Eyes slowly fluttered open, vision slightly obscured. The skull was still on her head. Patience panicked and sat up. But she was in her bed. She distinctly remembered being in the kitchen. Taking deep breaths, she attempted to remove the skull once more. Tendrils shot around her arms just as before. It had not been a dream.

“This isn’t happening!” she cried, her face twisting in distress.

“What do you think you’re doing? Take me off and I’m an inanimate object once more!” The voice rammed through her head.

“Oh really? Sounds like a good idea!” shouted Patience. She rushed at the skull again, this time stopped by fully formed arms. At the end of the arms were large hands. At the end of the hands were sharp claws. The girl whimpered. She was nowhere near strong enough to wrestle free from this thing’s grasp.

“We are tethered now,” the thing chortled darkly.

Defeated, tears began to well in the girl’s eyes. She flung herself back into the comfort of her bed.

“This isn’t happening …”

“Oh but it is! And I have fortune to thank!” sang the skull.

“How did I get back into my room?” Patience asked, voice wavering.

“I carried you. No good resting on the kitchen floor,” replied the creature. This time its voice flowed more mildly around her. He seemed to have been shouting before.

“You carried me?”

“I caught you as you fell off the chair in the kitchen. I then brought you here.”

Patience felt her stomach drop. She sat up in her bed, prompted by some ancient instinct triggered by the presence of unknowable danger. She gripped her chest and felt the furious drumming of her heart. A skull that talked was unsettling enough, and one that sprouted tentacles was quite jarring. However, this skull was shaping into something greater, something more disconcerting, threatening.

The girl took a few deep breaths and balled her fists. One always approached wild animals with caution. She would have to do the same. The advantage she had in this case was this thing could be spoken to; she could learn from it. Without many other options, Patience decided to establish a rapport with this creature. 

“How did you carry me?” she asked.

“I formed a body.”

“Like how you formed those coils around my arms?”

“Yes.”

Patience balked. She had seen a witch shape-shift once at an exhibition, but this thing now surrounding her was something else entirely. The witch had shifted into an owl, it was quite wondrous but she had seen an owl before. This creature, it could form into things she had never laid eyes upon or knew existed.

“How is your body like this?” Genuine curiosity bubbled now.

“See that fly over there?” Anax forced Patience’s head to focus on the insect cleaning itself on the windowsill. “What do you suppose is inside it? Bone? Like you? No.”

Anax formed a fist in a blink and smashed the fly. The girl stared wide-eyed.

“Nothing but liquid and guts. You see its skeleton is on the outside. This is the way my kind are.”

“So this mist around me, that you use to form a body, that’s your insides?”

“Yes. But unlike insects we can harden and reform it at will—well, once our external bodies are destroyed.”

“What happened to yours?”

“Something awful. My body was shattered. So my insides sucked themselves up into my skull, which was luckily still intact, and I waited.”

“And you needed a living being to reform again?”

“Only a living thing can spark our second life. We need to share the fire of life from our donor to exist in this state.”

Patience breathed a slight sigh of relief. If he needed her to survive, it was unlikely there would be immediate danger to her health. Her father had taught her about a number of parasites, some lived peacefully with their hosts, others ravaged the host’s bodies, and yet others did both at different stages in their life cycle. She wondered which of these categories the skull fit, yet she feared to learn the answer. 

“Wh-what kind of creature are you?”

“I am unsure if your people have a name for my kind. The ones from my home region certainly, but you …”

“How are you speaking my language anyway?” her voice cracked.

“Simple, with the connection to you—I’m sure you felt it when I established it, I absorb many things you know, including the tongue you speak in. I don’t know everything, but a good chunk of it.”

Patience flushed. She did not want this creature rummaging around her mind. “I don’t need a skull going through my skull.”

“I have a name. I have an identity,” he said raising his voice. The back of Patience’s neck tingled.

“Sorry I wasn’t really paying attention when I had a disembodied voice yelling around my head!” barked Patience. Suddenly the mist spread over the girl’s body and pushed her into the bed with the weight of two adults. She felt the air pressed out of her lungs, her eyes bulging.

“It’s Anax,” the voice ground into Patience’s temples.

“All right, Anax!” wheezed the girl. Lifting off her body, the vapor condensed into two arms and gently rested around Patience’s torso, almost in an embrace. Any more outbursts and the girl felt like she would die from a heart attack. She would be of no use to Anax then. The girl hoped he had enough foresight to avoid that at least.

“I won’t harm you. Not much. Not intentionally. So long as I am conscious, I will keep you well,” said the skull. An uneasy peace fell over the two souls. Anax may have been pleased but all this commotion began to aggravate the girl's scalp. Familiar stings ran across the uneven surface and a dull pain started to well. Patience hissed through her teeth.

“Hm? I’m certain I did not press that hard on you to cause pain.”

“No. It’s my burn. It hurts at times.”

“Allow me.” A gentle touch of mist began caressing the scars. Flowing between grooves and bumps it spread its cool vapor. Patience was shocked how tenderly he moved, and even more surprised it actually soothed her aching.

The rest of his body billowed around her, spilling over the bed like a rolling fog, the edge lapping the air as flames would. His arms remained wrapped around her waist. The girl settled on focusing her breathing, giving herself to the odd but serene sensations.

“Feel better?” asked Anax.

“Shouldn’t you know? You’re in my head,” Patience snarked.

“Not completely. I don’t have access to everything. Consider it a grace! Most my kind completely take over their life-donors, erasing their sense of self.”

Patience gulped.

“Y-you can do that to m-me?”

“It’s more difficult with beings as highly intelligent as humans, but yes. It can and has been done before,” he explained nonchalantly.

“But you’re not—”

“I’ve no interest in a total takeover. Humans are quite interesting. I need a teacher,” Anax stated in the same tone as one does when giving a disinterested excuse.

Patience’s heart rate slowed to its normal speed at last. She would be safe for now. The girl lied motionless, letting her body sink into the quilt.

“Thanks. I do feel better,” Patience whimpered. The morning had lapsed into midday. She figured this predicament was a valid excuse not to get any work done today.

“Can I go to the kitchen to brew some fresh tea? I have a special mix that helps my pain too,” the girl asked quietly.

“Very well,” said Anax withdrawing his arms. They lost their shape and melted into the frothing mist.

Patience rose from her bed, Anax falling behind her like some mystical cape. On her way to the kitchen she noticed a small, white, glowing orb the size of a marble float around over her right eye. It was not in her vision but seemed to be centered in the skull’s eye socket. She wondered if this was the essence of Anax’s eye, however that worked. However he worked. Patience was still baffled by his physiology, but then again science only explained so much of the world, magic usually explained the remaining parts albeit with its own systems.