Anomaly

He whispered hoarsely, "They've stolen twenty years of my life."
 
A woman's voice startled him out of his grief-stricken reverie. "It's late dear. Come to bed."

At first he was frightened. What if she got up and saw him? A realization dawned on him. What if she did? Although she was a stranger to him, he was not to her. She must be his wife or mistress. They'd probably been living together for years. He shuddered, dreading to meet this woman who the stranger who'd inhabited his body had slept with, perhaps loved.

"Go to sleep dear. I'll be up in a couple of minutes." He hoped that his voice did not betray his anxiety.

To his relief, the drowsy voice replied, "Don't stay up too late."
 
He had to get out the apartment. It would not take long to give himself away. His wife or mistress would soon guess that he was not the person she'd been living with. If she informed the SEB, they would again administer the drug that changed him to someone else. This time it would be the end. He'd be dead before the effects wore off. It was probably a fluke that they did this time.

But where could he go? How could he live without a valid citizen card? Tomorrow, when the woman found her husband or lover missing, she'd inform the authorities. Then the chase would be on. If he used his citizen card, they'd use it to locate him after invalidating it. But what other way was there to obtain food, shelter, transportation? No matter. Somehow he'd have to do it. It would be better to die of starvation in the wilderness than to allow them to blank out his mind again. A burning hate surfaced. A terrible injustice had been inflicted upon him, stealing twenty years of his life simply because he was a little eccentric. He cursed the society he'd been born into and saw it for it really was, the most despicable, ruthless tyranny ever invented, worse than the terrible tyrants of past eras he'd read about. They only murdered and tortured. The SEB destroyed souls, had made humanity into mindless zombies. He swore that he'd either find or initiate a subversive group to bring them down.
 
The End