I could kill Nick for dragging me to do this, I really could. There I sat, on Kevin’s couch, my eyes hidden behind a pair of dark sunglasses as always; and there they were, sitting directly across from me. Kevin was seated in his lone lounge chair while both Brian and Howie were situated on the loveseat. Nick was standing behind the three of them, his arms folded across his chest. Did I mention that I really wanted to kill Blondie right now?

“Well,” I drawled out, “here I am for your entertainment. Who wants to go first?” The silence remained, they were trying to carefully pick out their words. Brian was at a loss of what to say or do. Howie still had a sense of fear within him… fear, of me, his best friend. Kevin seemed a bit calm, but just as confused as well.

“Why don’t you start off by trying to explain to us what exactly it is… that you can do.” Kevin finally questioned.

I ripped my sunglasses off, revealing my dark chocolate eyes. I stared into each and every one of them, trying to read them as they waited for my answer. “With a simple touch, I can become you.”

Brian’s face contorted in puzzlement, “What do you mean with a touch you can… become us?”

Sighing heavily, I allowed myself to recline back onto Kevin’s couch, preparing myself for a long story and a slew of questions, which some still remained unanswered to even myself. “If I were to touch you right now Brian… place my hand on your arm or whatever, YOUR senses become alive within me. I’ll be able to see what you see, hear what you hear, smell what you smell, taste what you taste, feel what you feel. Whatever you go through, I’ll go through as well. If I were to touch you right now, and you fell and scraped your knee, I will feel that pain. In some instances, I’ve even sustained the actual injury that was inflicted on another. Without touching anyone, I can read your thoughts, sense your emotions, feel your aura if you will. But, with one touch… you and I are basically one in the same, without actually taking on your physical features or character traits for that matter.”

“How is that even possible?”

I shrugged, “Your guess is as good as mine. I really don’t know; all I know is that I can do all this, and possibly more.”

“Possibly more?” Kevin repeated, “What do you mean by that?”

I shook my head, “I’m exactly sure of it all at the moment, I’m still trying to figure all this shit out.”

“So what exactly happened… that night?” Howie voiced for the first time, referring to the first night I learned of this new fucked up “curse” and was found by a store manager.

“I had just gone to the grocery store to do some shopping. On my way into the store, this guy was running up from behind and had accidentally ran into me. He knocked me down to the ground, apologized and was off. I found it odd, but shook it off. It wasn’t until I got into the store that I began to feel a bit… different. I all of a sudden felt… scared, as if I knew someone was out to get me. Once I felt that, I noticed a group of guys running past the store as well, as if in the same direction that one guy was running. As I continued to walk around…”

I paused for a moment, trying to think of how I could explain it to them, “my surroundings seemed to change. For some reason, the clerks around me began watching me and following me. I had this sudden urge to get out of there, and as I tried to run out, that’s when they all came after me.”

“Did they actually put their hands on you?” Kevin asked. The ever protective brother.

Again, I shook my head, “No… and that’s what was weird about it. They had grabbed me and held me down… and we were talking about money… they were demanding money from me, and for some reason I told them that I’d get them their money.”

The energy in the room dramatically changed, they were all even more confused. “Did you owe them money?”

“NO!” I snapped. I really didn’t mean to, but I suppose I was getting frustrated with the questions, and even more frustrated that they didn’t understand and I don’t think there was any way that I could make them understand. “The conversation we were having had nothing to do with me, or them for that matter. It was then that I realized that I had became that man that had ran into me. I was that man, and the clerks was the group of men that were running after him. But, the reenactment of it all… it was all in my head, like a vision or… premonition. I was now living the situation he was in, but my mind’s vision made it so that the situation was happening to me… like, although I was this man, I was still me and the supposed guys that caught me were still the clerks.”

“So, what about your injuries?” Brian asked, pointing to my bandaged arms.

I looked down, “That’s why I said I sometimes sustain an injury that’s inflicted on another. The store manager was the one that snapped me out of my… I guess you can call it episode. Apparently, they said I just dropped to the ground and they found me covered in blood, there were long gashes that ran up and down my arm. My head gave me a vision of all that man was going through, while at the same time the I actually had my arms cut up as well… but, nothing actually happened to me. No clerks chased after me, caught me, held me down and had slashed away at me with a knife… none of it actually happened, it was all in my head. Yet, I was left to bare the wounds.”

“So…” Kevin drawled out, sounding as if he were trying to piece all that I was telling them together, “you mean to tell me that.. you can see what a person is going through, and your mind will play YOUR life as if you’re actually the one going through it, you’ll feel everything the person is feeling, you know their thoughts and emotions and everything, and sometimes, you can even physically receive the injuries they sustain?”

I nodded, “Pretty much. If I were to accidentally touch a random dude outside who was walking his dog… we’d be talking normally like how we are, but his thoughts, feelings and emotions will be on my mind. If he’s feeling happy and chipper, I’ll more than likely be inclined to feel the same way. If he were stopped by someone for a chat, in my head I would be having the same exact conversation he’s having with one of you guys, when it’s actually not happening at all… but, my head gives me that vision.”

“So, what about that guy that ran into you?” Nick spoke out for the first time since we’ve entered this house, “Have cops found him or the guys that were chasing after him?”

I shrugged, “I’m really not sure. But… I think what happened to me in the grocery store was a premonition.”

“So… if you have these premonitions, you very well could have… interfered with what was going to happen that night if you wanted to… right?”

“I think so… but I’m not sure.”

Kevin sighed heavily, “This is crazy.”

I scoffed, “You’re fucking telling me. To sit here and tell you that shit goes on in my mind is no easy feat. When the cops showed up at the scene, I could hear their thoughts and feel their emotions… they thought I was fucking crazy, ready to admit me into some kind of psyche ward and thought that I inflicted these injuries upon myself. If it wasn’t for the workers at the store, who actually witnessed me drop to the ground and then all of a sudden had these bloody injuries, it wouldn’t have been a very good case to fight. They were able to tell the cops there was NO possible way I could inflict these kind of injuries to myself… which, as you can imagine, made the cops jobs that much harder.”

I stared at them for a while, then eventually allowed my eyes to drift close, no longer wanting to see the bewilderment that clouded their eyes. “Without even touching anyone, I can feel their emotions… and it leaves me completely mentally and physically drained.” I opened my eyes once more and looked over at Nick, “You didn’t know this, but when I begged you to calm down and to not yell at me… it was because… I could feel how angry you were. Your energy will drain me of mines… it’s painful.”

Kevin opened his mouth to say something, but I quickly interjected to answer his thought before he could speak it… to prove to him that I wasn’t fucking crazy. “I know it’s ridiculous and no one would believe me Kevin…” I glanced up to look into his eyes, which were widened a bit in shock. “when I was released from the hospital, I wracked my brain with what to do or who I could see to help me, yet came up with nothing. My best bet, I figured, was to just stay away from you all, and everyone else… when I’m alone, I don’t hurt. It’s why I locked myself up in my house, I was tired of feeling the fear and… puzzlement you all felt. The last thing I wanted or needed was to know that my own four brothers I’ve known practically my whole life now feared me.”

Kevin looked down, ashamed and not really liking the fact that I could easily be in his head now. “We can’t let you do this Alex…” he said in a low, soft tone. “We’re not gonna let you go through this alone. I mean, sure we’re scared… if I were in your shoes, you’d all be scared of me. Of course we’re confused, because what else are we supposed to think? We all don’t know what’s going on, but we do know that something we thought to be impossible is taking place. But having you hide from us and the world isn’t going to make you better, it won’t help anybody. We’ll figure this out, okay?”

I nodded, feeling like the shy, dorky, outcast guy I was years ago when I had first met Kevin. To say I felt extremely intimidated would be an understatement. Kevin rose from where he sat and made his way over towards me, prepared to slap a reassuring hand down on my shoulder, but quickly retreated. He was afraid that I’d be hurt by his reaction… but instead, I was kind of glad he didn’t touch me. I really didn’t want to delve deeper into his thoughts and emotions right now.

“You’ll be alright baby.” he whispered instead, and then turned to make his way into his kitchen.

“Well,” Nick sighed, “now that we’ve got that out of the way, I told you it wouldn’t be that bad.”

I gave a small smirk, feeling the relief that had bubbled up within Nick, which seemed to have taken my mind off the situation, if only for a moment. He walked up and sat himself down on the couch beside me, “Do you feel better now?”

I watched as he extended his arms and wrapped it around my shoulders. Before I could get a word out, my eyes clenched closed, and I could feel everything within Nick transfer into me. Pain immediately wracked me, causing my body to tense tightly, and before I knew it, darkness had claimed me.