A boy lies in his bed, trying his best to suffocate under several polyester comforters. Something is absolutely horribly wrong with him. It isn't visible in any way to anyone looking in from the outside, but to him it is more tangible than any other sensation he could possibly experience in his entire life. This has been the whole of his lived experience for several weeks now, and there doesn't really seem to be any sign that it will change. He might grow to old age, and then die, without ever again leaving this bed, and without ever actually being suffocated by those pathetic comforters. The thought of such a fate horrifies him nearly as much as the terrible feeling he's experiencing does.
This is not how his life had always played out. Existence was mostly normal before around a month ago. Then it became decidedly and very unfortunately abnormal to an extreme degree. They took him away. He has no idea who "they" are, but it is in fact "them" who took him. Nobody in his entire life could find him. This is made more true by the fact that they did not even attempt to do so. Then they let him go, and he stumbled back home. "They put someone in me," is what he kept saying to his family. They were more relieved to see him again than concerned about whatever that meant. If he didn't come back, they'd be to blame, and that would mean possible consequences and changes in their lives. "They put someone in me," he keeps telling them. They've never been good listeners, much less listeners at all, regardless of caliber.
The situation now brews to a point where there may be consequences for his parents. "Truancy" is the word that might finally get them to do something. He hasn't been seen at school for a month. The officer is told that the child is sick. This answer satisfies him, and he leaves. But the threat of consequence has not left the parents as he has, and so they do do something, now, or at the very least seek out someone else to do something for them, since they don't care and can't be bothered. He could live his whole life and die in that bed, wholly unsuffocated, and they would not be interested in that dilemma in the slightest. It would hold no consequence to them. Life is easy.
A doctor would be too expensive. That kind of money simply isn't meant for spending on things like sick children. It has other purposes which feel much better. The comforters don't get any heavier. They're just as breathable as always. There isn't supposed to be someone in you, there just isn't. It's just supposed to be you in there, alone. But that's not how it is anymore. Life is now very, very difficult, with someone in you. You really don't know what's going on. But it has to stop. Your parents do all they know how to do, it seems, which is to read a book at you, loudly, while pretending its words are authoritative to the fundamental nature of reality in any way whatsoever. This is supposed to help, surely, but you don't enjoy a second of it, nor have you ever, and it is in fact not helping in the slightest, nor has it ever. It would be better if they went back to doing nothing at all, actually. Life is so abysmally, horribly difficult now.
Men and women you recognize from the place your parents used to bring you all the time, before they took you and put someone in you, are now in and out of your room at all hours of the day. They speak words at you. "They put someone in me" are the only words you want anyone to hear in the entire world. These are the only words you want to exist within any language ever spoken or understood by anyone ever again. Someone must've heard those words, because now there are more people, and they're asking you about what you meant by them. You don't know, really, it's just the only way you can wrap your head around what's wrong with you. Their questions don't really make sense, and the way they respond to your entirely lost and confused answers is as if you said something completely different. "He's possessed," some useless voice states with a completely unearned and insane confidence, and the entire swarm now seems to be taking your words, although twisted into some completely garbled and mistranslated different words that you did not say, much more seriously. Then they leave. Finally some peace and quiet. Now you can focus on suffocating again.
Nobody in this little village really knows what to do about a possession. It's kind of just a fantasy to them, a holy grail of persecution to be subjected to. A once in a life-time suffocating experience that's hypothetically heavier than any blanket. Imagine how hard life would finally be. Everyone would care. A totally clueless town now in its entirety knows the boy is possessed and is helpless to do anything about it. A horrible weight has fallen over the Merrick family's house. Poor little Alan, he's possessed. Filth infects the place and the air turns to flies. It stinks, utterly reeks, like another planet. The comforters remain pathetically un-heavy, no matter how much the boy is forced to convulse and writhe by this unseen force. They really did put someone in him. Life is going to get even harder.