Luuko practically leaped out of her bed and turned off her alarm the instant it rang. She felt absolutely wonderful! Normally, she would feel like falling back asleep, pressured by a bodily function to fall back onto her bed to duck out of consciousness again, but she didn’t feel like doing that at all!

It was only when she got ready to leave for school that she realized she was far too early to go, surprised to see that the clock only read 6:38. She had over twenty minutes before she needed to leave her house and walk to school.

That didn’t seem right. If school started at seven-thirty, and it took twenty minutes to walk there, why would she set her alarm so early? She frowned, thinking on that for a minute, and sat back down onto her couch to think harder. Nothing came to mind. Normally she fell asleep at 10 PM and woke at 7 AM yeah, that was it...or was it? Luuko began jogging through her memory, trying to remember what had prompted her to set her alarm.

Another alarm rang from her phone, and she quickly silenced it. She looked into her Clock app and saw she didn’t have one but five alarms set between ten-minute intervals. She promptly turned all but one off then threw the phone onto the couch.

Well, she figured, no reason not to spend some time cleaning.

And for the time before she left for school, she did just that. She had made herself enjoy cleaning some time ago. Due to how much she slept, she had felt of little use to her parents, so she picked up a few chores for their sake. Or, wait...that’s not right, she didn’t sleep that often...but she did sleep every time she came back from school...no, that wasn’t right either...Luuko’s head began stuttering, unable to process a collection of gaps in her memory.

Then she burnt a warpath through her uncertainty, tearing away any resistance in her mind that would dare say that she was anything but a diligent worker. She got great grades, she did all her chores, she had good friends, she always got along with her mother and father! That is, after all, what would be the case if she didn’t often sleep, which she didn’t.

An argument with her mother over how useless she’d been recently due to her sleeping patterns?

Well, she slept perfectly good hours. There was no way such a ludicrous argument could have occurred!

She quite vividly recalled going to sleep every day after school and even during school? No way! Nobody slept that much, and no way she would sleep during class and still get great grades! It’s not like she could peer into the other sleeping student’s bodies and absorb all the information of at least six classes at the same time through their ears, making her know more than she needed to! I mean, what a ridiculous concept that could only appear in fiction! She knew Spanish, Latin, French, Chinese, and Japanese because she must have spent all that time at home on web classes learning things!

It wasn’t like she had no memory of doing that!

In middle school, she had no friends or connections and was known as a weird girl who slept during class but claimed to have great grades?

That wasn’t because she slept in school, but that she was so focused she seemed unapproachable!

She would never spot a plothole in her memory! Everything that didn’t make sense because of the normal sleeping schedule she totally had needed no contrivances to reason out!

Oh! She was running a little late now! She was so busy thinking about why she was perfectly mundane she didn’t notice almost thirty minutes had gone by. Silly her, what a simple mistake that was not at all like herself. It wasn’t as if she was actually a klutz who couldn’t properly keep track of time or remember to pick up her phone! No, she was perfectly fine.

Luuko was Luuko, after all, and definitely not a part of her soul that she left behind in her own body each time she fell asleep! And most certainly wasn’t an imprint of her guilt towards her supernatural abilities and life choices! After all, Luuko was Luuko!

Onei slowly rose to sit in her sleeping bag, clothed in comfortable pajamas. For some reason, Drade was standing blankly into space, entirely still. She shuffled out of the bag and stood up. She walked to Drade and waved her hand in front of his face.

“Drade? You there?” He didn’t respond at all. “Earth to Draaaadeee.” she put her face in front of his, staring right into his eyes at an uncomfortable distance. Suddenly, his face turned to a cheeky smirk, and she backed off, disturbed. His face didn’t change for a few more seconds as Onei looked on with a bewildered smile.

His face moved back up and melted into a more fluid expression. “Who’s this? Luuko, we are the same person, there’s no need to talk like we are in different bodies. Oh, right, sorry, Drade. Uhh, anyway, this is Luuko, and this is me.” Drade purposefully pointed to two different locations on his chest.

Drade activated his manasense to identify the location of their two souls within his body, so Luuko could see the magic for the first time. Drade’s soul was a dark, ominous blackish purple, and her blue soul surrounded it, outlining it in a glossy blue sheen. The girl in front of her had a soul, of course, but it lacked the sheen of Luuko’s. Her soul had small, blueish roots that weaved through her whole body like blood vessels or cracks in ice.

“Woah, so that’s what souls look like. They’re...shinier than I expected.”

Onei brought a hand to her chin, then averted her eyes in thought for a moment. “Oh, right, you said you were getting possessed by that ‘Luuko’ today. I’m just a little confused. I figured it wouldn’t be a whole ‘sharing your body’ situation...wait...Yesyesyesyesyes! You really do remember who I am!”

“Obviously,” Drade said in his normal voice.

“It’s not obvious when you say ‘possession’ that you mean ‘sharing a body’, though,” Luuko said, in a slightly different, more feminine voice.

Onei had a strange half-smile on her face. “How ridiculous.”

“I know, right?” Drade said. Drauko still had a happy smirk on half their face, but the other half looked more like a nervous gritting of teeth. “Let’s go. We can’t waste any time getting to your body,”

“What’s going on?” Onei asked.

“Everything went to plan, but for some reason, Luuko’s body woke from its sleep on its own. All we need to do to get Luuko back in her body is touch it.” Drauko started walking to the front door, then stopped as one of his legs began dragging responsively.

“Hey! We aren’t walking outside in pajamas, are we?!”

“I figured you’d be fine with it since you sleep so often.”

“Nooooo! That’s just indecent!”

“Don’t blame me when your body buys a plane ticket to Russia and we can’t catch them.”

After standing still for a moment, Drauko took a U-turn and walked into Uffield’s room. Onei took their time away to put her traveling clothes back on again, her backpack and sleeping bag having sticked with her even past the night. For some reason, she was allowed to carry some random stuff between days. She’d tried to abuse it, but the only logic it followed was ‘stuff she kept in her backpack.’ She’d decided long ago it wasn’t something to be questioned, merely appreciated.

It wouldn’t have been fun to wake up every day stark naked.

She heard Uffield’s voice from the room. “Morning Drade, Hi Luuko.”

“Hi!” Luuko said. “Morning,” Drade said.

Luuko spoke next, “Hmmm? So you do have reproductive organs, I totally thought you were-”

“Shutup, we both know you’re trying to embarrass me by talking out loud,” Drade said with unusually genuine annoyance.

“Getting feisty, Drade?!”

“I could make you feel pains you couldn’t even comprehend, Luuko! Don’t-”

“Ohhhh, nooo, Drade’s going to torture my souuuulll!”

“Chaos sear you, Luuko...” That line had unusual irony.

Onei heard some chuckling from Uffield. They remained silent until they left the room again, then headed for the door once more, remembering to pick up Drade’s backpack. Onei realized they weren’t going with her, and ran after them. “Don’t forget about me!”

Drauko opened the door. “Hmm? What about you?”

“Wait, who even is this girl? Is she a girf-”

“No. Were you going to follow us for some reason?”

“Of course! What else would I do?”

Luuko’s voice interjected again, “Anything else?” Drauko gave another silent pause, thinking between themselves. “Oh, Drade!” Luuko’s voice cried out in exasperation, “How badly can you possibly mishandle this woman! She’s been through so much and you just blow her off! It’s so obvious she wants to tag along with you!” There was another silent pause as a mental argument ensued. “Don’t worry, Onei, I’m here for you!” Luuko suddenly said in a motherly voice before gently hugging her.

“Uhh, thanks.” Onei did the ‘awkward pat hug’ with Drauko.

Suddenly, they were violently torn away by Drade, who butchered half Luuko’s gentle smile with one of mild disgust. “Sorry about that, Onei. Now, we should get moving, and used to walking and thinking to each other at the same time.” They nodded, then walked through the door, Onei following close behind.

She followed them, as they exited the building and began running down the street. She easily overtook the two, as fit as Drade. She didn’t have influence over many things during her last four years of life, but once she learned she could transfer objects as well as her fitness over between days, she worked out, since she didn’t have anything better to do.

Drauko ignored her, focusing instead on making their movement cohesive while thinking to each other. Onei waved her hand inf front of their face as she jogged beside them. It didn’t work. Onei grew more and more forceful in her attempts to gain their attention, eventually shaking their shoulders. “Hey, Drade, what are we doing?”

They slowed down a little. “Oh, forgot you were there. We are going to Luuko’s house to find her body.”

“Yeah, so you can return her soul or something. But can you explain anything else to me?”

Luuko spoke next, “My body is moving on its own, and we have no idea why. I hope my body will still be at my house, but if I’m not, my parents might know where I went...”

Drauko returned to their inner conversation, ignoring Onei. She rolled her eyes at being ignored but didn’t interrupt them until they turned into Luuko’s apartment complex. Luuko’s apartment was on the bottom floor, where Drauko didn’t hesitate to knock on her door in haste. Onei fell to a stop next to them.

After a moment, an ordinary middle-aged man with glasses and pajamas answered the door. “Yes?” He looked to Drade and Onei with some confusion, then shook his head, dismissing whatever confused him.

Drade spoke, “Have you seen Luuko anywhere? Is she home?”

“Well, I did hear her leaving to go to school.”

“Are you sure she went to school in specific?”

“N-no, I guess. I mean, she left at the normal time, about ten minutes ago.”

“Well, that makes things easier...” Luuko muttered. Her father didn’t seem to notice the change of voice.

“Did something happen to her? Can’t you just call her phone, she usually keeps it out of airplane mode.”

“...I guess I didn’t think about that” Luuko continued, showing embarrassment on Drauko’s face, which didn’t look right at all.

Drade answered the question, wiping the unfitting expression off their face. “No, she shoul-” Drauko paused for a moment, in internal conflict. “Luuko is fine.”

Her father didn’t look very convinced, “Your name is Drade, right? Don’t you go to school with-Hey, why are you....”

Drauko had already dashed off in a hurry. Onei panicked for a moment, surprised at their rudeness, then ran off behind them, waving, “Sorry Luuko’s father person!”

“It’s going to be a fifteen-minute dash to school, can you keep up, Onei?” Luuko said, looking back at her.

“Don’t underestimate me, I might not be a weird magical person, but I’m at least strong!”

They continued running for only a minute before seeing a barricade of police cars not far down the road.

Onei looked to Drauko. “What’s going on there?!”

Drauko shook their head and Drade spoke, “I have no idea, but if I had to make my guess...” They paused, in thought.

“Your guess?”

“My luck’s going haywire at a horrible time. Maybe there’s a minotaur on the loose or something, I don’t know, and I don’t care. Let’s take the back route.” Drauko quickly turned down one of the sidewalks, then after a bit of running, ran into an alleyway.

What Drade hadn’t considered, though, was the possibility that some other force of fate was angry at a technicality in his plans and would stop at nothing to ensure he did not fulfill his goal, even if it meant calamity.