“Oh shut up!”

“Excuse me?” my “therapist,” Mrs. Johansen asks, annoyed. “That wasn’t directed at you, it was directed at HIM.” I defend myself pointing to my head. “He was taunting me. ‘You need a therapist, you need a therapist. Hardeeharharhar.’ Sometimes he can be unbearable.” I was talking about the other voice in my head, Jamal, he called himself. “Hey Jacob, you should ask her out,” he says to me excitedly, “I can smooth talk our way all the way into our eighties together.” He can be SO insufferable sometimes.

I don’t think I’ll ever understand how he got into my head. One minute I was playing basketball in the park with some friends, the next, I felt like someone just tazed me and I fell over unconscious, only to hear this joker screaming, “Hey sleeping beauty, get up! I thought you died there and I was going to have to worm my way into your spinal cord instead.” Jamal never really explained his existence either, though I keep trying to get it out of him. “SO we have a few tests for you and, um, Jamal, was it?” She hands us something, a box with a lid and something inside: A syringe. “This will temporarily knock you unconscious, Jacob. But it will allow Jamal to have temporary control over your actions. We’re planning on testing his capabilities, such as stamina, talents and intelligence.” Great, just great, they’re planning on letting the smooth talking clown take over the proverbial driver’s seat of the car that is MY body. “We don’t need to do it today, just as long as it happens sometime within the next 72 hours. Or we will resort to forcefully administering the serum.”

“Fine, but if he gets out of control, it’s on you guys to make sure we don’t kill anyone or wind up dead from the effects of one of the other freaks in this facility,” I say after a minute of consideration. “Wait, Jacob. You’re actually letting me drive for once outside of the occasional blackout you have?”

“Yes Jamal, just don’t get used to it,” I say as I feel the needle pierce my upper arm, and the world goes dark. I wake up in my own head, staring out of my own eyes, as words not my own come out of my mouth, “All right, let’s see what I can do with this old thing.”