His head slams against the nightstand as he crashes to the floor. While the alarm clock thuds onto the carpet beside him, Temrash gasps for air. The body won't cooperate, won't breathe in when he commands it to. The burning in his lungs throws him into panicked confusion because it doesn't make any sense!

He scrambles through the host's memories to see what he could have possibly missed only to find nothing. For a fleeting moment, there are no memories to rifle through, no permeation of a secondary presence's emotions. There is only him alone in the body of his host. Not even the echo of another consciousness responds as he reaches through the nothingness.

And then there is pain. Right through the back of the neck rips a searing flash of white-hot agony that drives him to curl up on the carpet.

"Aaah!"

Tom's scream surfaces through the evaporating pain. The boy's terror crashes into Temrash's own panic, sending the yeerk clambering over the swirl of emotions for any kind of stability. Through the maelstrom of their merging fear, Tom's memories blossom back into existence, but Temrash's frantic scramble through them to find some explanation for what just happened reveals nothing but…

Canines stretch towards him before coming down and through.

Temrash's hand flies to the back of his neck, but the skin (and the muscle and the bone) is intact. A tendon twitches from the phantom sense of pain that pulses under his fingers. However, it's nowhere near the levels of agony that coursed through the body only moments ago. Nor is it anywhere near as arresting as the throbbing in the side of his head that hit the nightstand.

"Ow."

Tom's murmur of pain flows sluggishly as Temrash presses a hand against his throbbing temple. For a moment, the yeerk simply stays curled up on the floor, staring at a used pair of socks lying right under the edge of the bed. The boy's terror is just…gone. As if the fear that had blasted through their shared mental space had never existed at all, Tom's thoughts trudge past Temrash's awareness. Dazed confusion permeates every active part of the boy's mind, leaving Temrash rearing from the emotional whiplash.

There has to be some kind of explanation for this, this, whatever just happened.

Since Temrash isn't swaddled in the same blanket of confusion as the boy, the yeerk rips his attention away from his aimless stare underneath the bed and dives into the human's memories, snagging a hold of the image that matches the faded pain along his neck.

Canines and death. That's all that comes to mind no matter how deep he digs nor how carefully he pauses over the incomplete image. There is no context. No identity associated with the teeth that closed in on him. The only accompaniment to the image is a stench of blood that fills his nostrils…That aren't in the right place.

Surfacing from the memory, Temrash places his free hand on the human nose upon his face. It feels like it always does but the nose he had in that singular image felt more like a hork bajir's, nostrils closer to the same plane as the eyes but stretched out farther away.

Unease trickles at the differing physical sensations from the faded image and his current reality, but before Temrash can truly think over it, a different, odd memory flickers by far faster than the sluggish flow of Tom's current thoughts. As quick as a serpent strike, Temrash snatches it before it sinks back under Tom's conscious. A forest with its canopy ill-defined against a pitch-black sky stays frozen under the yeerk's scrutiny. A context maybe. It had to have been a dream with how fragmented the images are and with how he obviously doesn't have severed spine. Maybe some kind of attack in the woods? Tom's been in the woods near his hometown plenty of times, so of course it makes sense for them to feature in some nightmare or another.

"What…are you doing?"

Tom's sluggish thoughts would be ignorable if that last one hadn't been directed at Temrash. The yeerk doesn't respond to the boy because it should be obvious to the human that he is searching through his memories. The nearly physical sensation of a yeerk rifling through their host's thoughts is something that cannot be missed. Also, Tom should be seeing this frozen image of the woods. He wouldn't have any choice but to witness what memory Temrash had dragged out—

When Temrash checks his host's focus he notes that Tom only sees underneath the bed. The boy is dazed and trying to recall what he did before sputtering awake. But of all the memories that Tom tugs to the surface, none of them are of the forest. The dream memory that Temrash had latched onto didn't come from the human. It came from the yeerk's own thoughts.

Maybe if yeerks actually dreamed like humans that would make sense, but they don't. While they do rest, yeerks don't truly sleep; so, the only dreams that a yeerk ever witnesses are those of their host. But right now, Temrash clutches onto an image of the forest that didn't come from Tom and that should be impossible.

There's a knock at the bedroom door and Temrash flinches out of his thoughts.

"Tom? Are you alright? I thought I heard a bang down here."

The voice of the host's mother comes through the closed door, but she herself makes no move to open it. Temrash twists his head to stare at the doorknob before shoving himself off the floor.

"Yeah, Mom, I'm fine. I just…fell out of bed." It is the truth in a sense, even if the embarrassment that Temrash mixes into his tone is a lie. The adrenaline coursing through his system is too much of a distraction for any of the more foolish emotions to develop.

"Really?" Amusement fills her voice. "Well, anyway, breakfast is done if you're ready to come down and eat."

"Okay, be there in a minute." Temrash listens to the softening sound of her receding footsteps. Even when he no longer hears them, he still stares in the direction of the door. His focus is inward though as he scours through Tom's most recent memories again. No dream of that forest appears in this search.

Temrash frowns and then snatches a discarded shirt on the floor before pulling it on. The motion sends a wave of nausea through the body that's followed by another set of throbbing from his temple.

Leaning against the bed for just a second, Temrash breathes in deeply while lightly touching the side of his head. The room seems too quiet with only the soft sounds of his breathing. Yet…it really isn't the room that's too quiet. Tom is silent. His emotions sink low beneath Temrash's own and he thinks of nothing as Temrash finishes getting dressed for this morning.

Every single day since Temrash had settled into Tom's head, the boy has raged or despaired depending on the hour. Every waking moment has been filled with insults or threats or surges of demanding emotions that have been annoyingly distracting while Temrash has performed his duties for the Empire. While Temrash would certainly be pleased for the human to just shut up during any part of the day, this sudden silence is unnerving.

It's like the human isn't even there.

"Tom."

The boy's consciousness barely ripples with acknowledgement at Temrash's short addressment.

"Have you finally realized how futile it is to fight me? I have to say, it's quite pleasant to wake up without your pointless babbling." Temrash sneers.

Tom hears him. Temrash can feel the boy's attention on him, but there isn't any reaction. Anger doesn't rise up at the taunt nor does despair descend as Tom finally realizes that there would be no escape from a lifetime as a host. There isn't anything but confusion at the way Temrash speaks to Tom. And then there isn't any sensation of emotion at all when that confusion fades away.

Temrash stares incredulously at nothing as the boy just slips off into sleep inside his own mind. Hosts can sleep lightly when the yeerk is controlling the body, that isn't what is so unbelievable. But, Temrash was talking to Tom. He can't just roll over and ignore him. The boy wouldn't do that anyway. It isn't in his defiant nature to resist a challenge.

It…it has to be the still throbbing headache. The human's head hit the nightstand too hard and now the boy's suffering some kind of concussion. That would explain everything. The fragmented images, the dazed confusion, the complete lack of normal aggression. Even the fact that Temrash has an image of the forest that Tom does not can easily be rationalized. The injury must have affected the immediate encryption of that particular dream, so Tom lost most of it out of his physical memory. That would have left Temrash with whatever few images that he had been paying attention too during their sleep. He hardly pays any attention to the human's inane dreams anymore, so of course the yeerk would only be left with one or two fragments recorded onto his own memory banks.

All Temrash has to do is wait a few days and the concussion's effects should dissipate. Tom would unfortunately be back to his ranting and mouthing at that point, but maybe if Temrash is lucky than the human will learn how much easier it is for both of them if he just stays quiet.

With the morning oddities explained, Temrash finally leaves the room to savor the tastes of breakfast. It's easy to school his expression into Tom's usual groggy morning appearance. All Temrash has to do is to ignore the unnerving near emptiness in the human mind he surrounds.