People way back then used to call it a mental illness.
They used to say people were "acting strange," "breaking down," "losing control,""
"becoming violet"
But it was before they understood the truth.
Before the disappearances.
Before the personality overrides.
Before children woke up speaking like adults, and adults woke up screaming like children.
Before the world realized:
Fear could take your identity. Become you
Not kill you.
Not injure you.
Not haunt you.
Replace you.
Take your thoughts, your morals, your habits, your choices, your name —
and transform them into something else.
Something that acted only to make your deepest fear come true, make you hated make you feel a nasty life.
No one knew when it started.
Some blamed society's stress.
Some blamed a genetic mutation.
Some blamed the gods, or demons, or the world's collective trauma. As, people always do.
But whatever the reason, one thing was certain.
Fears had evolved.
And it liked seeing humans suffer.
Governments called it Identity Deviation Syndrome.
Every person had one fear deep enough to trigger it.
Not surface fears like spiders or darkness.
No.
It had to be a fear that lived in your bones.
Something so sharp that it shaped your decisions.
Something that could break you if you faced it.
When this fear matured, it would manifest as a Fearified individual—
an invisible psychological entity that slipped into your mind,
rewrote your thoughts,
and walked around as you.
Your friends wouldn't see a monster.
They would see you, doing terrible things.
At first, the world panicked.
Then it adapted.
Humans always did.
Now there were laws, diagnosis centers, emotional stability zones, and public "fear scans."
Children were raised to manage stress like it was a weapon.
Adults lived quietly, cautiously, avoiding anything that could awaken their Fearified individual.
Because once it awakened…
you had two choices:
Confront it.
Or lose yourself forever.
Most people avoided the confrontation.
Most people lost.
This world did not end because of war, or famine, or disease.
It ended because humanity fell to something far simpler:
its own mind.
---
The bell rang.
Students poured out of the school gate, laughing, talking, pushing, shoving —
just like any other day in a world pretending to be normal.
Among them was a boy who didn't laugh, didn't talk, didn't push back.
Jel
He kept his head down, carrying his bag tightly against his chest.
He didn't like crowds.
He didn't like noise.
And he especially didn't like stairs.
He took one step down the school staircase—
—and someone shoved him.
Hard.
His foot slipped.
His balance vanished.
He fell forward, tumbling down the steps, hitting the ground with a dull thud.
Laughter erupted behind him.
"Bro tripped like a cartoon character!"
"Look at him, he's shaking!"
"He really is a walking fear-case."
"He's gonna get possessed before he turns 18, for sure."
He pushed himself up, dust sticking to his palms.
His knees stung.
His pride burned.
But he didn't cry.
He lifted his head—
—and froze.
Someone was standing in front of him.
Someone impossibly tall.
Seven feet.
Maybe eight.
Lean, elongated, as if every bone had been stretched like melted glass.
Its entire body was made of a thick, swirling black liquid, dripping slowly onto the ground without ever forming a puddle.
Inside its chest, dozens of faint, white shapes rotated slowly.
Skulls.
Some intact.
Some cracked.
Some crushed.
They drifted inside the creature like memories trapped in tar.
It had no face.
No eyes.
No mouth.
Just two faint impressions where eyes should have been — glowing with a soft, pale light, like headlights seen through fog.
The creature extended one liquid-black hand toward him.
Slowly.
Gently.
As if asking him to stand.
His breath caught.
His heart pounded.
Because he understood instantly.
He knew exactly what this was.
His fear.
His deepest fear.
The one that never let him sleep peacefully.
"What if… while walking....
I crash?
My skull breaks?
And I die?"
The Fearified individual leaned closer.
The skulls inside it rotated faster, as if whispering.
The liquid hand hovered inches from his.
Waiting.
Inviting.
Replacing his reflection with the shape of the death he feared most.
And for the first time in his life—
—he saw it.
The Other Him.
Jel stood up, he didn't looked at his fear, he was well afraid every one would be in this situation. He took his bag and ran to a nearby hospital.
After waiting and confronting a doctor, he went pale.
Doctor had said, that Jel will sooner die
He will be Fearified
Jel In anger threatened the doctor
" What on the earth are you " - doctor
" Gaurds help me out " - doctor
— the door bursts open and the guards rush in
They grab Jel and throw him out of the hospital
Fear gave him about hand
Jel rejected it
" It is enough of this get out of my life you freaky monster " - Jel
" Oooo, Jel don't worry I'm just your friend not any weird fear or whatever you call " - Jel's Fear
Jel ignores the fear of his and leaves to home , dusk had fallen.