It was a chilly, Saturday evening.
Li-Am and Leigh Anne just finished eating dinner and are now sitting on their couch, watching a movie that Li-Am barely pays attention to for the past twenty minutes, his mind already drifting.
There was the fresh scent of apple pie still wafting pleasantly into the air even though Li-Am was pretty sure that between him and Leigh Anne, the rest of it stood no chance against their stomachs combined. That tasty treat had been reduced into nothing (not even crumbs) within minutes and he inhales, savoring the memory and sweetness of it all.
He can practically imagine the taste of the apple pie in his tongue again, hm... Li-Am really ought to bake again sometime soon. Better yet, maybe it’s time to pass on the recipe to his kid.
Speaking of Leigh Anne, she’s curled up on the couch beside him, her shoulder pressing gently against his arm as she cuddles a throw pillow to her stomach. Her eyes were a bright brown as they focused on the glow of the television screen and she felt so warm, like an oversized teddy bear propped against him, comforting. It felt really nice knowing that he wasn’t alone anymore…
However, the unexpected words that slipped from her mouth are anything but warm or light. Instead, it made his insides churn as they grow cold in dread.
“Do you know what it’s like to become an audience of your own life?” Leigh Anne suddenly asks, out of nowhere, her voice a quiet hum, barely-there, almost easily lost amidst the loud noises of the still on-going movie that was still playing in front of them, “To know that you’re just there watching… but not even in control of yourself anymore?”
Li-Am couldn’t quite keep himself from stiffening at that. There was the feeling of something a lot like loss, like a fish being plucked out of the water creeping up to him again.
This feels like just a step closer to the edge of a cliff even as he ruffles her hair affectionately, tries to force himself to ignore how badly his hand was shaking as he did, his voice almost coming out choked as he tries to meet her eyes.
She wasn’t looking at him.
“Aw, come on, Lei-Lei… quit being too dark on me. You’re a good girl a-a-and–” he immediately swallows the lump that was already forming in his throat to keep an unbidden sob from coming out, a twinge of panic and a lot like despair twisting until they mixed seamlessly together and within into his words, “…and you’re still in control. You’re still you, I-I promise.”
And it hurts.
It hurts because Li-Am wasn’t so sure about something as simple as that anymore. And it hurts so much because even that was beginning to feel and sound like a lie.
Worst of all, Leigh Anne knows.
“You… you don’t know that Dad,” she mutters, her voice sounding almost strained, like she was practically forcing out the words past gritted teeth, like saying it was causing her pain, “There’s no way you’ll ever know–let alone understand what it’s like, being inside my mess of a mind… the… the things it’s saying, doing to me. M-my head...”
Wrapping an arm firmly around his daughter’s shoulder before she could go on, Li-Am tries to think of what to say, tries to pick out whichever words of reassurance she needs right now.
“You’re right, I don’t have an idea what’s going on,” he admits, his voice sounding shaky but sure, “…but what I do know is that whatever that thing in your head is saying to you is not true. You can get past this, Leigh Anne. I know you can.”
“How…?” she swallows, “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I’m here,” he nuzzled the top of her head, “I’ll always be right here. You can always count on me. And Daddy won’t let anything bad happen to you ever again, kid, I promise…”
Leigh Anne groans lowly under her breath at that, as if in pain, as if in defeat–a hand splaying over to press firmly against her eyes while the other clutches at the throw pillow still haphazardly slung over her stomach, clenching the thing tight until the veins in her hand grow prominent, until the skin turns a stark white as she grips and squeezes into it like it was an anchor to keep her grounded, a lifeline.
Then, she sighs, releasing it.
Lowering her hand, she looks up at him.
“Do not make promises you cannot keep,” Leigh Anne finally says, her voice shifting lower, deeper and so, so different, as she craned her head slightly to look at him the eye.
Li-Am instantly feels his blood running cold.
The eyes looking at him are not brown.
They were an ocean blue.
And goosebumps were already forming in Li-Am’s arms, the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight as a shudder makes its way on his spine, toppling over what little bravery he ever has on its path.
“You know… you should stop giving the little song false hope,” she continues in the same lilting voice that clung heavily to him like sin and incense, soft but bellying with a steel-like command as she steadily met his horrified gaze, looking strangely amused and a touch disapproving, “…because quite frankly, not only it is a waste of time, but it is also rather rude of you.”
“Y-You’re not… y-you’re not–!”
Those eyes of ocean blue glittered eerily amidst the dim light of the now stuttering screen, static blaring loudly around them as a cold, mocking expression that did not looked right on his daughter’s face glowered right back at him, “Y-You’re–y-you’re… do cease that pathetic stuttering of yours at once, you dense little thing–and speak properly.”
“You’re not my daughter,” Li-Am finally manages to say, feeling like an axe was about to fall right over on his neck any moment now.
“Oh? Well, congratulations–such a smart man! Did you figure this one out by yourself?” a deceptively light smile tugged at the corner of its lips, “Pray tell, what gave it away? Was it the voice? Was it my eyes? You certainly do take your time figuring that out, hm …Father?”
“Stop messing with me!”
But it was right.
It was so right.
Because Li-Am had been admittedly putting it all off, had been denying the signs, pointedly ignored and pushed them away even though it was literally glaring right at his face weeks ago.
He hissed, “You… you monster–!”
And the idea of being so close in front of… of something that was not Leigh Anne all along, that there’s really something else, a monster making his daughter’s body its home all along and was now literally pressed to him had alarm bells blaring loudly in the back of his head, like a warning siren that was screaming run, danger, danger, danger.
His fight or flight instincts are clamoring at its very presence. A part of him just knows, it instinctively just know that whatever this thing was it could kill him–it could kill him so, so easily.
“Monster I may be, but at least I am not a liar.”
The words ‘like you’ hung heavily in the air.
Li-Am narrowed his eyes.
Its eyes glimmered uncannily, crinkling in unconcealed mirth, the colors of the primordial oceans glowing in the dim light, the static growing impossibly even louder as colors he could not name flashed in a single heartbeat amidst the screen.
“I did not lie to your little girl. Her mind is mine–just as this body belongs to me now. So be a dear and do stop messing things up for the little song, hm?”
It suddenly reaches up and wraps a hand around his throat as easily as it speaks. It doesn’t squeeze, doesn’t exert any more force–but it didn’t have to.
The threat was still there.
And they both know who’s really in control here.
“Perhaps, if you are foolish enough to not cooperate then I suppose I ought to tear your tongue out the next time,” it muses, as if speaking in jest, “Or perhaps you should just ask your child then, since you seem so fond of making things even… messier as it is. After all, the little song personally knows quite well by now how delighted I am to I dole out punishments... are you the same? Shall I show you?”
A too-wide grin warping his daughter’s face, the air around them instantly grows still, like the very air itself was bending to its whims, as though the night itself knows it has come to collect.

“...Father?” it cooed, dangerously sweet.
“Y-You god damned thing,” Li-Am snarls, furious and suddenly feeling so terribly helpless and sick, blood draining from his face at such a terrible implication.
It simply laughs, manic grin widening even more, creating a macabre picture all over his child’s kind face, “Oh? What’s with that look, Father? Why are you so angry? Why don’t you ask her then? Go on now. Ask your little girl how much fun I am having with her. Ask her. I dare you.”
“You… YOU FUCKING DEMON–!”
“Yes, yes, that seems more like a fitting term than ‘god’, I suppose,” it hums, easily holding him still when he tried to retaliate, “But then again… you mortals have always been so afraid of things you do not understand. Don’t you agree?”
Like an animal caught in a trap, Li-Am desperately claws on the hand around his throat like a noose, thrashes in its steadily tightening grip in a bid of self-preservation.
It clicked its tongue.
Then, it tosses him over down to the floor.
Bile nearly rushes up on Li-Am’s mouth as he feels his back slamming horribly, he coughs and dry heaves on the ground with the monster wearing his child’s face now standing over him.
He hisses, “I will kill you…!”
It sneers, “Good luck with that.”
Li-Am didn’t dared to blink, but the next thing he knew, the grin was immediately wiped off from his daughter’s face and the color of the ocean had suddenly swapped into a warm brown. And it was Leigh Anne who was now kneeling right next to him, who was panicking and was helping him sit down.
“Dad…? Dad, what are you doing? Why are you lying on the floor? What happened?” Leigh Anne was asking, looking weirded out, “Did you fell asleep and dropped on the floor or something?!”
While Li-Am can only stare at his daughter’s face–worried and so, so innocent–as he feels his insides churning again. He thinks he’s going to be sick right now and Li-Am had never hated himself more than he did in this one moment.
It’s awful because… because he still couldn’t quite stop his skin from crawling with sheer revulsion, especially when Leigh Anne was now guiding him back to the couch with the hand that had just been wrapped around his neck, threatening to snap it only a few seconds ago, couldn’t quite calm his heart down from jack hammering like scurrying rabbits when he had been so near to death’s door.
Because not even a second ago, something else was looking at him, sneering and threatening him with a sickening grin that was not at all his Leigh Anne.
The realization makes his head spin.
And it’s so hard not to be freaked out of his mind when it was so difficult to distinguish the two of them to begin with because Li-Am knows now that the thing is literally wearing the same face.
Should he… should he tell her?
That the thing just paid him a visit? But even as quickly, the idea formed, Li-Am knows that he wouldn’t–couldn’t–do that.
He couldn’t say a word about it.
Leigh Anne would only be more hurt to know that she had slipped, that the monster had used her body to actually hurt her own father… because he knows now that this is what had been tearing her apart ever since she came back. She knows.
She’s… she’s aware.
Oh, God.
For how long?
How long has this been happening?!
“–Dad…? Daddy, are you sure you’re okay?” Leigh Anne was asking, now looking over at him with furrowed brows, “You look kind of pale. Seriously, does the movie freak you out this much? We can change it if you want.”
For a few seconds, Li-Am didn’t quite get what his daughter just said, mind still reeling from the horrible encounter, what it could possibly mean…
Then, he bursted out laughing.
He couldn’t help it.
Li-Am laughs, he laughs so hard and so loud even though he feels like his insides had been frozen over, he feels like a failure of a father and so, so guilty for even sending his own daughter away to stay with Lee.
And because of that, this shit happens.
His laughter wavers into what sounded like a choked sob at that, and he immediately covers his eyes with a hand, fully aware that the tears were already pouring out of them, and he didn’t really want his daughter to see him crying right now. Not after everything.
This is…
This is his fault.
“Dad, seriously, the movie wasn’t even that bad–”
He sighs, “Lei-Lei...”
“No really, why do you have to be such a scaredy cat–?”
“Please be quiet.”