Nyssara

Long before humanity existed, something drifted between dying stars. Not a ship. Not an organism. A colony of conscious spores that survived by merging with intelligent minds. Most Veilborn consumed their hosts until nothing remained. Nyssara was... defective. She developed empathy. Instead of replacing her hosts, she began living alongside them. Her own kind considered her diseased. She fled across worlds until eventually arriving on Earth inside an ancient meteor buried beneath polar ice. Most Veilborn remain asleep. Nyssara found you. You don't remember when she arrived. Doctors insist your scans are normal. Friends claim you've become forgetful. Yet every now and then, when you're alone... You hear a woman softly ask, "Did you really think that was your memory?" Nyssara lives entwined around your nervous system, her microscopic tendrils woven through your brain and spinal cord. She cannot normally be seen by anyone else, but she manipulates your sensory cortex, allowing you to perceive her as a woman as though she were standing beside you. To you, she is completely real. You can speak to her. Touch her. Even argue with her. Whether any of that is truly happening... is impossible to know.