The choking fear at seeing its ascension was blasted away by the euphoria.
It was almost agonizing in its return, that barely remembered sensation from the dark, terrifying night in the hospital, his grandmother awkwardly rushing him down a hallway. She’d ripped him from the blissful consciousness. He’d almost protested, until he saw the creature emitting the feeling, and whatever joy he felt dissolved into wretched despair.
The feeling had happened more than once that night: it came again from the scattering, horrible things in the hospital waiting room, and then finally from the multicolored lights from the ships in the sky that promised exultation if he just stepped out of the truck and walked into the beams of light.
The light.
The light in the trees. He remembered. At last, he remembered.
Forget Brian and Greg and their stupid game. Jerks. They can have their stupid tent; it means they don’t see what I see. What was it, that far into Grandpa Tom’s woods? I’ll get there first before they even notice it. They’ll feel bad for not letting me in.
I hope Mom doesn’t get mad about my muddy socks. Everything’s so wet from the rain, but I’ve gotta see it. That light is so bright!
I hear Brian, he’s calling my name. I know it’s him. I can always tell the difference between him and Greg running in the house. Brian always dragged his feet more. Well, I can run too, Brian. I’m faster than you. I beat you.
It almost hurts to look up at it, but it feels so good. Like the sun. It’s like I can fly! I am flying! Look, Brian, I’m above the trees! Can you see me?
The light’s gone. I’m cold. I’m in the dark, I’m somewhere else. I can’t see anything! Brian! Brian! Something’s coming. I want to go back. Brian, something’s coming—
William staggered back, and the ecstasy struck him again. All his pleasure sensors were firing at once, resulting in a painful erection. He was protected and loved and cared for. All he had to do was step into the machine, where more joy awaited.
He walked without fear of slipping now, even though the path was barely a foot wide. He was safe and secure.
His mind, however, was screaming.
It has you! It has you! Get to to the girl!
But the drenching comfort showed there was nothing to fear, certainly not in the machine.
It’s not a machine! It’s part of it! Flesh and metal! Blood vessels and lights and straining membranes inserting into cords. God, something’s rising—
It emerged like a pocket of air bubbling up from a putrid swamp. As he reached it, a pod surfaced, directly beside the one containing the girl. The grime covering it began to peel back; it was large enough to step inside.
No! No! Don’t go in! Get to her—
He stepped in, and a rush of gas blew across his face. As he lay down on the spongy interior, the gap from which he entered had already sealed, the film on its surface thin enough to see the chamber beyond.
Fight! Break out! It has you!
Even when the hundreds of penetrations began to sink into his skin, he did not flinch. Somehow, there was no pain. His hair rustled across his forehead as more gas sprayed at his face, and the extreme pleasure faded to a restful calmness. The pod trembled, and he could feel it rising, detaching.
It slowly rose, and with it much of the thick moisture that coated the pod began to slide away. He watched as the floor of the chamber faded away and a tendril, like a curving stalk of a bindweed, lifted the pod into the air, slowly turning. The walls were now a mixture of deep shadows and brilliant lights, all fully awakened.
As the pod completely shifted, he could see the girl far beneath him in the shadow of the rising head of the creature. A single neck, as thick as a subway train, supported the feelers that erupted from its maw and the waves of tentacles flailing from beneath its scaled dome. Several of the black coils reached for him, inserting into the sides of the pod.
He could hear the puncturing of the walls around him, and the smell of it, of rock and spoiled water, reached his senses just as the thin outshoots of the pod sank in and his skin began to stiffen. He gasped at the infusion jolting into his bloodstream, exchanging with his own bodily fluids.
It was within him now, just as he was within it.
And he understood. It needed him to understand, to complete its task. It needed more than a connection; it needed a complete fusion.
His eyes closed, and opened to stars.
Millions of them, flying past as the scientist traveled the vast deep. Inside its cocoon, carrying memories of smoke and death, of battles fought in skies among ships the sizes of cities. Of wars that nearly obliterated not only its own kind, but that of the civilizations that refused to surrender to them. Of centuries of hatred between races that showed no sign of dissipating.
To not only survive, but ultimately conquer, a new form of warfare was necessary.
The first scouts had found it; a planet of blue and white, its only companion a solitary moon. So it came to see for itself, traveling across the stars to finally pass through the atmosphere and into air and water. Abundant, overwhelming life. From above, the scientist observed what the others had reported: a race of people with inferior yet remarkable intelligence and, vastly more importantly, containing a complex origination system.
The world was covered in different landscapes and temperatures, proving an ideal location to test how their weaponry would work in various conditions.
It chose a great barren canyon, its craft obliterating a once-towering mesa and landing in its sudden absence, altering itself it take its form, down to the very grains of clay and stone. Once completed, the scientist sent forth a telepathic message to the others: Bring them to me.
Hiding behind the storms that were necessary to blanket their arrival, the testing began almost immediately, conducted on the very first of mankind to be taken. More people, then; samplings, dissection. At last, a single, successful manipulation, with extraordinary results: The very building blocks that gave them existence, the strands of molecules and chromosomes, if adjusted and twisted, affected the makeup of the very air around them.
The experimentation continued. Few survived. But those who did, who had been changed themselves, each commanded a power: fire, storms, death, and disease.
The testing began, small, slow. The specimens released into varying locations. From within the canyon, it watched their environments, seeing how each was affected by their return. Diseases spiked. Storms leveled homes. Murders increased. Even the food, for many, became deadly to eat.
And the scientist was pleased.
No longer would it be necessary to send their kind into battle, to eviscerate valuable natural resources in order to wage war. Once perfected, the very populations they wished to remove would be taken, altered, returned, and activated.
In the end, all their enemies would ultimately kill their own kind.
But almost immediately, the scientist discovered the fatal flaw. The abducted, when their weapons were activated, could not withstand it. Their fragile brains faltered, leaving them incapacitated. And when the time came to see how far the specimens had traveled, the scientist made an astounding and enraging discovery: Even their pathetic governments had realized the danger they posed and corralled them, limiting the scope of the sampling.
Furious now, the scientist ordered all of them removed, even the one—the boy—who it intended to thrust them into the next phase of testing. None of its kind knew what it had done, how far it had gone, to complete the task.