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The house was a living thing, breathing with the symphony of our shared consciousness. We moved through the days in a contented, voluptuous haze, a single entity with eight beating hearts. But even in a perfect system, a resonance can become dissonance.

It happened during a quiet night. We were all submerged in the warm, communal pool of our mind, a place where thoughts and sensations bled into one another like watercolors. Josh, my twin, the anchor, the catalyst… he was always the most sensitive to the subtle currents. That night, he was trying to understand the unique flavor of Chloe’s steadfastness, to feel its core.

But he didn't just understand it. He… drank it in. A tremor went through our shared body. It was like a black hole opening in the center of our being. One by one, the bright, individual lights of Chloe, Hannah, Zoe, Maya, and Brianna were pulled inward, their consciousnesses not silenced, but consumed into Josh’s. Their voices didn't just go quiet; they became his. Their memories, their fears, their joys—they flooded him, overwhelming his own identity.

Suddenly, I wasn't part of a chorus. I was alone in my own head with a screaming, terrified god. Our body—my body—jerked upright in the massive bed, a raw, guttural scream tearing from our throat. It was Josh’s voice, but layered with Hannah’s shrieks, Zoe’s gasp, Maya’s sharp inhale, Chloe’s cry, and Brianna’s whimper.

“GET OUT! GET OUT OF ME!” he sobbed, our hands—his hands—clawing at our chest, our face, as if he could tear the other souls out of his own. The love, the intimacy, the perfect union had become a horrifying prison. He was everyone and no one, and the weight of it was crushing him.

Elise was awake in an instant. She didn’t flinch from the raw panic. She moved with the innate understanding of the once-Queen who had known isolation. She wrapped her arms around our heaving shoulders, pressing her now-swollen belly against our side.

“Josh,” she said, her voice a calm, mental anchor in the storm. She spoke not just aloud, but directly into the maelstrom of his mind. “You are not drowning. You are the ocean. You don’t hold them; you are the space in which they swim. You feel them because you love them. Let the love be the vessel, not the chains.”

She poured her consciousness into his, a warm, …