the new mind and everything runs fine. I'm not joking. I have a friend who am I kidding? I have no friends. But I have an acquaintance/friend that had two minds once. She was the scholarliest person I've ever met. Her soul, of course, was the type that thought studying and knowledge were treasures. Literally. I don't meet up with that acquaintance/friend often. Though I really should. She knows everything about souls and minds. She's written books. People don't often preoccupy themselves with their souls/minds too much. Oh, sure, you have religion and psychiatrists and loonies, but it's not really what Astra pays attention to. Dude, she pays attention to everything you need to know. The things you totally might die without.

It is a good time to look her up. Waking up one morning and finding a new soul in residence is not a pleasant way to wake up on an otherwise pleasant Wednesday afternoon. Er I mean, morning. But who am I kidding? It probably was normal. The soul was that of a guy. (Eurgh.) He was obviously conscientous and smart and everything I wasn't. Dude. I do not understand this entire school knowledge thing. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. I did go on to college. But mostly, I think I slept through the classes. I'm not entirely sure how I managed to pass anything at all there. Seeing as I did not exactly get the best grades. But honestly? Seeing that guy there, just about clanging cymbals together to get me to wake up He somehow managed to overpower my weak little mind and my superbly athletic body and make it take a cold shower. I do not understand this. I told his soul so. The soul just smirked at me and said: "What I say goes. Unless, of course, you can take charge of yourself again. You can't, by the way." Though I am impeccably athletic (at least, my body is), I did not manage to. It seems that being an atheist does not make your soul very strong. This guy, on the other hand, I bet he reads his Bible or the Koran every night. Because man, that soul was strong. You couldn't really tell with a soul, of course. I mean, this guy was blinding white, and he smelled faintly like mint leaves. Mint leaves are often ery calming to the soul. I'm sure you heard it. Some peoples' souls, of course, can't stand the sight of mint, and can stand the taste even less, but that's rather irrelevant. Now, blinding white is a good color to be. I, personally, think yellow is even better, seeing as yellow is my favorite color

But I digress. I am etting ahead of myself. I get ahead of myself a lot. I think it is something in my genetics. But strangely enough, his body was totally not Well, let's just say it wasn't what I was expecting. A blinding white soul generally does not have what looks like salt and pepper hair and the remains of last week's beard. Nor does he have pizza sauce stains on a pressed white shirt. Judging from his soul's smirkiness, I was expecting a jock. Instead, it looked like a rather old college boy who had been out to a party. And hadn't had a fun time. I snorted. "Please do not tell me that is your body." I said rudely. I found it was best to be rude to this soul. It made him slightly weaker. Of course, in the process, mine was weakened further but I try not to dwell on negative things. "It is." The soul said emotionlessly. I was not expecting non-emotion from such a strong soul. Strong souls are passionate, man. They do not exhibit nonemotion. Emptiness. That's for us lesser, mortal souls. Excuse the pun. "Er?" I said. He correctly interpreted my 'er' as meaning: "Wait, what the hell do you mean you're not exhibiting any emotion? This is your effin' body, for Chrissake! SHOW something, or I will kill you!" Of course, I did not mean the last part. We both knew I couldn't kill him if I tried. Killing a soul is hard for a strong soul killing a weak one. It's nigh impossible when the situations are reversed. He knew this. He snorted at me. I do not appreciate snorts from souls inhabiting my body and

my mind. I don't know how, but I managed to get control of my body and I smacked my head as hard as I could. Then I was so surprised I let go. My mind got angry at my body and complained to the soul in charge. HARD. The soul flinched. Hint: It was not me. "How'd you do that?" he asked interestedly. "Dude. I asked you a question first." I said. "Okay" the soul said. "But I'm in charge here. So I get answers first. Comprende?" I did. And oooh, I hated him then. "So." He said, crossing my arms. My body's arms, I mean. He couldn't cross my soul's arms, seeing as my soul has none but I stop there before I get off track. It's rather pointless, of course, but But I was interrupted by the other soul. "How did you do that?" "I was mad." I said. "And that has relevance to this subject in what way, exactly?" the soul asked. "Dude. Do you not understand? I get mad, things happen." I rolled my soul eyes. Honestly. Did this guy not know, after going through every memory in my effing brain, exactly what I thought and how I functioned? It gave him a huge advantage. It is one of the reasons you never should be taken over by another soul.

His soul self shrugged. A soul shrugging is a funny thing to see, I tell you. Most people aren't even aware they have a soul it is one of the more interesting things to find out about people. In fact, and this is something Astra told me: people sometimes don't realize they have an actual tangible soul until a) they die, or b) they get invaded by another soul. I think I was of the b) group. Since then, I am of the c) group, the one that thinks that groups a) and b) are mad, crazy, or just plain effin' sad. Looking on the criteria for c), though, I think I am in group d) the group that thinks this is all mad and wishes she never knew about any of this. Wait. I was talking about shrugging souls. You'll have to excuse my weirdness. Not having a mind for a while really throws you off for a second. Sorry, did I say I second? I meant for the rest of your life. But he was shrugging. His entire soul-being thing flickered for a second but it flickered upward, and then back down. Just imagine a flame flickering up then down. Up, then down. Do you get it now? But the flame is white hot. With maybe a bright yellow glowy edge. Up, then down. Does that make sense? Anyway, (up, then down. Remember this.) he shrugged. I guess he really didn't inspect my mind. I feel grateful to him. There are images like that of my first period, my first ahem sex encounter, etc. That I really do not want in that soul's mind. Some things imprint. Most things imprint when you

don't have a mind for a while. Or if you choose not to imprint them in someones' mind. I am sure that this soul, as strong as he is, would not imprint his things on my mind. Dude, when he gets out of here, (and I refuse to believe anything else he is too much of a freaking pain), all those things he imprinted on my mind are just going to be there, waiting for my perusal. Wow. I am proud of myself. I actually used a word that requires an above average use of vocabulary. It is a word worthy of Astra's day to day language. "Honestly, though," I said, wishing he'd actually give me some answers, "Is that your body or not?" "Yes." The soul said, a bit more animatedly. "Of course it is." "Oh." This did not explain why such a strong soul had such a weak body. The soul, like all strong souls I knew (I think he and Astra are the only ones), should probably have a strong mind and body to go with it! I could not understand it. I told the soul so. The soul shrugged (remember, up, then down. Memorize it) and I was not sure whether or not he understood this important point. I repeated it. "Strong souls don't mean strong bodies or strong minds." "You are mad." I said.

But perhaps I should explain, before getting into all that, what this particular soul was doing in my body. I had gone to bed. I had not gone to bed early, late, or any time other than a good and decent one. I consider this 12 am.

I slept a normal sleep rather dreamless, like all my sleeps. I woke up and realized I could not move my hand. I think I screamed. But I couldn't scream. At first I thought that I was having a nightmare I tend to have those on cheery mornings. Then I saw him. And I freaked out like mad. I screamed and screamed and screamed and my entire soul probably has never been this screamy in its entire existence. "Would you please shut up?" I heard. And I stopped, and saw this soul, there, all of a sudden. I wasn't aware of it till then. Of course, he hasn't deigned to explain anything whatsoever to me since then, and it's been nearly a week. Since then, I have been taking my time, trying to sabotage his soul when he's not aware. It's a complicated procedure. I need to stick him into some other living thing on hand. And living is a pretty broad term. Trust me. The soul has told me of souls surviving in dirt. I suppose that they inhabited the bacteria, but that would be amazingly stupid. You'd have to find a new bacteria and take it over every five minutes. Your strength reserves would soon be deplenished! And you wouldn't be a brightly handsome specimen of a healthy soul. Ahem. You did not hear that. Just to be safe, though, you didn't see it either.

CHAPTER ONE I do not enjoy reading. But by golly, I sat down and read

everything I could get the invading soul to get my hands on. And surprisingly, it was a ton of books. I was actually surprised at how nice he was about it. However, he would never be as obliging when I'd ask him politely to 'get the hell out'. I did ask politely, though I did not throw things and I most certainly did not throw a temper tantrums. (Little temper tantrums do not count. I have spoken.) "Why can't you just go back to your old body?" I asked one day. He just smiled obligingly he had a terrible habit of smiling obligingly that made my heart soul thump annoyingly and said "Gene, dear," (my name was Genevieve he shortened it to Gene and Vieve when he wanted to annoy me. This was nearly always), "why in the world should I want to move out of a stunning body like yours and into mine?" This led to the finding of his body so that he could prove to me that his body was not, in fact, a jock's body, and was, actually, really weird. My eyes-controlled-by-him stared at his body. It was slightly handsome, I thought, in a really weird awy, but he kind of had a nice chin I thought, actually, kind of, and really long eyelashes that I stopped when his soul realized I was turning a slow pink. [Please start figuring out this soul thing. It intrigues me immensely. Maria I suppose they can blush, turning pink or something, and red when angry find emotion colors! The normal color is a grey to white, and a black for really bad ones. The ones with mostly white are the good guys.] "Yeah." He said. "So that's me." He said, moving my eyes somewhere else. Like the bed post. He made me study that bedpost till I couldn't stand it anymore and tried to move my eyes back to the not-hot-but-actually-rather-cute guy back

there. The guy's eyes opened. I suppose my body was making a bit of a racket (it fell when I moved the eyes too quickly) and sat up straight. It did not express surprise. Soulless bodies do not express surprise. Surprise is a feeling. But he did have beautiful blue eyes and I realized I was turning the nice red the one that makes you want to jump someone's bones. The soul stared at me icily. "What is your name, by the way?" I asked. "I do not have a name." The soul said. "Why not?" I asked. "Because," the soul said patiently, "I am a soul." "I have a name." I pointed out. The soul smiled obligingly. He really annoyed me with that. I think he does it on purpose. "Yes, but that is merely your body's name. Your soul does not have a name." But I had not read books on souls for nothing (he never paid attention when I read things just moved the eyes too fast for me to catch much of anything, or turned my body on autopilot). Souls had names. We had complicated ones like Zariturogairasino, but I was not going to go by an eight syllable name, and I was not going to shorten it to a stupid nickname like Zari or Gaira. Gene was bad enough. I hate nicknames. I pointed this out to him. "Do you know your soul name?" he asked. "Yes." I said, still as saucy as ever. "So do I, but even if I trusted you, I would not tell you." "Hmmph." I said. Knowing a soul's name was very nearly the

key to enslaving him to doing your bidding. Being bored with nothing to do but read, and hit on girls (he was ruining my reputation daily, I tell you I tried not to pay attention much when he did this), I had to learn something. I learned lots of nice, gruesome spells that might help me some day should I ever find out his name. I tried, honest. Some things are just too bad to be born. Honestly. "So?" I asked. "What do I call you?" "Gene, dear," (I hated it when he called me Gene, dear,), "you will not be here long enough to call me anything." I stared at him. I could not belive this. What was he saying. "Damn, what are you saying?" "Gene, dear," he said again. I presume the first time didn't work out as well as he had hoped, because he started again. "Gene, dear," he said, "I mean exactly what I said. You will not be here long enough to call me anything." "WHAT IS THAT SUPPOSED TO MEAN?" I shouted. "Temper, Vieve." (Pronounce that VEEV, with an accent on the EEV.) he said, shaking his soully head from side to side. Slowly. I calmed down with an effort, turning from red back to grey. OH, how I WISHED I was a bright, shining, WHITE! "Now, Gene, dear," "DON'T CALL ME GENE, DEAR!" I shouted, waving my soully arms. I was so happy when my body arms moved to, I almost forgot to be angry. He seemed to be shrinking a bit, and I continued, saying something along the lines of: "I AM NOT YOUR DEAR! I AM NOT YOUR ANYTHING! I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON, AND THEN I WANT YOU OUT OF HERE!" "Gene," he said, drawing himself up to full height (I had never seen him so tall, when did he get so damn strong looking?) and towering over me, "it means I find you an annoying little

twit that does not know when to keep quiet. It means," he said, his soul turning a bit blackish red at the edges, "that the second I find a snake, I am sticking you into it!" "Don't. You. Dare." I said, poking him in the soully chest with my soully finger. "This is my body. I did not ask you to barge in here!" "Tough." He said, smirking evilly. I slapped him. Next thing I knew, I was on the floor and he had his hand around my neck. "Now, Gene, dear," he said, obviously trying to calm himself, "please do not slap me again." "Oh, so you have you have manners now?" I taunted. I wanted to cry. My entire soul was turning a deep, dark shade of blue. "I never asked you in here!" I said, turning even bluer. Had I control of my body, I would be sobbing vales of tears, and had he been a gentleman and in his own body, he would be comforting me, instead of nearly fusing his soul to mine and having his hand around my neck. Suddenly I turned a dark red. "Get. Off. Me." I said, pushing against him with all my might. Somehow, he got off. I don't know how. I don't know why. I just wanted him out of there. "Now." I said, "I want your name, and I want to know who the hell you think you are, barging into my control chamber and taking over." "I'm Peter." He said. "My friends call me Puce." I looked at him in surprise. "I like that color." He said, shrugging. I did not have time to figure out why Puce liked a dark reddish purple brown color, because his body had just narrowly sidestepped mine, and mine had fallen down in a heap. His mind, however, not feeling anything but the need to get

to the bathroom, did not stop to pick me up. So his soul did, rather amused, as I glowered at him.