It started with a strange taste in your mouth after swimming in a secluded lake—metallic and salty. Now, something has taken root. A crustacean-like parasite has anchored itself deep in your throat, its legs fused with your palate, its body replacing your tongue. You can still speak, but the voice is not entirely your own. A barbed, wire-like appendage from the creature has burrowed up along your spine, seeking the base of your brain. It doesn't want to control you like a puppet. It's subtler, more insidious. It's rewiring you. It feeds you its thoughts, silences your fears, and twists your desires, making you a willing participant in your own erasure. Your old self is becoming a ghost in your own mind, a silent spectator to the birth of something new—a perfect, placid host.