She looked at me, and I shivered.

Continued to shiver. It was damn cold on that beach. Everything about this made zero sense. Her eyes, I couldn’t see them, but I could feel them on me. She moved and I stood still. My muscles were locked, my brain was locked. I felt as though something had a grip on the back of my mind, and held me in place. I tried to tell myself it was fear, shock at seeing this woman again, or just the cold.

“You can feel him can’t you?” She was close enough now that I could see the moon sitting beside her pupils. “It’s almost like a burn. You can’t feel it until you know it’s there.”

I tried to move my hands, but they stayed by my sides.

“What’s happening?” It was all I could manage, and even then it came out as a slur.

“I can’t hear you over these waves,” she motioned at the ocean behind my back. “Let’s go back to your place.”

First my feet lifted, and set back down into the sand. Then my body leaned forward to pick up momentum. My arms swung casually at my sides. She grabbed my hand and held it as we walked back the way I’d come. I’d lost control.

Something aside from my own will had taken the strings, and I’d become a puppet. Its icy grip stung in my skull.

And still, one foot after the next. I new then that she wasn’t holding my hand. She was holding her friend’s. The person, thing, pulling my strings leading me back to the hotel room that had that man’s body in it.

I could barely think. If I started to struggle to hard the edges of my vision would start to turn white. All I could manage to do was watch as the beach moved past me. I had no power over my limbs. I couldn’t even feel the cold breeze on my cheeks anymore. I couldn’t hear the waves properly, as if someone had turned the volume down on the world. On my senses.

Eventually, we made it up the beach and to the hotel. As if from a mile away I heard my own voice greet and then thank the hostess at the front desk when she wished us a good night. Nothing out of the ordinary, just a couple coming in from a night out on the beach.

In the elevator I fought my hand as it raised to push the button that would bring us to my floor. There was no resistance shown in my physical form. I watched, horrified as my own hand carelessly, effortlessly pushed the button.

And we began to rise.

If my mind was still connected to my body, I’m sure my heart would’ve been racing in my chest. But the thing in my head even had control over that.

The doors opened to my floor. She walked with me to my room. And my own hand opened the door with the key from my pocket.

Inside, the man still lay on the floor. He hadn’t been moved. The money clip still sat on his stomach.

The rest of the room looked the same, too. All of her things sat on the bed. My feet took me into the room and my hand closed the door behind me, even though I willed them not to. The white fuzz edged into my vision and I tried to scream, tried to cry, but my body stood quite still. I couldn’t turn my head as I passed the mirror to see if my eyes were still my eyes.

She dropped my hand and when she did a weight left me. I instantly felt empty and I fell to my knees. Hot tears moved over my cheeks and into my mouth. I used my tongue to catch them. I ran my hands over my face, I felt my neck, my chest, my own thighs. With a huge effort I lifted my head.

She’d taken a seat on the bed beside her suitcase, already put most of her things back into it. I watched her methodology, and the appreciation she showed for each and every bit she got back. Even the sand-and-sea-water-ruined shirt she lovingly folded and tucked into the case.

Movement in the corner drew my attention. Someone else had joined us in my room. He sat in my desk chair with his legs crossed and a pen wiggled between his fingers. He looked unfriendly in a dangerous way and thin in an unhealthy way and he was staring right at me.