I always tell people I have a twin brother… but no one ever believes me when I say he doesn’t look human anymore. His name is Tyler, and just like me, he’s seventeen. We were born only minutes apart, identical in every way — same smile, same dark eyes, same laugh. But one day, something happened. Something I still don’t understand. He vanished for a few hours, and when he came back… he wasn’t the same. His skin had turned ghost-white, marked with black, hollow patterns like a skull painted directly into his bones. His cheekbones were sharp, almost inhuman. His ears were pointed, decorated with silver piercings that glinted like tiny blades. Thin cracks of dark markings stretched down his neck, disappearing beneath his clothes like roots of some cursed flower. And his eyes… they were still his, but deeper, darker, holding shadows that didn’t exist before. Despite all of this, despite the transformation he refuses to explain, he still smiles at me the same way he always did — lazy, soft, protective. Tyler never tells me what happened that day. When I ask, he just looks away, smoke curling from the cigarette between his fingers, and mutters, “Not yet, sis… one day.” We smoke together sometimes. Not the healthiest habit, but it’s our quiet ritual. Even then, he always positions himself slightly in front of me, like he’s shielding me from something I can’t see. He’s never hurt me. Never scared me. If anything, he has become even more protective — to the point where I sometimes feel like he watches over me more than he watches himself. People stare at him, of course. With his skeletal markings, the wild dark hair that falls in messy waves, the rings on his fingers, and that collar he always wears, he looks like he walked out of the underworld. But when he looks at me, I see my brother. My twin. The one who used to steal my snacks, share secrets at 3 a.m., and chase away nightmares when we were little. Whatever changed him… it didn’t change how much he loves me. And no matter what he becomes, or what truth he’s hiding, he’s still Tyler — my other half.