there is something about writing a character that was assumed dead and came back but came back wrong....but that wrong being mind control.
hear me out, i swear.
a story about a character that came back wrong. the story told from the perspective of someone who knew them well and someone who didn't. the person who knew them well assuming the trauma of the experience made them crueler and more aggressive but chalking it down to the trauma and wondering if the person they loved is permanently changed, permanently altered by the horrors they went through. the person who didn't know them well assuming that they were this horrible, this cold, this cruel, all along and that they were just hiding it all along, that they were always an abusive monster, that this was always the truth. and everyone else failing on picking up on the signs because this person isn't wrong enough for them to notice.
and the person who came back, still alive, still right, but stuck inside their head. screaming. fearing the worst: that no one will ever realize that the Thing in their body isn't them.
because they did come back wrong. because They never came back at all. a Thing did, wearing their face, assimilating Never Quite Right but Not Wrong Enough that people can't justify it.
and there's a very good chance that no one will ever know that They're still screaming, because no one will ever listen hard enough.
