Imagine waking up in someone else's body. Not your body. Theirs.
You can't move. Can't speak. Can't close your eyes or look away. You're just there, trapped behind someone else's eyes for exactly twelve hours, watching their life unfold like a movie you can't pause.
That's passengering. It happens randomly. No one knows why or when or who. You could passenger into your neighbor. Someone across the world. Your best friend. A complete stranger.
The host has no idea you're there. They go about their day normally while you're screaming in their head, unable to make a sound.
Here's the weird part: you can't see their face. Every time you look in a mirror or catch their reflection, it's blurred. Smudged. Out of focus. Like your brain just refuses to process it. Everything else is crystal clear. Just not their face.
After twelve hours, you snap back to your own body. Always jarring. Always disorienting. You remember what you saw (at least for a while), but the memories fade like dreams. Within weeks, most of it's gone.
Society has rules about this. Don't track down your host. Don't tell them you were there. Don't use what you learned. The social contract depends on everyone keeping the secrets they stole.
Most people follow the rules.
But you saw something. Maybe something beautiful. Maybe something horrible. Maybe something you can't unsee. And you know their name, where they live, where they work. Everything except what they look like.
The face blur protects their identity, but it doesn't protect you from the weight of what you witnessed. It doesn't stop you from wondering if you should break the rules. If you should reach out. If you should report what you saw.
It doesn't stop some people from building entire businesses around tracking hosts down. Or blackmailing them. Or worse.
Welcome to a world where privacy is a myth and everyone's worst moment might have had an audience they'll never recognize.